Coherence

I bet those are a fantastic fish to do battle with - congrats on what appears to be an absolutely excellent season so far.

Yeah, for my particular area a bait that big is probably not going to get much action - bass in Delaware are not very big - a tournament bag of 18-20 lbs will win it for you on basically every lake except for a rare few up north on the PA line. Your listed PB fish is higher than our state record by 2-3 lbs for example haha.

Catching the fish is hit or miss, the thing I wish I had more of was time. College and work pretty much run my schedule, and coupling that with lining schedules up with my buddy to go out fishing - it can be a pain, and neither of us fish as much as we want to.

Never been much of a wake bait guy but, I have tried the Black Dog Shellcracker which I though was pretty decent, and MTB sent me a River2Sea S-Waver which I've been tossing around, haven't caught anything on it yet, but I like the action of it. Tried the Live Target Wakebait in Bluegill and Pumpkinseed colors - was happy with it (although I am a live target fan overall so..perhaps I am biased).

Personally no, however, when my buddy and I are fishing our favorite shallow creek where we cannot use the outboard I troll long distances at higher speed (75# Minn Kota pulls my 16 foot boat quite well at top speed) and he will troll with a Live Target Baitball - it does work, he's pulled in several bass of various sizes, as well as perch and a couple of chain pickerel.

Some of these pictures are amazing. I never really bothered with a fish finder here in Delaware because our lakes are all super shallow (10 ft or less at the deepest, usually about 4 ft average depth) so I figured they probably aren't worth the investment.

Excellent write up and from the looks of it, an excellent day of fishing as well. Congrats!

I have an old ugly beat to death Fenwick that I still use as my wacky rigged senko rod. Rod has served me for several years, and the previous owner (snagged it from a guy at work who was clearing out all of his stuff) had used it for several more before that. It has been dropped, stepped on, bounced around, liberally shaken, bounced off the trolling motor accidentally when skipping - you name it. I know tons of people love St. Croix...but that Fenwick makes me want to try one of their newer models.

Couldn't have said it better myself. - I also agree with Backlash about keeping it simple, that is almost the exact same selection I have in regards to buzzbaits - I also have a pair of Chartreuse ones for specific creeks that the bass seemed to prefer. I'd also recommend considering putting a trailer hook on buzzbaits if you plan to use them a lot, it helped me increase my hook up rate. Recently picked up a D&M Custom Hot Rod Buzz Bait to try out since I have a few evening/night fishing trips planned - it looks pretty awesome, we'll see if it nabs any more fish.

3/8 oz jig Black Blue and PB&J colors Zoom chunk trailer - black/blue sapphire, and orange craw/pumpkin color 2 Packs of 5" Yamamoto senkos - Green pumpkin/Amber Laminate, and Black/Blue or PB&J depending on what I see first Pack of Gamakatsu 2/0 Weedless Hooks (for Senkos) Wacky Rig tool and O-Rings Z-man Chatterbait Chart/White, and Green Pumpkin/other natural color Squarebill Crankbait Golden Shiner, and Bluegill or Shad colors Live Target Baitball - Natural/Bluegill color Pretty much what I use at every new lake/river I ever go to. Occasionally a spinnerbait thrown in the mix, and top water frogs during the summer but I don't always take these to new bodies of water.

Grande Bass Mega Claws Keitech Swing Impact Fat Net Bait Paca Chunk Zoom Chunks Whatever brand of single tail grubs I have hanging around

I bought one of these Lews off someone from one of my tournament circles after his wife bought him an upgraded reel for his birthday (coincidentally about a month after he himself bought the Lews) I have two Gen 2 Revo SX's, a slightly older BPS Pro Qualifier, and the Lews. I would say it is basically tied for me with the Revos, and it cost quite a bit less. I would definitely recommend it - it performs as well as reels that are double its price IMHO. It has actually got me interested in trying one of the Lews higher end reels to see how good they are, but honestly for the money, I don't even think trying a higher end one is necessary, this thing performs great.

Looks like I shall be taking trip the 25-odd miles to my nearest dicks to investigate this. I could call them I suppose, but the sales associates in there always seem less than helpful unfortunately,

Hands down wacky for me. Even on super pressured ponds I'll usually get at least a couple fish on wacky rigged senko

I've used all kinds of spinners across the gambit from the cheap wal-mart ones to $15.00 Lucky Crafts...Honestly if i wander into the Wal-mart fishing sections I usually pick up a couple they definitely work. In a pinch I have fished them in a tournament (my partner and I both forgot to grab the box of nice spinners we had thrown in the truck that morning). Definitely not the best spinners on earth, but I will throw them into the worst places and it won't ruin my day if I break it off. TLDR; They have their place in the world of lures, purists will hate them, recreational fisherman will love them

Excellent, thanks for the speedy replies gentlemen!

