blckshirt98

I like the Damiki Air Craws because of the hollow floating claws. If you want to get fancy you can even stuff the hollow claws with alka seltzer to get some light bubbles.

At that price he should have wiped them out!

One thing you should strongly consider is spooling your spinning outfit with 15 pound braid, and then tying on a fluorocarbon leader as needed. Pretty much everything can be fished on either straight braid or a braid/leader combo, and the braid will last for years.

Not sure about weather patterns/fishing out in Cleveland but with colder months approaching you might have some frustrating outings if targeting largemouth (I don't have any smallmouth where I'm at so don't know their winter habits). If you're just starting out I'd go with either a wacky senko or a dropshot. Wacky senko would be for it's pure simplicity, you just tie on a hook with a palomar knot, hook your senko in the middle, and let it fall. Dropshotting will require an extra knot and weights, but well worth learning to rig.

Coves can be one of the most productive spots! Spawning shouldn't be a factor this time of the year. Is it a cove where there's a creek feeding water into the lake? Also the wind/current may have pushed the plankton and baitfish into that particular cove and the bass followed them to feed.

The kut tails for dropshotting are the most common Yamamotos I use. I also like the pro senkos (laminated colors) for dropshotting or on a shakey head. The thin senkos are like a cross between a senko and pro senko, and can be rigged like any worm. I did get a ton of single/double tail grubs from Overstock when they had them for dirt cheap, but the plastic/action on some of the colors seem stiff, especially compared to other plastics.

Anything green with some gold flake is #1 by a long shot, followed by morning dawn or a dark purple (a couple of reservoirs I fish seem to have a strong preference for one or the other), and lastly is something clear or clear laminate with flake of some sort.

Northern California - December/January when it dips to the 20's at night. Everything is closed to boating and from shore everything just seems to be dead as a post, might as well be casting into a swimming pool. I pack up the bass gear and fish a couple of reservoirs that get weekly plants of trout until springtime rolls around.

I like to break it out into a 2 x 3 grid - you have 2 types of presentation (finesse/power) and 3 depths (topwater/bottom/water column in between). I think any lure can be categorized into one or more(depending on how you fish it) of the following, and I've included some examples - Topwater Finesse - Slow retrieved rat/frog, slowwwww worked popper. Topwater Power - Whopper Plopper, Spook, Buzzbait Bottom Finesse - Jig, Shakeyhead, Carolina Rig, Texas Rig Bottom Power - Deep diving crankbait digging into the bottom Mid Finesse - slow sinking swimbait, suspending jerkbait, Ned rig Mid Power - spinnerbait, bladed jig, crankbait Try to get confident with 1-2 techniques that cover each combination so you have a technique for any depth, with a power and finesse option, so once you find the fish you'll have something in the toolbox to go after them.

Try posting on sdfish.com/forums it's a pretty active site for all things fishing around San Diego.

Not sure if you have a budget but you can always get a custom pourer to make you whatever you want. I've used Paul Krew in the past and he's been great with any requests for color/flake combinations (the Blood Line Minnow was one of my custom requests ). He just got his website up (paulkrew.com) with some pre-poured standard colors but also with an option for custom, which costs the same, and just requires some lead time for him to pour.

Hmmmm, that pontoon has a platform already built for a battery and a trolling motor mount...good price too. Been looking at kayaks but those are a pain to transport, but this will fit into the back of the Forrester.

Good to see you still going out, tough luck on the bite though! Canoes are the dodgiest water vessels I've ever been in, they should all have optional outriggers that you can attach!

Size 1000 or 2500 Shimano will work just fine, which one would depend more on the rod you'll be putting it on. Do you have your rod specs?

Google "Florida rig weights", that Paycheck Head Case looks like a plastic/non-weighted version of the Florida Rig screw-in weights. Looks like some places carry some versions by Bullet Weights and Gambler.

Grats! Let the addiction begin!

