MIbassyaker

I'm a Siebert fan, although I have and use jigs from several companies -- Booyah, Strike king, Missile, All-Terrain, V&M, Dirty Jigs, Nichols, 2KJigs, Megastrike, and some self-tied on heads from various places (e.g. Boss).... In the end, all of the jigs I like as much as Siebert's are more expensive. Haven't tried Cadman's, but just browsed the catalog on his site and has my attention.

Plano 3731:

^ this. Bass have a visual system that is typical of most vertebrates, which is to say their eyes function largely the same way ours do, using the same sorts of anatomical components and processes. We know from visual discrimination learning experiments (for instance, a bass is rewarded with food for approaching one stimulus and punished with a shock for approaching a different stimulus) that they can distinguish all colors between blue and red on the visible spectrum, but are best in red and green portions. There are some aspects of bass vision that are probably better than ours, like detecting motion (they are exceptional at this), but their visual systems do not violate well-understood laws of physics. We can be pretty sure anything that would "glow" to a bass (e.g., fluorescence, phosphorescence, bioluminescence) would also appear to glow to us under the same environmental conditions. However, in the end it matters less whether they can see the line, and it matters more whether they care.

They're both accurate -- it depends on lighting. The "yellow" strands are whiskey, I think, which brightens up in sunlight, but looks more green in dim light. So in bright conditions it looks more like the one above, and in lower light, it looks more like the one on the Siebert site.

That's the Siebert "Sweet Craw" -- awesome color.

I haven't used the 5" Ocho, but I fell in love with the 4" for river smallies last summer...I felt like they outfished a 4" GYCB....which is something I did not think was possible. I think it was the thinner body and more aggressive wobble, as mentioned above.

I actually don't have trouble with topwater and jerkbaits at all, I just twitch to the side instead of down. Pitching is problematic though; I can kind of do that from the side, but not nearly as well.

Haven't bought anything fishing-related in months. Recently I got an email from Megastrike saying 20% off with code "Spring18". Well, OK, why not: Strikeback spinnerbaits, shakeyheads, double tail grubs, tubes, megabugs, & fat shads... Just enough for the discount to offset shipping, which is good enough for me. For now.

I fish much better when I make an effort not to have a favorite lure.

I really dig the other three biospawn baits, and I think each one has some unique features that were carefully thought through. However....I'm also not so sure I need another swimbait.

5.25# on a 3/8oz Stanley Spinnerbait, Gold/Silver double-willow, "Golden Bream" skirt

For the last two years I did an analysis ahead of each event, using statistics I could find, like overall angler career success, lake history, how far the angler lived from the lake, recent success, pundit picks, and such, to see what sorts of information predicted fantasy points week-to-week, and and by how much. What I found was that none of these things were very predictive at all. Only two variables I looked at were significant predictors most weeks, and they did not account for much: (1) an average of the percent of total career events with top 10 finishes and top 20 finishes (A crude measure of overall career success) -- anglers with a better history of high finishes tend to net more fantasy points. If you think that sounds stupidly obvious...well, you're right. And much of this is already baked into the buckets. (2) fantasy ownership percentage -- the more fantasy owners who pick the angler, the more points they tend to earn. Of course, the more popular your team members are, the less you stand out in competition. The Pundit picks, on the other hand, contributed nothing at all -- you could outperform the pundits pretty often just by taking the guy in each bucket with the highest ownership percentage. In other words, there is no silver bullet. I haven't figured out a way to quantify things like "style of fishing" or "prior success on similar lakes", but I can at least say with confidence that there is no obvious set of easily-defined factors to point to that give a clear edge.

Yeah.......embarrassing to them, that is. (Right? Right?? Aww, normal, shnormal...)

I stressed about the box-vs.-bag dilemma for while too. I realized I really wanted to keep the plastics in thier bags. But I also wanted to organize them, and I wanted to have them ready to use. So I decided on the following (your mileage may vary): 1. There's at home, and there's on the water. No need for these to be the same thing. 2. At home, bags are organized and filed away neatly in 3731s: 3. When I go out, I select the packs I want to bring ahead of time, and I just throw them in a bag. The bag then goes with me on the water. The bag is not very big. 4. Suppose I find myself on the water, realizing I wish I could use something I left at home. In that case, I curse a little bit, but make do with what I have....and I probably catch as much as I would have if I had brought everything.

