E. Guido Soda

Sorry to hear all that. I guess you wouldn't like them in real life either, 'cause it's no on-air act. They are just goofy, nice guys. I wish them all the luck in the world.

What's wrong with Miles and Joey? I've fished with Joey several times now, and there isn't a nicer guy out there. He is very well liked and respected on his home lake of Logan Martin. Really young, intelligent way beyond his 24 years, a solid family man w/ a wife and two young boys - a rarity at 24 these days...oh, and highly motivated. I can understand that the show skews young, I get that because the future of the sport is not 30, 40, or 50+ year olds - it's kids, but I gotta say having fished with Joey and talked with Miles a couple of times on the phone, they are genuinely good "kids". They're by far not the best anglers out there, but they're good guys and the show is well produced and fairly informative, IMO. Bill Dance is a pioneer, but I get tired of watching him catch six-pounders on private stocked ponds all day! Nothing wrong with that, it's just not my cup of tea. PS - interesting fact: Miles "Sonar" Burghoff is Gary Burghoff's son.....AKA Walter "Radar" O'Reilly from the screen and TV versions of M*A*S*H...so there's that.

Great thread. 2015 was an _excellent_ year of fishing for me, I would give it an 8.5 / 10 lbs! I fished a ton when I was a kid and some in high school and college, but put the sticks down for many years with the exception of very occasional outings...very occasional. Before 2014, the last time I fished was in the Mississippi Delta in 2011, probably. So I bought a kayak in the middle of '14 and started over, in essence. All new equipment, all new tackle, all new approach. I basically had to learn how to fish again, and '14 was more or less fumbling around learning the basics all over again...including how to throw a baitcaster. I caught one nice LMB in '14, 18" / 3.5 lb or so, mostly out of luck and some others out of sheer time on the water - right place, right time. In 2015, I caught fish more through applied principles than spray-and-pray(prey?) luck and cast volume. There is always an element of luck, but in '15 I learned how to mitigate that factor slightly more. So '14 was training wheel time, but cut to the late winter / early spring of '15, I found a highly reliable creek channel and wore some spots out - personal bests were pretty much every one I caught, each one bigger than the other, culminating in a nearly five lb. spot. In the summer, all I was catching were dinky little spots, so I did some pond fishing and landed a 7.8 lb LMB; by far my PB. Fall fishing was pretty slow for me, nothing great to report there. Early winter fishing was decent, but on Chirstmas and a couple of days later, we had torrential, and I do mean torrential rainfall coupled with record high temperatures. So the baitfish were flowing in like crazy to my creek channel honey hole, and it was pretty much a catch on every cast; pulled a 20" / ~5 lb LMB out, and a bunch of 15" - 18" ones. Then on NYE, I went out and hit the channel. The flow had slowed significantly as did the bite, but I did catch a couple. On a proclaimed last cast (of 2015), I caught a 24" / ~8lb beast on a shakey head (3/8 oz Picasso Shak-E-Football) and black Zoom Trick Worm - by far a PB. A couple of the other oddities / surprises / highlights were: - catching an 11 lb saltwater striper in a spring fed impoundment - dunking a rod in April only to "catch it" on a spinner bait in December - my son catching a 2lb LMB and a 3lb channel cat from his kayak + a 1.5lb pond bream (profile pic) - I hesitate to call catching chain pickerel a highlight, but there were those, too - catching a ton of fish on a range of crankbaits, which was a goal of mine - numerous 4+ lb fish As good as it was, I consider 2015 a learning year for me. If I can build on this year and make it even marginally better, 2016 will be fantastic. In 2016, my number one goal is to catch a SMB - we don't get them this far down, so I'll have to do a little travel...but that's goal numero uno. EGS

Birmingham. You on the panhandle? Love me some Seagrove....

Another picture....

Around here we call LMB's "heads", as well. I agree - I think it's a spot. Either way, helluva way to kick off 2016 on the water!

I realize 24" is ridiculous for an Alabama spot, but everything points to spot, length notwithstanding: - rough patch / teeth on tongue - short jaw line - continuous dorsal fins - fought on the bottom the entire time i don't know, maybe it's a head. What say you, and why??

Makes sense; my Yumbrella could probably use one; tied direct to the jig head, it rotates all over the place...

Got a BD Costaic 6" shad swimbait; it has a split ring on the eye of the lure.....tie to the split ring or the bait itself? Why / why not? Advantages / disadvantages? Intuitively I'd like to tie direct to the bait with my 20lb PLine CXX. Thx and Merry Xmas to all! -EGS

Looking for some input on the TFO GTS C736-1 (casting) rod. Heavy power, 7'3" for umbrellas and lighter swimbaits. Have the option to purchase a six month old one for $75. Thoughts? Thx, EGS

Should have mentioned that I am fishing almost exclusively for LMB and spots; SMB's don't make it down this far. Thanks for all the input....

What's the best all-around size? I'm not going to invest in more than one, so I would like the ideal size for the 8+ lb lunkers, but also one that the 3+ will attack...

I have a 7'6" MH Duckett Micro Magic I could use; reel is a RevoSX Gen3 I could string up with 20lb mono. What knot are you using with your larger swim baits? 90% of the time I am using a palomar w/ mono...

What set up are you using for your bull shad fishing (or other large, expensive swimbaits)? Any less expensive alternatives to the bull shad that are equally effective? I have long resisted the idea of spending $50 on a lure, but the results are clearly undeniable...

