TommyBass

Yea sorry I mistyped that.... its a Revo S. If you face the crank side are you talking about the one on the upper right? I think I tried that one and couldn't get anything to go... maybe I just didn't twist hard enough. It did feel like I backed it all the way out and it wouldn't fall out.

How do you get to the centrifugal brakes on the abu garcia Revos? My booklet doesn't say and Im afraid to just start unscrewing stuff to get the sideplate off. I searched the site but couldn't come up with anything. Thanks in advance!

I know what you mean. I fished a tourney sat in Indiana just a few miles north of where you were. It was good until about 830 then the fish had the worst case of lockjaw I have seen all year. I've heard Patoka has been tough on occaision this year anyways, but there are good fish there. That clear water makes it even tougher on days like that. We did good fishing tops of trees, real tight to the cover. I couldn't get any crankbait bites either... jig and worms worked slow were the ticket.

The main lake I fish is 4 min from my house (normal no HP reg). There are MANY others anywhere from 5-30 min away that are all electric only. The next resevoirs nearby with no HP limits are around 60 min +

You shouldn't be having that problem... I use Gamakatsu EWG both 4/0 and 5/0 on the LF craw tubes and they work fine for me. Maybe a weedless jighead would work as well.

Not necessarily... it could be automatic with a float attached. If theres a float, turn it on then go back and lift the float and it should run.

I wouldn't call my self superstitious but normally in tournaments I won't put any water in my livewell until I have caught a fish.... no need for the cart before the horse right? Plus its less weight for take off

Great to hear man! Hope ya whoop em next week too!

Well to sit and guess is hard to do... I would start shallow and work deeper with the day. Trying to anticipate good areas on those spots is nice... but if we were all bass fortune tellers we wouldn't be sitting here thinking about it, we'd be fishing toward the classic. I would start by working my way around it covering as much water as possible at varying depths, maybe with a nice deep diver or C-rig. Once I caught a few Id work toward using a jig to find the ever so needed Spot within the Spot.

SI isn't something that I've felt that I really need yet. I got Lowrance units on my boat because I felt that the 2d sonar performance was better. Both HB and Lowrance can use Navionics chips so that wasn't much of a factor for me. If the Lowrance SI ( called StructureScan ) is as good as it looks I will probably go that way one day. But for where I fish most of the time, I don't know how much its going to do for me. X2.... Lowrance gets a bad rep alot of times.. mostly from people who own other brands. I have two HDS units on my boat (5x and 7) and love both. Their 2D charts are way better... just go look at the demo's in any store. Theres no denying they OWN the others in basic sonar. Lowrance does have the SI comming out for the HD units so I wouldn't let that persuade you too much. Humminbird has come a long way since its junk 2D units that almost fell off of the map. Alot of reputable people trust their upper end stuff and SI units so the choice is really yours. Personally I have known more HB units go bad than Lowrance units, but that will vary depending on who you talk to. Id say you'll be happy with either.

I may give it a try sometime since you've had it work. I by no means live in FL but a bass is a bass. It gets pretty hot and humid here in southern IN. Crankbaits have been the ticket lately for me, but carolina riggs are pretty go-to in the summer. Never really dropshotted that much. Thanks for your input!

So here is my scenario. My home lake, deep water is considered 15 ft (the deepest section is 22). The water this time of year usually sets up a thermocline at around 7ft or so and is stained. Fish seem to relate to both structure and cover at this depth in the afternoon. I have good success fishing both anywhere from 10 oclock on but I have never tried fishing it early. I have a tournament this weekend and havn't had time to prefish so I was wondering what everyone thought about starting in these areas? I know some fish move shallow in low light but do you think there would be fish active at those depths at say a half hour past sunrise? Or should I concentrate on nearby flats? Or should I give up that idea all together and do what everyone else does and fish shallow the first few hours (I know I can catch a few then, but they usually arnt big). These places get hit hard in the afternoon on my relatively small lake so I was hoping to possibly take advantage of the first hit. I know its just a guess but I need a place to start. Thoughts? Anyone else do something similar?

What they said.... use the baby brush hog when fish are less active, otherwise the normal larger ones will get you the bigger fish.

Im new to the swimbait scene but so far I am really liking my SPRO BBZ 1 Shad in Slow Sink... the fish seem to love it, although they miss it alot. I have also used a castaic swimbait but didn't like it as much.

Yepp... Ive seen it happening here in Indiana as well when the water temp dropped out a second time. Although that bass is more than pregnant. Definately looks like it demolished a family of fully grown bluegill.

