punch

Agree, it's totally ridiculous.

I went out tonight for like 2 hours. Was a little windy and cold and overcast, and I tossed just a #4 mepps (gold and brown) which is one of my go-to cold water lures on windy days and I got a lot of bites! Put 6 bass in the boat, one was a 4lb 4oz big boy.. and a nice 29" pike. Not bad to (possibly) end the year on. I brought a bunch of lures but really just felt like tossing the Mepps around since it was getting bit.

The two hot baits are Skinny Dippers in white or shiner, or 4" Keitech Easy Shiners in electric flash or smallmouth magic. Tossing everything on 1/4oz jig heads in either white/black/green pumpkin. Dragging them slow on the bottom over rocks. I use those Cabela's "mean eye" jigs because they are cheap and have good plastic keepers.

The smallmouth bite was awesome again today on Mille Lacs. My pops and I put about 16 fish in the boat during the day (plus two monster walleyes), mostly in 15-20 feet of water slowly fishing swimbaits over the rocks. Our average was 3lbs all day, we couldn't find any of the 4+ pounders but my buddy caught a few in his boat.. so somebody got them! I'll take a bunch of 3lb smallies all day, anyday. I'm so glad I got to spend a couple full days there this fall, the fishing there is just ridiculous. I tossed tubes, drop shot, lipless and spoons and didn't get bites. They sure liked the swimbaits though. Smaller the better.

They just came out recently so I'd say that the "long term durability" is still up in the air, BUT because they are part of the Tatula line I'd guess that they should hold up pretty well. The tatula series are known as solid affordable workhorses thus far, I doubt the CT will be much different. I picked up 2 of them for a hundo on flebay and I LOVE them. They are all the good things about the normal Tatula, just in a smaller package. I was considering getting more Lew's Tourny Pro G's but after running a few of these CT's that are $50 less.. I'm smitten. Might be buying more of these instead. They are buttery smooth. Kind of astonishing for about $100 shipped.

I got out for a few hours this morning. Man, finding the fish in the fall when all the lake's vegetation is dead is HARD. One of my local lakes has no alive milfoil or cabbage.. they did a final chemical treatment about a month ago and it's a barren wasteland. However, the lake holds a lot of bigger fish so I was bound and determined to find one. They gotta be somewhere, right? I started with shallow topwater up and down the banks... buzz bait, whopper plopper, popper. Nothing (k one small fish on a chug bug). Went a little deeper with drop shot. Nothing. Started tossing senkos around docks. Nothing. Tossed a chatterbait in every depth, even right up on the bank. Nothing. Tossed around a KVD 1.5 and DT4 in 3-8 feet where I was seeing fish on the electronics. A couple dinks, but nothing amazing. Then I rounded a point that has a really sandy, shallow flat that's in about 2-3 feet of water. I looked down with my sunglasses and saw some bait fish and a few big clouds of sand. Something big got outta my way in a hurry. I hunkered down in the middle of the flat and started tossing a bluegill T1 spinner with a paddle trailer and BOOM.. like 4 fish. They were everyhwere. Size was there too, all around 2lbs. I look down at my clock and realize I have to be off the water in 10 minutes. Figures! Just when you find a pattern it's time to go. I make a couple final casts, including over some visibly dead milfoil in about 3-4 feet then BANG.. 5lb 2oz fish smokes it. What's funny is I slammed the same spot earlier with a buzz bait and whopper plopper, and had no bites. The fish were there, they just wanted a spinner bait apparently. Moral of the story is get up shallow this time of year and use your eyeballs. They definitely wanted to chase something, I just wasn't keying in on the right depth/bottom. Shalllow + sand + spinnerbait saved the day.

