MIbassyaker

I haven't used the bug much, but I love the regular rage craw... ...So you going to get out finally sometime soon and put those baits to use? ?

TW tends to limit its selection to high-quality lures (and therefore more expensive), and targets customers who are enthusiasts with highly specific preferences. The enthusiast would usually prefer to choose a particular selection of lures given the cost rather than a kit or package that may have only 2 or 3 of what they're specifically looking for out of, say, six. The packs you see on amazon and elsewhere are usually budget items of generally lower quality. For spinnerbaits, this may mean hooks that are not as sharp or dull quickly, wire that bends more easily, skirts that fall off more easily, paint that chips away easily, and blades that don't spin as well at slower speeds....none of which means they won't catch fish, or that you shouldn't stock up with a kit or two and try them. Just be aware that, as always, you'll tend to get what you pay for. The cut-r worm is so underrated.....I fish it variously as a stick worm, a soft jerkbait, or a swimbait, sometimes all in the same retrieve.

Pflueger spools are all sized smaller than a comparable Shimano counterpart, i.e., a size 30 pflueger is smaller than a 3000 shimano. The numbers are not standard. Check the specs on the site for the size you need, given the line test, drag, retrieve rate, and reel weight you're looking for: http://www.pfluegerfishing.com/pflueger-reels-spinning-reels/pflueger-patriarch-spinning-reel/1405298.html I would not go up to 10lb fluoro or mono on a size 30 patriarch, stay about 8 and under or a 35 would be better. I have a last-gen patriarch size 35, although I use braid. It's not a huge reel and still pretty light.

Yes 15%, and isn't there's an additional discount for military veterans?

17th, 21st, 27th, 49th, and.....102nd. Can't seem to avoid having at least one guy absolutely bomb.

A. Lucas B. J. Lee C. Ashley D. Lefebre E. Kriet Looking as mediocre as ever out of the gate today, but we'll see.

I haven't seen any actual beds, but they're definitely shallow here. After failing to convince anybody to chase a chatterbait, I took a hint and switched up to a a plasmatail worm on a shakyhead. Found this one chillin' under a dock:

I'm sure it's a fine bait, but there are now so many like this that are basically variations on a Brush Hog, it's hard to justify buying them all.

It was the opposite for me too, although I wasn't fishing "for" bass, so much as for anything fun to catch and possibly eat. We mostly fished live nightcrawlers, minnows and frogs for walleye, pike, and channel cats. One day I caught a stocky brown fish I hadn't seen before, and discovered there were bass in the river too (I hear the smallie population is now better-established there now, but it wasn't at the time). While we had artificials too, and caught fish on them regularly (especially grubs and in-line spinners), it was only when i started fishing for bass almost exclusively several years ago that I went all artificial.

As a youngster, I ate my first bass -- a smallie -- along with a nice channel cat and a sauger that also came home with me from the river. My two brothers and I did a taste test, and we all preferred the smallmouth. Nowadays I don't eat bass mostly because I don't feel like carrying them around and cleaning them. And, as nobody else in the house likes fish much (other than the dog), there is not much gratitude to be earned by doing so.

Yep, sounds exactly like bluegills and sunfish -- they are notorious live bait thieves. TO understand bass anglers attitudes about live bait, it's important to realize that modern bass fishing owes much of its current popularity to tournament sport fishing, in which live bait is prohibited, and where bass are targeted specifically to the exclusion of any other species. Most bass anglers have never tried fishing for bass with live bait, and assume the use of live nightcrawlers, minnows, leeches and other critters is simply for catching other species like panfish, walleye, catfish or others, but not bass. But of course, bass love live bait as well, it's just that everything else in the water loves it too - live bait's major advantage can also be its curse, if your goal is to target bass specifically.

I use all the usual suspects mentioned above (except the Cowboy, haven't tried it yet)...but I have an underrated option for you: The Netbait Baby Action Cat. It is my go-to creature for finesse applications like mojo/splitshot. It's actually a tube rather than solid-bodied, so it hooks up very easily with light-wire hooks when rigged weedless.

I was wondering if you were going to give an update on this event -- I saw a GVSU team won it...I don't know the two guys, but I teach at GVSU. Looks like they just drop-shotted the whole time.

Smallies vary from green to brown pretty regularly, with green-ish coloring more common in natural lakes, and brown-ish more common in rocky rivers...it has a lot to do with the colors of the environment. Some of the smallmouth that come out of, say, Grand Traverse Bay can look almost as green as a largemouth.

Another vote for 10# big game

1. Bad policy -- retailers would lose business from the sale of fishing gear that would otherwise have been used completely legally. Among other things, you wouldn't be able to stock up on supplies if your license expired and you hadn't bought a new one yet. And non-license holders wouldn't be able to buy fishing gear as gifts to the anglers in their lives. It makes no sense to burden retailers with enforcement of a law that doesn't itself directly apply to purchases. There is no law preventing me from owning fishing gear, or purchasing more of it, if I don't have a license. 2. State natural resource agencies are fully aware that illegal possession and harvest will always occur with some frequency, and they cannot prevent it all. This is factored into their decisions about licensing and creel limits, given their own best assessment of the rate of compliance, and how well they can enforce regulations. They enforce what they can, but they won't catch every violation, and they know this. 3. It bothers me that I have never in my life been asked to show my fishing license, anywhere I have fished (MN, WI, MI, ND, SD, CA, NJ). I make it a point to know the regulations and follow them, not because I'm worried about being caught, but because I believe in the management and preservation of fisheries as a public good. If I am not being checked by authorities, I think of all the violators who are also not being checked. but I can't worry about them -- they are taking a risk that I am not, and the extent of that risk is already well-known to the authorities.

Have you considered a safety-pin style spinnerbait instead? They're not strictly weedless, but will come through most weeds better than an in-line. A related option is a beetle spin or a grub on a jig spinner form. I grew up fishing Mepps spinners, but nowadays I only use them where I don't have to contend with many weeds and wood.

Here's 6 smallies and 3 largemouth (top middle, bottom left and bottom middle) caught from the same location within the same hour and a half. Notice the variation in shading and strength of the markings:

Spook, or other walking bait. Also torpedo-style propbaits.

This is good to know -- indeed, I have the original, not the pro.

Right on -- the inland waters are definitely heating up.

Now we're talkin!

yeah, isn't that just perfect? It seems Kentucky Lake, but not Grand, was the event to pick Christie and Evers, while Grand, but not Kentucky, was the event to pick KVD.

Livetarget generally makes good quality lures. I like their frogs, which are nicely soft and collapsible, and some of their crankbaits, especially the crappie and bluegill. However, I think their life-like finishes --the main thing their baits are known for-- is mostly unnecessary and doesn't give any real advantage over less-expensive baits. I think they end up being priced too high, and for the wrong reasons.

Some improvement overall, with 4 in the cut: Hite: 68 --> 47 KVD: 47 --> 54 Wheeler: 20 --> 30 Christie: 5 --> 4 Combs: 72 --> 32