John M.

Yes I've caught smallmouth and largemouth on my pink crank. But I mainly use it for big summer time crappie.

When I'm a coangler on someone's else's boat I use the Cabelas Magnum advanced tackle bag. Holds 8 3700 and 4 3600 series boxes with lots of extra storage. I keep it mostly stocked and just take what I need out of the boat for the specific conditions. When I'm bank walking I use a cheap satchel style bag from Bass pro that holds two 3700s.

Replenished some of my stock. Amazing how I can walk into bass pro just to kill an hour before work and walk out with a much lighter wallet...every d**n time.

Have a spot in Iowa that for all last year I stopped to fish at when I was passing through town. It was a private decorative pond for a hotel. Never saw anyone fishing it as it was posted with no fishing signs everywhere. Got permission and it became my honey hole when I was in town. Would even drive 100 miles out of the way just to stay at the hotel and fish for a night. Last year I fished more then 20 days at this little place. Nothing big ever came out of it, just undersized bass and blue gill and a handful of fat grass carp. Would catch and release a mess of fish in a night and was just good fun. One of the hotel workers saw me out fishing one morning last year and asked if I have been catching anything. I said yeah just a few small ones thinking nothing of it. Fast forward to last night, stopped in to get some night fishing in as its always been good. Not even a single nibble and its half covered with thick mats of the green slime. Fished for 3 hours this morning and still nothing, didn't even see any small blue gill. First time Ive ever got skunked fishing here and first for seeing any sign of grass or slime in the pond. So Im thinking the word has gotten out and the bucket brigade has cleaned this spot out completely. Kinda ticks me off cause it was such a fun time after a day of work. Even drove by later that after noon just to see if anyone was there and to my horror...there was at least 10 groups of people with buckets surrounding the little pond.

Daiwa Pixy SPR 68 on a Phenix Recon 2 6'8" Light and President 6925 on a St. Croix Premier 7'0" Ultralight Those two rods I have with me when I go anywhere in the country and they have landed me more fish then any of my other combos combined.

Haha no denial here. Ive got some from antique stores that are quite rare still in the package and sold them the next week. Never been into that whole collecting thing. I buy what I find and if they swim I will keep them and sell what ever ones don't. They are only worth as much to me as the fish they catch.

Just over the course of two months. Mostly garage sales, pawn shops, antique stores, and some from ebay and personal sellers. Bought them all to fish as Im not much on the collecting side of things.

When I really started getting into bass fishing and learning new techniques I would spend a week just fishing that one presentation. Learning the basics about each one. Example, when texas rigging learn what the bottom feels like, what weeds feel like, what strikes feel like etc etc. Obviously you wont learn everything in that time but it helps when going to new waters and being able to use a presentation for 15 mins or so and seeing if its productive or not. If not, switch something up. Frogs can be tricky. Basic rule of thumb is if you see a bass blow up and take your bait under: lower your rod and reel in the slack and count to three before setting the hook. Once I started doing this my hook up ratio with frogs was a lot better.

Fished my first tournament at Smithville on the 12th with my uncle. We had a limit by 10 but struggled to pull anything worth culling the rest of the day. We pitched jigs and shaky heads to cover the majority of the day which Ive found out is not one of my strongest techniques haha. Going to have to put in a lot of practice at it. I think we took 6th with 11.76 pounds. All around good day, I have a lot to learn before the next but Im excited to hit the tournament trail hard next year.

The T3 has become one of my favorite reels because of this feature. I also find myself trying to push down the hood on other reels haha. I will only use the TWS for my pitching setups. Currently have a Type R on mine and love it. Need to find a t3 in a higher gear ratio for a new pitching and punching setup.

I use mostly the Flambeau 3700 ones with the blue rust inhibitor dividers. Found a few 4 packs of them on sale at a small farm and home store for $10.00. Otherwise its plano 3700 and 3600 series.

I second the Goby color. It was a new color for me this year and it's done well for me this summer. Also I use the Tightlines Uvenko the most. I still think the UV stuff is just hype but I've pulled some of my best senko fish when using those. The blue/black around docks and green/red flame on grass lines have been deadly.

I have the luxury(if you want to call it that) of traveling all over the country for work. Some of my biggest savings come from the Northern states like Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas. Scheels and dicks sporting goods have been good to me up there. Im always finding great deals on hard baits and rods. Bass fishing isn't to popular in these states so the species specific stuff tends to go on sale quite often. Went into a Scheels in Montana and went right for the clearance rack. They had about 40 Storm Arashi crankbaits and squarebills marked down for $1.25 a piece. Original price on them is north of $8.00. So I bought everything they had plus some Rapala husky jerks for $2.00 and some misc plastics. The arashi aren't my first choice in a crankbait but at that deal I couldn't pass them up. I now have every color and every size of their entire crankbait line and they have put quite a few fish in the boat for me. And if I lose one, I don't worry to much about it because I probably have a spare or two. A DSG in Albuquerque had a sale on fishing line. Buy 3 spools of Power pro braid or Trilene get one free. And they were already marked down over half off. So I walked away with 3 spools of power pro and one spool of trilene xt for $28 bucks. Scheels in Omaha has a decent deal on Megabass vision 110 jerkbaits. $19.99 a piece as well if anyone is interested.

Since I'm a coangler I put what plastics I'll need for a day of fishing in plano boxes and then take them along with me. I keep all my extras and partials stored in their original bags inside 1 gallon plastic bags in Rubbermaid totes that I keep in the truck. So if Im fishing a multi day tournament or I run out of a certain plastic I just go to the truck and find the bag a load it into the plano and keep fishing. This Ive found takes care of the unnecessary bringing of every single plastic bait I own out for a day of fishing.

Curado 200G5 _ GLX 845c MHM CBR = Crankbaits Citica 200G5 _ Avid 6'6" MHM Crankbait = Squarebills T3 Ballistic _ Avid 6'6" MHF = All around setup Pixy SPR _ Phoenix 6'8" Light = Ned rigs, small plugs Tatula Type R _ G. Loomis M 6'3" Spinnerbait model = Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits Zillion TWS _ GL2 MF 7'0" = Wacky rigs *** _ *** Black HF 7'3" = Texas Rigs Tatula _ Fury 735c = Frogs BPS Tourney _ BPS Tourney Special 6'8" = Backup pitching Tatula Type R(not pictured) _ Fury 734c = Pitching President 6925 _ Premier 7'0" UL = Panfish Backup spinning setup Still shopping for a Jerkbait and a Shakyhead combo.