MIbassyaker

Well over half of my spinnerbaits are sunfish or perch-like patterns with greens, browns, golds, oranges. And I usually prefer gold blades over silver.

I look for good components (swivel, split rings) and a good hook first of all. El Cheap-o spinnerbaits will absolutely catch fish, but they may not be as well balanced (ride to the side), blades may not spin as well at slow speeds, and they will tend to wear out more quickly than a more expensive spinnerbait. With use, skirts will fall off, hooks will get dull, the wire will get bent up, or split rings fail; this will happen will all spinnerbaits, but faster with cheap ones. Still, up here where I might get bitten-off by a pike at any moment in some waters, dollar-bin spinnerbaits have their place too. Lots of companies make a good spinnerbait that doesn't cost too much: off the top of my head, War Eagle, Nichols, Revenge, Pepper, as well as Strike King, and Booyah. Siebert Outdoors (forum sponsor) makes spinnerbaits with good components for good price (I like the compact ones the best), with your choice of skirt. I use double willow or single colorado the most, 1/4oz, 3/8oz, and 1/2oz. Getting a variety of weights and blade sizes lets you fish various depths at various speeds. All else equal, bigger blades will make it rise more on the retrieve but create more resistance, making it easier to retrieve slowly. A heavier weight will run deeper at the same speed as a lighter one, or will stay at the same depth with a faster retrieve as a lighter one with a slower retrieve. Slow-shallow, fast-deep, fast-shallow, slow-deep: it's worth having a few to cover all combinations.

Snow is gone here except for the last remnants of piles from road and walkway removal. River is wide open and running high, lots of flooded woodland. Neighborhood ponds I'm seeing are all still iced over though, except right at the shore in a few places.

Two lakes I fish -- one 50 acres, one 37 acres-- I think I may have caught the largest bass in there at the time, each a couple years ago. The reason I think this is both are public and get a decent amount of harvest pressure from casual anglers... so bass caught over the 14" limit are often kept: Once you hit 14", and if you have a taste for lures, or even just live bait, it's only a matter of time before you are caught and kept. Both of my fish were in the 5-6 range, at least two pounds heavier than the 2nd largest fish I've caught in either place, and even that size is rare. They would have had to spend about 5 years or more at keeper size without being harvested, given the typical growth rate for largemouth in Michigan. If there are bigger fish in those lakes, they are surely experts at not being caught. One of the two lakes is listed as having a Michigan Master Angler entry bigger than mine from a couple years earlier caught while ice fishing, but it too was kept. Both of my fish were released, and if they're still in there, they're bigger now. Or, if they haven't survived, another one or two or a few may be bigger now, but not more than that.

Not one box, but I always have a few panic lures distributed among my stuff when I go out: -in-line spinner -3"-4" curly tail grub+jighead -4" finesse worm+slider head -ned rig

Diameter of 10# line is probably too big for a reel that size. Try 6#.

As far as I can tell, no there is not. I mean, depending on how you define "better", you can probably do better by paying more. but I'm not sure there's any other way.

I fish alone from a kayak, and I don't do selfies. My pics are always awkward, blurry, unfocused, bad perspective, bad angles....best I can do is a measuring board, and I can't even get those quite right:

Huh, you're right -- they've never held one at Chick, have they. Does Chattanooga have the facilities to support the event? Sad Fact: Knoxville is the only major urban area of Tennessee I've never been to.

Score!!

Same here. I've never been totally sure what "casting jig" is supposed to be -- I cast, flip, drag, and swim them all.

For every 5 people who respond to this question, you're gonna get 10 recommendations. Mine are: 1. Lizard or creature in the color of your choice. 2. Bring the spinnerbaits along too, anyway.

Poche should get like a miniature version of the trophy. Although, to be fair, Ott still had to catch them. If Keith could have caught them, he would have instead!

BASS is putting on the best face possible given the circumstances, but they know full well that the reputation of the Classic depends on the reputation of the competitors fishing it. And if there is widespread perception that the Classic no longer actually features the best, hottest, and most competitive tournament anglers of the day (or at least most of them), then it will be in BASS's interest to change the rules for qualification.

Yeah, great team. I had Christie too -- I really thought this one would set up well for him.

Actually, there are a lot of bass in NJ and eastern PA. Not giants by the standards of other regions, but respectable, fishable numbers. It's just that most of the waterbodies are small. I used to live in the Trenton area.

You would be better served by not trying to learn them all, but picking a few to use that cover a small number of important bases. Think top, middle and bottom of the water column, fast vs. slow, and horizontal vs. vertical presentations. You could do most of that pretty well with a wacky-rigged senko, a texas rigged worm or other plastic, a spinnerbait, and a topwater popper. Newbies are also better served, not by researching lures, but by researching bass behavior and location.

Sorry, I love Ike, antics and all. I'll happily take your place on his boat. The man radiates pure, uncut enthusiasm for fishing in a way that nobody can match. I understand that's not everybody's bag, but I find it infectious.

points haven't updated for me either. I have 3 fishing today: Defoe, Daniels, and Evers.

Looks like Strader's got a good catfish pattern going...

One of those things I've never gotten the hang of. Whenever I successfully skip something, it's by accident.

Ah! There we go -- missed this at first, we don't disagree after all: Seems like an obvious solution. If the cameras caught pros doing this instead of getting upset and scolding people, there wouldn't be much to complain about.

Hold on a minute--who is letting who do what, in a case like this? It is the pro who does not want to let the other(s) use the spot. The pro left the spot! When he comes back to find it occupied, he cannot assume he is owed the spot. if he wants to fish it again, perhaps he should ask politely without scolding or getting surly?

Why would I be salty? Only if I was under the assumption that non-participants are obligated to acknowledge a spot I'm not currently fishing is still "mine". But that assumption is false. And the high stakes of a tournament do not make it true.

62 forecasted for tomorrow here! Also a mid-day thunderstorm. And then back down to the high 30s friday. Still, by that point we'll have had, I think, the most consecutive days above freezing than we've hadin a couple months. Next week projected to be consistently 40s-50s and sunny -- not there yet, but things are looking up!