jomatty

id flatten em on worm hooks but not on trebles. when pond fishing i flatten them on my worm hooks and it does make it easier on the fish as well as easier to unhook them when you are catching fish after fish. on larger bodies of water each fish becomes more important and i rarely bother. treble hooks need the barb in my opinion. one thing you should definitely do is get you son some sunglasses and also some clear protective glasses for night/low light conditions. fish chris started a thread recently that had some grizzly pictures of people with injuries. i always make sure my son wears glasses now when we fish. his favorite glasses are a pair of dwayn wayne style flip ups that he can make clear or tinted. im sure you already thought of this but thought id throw it out anyways. matt

personally i like jerkbaits in clearer water situations. for what you described id be fishing the good old black and blue jig or a slowrolled colorado or oklahoma bladed spinnerbait. a slowrolled rattletrap might also be a possibility but my number one choice would def. be a jig. matt

i realize you were not looking for advice on new lizards to buy but others have offered so im gonna throw out my opinion too... the 3x lizards are absolutely killer on a c-rig. when you are moving the rig forward it will swim along behing the rig and when you pause it will slowly float up over any brush etc. in a very tantalizing manner. these lizards and other 3x products are the only thing ive been c-rigging this year (the onlyu thing i use 3x stuff for regularly)

id definitely have a few of each laggy. i use the suspending more but when the fish are active in the later spring i love the floating jerkbaits. you may have better restraint than me but i wouldnt be without at least a few of each. matt

i found an article on the yamamoto site that suggested swimming it essentially like a swimbait. gary suggested either doing so weightless or with a light screw in sinker. in the article he said that the swimming senko was a responce to fish followin but not hitting a swimbait, but being able to be caught if you throw a senko at the follower. personally i dont know about this idea. verdict still out for me though as Gary gets a little more testing than most manufacturers. matt

how are you guys doing with these. ill try any new lure that yam. puts out but i must say that im not sure exactly when i would prefer this over something else. i caught one fish on it and that was fishing it almost like a soft plastic frog, very close to the surface. its prob. not the best test conditions but im just curious how you guys are using them. i suppose they may work on a carolina rig if the fish were wanting a faster presentation but again i still have a hard time thinking i wouldnt opt for something else. verdicts? matt

the vast majority of my frog fish come when either walking or chugging the bait. some people say they do real well just working it real erratically with long pauses but that has not been the case for me.

can i bump this and get some more feedback on when you guys remove or leave the o rings. i usually left them on but then when i got hooked on the speed traps that come with no o rings and a snap i started questioning if that was correct or not. matt

i have been doing well in Va. i cant catch em on any fast moving lures but a jig or senko worked very slow has still been productive. im deadsticking the senkos for 20 sec. or so, something i got away from doing during the summer.

why are you guys suggesting a single vs. a double willow blade? what impacts this decision? i always use double bladed spinnerbaits except for big single colorado blades at night or in muddy water but have no good reason for why i do this other than that i have always done it that way. matt

deep running cranks and to learn to find and fish brushpiles better.

walking a frog can be deadly. unfortunately it takes a fair amount of practice to do it well. spooks and sammys are second nature to me and when i started trying to walk frogs is thought it was impossible. not so, and with practice it gets fairly easy to do but still much harder with other walking baits. frogs may not actually walk in real life but who knows why a bass eats a hollow frog. i know that when you sashay it from side to side without moving forward very much that it is very productive and that is enough for me.

the snaps will not hurt the action of a crankbait and with some baits, especially those without o rings, they can help. i used to use them but got away from it when i learned to tie a loop knot, but honestly think that there is a lot to using the duolock snaps. just remember that you still need to retie every so often. The line will still get frayed and the knot will weaken after a few fish. im kinda surprised that KVD or other pros would be using these though, with all of the rods and such they have on the deck. i wonder if they are really doing it for quick changes or if it for action reasons. where did you hear about this avid or was it just through friends who know? if there is an article or something id be interested. matt

i suppose that i actually use both hands more often than not as well. but i usually work the spool with right hand so i consider that a right handed cast. i agree with LBH and am glad that when i started i had some knowledgeable people suggest that i either learn both or use a left handed bc reel. matt

i second that. it is a great way to comletely ruin a great fishing hole. if the fishing wasnt very good there it may be worth it but i would never take the chance in that situation. lots of parasites and disease can be spread and introducing a foreign disease can completely wipe out a pond the size your talking about. if you want a project id pick some place were the fishing is absolutely terrible and bring em there, they still may die if the fishing is bad because of lack of forage etc. but at least you are not ruining an area you love. honestly the best course of action may be no action but thats a personal decision. some posters on another similar thread have told some real horror stories. matt