Can't believe I had to scroll that far down before I saw the old Twitch Stick! By far my favorite, followed by the H2O Xpress. As for favorite color, I caught an 11 lb striper the other day on the 4" pearl shad one. I have had lots of luck on the bluegill one, as well. Not so much withthe blue chrome / orange one, for some reason. As for the H2O Xpress jerkbaits, I don't see the colors I have listed anymore - but they are basically green shad (Tennessee shad?) and sexy shad. But they have great action and suspend well in the water column. I am trying ou the Rapala X-Rap, but I don't like the action on it as much and haven't caught anything on it yet...

Beautiful catches - looks like a blast! Not to beat a dead fish here, but I would have to hear some pretty convincing talk as to how it is more likely that they are swimming 90 miles upstream in a river that in many, many places is less than ankle deep (not to mention scaling multiple spillways) than some locals are dumping them in for sport. The dam at the impoundment itself has a 40' - 50' spillway and about five miles from that dam is another dam / spillway that is probably 25' 30'. I don't think there are any other dams along the way, but for them to get over the two I mentioned just doesn't seem possible. Don't get me wrong, I realize that they can, and do, travel great distances in shallow waterways, but in this instance I just don't see how it's possible to get into that impoundment naturally. But as you say, anything is possible!

Pictures, please!

The "lake" flows northeast to southwest. It is an impoundment of a tributary to the east that is not connected to any larger body of water in any way, and is extremely shallow - it is more or less a mid-sized creek when it isn't raining. The river it ultimately empties out into _does_ terminate in the Alabama River, some 90 miles to the south. There is no way they are in the headwaters, but I suppose if they could traverse 90 miles of water that is extremely shallow in most locations, and scale a 50' spillway, it is possible - but highly doubtful. Again, the most logical conclusion is that locals fishing bigger waters are catching them and transporting them here for sport. There are plenty of options for striper fishing within an hour or less from here...

YW - that was my first one to ever catch; as long as they don't decimate the native population, I hope whoever is putting them in there keeps up the good work! It was a hell of a fight.

The main lake does get to about 45' - 55' at full pool, but I caught this one in the headwater main channnel which is currently running at about 6' - 8' due to the lack of rain this fall. I suspect they could survive in there, but I doubt seriously that they can propagate.

It isn't landlocked, it's fed by a small river, or more accurately, a medium-sized creek that at most times flows very slowly. And the dam is a one-way only; there is no way anything comes over it - but they are not native to these waters anyway. I'm guessing this is an anomaly and that people are putting them in there, as I've fished there 100 times and this is the only one I've ever caught...only a week after seeing a bunch of dead ones at the launch. As far as eating them goes, I generally don't eat anything from the public waters of Alabama!

So I was in a local impoundment fed by a faily shallow, slow moving "river" last week in my kayak; I have fished there hundreds of times and have caught the following species: - LMB - PB 6.5 lbs - spots - PB 5.5 lbs - yellow bass (non-native) - crappie - bream - chain pickerel - blue / channel cats As we were leaving at dusk, I threw one last cast off of a generally productive point with a white 4" Storm Twitch Stick, and on the first jerk I felt a freight train hit and I was at the mercy of whatever was on the other end of the line; I knew it wasn't a largemouth, was pretty sure it wasn't a monster spot, and it was moving *way* too fast to be a big cat. So I held on, let out some line, and let it take me for a ride. The water was pretty shallow, around 6' max, and after a couple of minutes it came up - it was an 11 lb. saltwater striper - no, it was *not* a hybrid. I wouldn't have been more surprised if I woke up with my head sewed to the carpet, to quote Clark Griswold. It was ~ 27" - 30", I didn't measure it. The pics are a little blurry, but you get the idea. Walking the story back a bit, last year I was launching into the same place and my son noticed two monster striper laid out, dead, in the brush near the launch - they were probably around 30" - 35" in length. I thought it very odd, but stuff happens. Cut to a month ago, and I saw the same thing again; but this time there were five of them...not quite as large as last year, but still pretty good sized striper. This time I started thinking that someone or someones was catching them in one of the larger impoundments, the Coosa or the Tallapoosa River chains come to mind, transporting them to this spot, and letting them go...dumping out the ones that don't survive the trip in the live well. After I caught one in the lake, it pretty much confirmed my suspicion. But the larger questions is this - how will introducing these fish into a non-native body of water affect the lake ecosystem? I know they can't propagate, as the river that supplies the water does not provide the flow the eggs need to survive and hatch. If I catch another one, should I throw it up on the bank, in the best interest of the other native species, or should I just let it go and hope to catch it again? The reservoir is a little over 1000 acres, FYI... Thanks, EGS PS - caught it on a MH 13Omen Black, 12 lb. Seaguar fluoro, Storm Twitch Stick - 4" white, BPS Pro Qualifier 7.1...

Since 90% of my fishing is done from a kayak or a canoe, I didn't need, or want, another 7' + rod. And unfortunately they only offer this rod in a 7'2" MH fast or a 6'8" M moderate fast, so I went with the medium - I hope it has enough backbone. The "press the tip on the floor test" revealed that it seems to be a _relatively_ firm medium, and the equally unscientific bow test seemed right in line with a medium fast action bend. Paired it up with a Daiwa Exceler 2500, 50lb braid + 17lb fluoro leader and a 3/8oz shakey head. I'm gonna give it a spin (no pun intended) on a couple outings this weekend. Thanks again for the feedback. -EGS

I have two 7.1:1 PQ's and a 6.4:1 Johnny Morris Signature reel - love all of them. I would imagine they will go on sale next week on Black Friday for $49 or $59, which would make them one of the best deals going for an already reasonably priced reel at $99.

Thanks for the input - I think I will give the Nano a try. -EGS