Hey guys, I've been having a bit of trouble with a new Lews reel I bought in regards to braid, It handles other lines like a champ, but I cannot get the braid to grip on the reel, it slips under pressure, even when I slapped on a welding glove and tried to crank the line in under pressure. Should I reline the reel and use a starter of mono or fluoro to have the reel grab it, and then tie the braid on after a few revolutions? Any suggestions welcome - hopefully I didn't miss a topic with the answer to this already - if so mods feel free to delete my thread

Some great and thoughtful tips here. I bet Anglers are glad to draw you.

I've been fishing Dirty Jigs for about two years now, but during tournaments I always end up throwing around this old no name PB&J colored jig that I had. Ended up losing it a few weeks back, so I decided to try my hand at making my own skirt color combinations. Placed an order at fishingskirts.com which arrived lightning quick. Anyways here are a couple combinations I tried out this evening - fairly happy with the results. Haven't hit the right PB&J mixture yet, but I think the first two will be pretty serviceable at any rate.

Since my live well is small, I keep the water on constant recirculate, use please release me - on every trip where i am using the live well to hold fish, no exceptions, and if it is killer hot I also drop a bit of ice in there if needed. usually my live well stay decently cool all things considered. I can't really float a bunch of bottles etc in the well because it is fairly small (much older boat, the designs have come a LOOOOOONG way since then).

My buddy and I went out and fished two days last week on a little creek that runs near the Delaware/Maryland line. Caught probably 25-30 fish over the two days, mainly dinks, but there are big fish to be had. Largest thing we caught was a decent sized Chain Pickerel. Fishing was best in the morning, and the bites turned difficult very quickly when the sun came up and the temperature jumped over 90 before noon. Threw an assortment of baits, caught mainly on Green Pumpkin/Amber, Black/Blue fleck, and Blood Worm colored Senkos. Got my first chance to try out my Live Target Bait Ball, and Poppin' Frog. No luck on the frog, but the bait ball caught 3 small perch...the bait was fatter than they were, but hey, it caught fish on its maiden voyage haha. Typical Delaware fishing, nothing excitingly large, but plenty of dinks. Picture of my buddy with his big catch of the day (only had one cell phone on us, and I was too lazy to unlock my phone to have him take pictures of my fish. I'll be sure to post some of mine next time):

Incredibly jealous, I would have signed up myself if I had known haha. Delaware river (well portions of it at least) are about 50 minutes from my house. When is the event? Maybe I'll cruise on by to check out weigh ins and stuff if regular joes are allowed to even watch?

Hello fellow anglers, I've visited the site off and on for quite awhile now, but as i start to do more and more tournaments, I find myself coming back rather frequently. I figured it was time to go ahead and sign up. A little bit about myself: I fished erratically when I was younger and into my teenage years, but I began to really fall in love with fishing around 20 years old (just shy of 26 now). Bought myself a small bass boat right after I turned 20 - nothing fancy, an old 16' 1986 Smokercraft with a temperamental 2-stroke slapped on the back. She is brown, ugly, and noisy, but it's mine and it floats haha. I take it to all the tournaments right along side those nice Rangers/Skeeters etc, I get ribbed about it by some of the guys (all in good fun) but she gets the job done well enough. Living in Delaware, bass fishing is extremely popular, although our bass are pretty small compared to a lot of the surrounding areas - State record is 10 lbs and a few ounces, so true "lunkers" aren't really a thing for us. Pretty much all shallow ponds (max depth between 6 and 15 feet for about 95% of the state) that get absolutely choked with underwater vegetation by this time of the year makes the tournament fishing interesting at times.I still give it a shot, been fishing tourneys for three years, have yet to win one, but I have at least been placing in the top half or better over the last 18 months or so. I've enjoyed every minute of it, and hopefully I'll be able to win one by this time next year. Outside of Bass fishing, I'm an avid Washington Capitals and Nationals fan, a full-time radiology student, and work as a security guard at night. Definitely enough about me Thanks for having me!