bigbassin'

^^^this Between zoom speed worms, gambler burner worms, and bitter's swimbait you've got the Kissimmee chain covered on most days. I'd also highly recommend bitter's jitter craw and the bitter bug. Both are phenomenal punching baits, and the jitter craw is easily my favorite jig trailer for both conventional jig fishing and swim jig fishing, which are all 3 effective strategies as well on the Kissimmee chain.

You can add a swivel which will completely eliminate line twist. I also find that throwing flukes on casting gear instead of spinning negates a lot of the twist since the line comes off of the reel straight instead of in coils.

Pound for pound it would easily be any species of catfish or pickerel.

Outside of the original floater, that's the only model of rapala I've ever had any luck on. Did pretty good in prespawn jerking it as fast as I could in clear water this year.

Well I'm not sure if it had an island, but it is gone...I just watched a drone fly over the dried up lake from a few weeks ago. The worst part is that the spot along the trail I thought looked promising to try along the trail looked absolutely phenomenal with the water gone. The trail map showed a point that formed two coves, with the water gone you can see the point had sharp drop offs on either side with giant submerged lay downs on both sides...I've probably made that cast 100 times in my head since watching that video...

Has anyone been to Alligator Lake in Lake City recently? I heard about a month back that a sinkhole opened up and drained most of the lake but I haven't seen anything verifying this. I've wanted to give bank fishing it a shot since its got a bunch of trails and it produces pretty well on the FWC trophy catch program, but I don't want to drive 30 miles to look at a piece of mud.

It's a grunt, what kind I don't know. But it's definitely a grunt.

Also, I personally won't throw anything heavier than 3/4 ounce on braid unless I'm flipping. I prefer to throw the rat on 25 pound mono, I feel like its more forgiving when dealing with the momentum from a heavy bait.

Are you whipping the baits? You need to use an overhand lob when throwing bigger baits.

Both a high-roller and a risk taker...I approve this recommendation.

I sure am glad I live in Florida...I'd probably freeze if I had to deal with those temperatures year round.

It's the middle of July and still in the 30's for you?

I had always figured I had caught 3 bass in the 8.5 to 9 pound range before I got a scale...then I caught a 9 pounder and realized I've only caught 1, and it wasn't from before I had a scale.

I actually liked the Lesnar-Hunt fight just because I was personally shocked by the results, I thought lesnar would be too rusty and Hunt would win. As far as Cormier-Silvia, it wasn't anything exciting, but it was exactly what Cormier needed to do. I was shocked two judges scored Aldo-Edgar 49-46 for Aldo, I figured it would be a split decision with all judges going 3-2 for one guy or the other as I didn't really see either guy as clear winner of 3 rounds. I think Travis Browne and Johnny Hendricks just had their status as title contenders permanently revoked.

If I'm correct, Lake Ivanhoe, Underhill, and Turkey all have higher population rates of bass over 20 inches per acre than Toho or Okechobbee, the lakes are just a lot smaller so the overall number is significantly lower. Toho and Okechobbee have them beat once you get to 8+ pound fish.

That sounds like a pretty good fluke/senko/trick worm setup.

I can't think of a more efficient way to spend it.

First thing I would try is downsizing to 1/8 ounce, this may be light enough to keep the bait from sinking too far into the grass. If that's not enough (which I'd be surprised by) you could try a Carolina rig to keep the bait higher than the grass,

I'd grab some of both. As others have mentioned the action is a little bit different and sometimes they'll hit either, and other times they'll only take one. As far as colors go, chrome/blue, gold/black, sexy shad, and a red color should cover all of the bases.

I definitely feel the opposite. I absolutely crush pond bass on rattle traps, on lakes I'll typically go for a swim jig/chatter bait first.

Fish a spinnerbait at night...you'll gain confidence in it real quick.

Without reading what everyone else has posted, I'd recommend: 1 pack of straight tail worms 1 pack of yum dingers 1 pack ribbon tail worms 1 pack of zoom flukes 1 pack of brush hogs 1 pack of paddletail swimbaits 1 chrome and blue rattle trap 1 black spinnerbait 1 rebel pop-r 4/0 ewg gamakatsu hooks 1/4 ounce lead bullet weights $40 at Walmart and that will give you a pretty good variety to start with. General rule of thumb on colors for the soft plastics is watermelon for clear water, green pumpkin for 2-5 visibility, black and blue/junebug for anything with less visibility. With that being said, the straight tail worms are pretty effective worked near the surface and colors such as pink, white, yellow, etc are common so you can watch the worm as you work it back to you.

I've always liked senkos and just a regular ribbon tail worm when punching pads.

For me, green pumpkin is the only color I throw as most places I fish have bluegill as the primary forage. 7/16 has been my top producing size for a while.

I've seen some videos of people using toads instead of skirts, but when I do that my buzz bait rolls on its side.