the reel ess

First time I ever used a Spook, I caught 5 fat bass on 5 casts, then the 6th broke me off. I didn't take the time to retie. I didn't have another so I tied on a Pop R and managed one more bite. There is something about that action when they key in on it. Then...nothing for years. Now, in just the past week, I've caught 2 over 5# on a Chug'n Spook Jr in frog pattern. It's my new favorite lure. I still have 2 big ones and 2 juniors. I may go oiut one evening just before dark with all 4 tied on. If there's a better lure of this type I don't know of it. I know the Sammy was big a few years ago, but at $17 most people stuck with Spook. Everybody else is just a "me too" IMO.

Booyah rules! If you need one smaller than the Junior size, you need a new fishin' hole. If they are grabbing the legs, trim them a bit.

Does your Pocket Frog work well? I have one of the small ones and a med sized. I've only used the medium. It sucks. It fills with water by the third twitch. I complained on their YouTube video and they suggested I Superglue it at the nose and that plastic button on the belly. How long could that work? You shouldn't have to tune an $8 frog when there are cheaper ones that work better.

Gama 4/0 EWG period. Best hook ever made. Equally as important are your line and your rod. But I can still cross their eyes with heavy mono using this hook. I hooked a pig through tissue so hard the other night it took me probably 5 min to get it out. I cut the line and pushed it thru the jaw. I had that thing hooked 6 ways to Sunday on a single hook. I kept having to dip the fish in the water to get it some oxygen.

If the bluegill are eating bass eggs during the spawn, they're taking the whole slot limit to the extreme. They're lowering the number of bass before they are even hatched. Fewer bass means bigger bass.

My best pond (has monsters in it) has people taking fish from it. Some of us won't keep the big'uns, but some will. Sometimes I keep dinks up to 3#. My buddy keeps a lot of them. What causes them to grow big is probably a combination of people taking fish and better than adequate water quality and abundant baitfish. Rest assured most of the fish taken by the aforementioned latinos are probably not trophies. I have this discussion all the time with a friend. He says a fish hatchery employee told him you can't "fish out" a pond. He thinks if you want to have more big fish you have to make room for them by taking some. I say just the opposite. Take the dinks, and leave the big ones. When you take one, that's one less you have. And they don't grow over 5# as a rule. Ponds don't need more dinks, they need more monsters. So I tell him a 5# bass has a lot better chance of being a 6, 7 or 8# bass than a 1# bass has. Most 1# bass won't be trophy size even if left alone.

Yes, that's how you do it. I ALWAYS use a trailer for buzzbaits and spinnerbaits. Can't tell you how many times I've caught one on the trailer that I probably would not have known was even there. This late winter I lost a very good fish on a SB and didn't have a trailer. It was the only bite I got that day. I can't be sure it would have caught the fish, but it certainly would have given me a lot better odds. I kicked myself and went home and put one on every BB & SB I own.

"It's OK to eat fish cuz they don't have any feelings" Nirvana On the other hand..."It's OK to C&R fish cuz they don't have any feelings." Me

Bamabass on Youtube says he uses straight braid except where he knows there are trophy fish, then he uses straight heavy mono because he thinks the big fish shy away from braid. I don't see a reason to add one more knot and weaker line than you already have on your reel. That said, I had a leader of 15# Big Game on for T-rigs and a main line of 50# braid recently and got hung up. I straightened out a Gamakatsu EWG hook.

Do they float? I have a habit of losing good pliers off my kayak. I need a lanyard with a float to hold every tool I carry. That way I either carry them all or forget them all.

I tell them if they want it, catch it their @#$% self. Don't ask me for a trophy you didn't earn. I can't even understand wanting that. Now maybe if I had a cooler full of bluegill, but not just one.

The thing to me that makes fishing so much better than hunting is that you can "score" at fishing without killing the prey. In fact, you and others can score repeatedly with the same prey in different ways. You can't do that in hunting.

Good video. It looks like you have the bullet weight pegged. Do you recommend that normally for T-rig or is it mostly for pitching presentation? I have lately come to appreciate the tungsten weight and a glass bead before the knot.

YES! I get that from my kayak buddy. He used to get so angry at me that he couldn't just "let it go", pun intended. But he recently caught his PB while fishing with me and he wanted to release it even though I had a stringer! I think he's got the fever. There's a mentality out there that if you didn't eat it, you didn't catch it. My wife told me to stop bringing them home, she's sick of fish.

Yeah, agree with the two previous statements. But I know regulations are not set up to discourage people from taking trophies out of bodies of water, thus increasing overall average size. They are set up to provide the most people with the most bites possible, be they small, medium or large fish. However, if I catch a 10 lb'er, I don't know how I'm going to react. Catching 5-6 lb'ers is becoming normal to me at one the places I fish a lot. So, of course, I'm looking for the real trophies of the reservoir because it's not a big deal anymore to get a 5 lb'er. I just need to get a good scale and a GoPro so I have a permanent memory of it. I've been fishing this place for almost 3 years and it just keeps getting better and better. And I credit keeping the dinks and mid-size fish and leaving everything over 3-4 lbs. AND LOTS OF AVAILABLE FORAGE OF DIFFERENT KINDS. Probably the biggest factor. Shad, gold shiners, sunfish, craws, frogs, etc. Anyway, I just want to protect the fishery-it's private, so there are no limits.

This time of year: Chug Bug or Chug'n Spook, Jr. Frog T-rigged Zoom Speed Craw

I'm on my second pair of Calcutta Steelhead amber. $22. I can buy them 4 times and still come out ahead.

If you're missing only two you should be OK. I only use 2 after getting used to my reels. I start with 3, then practice.

I went to BPS at Myrtle Beach and asked for whatever trout, redfish and flounder will bite. They walked me over to the Johnson Silver Minnow in gold and then to the Gulp mullet. I caught two flounder on the spook with the mullet grub as a trailer.

Let's not be elitist. The smaller the body of water, the more important it is to keep some small ones. But I was NOT about to give the three jon boat guys a 5 pounder they didn't even catch..

ding_ding!!! I went last night to a reservoir that not many people have access to. I was in the kayak as I usually am. There were three bucket brigadiers in a jon boat keeping any and everything. I caught a bass well over 5# (no scale, no camera) on a topwater in plain sight of them. I unhooked it and admired it a few seconds. I heard one of them say "You don't want that fish?" I ignored him and let them see me let it swim away. It makes me feel so good to watch a big fish swim away.

Drag a C-Rig around until you get the feel for the bottom contours. And of course, you'll catch some fish in the process, which will tell you a lot about where you need to concentrate your efforts.

Sometimes I'll take a bait that's been on the rod a while and put it in a bag of new baits to get that anise scent back on it. Zoom Trick worms don't have an oil on them, but they taste like salt. I know this because once the first half inch of the worm gets damaged, I'll bite it off (and spit out) and re-thread what's left of the worm back on the hook. I think that salt impregnation is more effective at getting the fish to hold it. They sure don't seem to ever spit it out. BTW, I think the worm actually has a better action after you bite that little bit off.

I love the Chug Bug. If you don't already have one, get a Chug'n Spook or a JR. Depending on how you work it, it can be a Chug Bug or a Spook. I like to just give it short rips. It'll chug and walk. I'm trying hard to make my 2 best lures a frog and another frog.

Pad crashers are awesome. They work great right out of the box. First time I used one fish were all over it. I got the best fish of the night right after it hit the water.