MIbassyaker

http://bassmasterfantasy.com/ Although it looks like Glenn has thrown cold water over the Circuit City prize. Maybe he's good for a Blockbuster gift card this year? I don't know anything about Lake Martin, but that only deepens the mystery...

I have a preference for gold blades too because most places I fish have sunfish and yellow perch forage, but no shad. Even in clear water, I like at least one of the blades to be gold. I really like the war eagle "Sun Perch" color.

I'm in (as "Jorgaba"). Plugged in my gut feeling team for now, but I'll probably change all of them before the start.

Great winter fish! The next cast I make not in my backyard will probably be...March, I expect. If I'm lucky.

....and there you have it.

In clear water, Red fades (to black) from the visible spectrum of light most quickly of all colors as you go from shallow to deep. However, in muddy and brown-stained water, red can actually penetrate farther than other colors like greens and blues. This tends to make red a good color for visibility in the lower stretches of river systems, and in tannic waters that have a rich, brown-ish stain. Culprit worms in "red shad" laminate (black on top, red underneath) are classic bass-catchers; no reason why red jigs shouldn't be effective too, especially where you have red crayfish in your area.

Have you got a 3-species slam there?

Didn't get a pic of my actual pb (5.5#), which was a couple years ago, but this one I think is my second biggest, from September (5.25#, 21"):

Probably closer to the lighter color. In theory having a light and dark version of a topwater makes a lot of sense. In practice, I think there are many more important things to worry about with topwaters than than their colors, such as size, sound, action, and hooks. If I'm throwing a topwater and not getting strikes, I usually don't change colors -- I change sizes, the locations I'm targeting, or I switch to something subsurface.

When I was learning, my bass fishing success was very, very minimal at first. But it exploded once I started doing three things: 1) I studied up on bass seasonal behavior -- what are they doing, where, and why, depending on the time of year 2) I stopped worrying about WHAT bait I was using, and starting paying more attention to WHERE I was using it -- location, depth, cover types, structural features. 3) I learned how to fish a plastic worm on a texas rig -- how to be patient, select my casts carefully, feel the bottom, feel obstructions, detect strikes, proper hooksetting technique. I use all kinds of lures, but becoming good with a plastic worm made me better with everything else.

Huh. Must have opened in the last few hours; I just checked it yesterday. FLW is open too: https://www.flwfishing.com/fantasyfishing

This may sound like a glib comment, but it's actually pretty good advice -- In fact, inexpensive MH ugly stick and MH Shimano in spinning are what I use for live bait "River Roulette Fishing", as I call it (cast a live bait rig into the lower stretches of a river, especialy below a dam, you can and will catch anything of any size, including cats, bass, pike, musky, walleye, drum, bowfin, gar, suckers, buffalo, carp...).

Try them both, choose the one you like, and send me the one you don't want.

I don't think color --including glitter-- matters that much, most of the time, but I can think of two good reasons for color to matter somewhat, sometimes... and possibly to matter a lot, occasionally: visibility and mimicking forage patterns. When glitter catches light, it may contribute to both of these by providing a visible flash of a color that may resemble scales of something bass like to eat. In most cases, I find that solids and glitters tend to be interchangeable....but weirdly, in one of the lakes I fish, the bass really, really seem to prefer plastics with green flecks of glitter. In that lake, green glitter outperforms other glitter and solid colors, which are fine producers in the other places I fish. I don't know why this is yet, but as long as that's what works, I'm going to stick with it. Otherwise, I love "candy" and "magic" varieties of colors for glitter, which cover all the bases for me.

What a great year of fish -- makes me wonder why I haven't moved 2 hours north (aside from the whole "job" thing, I suppose...in due time, due time). Ajay was a hammer before the Lund, but it's clearly been a multiplier over last year.

6'9" OK? Fenwick HMG 6'9" ML-F 2 piece, $100 Model HMG69ML-FS-2 http://www.fenwickfishing.com/fenwick-freshwater-rods-fenwick-hmg/fenwick-hmg-spinning/1447348.html

That sounds awesome...I have to say, every time I find myself wondering if I need to get a couple Jackhammers, I just think about how many Siebert Fogys I could get for the same price...

Here is an easy way with components from a place like Barlows tackle or FishingSkirts --a flat eye jig head --split ring --blade --snap --skirt

I grew up on casual, multi-species fishing and used spinning exclusively for everything until a couple years ago. With a little practice, I have warmed up significantly to baitcasters and now use them about 1/2 the time, especially for moving baits of the cast-and-crank type (spinnerbaits, crankbaits, etc), jigs, and heavy texas rigs or heavy cover work (frogs, pitching, punching, etc.). Although, I used to use spinning for all these things and never felt all that disadvantaged. But I still never go anywhere without one or more spinning rods, and am still quite a bit more accurate with spinning than with casting -- I remain completely mystified by the (frequently-encountered) claim that baitcasting gear has some inherent accuracy advantage.

I have a 6'8" MXF in the Avid X line -- it is just about the perfect rod for weightless and lightly weighted plastics, and is excellent for double duty with topwater and jerkbaits, shakyheads, tubes & grubs...hugely versatile.

Spinnerbait success for me has always been about time and place. That's true of all presentations, but it seems even more so for spinnerbaits than most. Spring & Fall, shallow scattered cover, moderate water clarity but not too much, some sun but not too much, some wind....I feel like I can catch some fish on a worm almost anywhere, almost all the time. But with a spinnerbait, I'll either catch a lot more, or a lot fewer, depending on timing, location, and conditions, and the game is to figure out when those factors have aligned the right way vs. when they have not.

I bit on the St. Croix deal -- got the (apparently very popular) 6'10" MLXF spinning rod coming my way. I really don't think 30% off is anything to sniff at, especially with free shipping. It only pales in comparison to the "up to 50%" advertised.

According to my records: 3/8oz Megastrike Cavitron Buzzbait, Black/Black 3/8oz Stanley VibraShaft Spinnerbait Gold/Silver double willow 6" Mister Twister Thunder Worm, Red/black Core, Texas Rig 7" Strike King 3x finesse worm; Pumpkin/green flake, Owner shakyhead 4" Berkley Power worm, Pumpkinsed, Owner bullethead

Sounds good to me... Order placed -- Thanks, Mike!