I wonder that with bobber fisherman all the time. I'll see a bobber that is completely accesible from both land and water and wonder "Why were they so lazy as to not go get it?". Similarly, I found a very nice Xrap floating in some weeds the other day... nice little present.

Comparing lake of the Ozarks to boat traffic on normal lakes is a bit off.... that lake is stupid crazy. In my opinion the legal size of boats on that lake should be greatly reduced, those YACHTS have no business on fresh water of that size. Very dangerous. Now regarding your question, yes waves do effect the bass somewhat. My home lake is really good fishing in the lowlight conditions up shallow on the rocks... and I mean SHALLOW. But if there is a rogue boater out early in the morning the fish will not hold shallow on the rocks that are getting battered. Once the boating subsides some they will move up. Like some of the others said, it really can go either way but its more how it effects you than anything.

My opinion is that a tube is a tube is a tube. Most are exactly the same. The main variations are size and softness.. somewhat color. I prefer a little longer tube, around 4.5" or so that is soft but not too soft. I like it to not tear off instatly but I don't like the really stiff ones. Ive had good luck with Coffee tubes (I think the coffee thing is stupid but they are good and soft). Bleeding baits are too hard for my liking. Also did well on YUM, and back in the day when they still made them, one of FLW's.

I fish alot of these weeknight tournaments and they are the same, 3 hours. I'll tell you the most important thing is to not experiment. You don't have time to figure things out like you'd like to , so stick with what you know works. If you start trying crazy stuff and one, then two don't work you'll start getting panicked. I only resort to experimenting in the last hour or so if completely necessary. Prefishing is a must, all it takes is one good spot to get you the win, its not like the weekend tourneys where you have lots of time to catch them and go lunker hunting. I usually try to just catch as many as possible and hopefully lucks on your side and you'll get a larger one. I will stop and fish a place fairly throughly if I found fish there prefishing. Still though, at most I'm only willing to give up 20-30 minutes if I really know something should be there, otherwise I keep moving. I've did very well in them so far so my strategy seems to work, but it all depends on you really. Some people just can't fish well unless they do it their way. Confidence is key!

X2! Exaclty what I do on all my stuff. I usually use something like GOO-GONE or whatever to take the stickness off with though. I havn't tried MEK (basically paint thinner) but I'm not entirely sure that goo gone dosn't contain it. And yes wear gloves, MEK in high doses is not good. Inhaling it can also be bad so do it outside.

C and R is not detrimental... it is indifferent. Over stocking can be detrimental and I believe is done way too much with bass in some fisheries. As far as keeping some, yes go ahead and keep some, it will be fine. Bass are no different from any other fish, you can keep them reasonably and have striving populations. Look at the walleye poplulation up north. Many walleye anglers keep their fish and their lakes grow many gigantic walleye. Now personally... I think eating a 6lb bass is gross. They are usually mushier and less appetizing then the 1-3 lb range. But hey, more power to you- I also don't like brussel sprouts.

Ive had many things that were backordered from them. They have always shipped the rest of my items with their usual promptness, and the backordered items when they arrive. They once paid 4.75 to priority mail me 1 package of owner hooks that I didnt even realize were backordered. C L A S S ! Good deal, the way it read my whole order would not have shipped until the 28th because of the back orders which kind of scared me. Glad to know they do the same.

You must not have much experience ordering from BPS. Not really- order quite a bit of stuff from there actually... all items that were back ordered from TW I went and found on BPS no problem. For example, one was a rod. Just a nothing specail normal St. Croix casting for my dad. Same price. Why on earth would you carry not enough rods to run out? I found several back ordered on TW and all in stock on BPS. Same with a few Yamamoto, Zoom, Spro, and Rage products. I realize all retailers will have some out of stock, you can't get away from that. I was just stating it happens 3:1 to me on TW compared to BPS.

Great Baits.... I like the Bed Bug particularly.

Prices and selection are great..... EXCEPT... on the order I just placed 5 out of the 13 items were out of stock / backordered. Its nice their shipping is fast but it dosn't matter if they don't have it. Ive come to find this a nagging problem with TW on more than one occaision. I can see rare or larger items but not the small packages of popular plastics etc. Your very hard pressed to find out of stock items at BPS. It also stated at the bottom of my statement that your order will not be shipped until all items are ready and off of back order? So does this mean they make you wait until your two packs of worms come in before they ship the other $300 worth of stuff? May have misread that but if so, theres another area BPS has them beat- they will send whats not back ordered and send a seperate order later. Like I said though, great prices on alot of stuff.