punch

I Know I Should, But I Often Forget To... -Tell my wife an accurate time of when I'll be coming off the water. I'm never ever home when I say I will be. -Clean the guides on my rods. -Sharpen my hooks

I use mine mostly for temperature, finding baitfish, and finding oddball humps & structure. I've often found that my sonar helps me find places NOT to fish more-so than places TO fish. It keeps me from wasting time fishing dead areas.

I've put various trailers on spinnerbaits over the years and i'm not convinced they increase the bite at all. I get that it makes the bait look bigger and gives it more action.. but I've gotten plenty of bites with just a skirt. I've pretty much given up on plastic trailers and just go with a trailer hook 100% of the time. Trailer hooks absolutely increase your hookup rate, especially with PIke. Nothing worse than that monster pike hitting your spinner skirt and missing. I trailer hook all my good spinners now.

I was by myself on the boat so i couldn't get a better picture, but this guy weighed in at 5.7lbs. It was eating well & had a nice fat belly. Caught on a Twin Cities metro lake.

Everything this man says is truth. I jumped on the President bandwagon and never looked back. I still have a few other "inexpensive" spinning reels like Abu Orra S's but i'd swap them all out for a few Pfluegers given the opportunity.

I fish the same lake very often, so I know it inside and out. I can find the bass most days. If I see some new guys on the lake struggling to put fish in the boat and I know the presentation they are using is totally wrong I'll try and nicely put them on some fish (if given the opportunity). Last summer there were two young guys fishing spinners VERY shallow on a really warm day in a canoe (no electronics). They weren't catching anything but some sunburn, while I found some really nice fish deeper around some cover. They passed inside of me and i casually asked them how they were doing (knowing the answer) and I told them if they tied on some plastics and a bullet weight and came by me they may have some luck. I moved over off my spot and they switched it up their lures. I told them where to cast got to sit back and watch them catch 2 or 3 nice 3lb LMB. They were very excited and took a bunch of pictures of their new found fish. I'm glad i could help them enjoy their time on the water a litlte more and get some good facebook material. I'll never pass up the chance to help increase someone elses chances of hooking up, that's just as fun as catching them yourself sometimes.

I think you're gonna get a LOT of different answers to this question. I love me some Micro Magics though. Other solid recommendations you'll hear are Abu Garcia Veritas, *** ***, Cabelas Tournament ZX house rods, Tatula... the list is quite expansive. There seems to be quite a lot of great options for sub $200 these days.

Thanks for the ad! Doesn't seem like theres many deals outside the ZX Tourny rods. Really they are just trying to advertise that they are getting spring clothing and camping gear in.

They raised the prices on a bunch of sale stuff last night.

I thought the live pointers broke apart pretty easily. Probably a reason they are on sale.

What's the difference between the regular Tournament (non pro) and the MG Tournament? Lew's product line confuses me. MG has the bigger spool?

Good tip on painting the bullet weights, i've done that a time or two.

Amazon has Tatula's for 100 bucks (where I got my last one) and Cabela's has that Lews Tourny for 99... man that's a hard decision. Both kickass reels for $100. Only solution.. buy one of each!

The only thing that overwhelms me at Cabela's is the fear of not having enough money to buy everything I want. I feel lucky in that the Rodger, MN store has a HUGE fishing section and the staff there all fish quite a bit and give great advise and help. One of the workers there even guides in the summer. Plus my kids like going because of the fish tanks. I even like the Cabela's card. I get free stuff every year by racking up the "points" on all purchases. You can churn it and build up points pretty quickly.

Cabela's already had these on the shelf so of course picked up a couple. The finish on these lures is really nice for the price point. I'm quite impressed. They look beautiful.

I snagged the 7'1 M cranking rod in-store. Nice and flexy and the grip is cool. Can't wait to give this a whirl

All sorts of stuff going on sale lately.. you can tell we're getting close to ice out!

They always price match their online sales if you ask. They are usually marked properly though.

Dick's has a BOGO 50% off going on right now on all lure's, and they are doing pre-orders of the Shadow Rap under it. http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=59121346&ab=Banner_Fish_Rapala_Shadow_Raps Seems like a good deal.

I picked up one of these on sale, and signed up for the cabela's visa (finally) and got another 20 bucks off. Can't wait to try it out, I've heard nothing but good things about these reels.

They are 90ish bucks on Amazon now too! Then you don't have to deal with ebay sellers and you can return them. I got my most recent tatula for under 100 on amazon.

YES, it is in-store. You never have to worry about cabelas.com prices not being honored in the store, 100% of the time they do an adjustment right there if it's not marked right. The only exception is the rare time a sale item says "online only".

These rods are a steal for $30 when they are on sale. I tend to buy the lighter ones. I have two of them currently, one 6'6 ML spinning that I use for live bait fishing (slip bobbers, lindy) and a 6'6 M casting for topwater. I don't topwater that often, and I didn't want to spend a lot on a topwater rod.. so it's perfect. My 6'6 ML has gotten a lot of action. My best lmb last summer was a 5.7lb I caught using it with 8lb mono and a slip bobber + minnow. I have baitcasting setups that cost 4x more, yet my cheap president + cabela's tourny trail rod brought in my biggest fish this past season. Funny how that works.

I made a sweep of 4 Dick's in the Twin Cities and scooped up a ton of good stuff this week. The sale has been going awhile so the picking is getting slim, but I managed to score a lot. Picked up a bunch of frogs (KVD, scum), lots of senkos and zoom plastics, tons of DT's, tons of flicker shads, some hooks, rat-l-traps, hula poppers, some KVD tour pro spinners, a buncha jigs, and some lindy rigs. All 50% off clearance. No rods to be found.

I'm lucky enough to live within 25 minutes of 3 good fishing lakes. I have a small boat that's quick to hookup and launch, so I typically fish 2-3 times a week in the summer. Hit the water a few hours after work and then on the wekends. Luckly my oldest kid is getting old enough to go out with me for a couple hours here and there (5yo). I don't ice fish so I don't fish at all during the winter. i really need to get into ice fishing someday.