Cross post from the MN Fishing reports thread.. So, me and a friend took yesterday off and took advantage of a glass-calm day on Mille Lacs. Holy crap! The hype is real. The fishing was just ridiculous. We hit about 5 different rock piles around the lake in 15-25 feet of water and fished 3" & 4" swimbaits on round jig heads (1/4oz). We would cast out, let the baits hit the bottom then slow roll them back in. The smallies and walleye were going nuts for this. We got bites on little dippers and kitechs all day. We tossed drop shots and jigs and didn't get a single bite (seriously). My buddy got one 5lber on a tube, but other than that the swimbait-on-the-bottom tatic was the winner. We caught about 14 smallies and the average weight was over 4lbs. Our "small ones" were 2lbs. We also caught about a dozen walleye, with two big ones over 23". The bite is just bananas on that lake. We got a couple 5's but most were 4's. I would say that having side-scan was required for finding spots. Marking groupings of rocks, or bigger boulders was key. If we drifted off the rocks the bite would die off.. when we got on the sweet spots, boom. Having side scan with deep water rock fishing is just essential. We could drive around a spot and look for the best looking rock groupings, mark em, then slow down and work them. Most of our day was watching the side scan, "there's more rocks on the right.." "ok some big rocks on the left".. "we're off the rocks". My new PB, 4lb 12oz

So, me and a friend took yesterday off and took advantage of a glass-calm day on Mille Lacs. Holy crap! The hype is real. The fishing was just ridiculous. We hit about 5 different rock piles around the lake in 15-25 feet of water and fished 3" & 4" swimbaits on round jig heads (1/4oz). We would cast out, let the baits hit the bottom then slow roll them back in. The smallies and walleye were going nuts for this. We got bites on little dippers and kitechs all day. We tossed drop shots and jigs and didn't get a single bite (seriously). My buddy got one 5lber on a tube, but other than that the swimbait-on-the-bottom tatic was the winner. We caught about 14 smallies and the average weight was over 4lbs. Our "small ones" were 2lbs. We also caught about a dozen walleye, with two big ones over 23". The bite is just bananas on that lake. We got a couple 5's but most were 4's. I would say that having side-scan was required for finding spots. Marking groupings of rocks, or bigger boulders was key. If we drifted off the rocks the bite would die off.. when we got on the sweet spots, boom. Having side scan with deep water rock fishing is just essential. We could drive around a spot and look for the best looking rock groupings, mark em, then slow down and work them. Most of our day was watching the side scan, "there's more rocks on the right.." "ok some big rocks on the left".. "we're off the rocks". My new PB, 4lb 12oz

You're best bet is going to be on a river for catching a smallie from the bank.

Was on Lake George actually. The fall bite has been pretty good there!

I went out last Friday in the nasty wind and had a heck of a night. Went to a few of my marked out weedlines and tossed crankbaits and chatterbaits and the fish were going nuts. I was the only boat on the water and keeping boat position was a huge PITA, but it was worth it. Caught easily over 25 fish in a few hours in like 5-12 feet of water on moving baits. Caught a 29" pike as a bonus. I also found a few pieces of structure that was holding crappie schools, so I tossed a marker buoy and fished a dropshot + gulp minnow and caught a dozen of them. That was really fun. Kept a few and had a fish fry last night with the wife/kids. Funny thing is I went out Sunday morning on the same lake, and it was dead calm and sunny and I fished the exact same spots with the same baits and got WAY less bites.

Cabelas has some right hand 7.3.1 C-ncept C reels on sale for 175.. plus 10% off and free shipping on orders over $99. Not a bad deal. http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1910383&categoryId=0&parentCategoryId=0&subCategoryId=0&indexId=0&productVariantId=4000781&quantity=1&itemGUID=b575febaac10845315d709b166124c24&destination=%2Fcheckout%2Fitem_added_to_cart.jsp%3Fresult%3Dsuccess%26categoryIds%3D105591780%7C105740280%7C105742980%26productId%3D1910383%26backToPreviousUrl%3D%2Fcatalog%2Fproduct.jsp%3FproductId%3D1910383%26WTz_l%3DChart

I don't think we'll see much change from either company honestly. Usually when these acquisitions occur things change organizationally and and on the back end for employees, but on the store level things don't change. At least not for a long time. BPS knows not to rock the boat because of the FUD that happens after these big mergers. They know Cabela's customers will be on edge and it wouldn't be in their best interest to make any noticeable changes. Pretty sure things will continue at standard operating procedure at both stores. Maybe they will join the two credit card/points programs into one? Seems like a no brainer. No.

