corn-on-the-rob

The heads I make stay lead and I dont think twice about it. These arent big skirted jigs just football heads to throw plastics behind. Basically what I am saying is that which ever coating you choose, if you are able to not lose the lure for as long as it would take to have some coating come off that is awesome and even if it does it shouldn't make an actually difference though it might scratch off a tiny bit of confidence from you

Got into chatterbaits which I loved the idea but wasn't having much luck until I slammed 4.5lb and 5lb largemouths which are pretty big in ohio. This was my first year fishing jigs in heavy cover. Took me a while to gain confidence in the big profile. I always threw tubes or grubs, but I am starting to love the jig. Drop shot isn't new to me but likely my favorite thing to do.

I run braid on all of my rods and use leaders on almost all of them except for jig/topwater. I used uni/uni for almost a year but was not satisfied, it was good 95% of the time but this is fishing... I switched to alberto's (modified albright) with 7 wraps up, 7 down. Once I practiced I could tie it about twice as fast as the uni/uni. I always retie leader connections between trips which with any knot you should do. My leader connection never fails even when pulling straight back out of a snag. The leader will always break near the lure (not at) so I can tie a new lure on with the remaining leader and I am 100% worry free. The only time i retie the leader is if it is too short or if the knot is visibly damaged from cover which is exceptionally rare. I have 100% confidence in the knot but not the uni. It is funny because the regular uni knot is not recommended for fluoro so it makes me wonder why it is recommended in a connection to fluoro. The alberto is easy to tie but hard to master there are a few tricks I do that ensure a good knot every time but would be hard to explain over text so I might just make a video if anyone is interested though there are many videos already out there.

I run hi-vis yellow sufix 832 and 100% trilene professional grade fluoro.

go browns!

My first confidence lure was a smaller floating minnow by rapala. Jerk it down, let it float back up or close to the surface, jerk again, maybe twice. Sometimes let it sit there on the surface. Was an absolute bass killer anywhere I tried but they did tend to be smaller. such a fun bait to use and caught a lot of pan fish using it as well.

I think the 30lb would have been a great middle ground. I throw braid on ALL of my rods and use fluorocarbon leaders except for Jig/frog or any scenario where you don't need it. I have 30lb on all of my gear including spinning except for 50lb on my jig rod and chatter-bait/big spinner-bait rod. I switched over from all mono to all braid last year and likely won't even change. I know much of fishing is preference/opinion but it often gets muddied because people take their preference to be fact because it works for them. Same as my opinion right now, it works for me so I believe in it, but at the same time some of the opinions of things are because people never adapted or gave up on things too quickly before learning them. When I fish moving baits with MONO or BRAID nothing changes for me. Just because I have stronger line now doesn't mean I am going to start pulling harder on the fish after I hook them. When I am reeling in a fish on moving baits (unless in heavy cover) I treat my line as if it is 8lb mono that way I never pull too hard against the fish. The only way that changes is if you use braid and start muscling fish in because you know the line is stronger. Treat it like light mono. Now to the hook set: Once again this never changed for me between the two lines. I never set the hook on moving baits until the fish has about halfway loaded the rod on both types of line. Too many times with this method I have bass hit it it, slightly bends the rod for only a fraction of a second, then comes back and hits it multiple times before it commits. If I set the hook that first time when it only swiped, I likely don't hook the fish and likely ruined the chance for the re-hit. A missed swipe has nothing to do with the type of line, just knowing when to set the hook. If you keep trying to slam hook sets when a fish is just swiping the lure it is easy to say you ripped the hooks out because it didn't stay on. Now that I know the bass has actually fully hit my bait (rod is halfway loaded), I do a sweep hook set. As vague as this sounds I don't have a one size fits all hook set. Mostly by feel, I pull with a moderate sweep until I feel a solid connection between me and the fish. Now if I feel a solid connection while setting then I continue to rip through my hook set and start pulling the fish through the water by shear force then you might run into bent hooks or losing fish. If you feel solid resistance against you but you keep powering through the hook set by choice and lose the fish, that is user error not the tool. If the resistance you feel during your hook set would break the mono you would be using, the you changed the method when you changed lines. Obviously mono stretches but the resistance you would feel after it is stretched nearing its breaking strength is the same. In summary, don't set the hook too soon, pretend any line you are using is 8lb to 10lb breaking strength and treat it that way unless you have to over power a fish quickly out of necessity.Also this is my opinion but I believe there is some merit to it and obviously may not be true in all cases but I do use braid on everything and my hook-up/landing rates have at the least stayed the same if not improved. Rob

