BooyahMan

The Pad Crasher is amazing, especially for the price. I've never really had a problem with the durability...only one of them cracked at the nose and is starting to take on water but it is still fishable and fixable. I've had good experiences with Live Target too but I trust the softness of the Booyah bodies to collapse when I need it to.

Another couple from the other day. February has been surprisingly good to me (knock on wood).

Couple more from today. Stuck a couple other nice sized ones (possibly bigger) but they all spat the hook. What a thrill in February! I've been meaning to merge my two favourite things in fishing: centerpinning and Bass. Well, I finally did it today. Now time to hunt for a bigger one on the pin!

Not Bass related but my girlfriend and I were fishing for Pink Salmon last year in one of the local rivers. I foul hooked a fish on the top fin with a spinner and it snapped me off. Half an hour later my girlfriend hooks a fish and says it's foul-hooked. As she was landing it we both saw a spinner (MY spinner) on the fish's top fin and her hook hooked on the spinner. Pretty unbelievable considering hundreds of fish were moving past us in that half hour period.

Some interesting information guys, thank you! I'm going to play around with them for now and see what happens once the water starts warming up some. I can find a way to make use of a suspending lipless crank, it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Interesting, I didn't think the temp would have that drastic a difference. I don't have an actual water temperature but I would guess 40/low 40's.

Hey guys, recently tried out a floating BL Rat L Trap and found that it doesn't float back up on slack line, it suspends. This would be neat in itself but I purchased it with the idea of fishing it in 1-2 feet of water only over top of growing pads. Is the lure taking on water? Also, are these lures supposed to have a very very tight wobble? It didn't seem to have much action upon retrieve but I am used to fishing lures with wide wobble so I possibly am just not used to it. Cheers!

You bet it works! As mentioned, these do tend to take in water quite easily. I've also found that small fish like Pumpkinseeds will "blow up" on them because the tail looks like a big fat juicy worm.

I work at a little west coast chain called Army & Navy.

I was going back and forth on this one all weekend. Wasn't going to buy it but at the last second pulled the trigger. After 30% off for employee appreciation day it came up to $102 CDN including tax.

Biggest Largemouth for me was a ~21" chunk. I never got a true measurement besides comparing it to the handle on my rod but I caught a 20" and a 19.5" more recently and this one dwarfed both of those. I estimate my PB to be between 5-6lbs. Caught while chugging a Booyah Pad Crasher Jr. along the surface (didn't know how to walk frogs properly at the time).

I can't even get in to put stuff into the cart...

Funny you should mention that. I recently had some good success with the cheap buzzbaits from Cabelas and some local cheap spinnerbaits. Having the spinnerbaits roll to one side was a pretty big issue especially with trailers but the bass didn't seem to mind....

Thanks everyone; it certainly has gone with more of a bang than I thought it would. Now please don't feel deceived, but I did manage to sneak out again today. Was not nearly as good as it was last week but I managed one good fish to the beach: I also had a bigger bass on which spit the spinnerbait halfway through the battle.

More spinnerbait action: The bass fishing has been hot but unfortunately due to time constraints I don't think I'll be able to squeeze out more than one or two more short trips. However, this year has been incredibly enlightening and I feel quite a bit more confident going into the 2016 season and this time I won't just be armed with a tacklebox full of frogs.