Nice job Tlauz! I got out a couple times this weekend.. crainkbaits, crankbaits and more crankbaits. Caught numbers in 5-10 feet over vegetation. My DT4 and KVD 1.5 got a work out. I didn't need to slow down and toss plastics because they were smashing the cranks. Fall bite is kicking in.

Yes! I use a 2/0 Owner wacky hook and they are great. I was skipping docks with them this weekend with a wacky 5" senko and the hookup ratio was great.

I have a tournament pro G and it's AWESOME. I've had the previous two versions of the tournament pro, and the G is quite an improvement over what was already a fantastic reel. The clicker for the centrifugal brake is great, it looks like a magnetic brake but gives you lots of degrees of adjustment vs just a pin system. The newer/bigger handle is rad as well. I'm smitten with the Pro G, i'll be buying more this winter.

That's a hog! Nice job, what kind of frogs do you like? I was out for a brief stint the other night and caught 4 fish.. 2 on a frog, 1 on a bluegill spinnerbait with a kaitech trailer, and 1 on a splitshot rig dragging around a zoom lizard. Bites were few and far between. The water temp needs to drop already.. it actually went UP. Last weekend my local lake in the north metro was 70, then I go out Wednesday night and it was 73. Not cool.

Cabelas has their tourny ZX crankshaft rods on sale right now + 20% off cabelas brand merch WITH free shipping ($50 minimum purchase). So you can get any of the 3 sizes for $55.99 shipped. That's crazy cheap for a deep cranking rod. http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1933023&categoryId=0&parentCategoryId=0&subCategoryId=0&indexId=0&itemGUID=2e6a9a07ac108456042b2c8a0628f016 code: 16savings

Were they in the bargain bin? or off the shelf?

Weight! Bass fisherman should always talk in terms of weight, IMHO. As bass fisherman in Minnesota we are in the minority due to all the Walleye anglers, they go only by length. When they catch a bass they NEVER weigh it (most of them don't carry a scale) It's funny when you casually talk fishing at the dock with someone in Minnesota you can immediately tell if they are a "Walleye guy" or a bass guy simply by how they describe their catches.

I got out for a couple hours this morning before work. Water is was around 70 and I was expecting a good topwater bite.. but nope. Nothing. The wind started to pick up so I tied on a big kaitech swimbait with a 4ot weighted hook and I got some nice bites. Caught a nice 3.6lber and a few 2's. Only was out for about 2 hours.

Ebay has a $10 off $50 flash sale code right now.. expires at 7pm PT: C10FALLFLASH works on everything

FYI - if you got a boat and are free on Sept 18th, you could guide on the 1st ever "Take A Veteran Fishing" event on 'Tonka. http://takeavetfishing.org/events/event_details/?event=327 I might sign up, even though I don't know the lake that well. Might be a fun excuse to hang out with a vet and get out on the water. Anyone doing this??

A frog I've not seen mentioned is the River2sea BullyWa. I've been using some of the original version and man does it walk nice. The downside is it does fill up with water a bit fast, but it walks beautifully. There is a new version that's bigger with monster 6/0 hooks that I havn't had a chance to try out yet. Other than the river2sea, Spro and Padcrashers are my go-to's.

I went out on Lake George in the drizzle/rain this morning (with the rods I have left) and found a good bite in 8ish feet of water off points & drop offs with spinnerbaits and a few on a 4.8" swimbait. Got a few on a DT4 as well. The bite was pretty active, they seemed to really like my gold war eagle spinnerbait. I LOVE tossing spinnerbaits in the rain, the fish can't say no. There was NO bite up shallow, which seems to be the common theme lately. Few dinks but the bigger fish are off the bank. Once the weather starts cooling the big boys will be back shallow. Water's still pretty warm.