When I was new to using braid I found that when your lure hits the bottom with braid you can feel it a lot better than with other lines, it feels like a solid tick even on semi-slack line. This was unusual for me because I was always a mono user and yea you can still feel it hit bottom but with braid it almost feels like a bite ESPECIALLY if you aren't paying attention. Even to this day if I am turned talking to my partner or distracted in any way and accidentally have a tight line as i'm letting a bait fall that solid tick makes me turn quickly and at least check if there is a fish or if it was just bottom. Rob

I always go budget on ds weights. The $0.99 packs of eagle claw tear drop weights do I everything I need them to especially for the price point and I don't feel bad about losing any.

What lake were you fishing?

I was writing the post while you submitted yours. Yea that length puts it at close to 2.75 maybe a little more. It looks healthy. Good catch

If you don't own a scale the best thing you can do is take a quick measurement. The length can give you rough estimate of its weight. Unless the bass is exceptionally thin or fat it is pretty accurate. The picture you took also is a tough angle to get a good look but based on it roughly anywhere from 2.00 to 2.75lbs

Anyone use any of these? Ike designed it and it intrigued me as an alternative to a chatter bait. seemed like the hook up ratio might be better with the smaller/swiveling hook. While on topic anyone use the *** crazy jig? Rob

It actually was very windy on tournament day. Main river had anywhere from 1.5 footers up to solid 3+ footers in some sections. Ran about 20 miles in it but made great time and didn't beat the boat up too much. Was interesting though like you said, at certain points there was 1.5 chop coming at you then 2.5 footers rolling left to right at the same time.

Tournament did not go well for many of us. It was a real struggle unless you had intimate knowledge of the river. Only had one day of practice and wish we had 1 more. Ended up with only one fish for 2.75lbs. A lot of teams blanked or caught only 1 or 2, not a lot of limits, but the top 5 did really well. It took only 7.5lbs to make the top 15 cut, 16lbs took first on the first day.

I have always and will always keep locked drag to ensure the best hookset possible. With the proper set up you should not break anything with a hookset IF setting into a fish obviously rock or snag can easily do it (or nicked line). After i get the hook set I can loosen my drag on the fly, which I have never done with out success, if I feel it is a bigger fish. This weekend I caught a 14lb and 35lb catfish while fishing for bass. Monster hooksets with tight drag on 8lb line medium power rod, boated them both ( the 35lb was 42'' and took 20+ minutes to get in). After the hook set I felt they were big and immediately adjusted drag to what was necessary and tightened and loosened multiple times during the long fight to adjust to the current conditions. At times I needed really loose drag so he wouldn't break off but at other times I needed to tighten up slightly in order to keep control. Of course this is my opinion but a fish in the boat starts with a good hookset so a tight drag ensures that. With all that being said I would say that you might want to not have a tight drag if using too light of line on a higher power rod, or if you are down in the 6lb to 4lb class of line. The biggest thing is if you are using a tightened drag you must be ready to loosen the drag once you feel it is necessary.

haha, This is my first year using baitcasters (im 23 fished all my life but now expanding my versatility and tournament fishing). My dad set me up with two medium pistol grip rods a 6' and a 5.5' for cranking/spinners/etc. he has always raved about them and picks one up on ebay every once in a while because I don't think many brands make them any more. I definitely love them especially for light set ups like small cranks, 1/4oz spiinnerbaits.

I honestly don't have a set length, I just make sure it is longer than 3 feet but probably not more than 5. That way it is long enough to ensure stealth and not too long so that I reel the knot into the spool. I used to tie a uni-uni knot but switched to alberto's (improved albright). I really liked the uni but alberto's is way stronger. If you read around the uni is a fantastic knot for braid/mono but it is not recommended for fluoro. The uni knot strength actually changed depending on which BRAND of fluoro I was using. With alberto's the fluoro doesn't have a knot in it which to me is the best option because fluoro is know to not have knot strength capabilities like mono or braid.

stay away from zman's. Skirt might as well not be there as it falls off frequently and the hooks aren't very sharp. Just feels cheap. I grabbed a couple of the SK rageblades and I really like them so far. I don't see the need for me to explore other brands as the rageblade does what I need it to and seems of good quality so far.

