fishballer06

Send it to DVT. He gets all of my reels for routine maintenance and upgrade installations. @Delaware Valley Tackle

I love to throw a torpedo. Excellent lure. I wish they were a little higher quality, but still a fun and effective lure.

My father owns the xi5, so I can comment on it since I've spent a fair bit of time with it. Pro's of each: Talon: Boat doesn't spin if you have two of them and good bottom contact Talon: Easier on battery xi5: Literally keeps you exactly on a spot, regardless if it's a river or 25+mph winds. It's amazing. xi5: Has a key fab. You can control the motor from the back deck if you want, so from shore if you're forced to launch the boat by yourself. See con section for this as well. xi5: Depth isn't an issue in regards to spot locking. xi5: It has cruise. Point the head the direction you want and lock it. It will run and take you that way. Need to change course? Just bump left or right on the key fab. Con's of each: Talon: Adds weight to your boat, hurting your top end speed (tournament guys care about this) Talon: If you fish with a buddy or co-angler, it makes casting from the back deck very tricky Talon: Only works in shallow water Talon: Doesn't work well in rocky bottoms. Your boat will scoot along until it can grab into mud or sand. xi5: The foot pedal is absolute garbage. It works completely differently than a standard cable drive motor. It makes navigating around tight things like docks, islands, rocks, wood, etc. very difficult. You're better off using the key fab, which requires at least one hand to use. Which means to try to cast/fish is impossible with a moving bait that requires two hands on your rod/reel. My Dad and I have both tried for multiple days to operate that foot pedal, and now we don't even take it out with us because we find it that useless. xi5: It keeps your trolling motor head in one spot, not the entire boat. If there is river current or wind, the back end of your boat will spin with that. Regardless of it doing that, the motor head stays at one spot. I've locked down next to a single weed stalk on a flat in 25 mph winds for an hour and fished the same spot. I never moved away from that single weed stalk. Overall, I'd say the talon is great for shallow water, and bass fishing around tight spaces. The xi5 is good for open and/or deeper water. Do you want to lock yourself on top that school of walleyes on that 25 foot rock hump? Do you need to stay pinned over top a group of smallmouth on Erie when there's 3 footers? The xi5 is great for that.

We've opened Pandora's box yet again...

During the hard water season is when they are least effective.

There will always be a difference between plastic baits and balsa baits.

I'll give an example. This weekend I had a tournament and my partner and I decided to fish this bridge first thing in the morning. This bridge has two piers that go down into the lake and one side is rather shallow, and usually doesn't hold fish. My partner is throwing a green pumpkin RI Beaver, and I'm throwing a watermelon red flake Rage Craw. We go through the bridge, and back through. My partner caught 5 fish and lost 2. I caught two fish, including the biggest of the bunch. We decide to make the same pass through again since we were so successful. My partner keeps throwing his green pumpkin beaver, but I switched up to a Neko rig with a Superbug Missle 48 worm. My partner caught nothing and I caught one more and missed another one. We move to a different area, frog a little, and then come back to the bridge for one last pass through. My partner sticks to his same green pumpkin Beaver, and I switched up to a shakey head with a Berkley Shakey Snake worm. Guess what? My partner got nothing, and I picked up another fish. So was it luck of the draw? Or was it the different look they were seeing each time? You could never prove any differently, but I switched baits every pass through and I got bites every time. My partner stuck to the same bait and only caught fish the first pass through. Take what you want from this, but it brings up an interesting point.

Skitter Pop is my favorite popper out there. The new Storm Arashi popper is nice too. And if you're willing to drop a little more money, the Megabass Pop X/Max and Lobino Rico are top of the line when it comes to poppers.

I swim them as a topwater toad. Killer bait!

Smallmouth water, + fall = Jerkbaits and Blade baits (silver buddy style)

1-2oz. baits, sure. 4-7oz. baits - much less than ideal.

Sounds like you need to shop somewhere besides BPS.

Yes. See my earlier post. VMC Short Shank #5's for both is the ticket.

Yep, when they changed the mold, they changed the hooks on them too. Even if the current hooks didn't foul up, they're so thin that they bend out in no time. If you want a high quality lure that runs 6-12" deep, buy some of the Evergreen CR-1's. They'll run you $13 a pop, but they fish just as good (or better) than the 1- and they come with high quality hooks that don't foul up. I find that the circuit board lip on them rips through grass better too.

VMC Short Shank #5's. I did some extensive testing this spring to find the perfect hook combination on my 1- lures. My friend runs Mustad EWG's, #6 on the front, and a #4 on the back (to help with short strikes).

Small lakes will fish like small lakes. There's only same many spots that can/will hold fish, and some of those spots will hold better quality fish than others.

You should be able to carry on your own property. If so, I'd get at least a 357 magnum wheel gun.

Our dogs first time in the pool.

A good friend of mine sent this to me earlier this week. This was taken at his office.

Another vote for the 805CB.

I've "caught" some big fish wading before...

Jig n' pig Dropshot Pike/Bowfin

Catch them in 41* water and they feel like you're reeling in a plastic bag...

You returned a used pack of plastics? And they accepted it?!

Well would you look at that? And here I thought Iaconelli was always a Toyota guy...