I believe I know the "little brother" you're talking about, and if it's what I'm thinking, I have fished it a couple times a summer for the last few years -- I've not ever seen another person on it when I have been there, so I've been...um, keeping quiet about it.

The biggest factors comparing MI to CA have nothing to do with trout. They are (1) California has FL strain bass while MI doesn't, and (2) California has a much longer growing season compared to MI, due to a warmer year-round climate. The Michigan largemouth record --11.94# -- was taken from 200-acre Big Pine Island Lake in 1934, which is 40 min from my house. It is now a well-developed recreation-heavy lake, that gets a lot of traffic. I fish it sometimes; some decent bass in there now, but no chance there is another record largemouth there, or anywhere else in the area (and no trout in there either). The record was tied again in 1959 elsewhere, but not since. If you follow the master angler entries in MI each year, you will see nobody is coming anywhere near that weight. With modern-day population and fishing pressure, the largemouth record may not ever be broken. On the other hand, the Michigan Smallmouth record has fallen twice all of a sudden in the couple years, after standing for over 100 years. If I were chasing records in MI, I'd be targeting smallies.

31 joined up now more than 3 weeks before the first event. We appear have the 10th most members by this point of any group on bassmaster fantasy, and the 2nd most of any private group (behind "Beat Ronnie Moore").

i like greens and browns, and anything with chartreuse, orange or purple highlights. For instance, PBJ, Black/brown/amber, Summer craw, Bama craw, Brown craw, Green Pumpkin-purple, Missouri craw, Sweet Craw....I recommend getting the dredge jig pack -- has a bunch of popular colors with the head style of your choice and a great hook.

Maybe we should just say there is no actual prize, other than bragging rights. It was a good joke while it lasted.

I always feel like getting skunked is still less disappointing than if I didn't go fishing to begin with. Just getting out and giving it a shot is worth the effort, regardless. Here we had a "bomb cyclone" put us in a deep freeze for a few weeks. Now today was 50 degrees and raining. Another deep-freeze coming this weekend. I won't be casting into liquid water for few months yet. Meanwhile, I'm buried at work. I'm pitching jigs into the snow in my backyard in my free time. So I'm envious, despite the skunk!

This is what I was thinking. I fish ned rigs (and similar "plastic body on a jighead" presentations) on 25, 30, or 35 pflueger, depending on which combo I happen to be using to throw it. My 25 reel has braid-to-leader, 30 has 6# copoly, and 35 might have braid or 8# mono or copoly depending on what I happened to spool it with. I've never thought that the size of the reel itself was a critical factor in fishing somehing like a ned rig.

With 5 top-10 finishes and a win last year, I have every expectation that I'll be picking him for a few events this year. But Bucket A is always full of hard choices.

Ah. I don't know anything much about spots and have zero experience with them, but I thought the top one on the right looked..."spotty". Envious regardless -- probably 3 months yet before I cast anything into liquid water.

Huh. Actually, that's really interesting to know. I was just in the Portage store a week ago. It didn't dawn on me at the time, and I didn't look closely, but I don't think I saw any Pflueger. That sucks -- folks who have used the Supreme XT caster tend to really like it (I have it in spinning -- great reel). Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the new President Caster to come out in a lefty model.

I absolutely scout fishing spots. In my case, a "spot" is usually a small individual body of water -- a natural lake, a small impoundment, a manmade pit, a river bayou, or a short segment of a river or stream. If it's not a spontaneous stopover, I'll grab a rod and plan to fish from shore a bit. I mainly want to know things that will help me make decisions about what to bring, where to go, and when, if I make an extended trip. I want to know the following: 1) What are the access possibilities? places to launch a kayak? Where would be the best spot(s) to launch, walk the bank, or wade? 2) How popular is it? Crowds on small waters = not cool. 3) What is the shoreline like? What kinds of shoreline cover am I looking at? Docks? walls? vegetation? trees/wood? 4) What general "colors" do I see in and around the water, shore, cover? Water stain? Baitfish, crayfish, and other forage tend to take on the tones and hues of their surroundings, and knowing this can help me decide what lure colors to bring. 5) Forage -- what do I see swimming around in the shallows? What are the Bass likely eating? 6) Bottom substrate -- sand? rock? clay? muck? A big help when deciding what kind of bottom contact presentations I'm going to want to bring along next time. 7) Wildlife -- I'll keep an eye out for Herons, Cranes, Loons, Ospreys, Eagles, Otters -- Nature's own expert fishermen are some of the best guides available.