in rivers smallie fishing can be really good with senkos. i throw it up stream so that the current will drift it into things like rocks that break the current and it can be deadly. i give it no action other than an occasional lift, but just letting it drift along the bottom can be really productive for smallies. matt

he absolutely did a great job and deserves every bit of credit hes getting. my question was more general than directed at this situation in specific (although this situation is what made me wonder about it). i would imagine its a tremendous advantage to have a lot of friends on the tour that you are fishing. if people are willing to let you have a few areas when they are out of contention that has got to help you round out a limit. i guess thats just one of those things that exist in any sport, and are unavoidable (and not necesarily bad). hoyt jr. did a heck of a job and i in no way meant to imply that i thought otherwise in my post. matt

i use a mixture of left and right handed reels as well. i use the lefty ones for a lot of things, especially anytime im flipping or pitching. it was easier for me to get left handed reels than learn to cast with myleft hand. i get somewhat solider hook sets i think when my right hand is on the rod. i also have an easier time working a topwater with my lefty reels and my right hand on the rod. i prefer the right handed rods for cranking and spinnerbaiting/c-rigin, or most other long casting lures. really it dosent make that much of a difference to me, although i try to avoid making short casts with the right handed ones so i dont have to be in a hurry to switch hands.when i make long casts with my right hand i switch somewhere towards the end so that my left hand is on the rod and thumbing the spool by the time the bait reaches the water. i keep telling myself im gonna learn to cast left handed as well, although im not really sure why i want to do so. i suppose situations come up where a left handed cast could work better but they are pretty few and far between and i can usually just cast with my right hand and my rod on the left side of my body.

i dont think my pb is the biggest bass ive caught. im pretty sure that what i previously considered my pb was well over 6 but it wasnt measured or weighed and i got tired of not really knowing and not being sure. so the next time i caught a big bass that was my pb. i think its nice to have a precise goal to shoot for.

im not a tournament fisherman but was interested in a few things. when i was reading the results i saw how hoyt jr's father had left a key spot to let his son round out his limit. is this common? obv. it is considered legal to help your friends in this way but i guess im just interested in the ethics involved. im certainly not trying to say that anyone did anything wrong, i just wonder how big of an advantage it is to know a lot of people on the tours. if it is common to have good spots handed over down the stretch i would imagine it is a major advantage. just curious and forgive my naivete, matt

i dont sharpen anything i can replace but will sharpen hooks on something like a spinnerbait. $10 spinnerbaits are too expensive for me to junk when i can sharpen them. i use the same stones i used for sharpening my knives when i was a chef. i use the diamond stone and then touch it up on the steel rod. This gets the hooks sharp enough for my liking. it wont work on the water but i sharpen them at home before i go. as far as worm hooks or trebles its just no worth it to me. they are relatively cheap and its impossible to get them as sharp as i want them with a sharpener. trebles would be way too much trouble, and would never be as sharp anyways. matt

its very hard for me to get a really silent entry with spinning gear when pitching. i do it, but i dont plan on it or anything. its not like i set out with the plan of pitching a senko on spinning gear. sometimes i stumble onto something though and do and it works fine, but for me has the same issues that any up close spinning tackle has, that i cant control the entry that well and it is often a loud entry. surely it can be done, but i think that this is one technique that is better suited to b/c. matt

i agree with RW. if they are really good friends you might explain your position and give them another chance but it dosent sound like the one friend is a good friend to go fishing with. its not worth making something that you enjoy stressful. if you still want to be able to fish with him take a couple of camping trips a year and go catfishing or something with him. matt

you would be surprised how many people think poker is a sport. i strongly disagree, and i play poker for a living. espn is in the business of showing what their fans want to see, and for the last few years what "sports" fans want to see is poker. bass fishing is in my opinion a sport. poker and fishing are my two favorite activities and i think that they are a poor analogy.

ive always been a pointer and rogue fan but recently bought some x raps because i wanted a smaller jerkbait that i could fish from the shore for smallmouth in a local river (pointers are a little too expensive for me to fish in the river from the shore). i bought a few x raps and was really, really impressed with the action. this spring im looking forward to giving them a side by side comparison to the pointers i like so much. i fish them exactly how has been described earlier. jerk jerk pause while taking up slack, repeat. i usually do not move the lure with my reel, just with jerks and twitches. like rw said the pause is key. i find length of pause to be the most important variable. matt