fishballer06

If I didn't fish in the rain, most of my fishing vacations would be pretty darn boring... I spent 10 days in Canada 3 years ago and it rained 9 of those days. That trip was one of the best trips of my life and I even caught my PB walleye that trip. My advice - invest $2-300 in a good rainsuit, so that your $1-2k vacations aren't cut short by a little rain.

I live one mile from the original (and flagship) F&S store, and they don't any nice swimbaits like a Gan Craft. Nice find!

I grew up as a young child fishing with my grandfather out of a 12' john boat with a 3hp Gamefisher on the back. Thanks for the memories.

So Dwight... I need a tournament partner for Erie next season, you in?

Just went outside here in western PA. Looks pretty cool through the proper glasses.

If you don't like large framed reels, the 103 is not for you. As for all around, I wouldn't consider the 7.9:1 ratio an all around ratio. I would drop down to the 6:1 model for all around purposes.

Every yinzer knows that we don't have crystal clear water 'round here... Sounds like a sweet little honey hole. Spend some time on the water, experiment with lures and presentations, and I'm sure you'll eventually figure them out.

Braid is much easier to manage on spinning gear, there's not arguing that. I personally use both and see no reel advantage either has over the other except for the manageability of braid on a spinning reel spool.

Yes. I found a guy who had two new one's still in the box.

My latest pick up.

Shimano guy here, but I own one and I wish I had 1-2 more. I have the XS model that I use for flipping, and another for frogging would be great.

We use the "scatter tactic" as you call it, except we don't shout, and we're not allowed to use dogs, so we use our rifles. In the fall (around PA), the birds don't respond to calling at all if they are grouped up in a flock. Generally, at first light, if you already have a flock located, they'll fly down to a field to eat and group up once they come off the roost. Take your shot there. Even if you can't make the shot, fire off a few shots towards them and this will break up the flock. Once you do that, sit down right where you are and start calling after a few minutes, Generally, they'll come right back to you and you can pick them off. If we don't know where the birds are, we'll generally put two guys on one mountain ridge, and then two other guys a couple ridges over. We'll then slowly walk towards each other looking for the birds. With any luck, they're in the middle of the two groups of guys. Once you see them, take a shot (if it's safe), or multiple shots. Thus repeating the breaking up process. Don't be afraid to fire off 3-4 shots to get them really broken up whenever you first find the flock. The more chaos and confusion, the easier they are to call back in. If you have a flock of 15 birds and you fire one shot and 8 birds fly away together, and 7 birds fly away together in a different direction, neither of those two groups will come to a single call. Disclaimer - I hunt to private ground owned by either family or close friends. Our state laws also require orange in the fall. As always, be extremely careful when shooting.

As mentioned earlier, the melting point of lead is 622*F, and tungsten is 6,191*F. That's 10x hotter just to get it to melt. I'm sure the machinery to do that is much more costly. Lead is simple enough that any Joe Schmoe can pour their own lead in their garage.

John Crews did an interview on YouTube with Mike Iaconelli on Ike Live and Crews got asked if he'll ever make tungsten jigs. His answer was along the lines of "We make and produce everything of ours here in the USA. Any company who sells tungsten fishing tackle is getting it made overseas because the cost of the machinery and labor. So because of that, we (Missle) have no plans to start making anything out of tungsten any time soon because it's simply too costly to do domestically because I refuse to take my business over seas."

In my opinion, there are some major differences besides the size of the plastic bait they use. Ned rig is an open hook presentation, shakeyhead is normally a weedless texas style rigging Ned rig uses a very lightweight jig head, shakeyhead can go upwards of 3/8, 1/2, 3/4oz Ned rig generally uses 3-4" stick bait, traditionally of the Zman Elaztech material, so it's buoyant. With the light jighead and buoyant plastic, it has a slow, abnormal fall rate through the water. A shakeyhead can use any type of plastic (craw, worm, swimbait) Traditional ned rigging requires spinning gear because of how light the baits are. A shakeyhead can be thrown on spinning or casting gear

I'd be throwing a senko around those weed edges (texas or wacky), and I'd also be working a weightless Fluke around those area's too.

I hate how these northern events are a little more predictable. The same guys seem to always be at the top for these events, where as the other events around the country, it's more of anyone's game. Prime example - Bracket A: Palaniuk and VanDam own 62.5% of the picks. The only other contender in that bracket is Feider.

Side cutters Peroxide Both of them are like a firearm. You hope you never need them, but if/when you do, you'll be glad you have them.

I'm not sure why the new Curado K isn't on this list... but the SV103 is a pretty good reel as well. I use mine for flipping and it does a great job.

I've fished mornings where my partner and I couldn't get bit on a topwater, and then one of us will pick up a Senko or Keitech and it's lights out. Just because first light is prime topwater time for this time of year, doesn't mean that something else will still be more productive.

My heart skips a beat whenever those big smallmouth jump 2 feet out of the water. Especially whenever I'm in really deep water and I can feel them coming up like a rocket. Nice fish.

I always try to fish shade if possible. If you think about it, a bass's eyes are on top of their head and they can't wear sunglasses, so a bright sun will be blinding to them if they don't have some kind of shade over them. Whether it's under overhanging tree's/bushes, underwater vegetation/wood/rocks, or just going to deeper water. So I always take that into consideration when fishing on bright, sunny days in the summer.

FLW Forrest Wood Cup is this weekend. Anybody watching today?

Somebody raided another site's sale. Those 120's are beastly!