MIbassyaker

Trying REALLY hard to wait for various Black Friday sales. It is very difficult.

Ever get the feeling that fish you caught on a crankbait would probably have bitten on almost anything else? That never happens with a ned rig.

I have absolutely no doubt you could catch bass on a ned rig without a rod.

Real men don't need baitcasters.

I'd be too busy taking notes!

Of course not. I wouldn't even have a home-lake advantage.....he may have fished my favorite waters already (a couple places I fish sometimes, i know he has)

It was caught the day after I posted that, lol!

I always enjoy reading BigBill's posts about his tackle. He seems to have --and uses, and still buys-- loads and loads of old-school lure kinds and brands, in every color available. Bill, I wonder if you have considered this: Hold off on your next $100 lure order, and instead add that $100 toward the budget for your next rod, and get a nicer one than you would otherwise have bought....

Are bass really dwindling around here (GR area)? If so, that's the first I've heard of it. But in a lot of waters, over 14" can be tough to catch with regularity. I had to laugh at your catchphrase -- I teach college in the GR area, so I have no time to fish once fall semester gets underway, and don't get to start again until May. I know of a few gravel pit locations off the grand river, and they can be productive, for sure. Smallies seem to be best upriver of downtown GR, and largemouths best downriver, especially in the various Ottawa county bayous.

I have had Zman plastics stick to each other a little bit, to the point that they have to be pulled apart carefully....but not melt. Too much heat?

Awesome! My wife has fished with me exactly once, way, way back when we were dating. Oh, well.... I at least inherited a crappie-obsessed father-in-law and a walleye-obsessed uncle-in-law. Could be worse. I'll take what I can get.

Beautiful. In my opinion, the fishing is primary; the catching is just gravy.

OMG, Joe, that is a CHUNK!

St. Cloud, MN? (Are there other St. Clouds? The one in MN, northwest of Minneapolis is the only one I know...) You should post the question to your region in the "fishing locations" section! Quite a few musky anglers around here; I'm jealous -- I've never caught one.

Yes? I guess? I understand you want to optimize, but I tend to think a lot of people wring their hands unnecessarily about exact, narrowly-perfect gear for particular applications, and at some point you just reach diminishing returns that aren't worth the splitting hairs over. I use a Ned rig on two spinning combos, an ML/F and an M/mod-F with no issues, and don't really notice the difference. Anything you might use for a drop shot or shakey head ought to do the job. Just tie it on and catch some bass.

Haha, yeah, I'm just saying, don't be so sure they aren't working right....A TRD will get attacked right out of the bag on the way down, before it even gets a chance to stand up!

A note to anybody in the Grand Rapids, MI area: I saw two of these, exact same model at the Cabela's In Grandville, marked way down the last two times I was in there. I almost bought one last week, but I thought to myself, "No, MIbassyaker, stay your hand -- some angler, somewhere, needs these rods more than you do..." * *not really. Just a rare, minor, temporary victory over the bait monkey. He will have his revenge, to be sure.

Try it in the lake, where there are fish.

Green pumpkin stick worm (wacky rigged) Fluke or other soft jerkbait, GP or white (can double as open water jerkbait or topwater over emergent cover). Dip the tail of either color in chartreuse JJs for visibility in stained water. Buzzbait, black (not something I would have picked a year ago, but now I don't go anywhere without one) KVD 1.5 squarebill, bluegill or craw pattern Ribbontailed worm, texas rigged. Junebug/chartreuse tail

Now we're talkin'. The Rebel craw, Wee-R, Deep wee-R, minnow, and Pop-R have been among my staples for years, although I've retired my last few old wee-rs and deep wee-rs. I still had some unused rednecks not long ago in green and red, but don't know what happened to them. Bummer.

In a world in which the true level of logical and evidentiary justification for any proposition (or law) is always immediately known with 100% certainty and zero chance of error......perhaps not. But nothing in my experience suggests I live in such a world.

So...I am being asked to respond to a poll about a political event -- that is about a government policy -- but not to turn the topic "into a political argument?" Am I missing something here? A response to this poll is literally a political argument. No?

Holy Smokes! Speak of the devil...and she appears! 9.33lb, 24.5" http://www.wxyz.com/news/giant-smallmouth-bass-caught-this-past-weekend-breaks-michigan-record-that-stood-since-1906 So there is hope yet -- if there's one, maybe there's another, bigger one lurking! I just have to catch it before A-Jay does...

I buy havoc for the bait designs which in a number of cases are kind of unique, and I buy powerbait for the....powerbait.

Selectively trimming or cutting appendages on plastic baits can create new designs and change the action. This is especially useful in clear water when you want something a little more subtle. I'll sometimes cut the side "flappers" off a brush hog to make a double-tailed worm, or split the claws down the middle on a big-clawed craw bait to turn the flapping motion into more of a "dancing" motion. Wide curly tails on grubs can be thinned to make a bit smaller, slinkier profile. And cutting a diagonal slit into one side of a flat paddle-tail will make it undulate more like a curly tail.