Hardest step was making the decision to actually drive out to a lake with a rod and reel in hand and try to catch a fish when I had absolutely no clue what I was doing and was positive I wouldn't catch anything. I picked up fishing again after taking almost 25 years off and even then it was surf fishing with a Carolina rig. So that was the ONLY rig I knew how to tie, so I set up a Carolina rig on my lone Shimano Voltaeus spinning rod, rigged up a plastic (forget which plastic it was), and just started casting. Didn't know where bass were, didn't know how they behaved that time of the year, didn't know what a bite would feel like, didn't know how to work the lure, Felt foolish and I was afraid I'd run into other bass fisherman that might ask "any luck" or would look at my carolina rig and think "this guy isn't gonna catch anything with that set up". Got skunked the first few outings but nothing helped more than spending time on the water. I observed where and other people were fishing (points, coves, dusk, dawn), tried to see what kind of a setup they were using and asked the proverbial "Catch anything? What you catch them on?" knowing it would probably annoy them. I looked in the water and looked for any signs of activity (bass cruising the shallows, bait boils, trying to figure out the difference between a bass jumping out of the water versus a carp). Every outing took me one step closer to learning how bass behave and every cast gave me a better picture of the lake i was fishing (rocky bottom here, muddy here, sandy here, deep channel, big dropoff to deep water, some piece of cover in the water I'd get snagged on repeatedly). I branched out to a Texas rig because it was so similar to a Carolina rig. Read up online and learned the wacky rig because of it's simplicity. Fished these three techniques for months but then one day I tried a dropshot and my fishing life changed completely. Since then i've caught probably 90% of my fish on a dropshot, and the bites I were getting made it much easier to see how bass behaved. Started to branch out into crankbaits, and started to mix in new techniques when I can (topwaters, chatterbaits, jigs, etc) but it's been hard to not switch back to a dropshot because it always will get bit when nothing else will. If I had to do it over again I'd do the following (100% shore guy) - 1) Buy a spinning outfit for finesse presenations that will also handle lighter sqauarebills. 2) Fish a dropshot and squarebills and cover as much water as possible. 3) Fish every point, every cove, every piece of structure or cover I can find. 4) Fish at dusk and dawn. 5) Don't buy so much tackle (brands/sizes/colors/types) where selecting tackle/setups can overwhelm the actual fishing aspect of fishing. Anyone can buy hundreds of rods/reels/tackle, but only the stuff being thrown in the water are catching anything, and at any given time that's limited to one rod/one reel/one bait.

Every plastic sold in retail stores will have it's supporters if you ask enough people. Baits sell because they catch fish, and baits that don't sell don't last on the retail shelves. Unless you're sponsored by a bait company or have a vested interest in a bait company (it's run by a buddy of yours, you're trying to get them sponsor you, etc), just use what gives you the most confidence because they all catch fish. Your confidence can come from the action of the bait, the shape, the size, the color, the durability, the scent, the softness, the texture, lots of different factors play in and I've bought one pack of almost everything out there. There's always a few brands/models I always go back to over and over that have evolved into my "confidence" baits...just find the ones that give you confidence.

Shimano Convergence CVS60M2B - 6'0" 2-Piece Medium Fast, $60 MSRP

That custom crappie color looks nice! Where can I get one!

If you want to have some real fun catching fish on a dropshot check out the Phenix FX802-1X (telescoping, it's listed as and "Elixir-Popping" on their site). It's an UL trout rod but works great as a dropshot rod (landed a 7+ lber on one last year). It's 8' and will throw your jigs nicely as well. In general though I'd look for a M/XF or ML/XF rod for a dedicated dropshot rod..

Someone took some underwater footage of San Vicente - http://sdfish.com/freshwater/san-vicente-underwater-video/ That size of that school in that last shot...hoooooly cow.

A local retired pro said the only color jigs he uses are brown/purple and black/blue, and he can use those to catch fish in any body of water in the country, 365 days a year.

Out here in Cali I keep spots on the hush hush only because there are so many people that have no respect for fishing as a sport nor any regard for the environment. If anyone posts up pictures with a location of where there's a hot bite on a local forum, the next week that spot will be covered in trash, and fish nowhere to be seen. It's gotten to a point where nobody posts reports anymore. If the majority of people on forums knew proper catch and release/take methods, and, cleaned up their trash, I'd be more willing to share. As it is almost every reservoir I go to is littered with shards of glass from broken bottles, and, plastic food and tackle packaging. I heard some guy talking about how he would catch his limit of bass, put them in the a cooler in his car, then come back and catch another limit. There are people out here that have no regard for conservation and if they could catch 200 fish to keep, they would catch 200 fish to keep.

No Cabela's anywhere near where I live, I just hope BPS leaves the Cabela's online sale structure the same - Cabela's Bargain Bin usually has a huge selection of items, while BPS is usually just one page of BPS branded items.