broncoboxer

Bought mine recently and used it for the first time yesterday. It works great. Nuff said.

Awesome! Can't wait until my son (he's 2 months old) is ready to fish. I, too, will have the camera ready.

Great post. I thought the same thing. Thus I purchased a Berkley Lip Grip with digital scale. Hopefully I'll get to test it out on some bass tomorrow.

Luck "E" Strike makes a Floating Worm kit. These worms actually float (I've tried them in the bath tub...). Whether they catch fish or not, I don't know. Haven't fished them yet.

Looks good. The bait monkey is calling...

Heck, none of my Zoom soft plastics float. Not even the Trick Worm, which I bought because I thought it floated. In fact, very few soft plastics seem to float. I know that Lucky Strike makes a floating worm kit. I bought it. And they do float. What other popular soft plastics float?

Kevin Van Dam used a casting spoon (along with his Red Eye Sexy Shad lipless crankbait and his Strike King Jig with a Rage Tail Craw Trailer) to win his most recent Elite tournament. If a guy like KVD feels confident in spoons, then I imagine they can catch some fish.

I just ordered one from Cabelas. I'll let you know once it arrives.

That's about the funniest story I've heard in awhile. Good stuff.

I second the Strike King Bitsy Minnow crankbait. This past weekend I slew a bunch of bluegill by burning one of these and a tiny Rapala Countdown minnow. Honestly, I had no clue panfish would even hit a crankbait. It was the most fun I've had fishing in quite a while.

I have Big Mouth, Big Mouth Forever and Feeding Habits of the Bass. I love'em. Sure, you may not learn a ton of new fishing secrets or techniques, but the footage is awesome. I tell you what, they'll definitely get you in the mood to go fishing.

ROFL. I spit out my pasta salad upon reading this.

Welcome! And put down the pipe... (or fishing rod, in this case)

Make sure you let us know how it went.

Welcome, I look forward to learning from your posts.

I have a Pinnacle Solene (7 ball bearings) I purchased from Wal-Mart. So far I'm happy with it. But like the other poster said, you can usually find the Pinnacles for a good price at Wal-Mart.

I would say catching the fish, since I've caught so few in my short fishing career, but both catches were sort of anti-climactic. I wasn't focused. They bit, set the hook themselves, and I reeled them in after the fact. I should have felt like doing cart wheels. Instead, I wanted to kick myself for not being in the moment. As for the boat ride, again, I was impressed by the speed, but I wasn't blown away. Even while my cheeks were flapping in the wind like a flag, my mind was on catching fish. I just couldn't wait to get fishing. And then, I get fishing and miss the only two bites I'd get all day. Oh, well. Maybe next time I'll learn to relax and enjoy all of it. From the drive there, the take off, the fishing, everything.

Well, A buddy I work with took me on my first real bassin' trip last month. Yeah, I know--why am I just now writing about it? I'm slack. What more can I say? First, about my buddy. He's been fishing tournaments for over a decade. Even won a minor fishing league series in 2001. Point is, he knows what he's doing. He's got a brand new bass boat, too. A Triton, I believe it was, that moves so fast my cheeks felt and looked like they were going to slide off my skull. Anyway, we set out at the southern end of Jordan Lake in North Carolina. We made it there at about 6:00 am. Water was low, he said. It was only my second time there ever (the first time I simply paddled a raft within 100 yards of the ramp) so it could have been 20 feet low and I wouldn't have noticed. Anyway, we set out and start fishing pretty quickly. He tossed nothing but FLW finesse jigs throughout the day. I tried a few different baits: a Rapala Original Floater, a Jitterbug, a Rapala DT-6, a 5 inch Senko, a Spinnerbait--all without success. Then my buddy tied a Zoom Brush Hog onto my spinning rod. I had no idea how to fish it. I simply cast it out, let it sink and then jiggled it a bit. I tried to "hop it" slowly back to the boat, the way one might work a jig ( At least, I think I did. I'm so new to this, I believe I probably had that sucker jumping several feet at a time like it was a Super Hog or something.). Within 6 minutes or so, I felt something tug at my line. I had been talking to my buddy when the strike came--wasn't even moving the bait--and I almost missed it. If the bass hadn't set the hook on himself it wouldn't have been set at all. "Hmm, I think I've got something" I said and lifted the rod tip clumsily. I reeled in a 1 pounder and lipped it into the boat. The hook popped out with little effort and we both admired the little thing for a second before releasing it. My buddy ended up snagging another one not long after with his finesse jig. It, too, was about a pound. Within that half hour I caught one more with the Brush Hog. Again, it was about a pound. No keepers so far. And that was it. The bite died out completely for the rest of the morning. We headed back to shore around noon. All in all, it was an enjoyable time--even if the fish weren't biting. I'm looking forward to my next trip.

Ah, okay. Just as it sounds. Put bait on a jig head and then shake that sucker. Gotcha.

Hey guys, what exactly is a shakey head? A particular jig? A presentation? Both? Something else?

So, does dead sticking work well with most styles of soft plastics?

This just goes to show how much of a noob I am. I thought deadsticking was for live or cut bait only. I figured something about real bait--the blood trail, maybe--attracted nearby predator fish. Consequently, I figured that artificial lures needed to be "worked" in some way. Movement--even molasses slow movement--was key since artificials would lack a blood trail or what have you. So, you can drop a Senko, let it sit and a bass will gobble it up just as readily as if it were moving? Wild.

I fished for 6 hours this morning. I only caught two fish. I caught them both on a T-Rigged Brush Hog.

I practiced casting with that BPS Cranking Stick baitcasting reel on the 5' 6" Gander Mountain special today. I tell you what: it felt much smoother today. Despite what that store rep said, the reel didn't feel too heavy at all for that rod. I had a 5 inch curly tailed grub T-Rigged on 10 # mono and was tossing it in the back yard. I found my accuracy was greater with the shorter rod. And the distance didn't seem to suffer, either. Now I just need to find some time to go fishing.

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