As anyone who has seen my posts probably can tell, I have been extremely into frog fishing after finding out how much fun it was last year. I literally could not put the frogs down, even on days when it would have been much smarter to use something else . Granted, I got skunked quite a few times but catching a few fish here and there always seemed to make up for. However, going into October this year I noticed the fish were still not actively taking frogs like they were a year before. It took until a couple weeks ago before I finally put the frog down long enough to really get my confidence up in a couple of other lures. I can't explain exactly why, but I just had that urge that told me it was time to make a change. The first lure I switched to was a cheap buzzbait from Cabelas that I forgot I had. On the first cast with it EVER, a small 1lber broke the surface and choked on it. I set the hook and was ecstatic to hook my first fish on a buzzbait. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be as a terrible knot job on the buzzbait came undone as I was lifting the fish over a branch that was in my way. Went home with a hard lesson learned, but the next day I was armed with another (cheap) buzzbait and a secure palomar knot. This time, I nailed my second largest fish of the year: ^ Neat story with this fish. It was getting dark and I wasn't having any luck with frogs or the buzzbait. Before I decided to leave I thought to myself, "maybe I'll give the shallows one more quick toss". Bam! It took me by surprise and when I got her head out of the water she spit the hook. I immediately put in another cast and she swirled on it again but missed. After a few more casts with no more hits I tried a frog to see if it wanted a slower presentation but proceeded to get no action. I was about to give up when I thought, "it went after the buzzbait twice and it's obviously still there, so maybe it will go after it one more time." On the very next cast, I landed her. The trip after I got a much smaller but still decent (for this lake) fish on the good ol' buzzer: The trips after that I had some more blow ups on the the buzzbait but they either spit before I set the hook or they missed completely. Then this past Sunday morning I got the smallest bass I've ever caught on a buzzbait: ^Never thought such a small fish would hit such a large lure. After fishing a bit more with no luck on the buzzbait, I figured they didn't really want to come to the surface and opted for a Cabela's brand spinnerbait and added a 4 inch twin tail grub trailer. This proved to be a great decision and it was the key to the majority of my success over the last couple of trips. On the first cast a respectable bass slammed it just before I ran the spinnerbait over a log: Then five minutes later, a bigger one gobbled it up: Then finished up Sunday's trip with a few more fish, these being the more respectable ones to come on the buzzbait and the spinnerbait respectively: With Sunday morning being so productive and having my confidence level in the spinnerbait and buzzbait soaring through the roof, I decided to hit the lake again Monday night. Sure enough both lures did not disappoint, and I landed the most decent fish ("decent" being the keyword) I've ever landed in one day. They wanted to demolish the spinnerbait: Third biggest of the year and fourth biggest ever. The buzzbait has a VERY good track record right now barring the tiny guy posted earlier.

First fish landed on a buzzbait and I'm a buzzbait believer now! 19 inches and second biggest for me this year.

Hey guys, I have absolutely no experience with ice fishing braid and was wondering if it is possible to cast with it? I can get some 50lb for pretty cheap that I am interested in loading up on my frogging rod but if they are not ideal for casting then I will give it a pass and stick with the lines I'm already familiar with. Thanks!

Right on! Ultralight gear can be amazingly fun, and a 15-16 incher on a UL is a total blast. I remember back in late February/early March I was down at the local lake searching for my first bass of the season and had three 15 inchers slam a size 1 in-line spinner on a 5 foot Daiwa ultralight rod. They felt like monsters on that setup. When fishing open water, I almost always try to use ultralight or light setups as especially around here the bass don't get all that big. It's only when the weeds start growing that I break out the heavy actions.

This is a question I'm trying to figure out too. The latest I've caught a frog fish is in the beginning of November, and the earliest beginning of March. A lot of the time though I'm wondering if I'm wasting my time spending so effort on the frog during the "off" season.

Haha, it depends where you're hitting on the coast. In my area most of the Chinooks average between 20-30lbs, but in some of the systems up north like the Skeena they can attain the 50+ range. We have had a lot this season though; one of my friends just came back from one of the local rivers and he had found a long pool that was completely black with Chinooks.

Hey Lucky Craft Man, you need to get over here to the West Coast. Lots and lots of Kings (or Springs, as we call 'em) running in the fall. This year has been especially good, although the Silvers aren't showing up in the numbers they are supposed to be. Beauty fish, and on the fly to boot!

If they are keeping within the daily quota and are actually eating it, I'm okay with that. What I'm NOT okay with is people keeping over their limit and just throwing everything they catch into a bucket. Here Bass are considered invasive and most people have a poor opinion of them and thus chuck in the bucket, in the bush etc. What most of them don't realize is that we DO have a limit of 4 Bass per day, so all the guys dumping the bass thinking they're fixing the "invasion" are actually just breaking the law. You know what really made me mad this year? A couple of months ago I heard of a couple guys keeping 70+ Pink Salmon in one day. The limit was 2 per person. Stuff like that makes me sick.

Nicely done. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with 3lbers. Heck, I'll take a 2 over being skunked any day.

I don't know for sure as I haven't taken any water temperatures but this year has been a little bit colder than last year. As for the rest of the year, it was decently consistent except for a cold streak I had in June. The only other things in the lake besides the bass are carp, rainbow/cutthroat trout, pumpkinseed, bullhead, and crayfish, so I'm assuming they're feeding on at least one of those right now?