JIGS: I have wanted to gain confidence in jigs so I bought a few from siebert outdoors. (my dad has a ton but I wanted some I could hand pick myself to instill some confidence). I tried to keep it as simple as possible. So I bought The brush dredge jigs which you can basically throw in anything and only needed two colors, a natural for clearer water and black/blue for any conditions. 2 1/4oz Sweet craw (green pumpkin orange accents) 2 3/8oz Sweet craw 2 1/4oz 24/7 (black/blue with purple accents) 2 3/8oz 24/7 those jigs cover 99.9% of what I need for jigs and two color options keep it simple. You can always mix and match trailers to suit more color options.

Braid has its advantages and disadvantages as does fluorocarbon. You put them together and they basically cancel out each others disadvantages. For me, the braid with fluoro leader is perfection. Many are afraid to try it because they don't like the extra knot but if you tie correctly you should NEVER break at the knot.

Drop shot is my favorite set up. It can work anytime, anywhere. The time where it shines most to me is the obvious deeper water structure (8-50ft rock piles or anything really), and when you are fishing off of the cover. -you can fish the cover with a drop shot but I usually have determined that I am not producing fishing shallow to the cover when I grab drop shot -have you ever been sitting in 5 ft of water working shallow cover that is in 0-3ft but notice you are marking some fish beneath you? back off then fish the edge of the cover into the slightly deeper water with the drop shot -The water doesn't have to be "deep" to be off shore. In my opinion for drop shot, off shore is any water that is beyond the cover you are fishing. And if just a flat bank or rip-rap then just a foot or two away from the bank is off shore to me. -Drop shot can be effective even in really shallow water and this technique can really shine on tough days or high pressured lakes. It still works in dirty water so don't be discouraged and think you need clear conditions.

My club is fairly small for being 5 years old or so. It has about 20 members. We are recognized by the university and are affiliated with the FLW college series but we do not get direct funding from either. - We do 4 tournaments in the fall, 4 tournaments in the spring all spaced 2 weeks apart. If it were any more frequent attendance would be spotty. Also, many students go home for the summer so it typically isn't ideal. But in the summer there might be other collegiate events that club members can do to fill in that gap (we have a tournament or two against neighboring colleges that we set up together for bragging rights). -We require a $25 club fee for each semester which covers the permits/ramp fees at the lakes we fish. With these fees we are able to fully support our selves. -We do fish from boats. The only two requirements are that it can fish two people, and has a working live-well. (a couple boats made their own live-wells out of coolers and aerators that sat in their boats which you can look up how to online). I feel fishing from shore or other methods where you wouldn't be able to keep and weigh the fish at the end of the day would be a last resort, and you would have to do a paper tournament. -Now, not many college anglers own big bass boats, but any that have a live-well, almost no matter how small, will work. A couple of us go home and get our dad's boats for the tournaments. If there are not enough boaters then on the full size bass boats we will throw 2 non-boaters in which is tight but manageable. -We use the club tournaments to keep a total points standings which determine who gets to fish the FLW college events in the summer. -We also do some community service activities like working with the dnr to clean up local lakes or help with children's fishing derby's. Also, an occasional fundraiser to make money for the club. (saving to buy cheap club boats for the small tournaments)

My university has a club with about 20 members or so. We are affiliated with the FLW who hold regional qualifier tournaments for each division. So we fish our club tournaments with standings to see who gets to fish the FLW tournaments. I think you can have the club affiliated with b.a.s.s. but not both. It has been a lot of fun so far. Like others have mentioned, pick a school based on academic, financial, and location reasons then see if they have a club. You can ask the university, they will be able to tell you. If they don't have one maybe there were a couple schools you liked for academics that also might have one. If they don't you can always start one up, it isn't too hard you'll just have to deal with small group numbers until it gets going and gains popularity.

Thanks again guys. Okay if the whole river has high pressure then it actually might be better to stick closer to the ramp and just try to get on a good pattern. When you say the wind can make the river nightmarish, as a lake erie fisherman I wonder if it would be much of a difference.