MattStrykul

You bet it built my confidence. I haven't caught a bass in the past 4 weeks or so, and had been catchin alot of striper. Not catchhing any, then turnin aroud and catchin 3 makes me feel like a million. Thanks everyone, hopefully I have some luck next weekend as well. ;D

I'm guessing that is you in the video...my question is... How often do you inline tricksters have to replace your tuuks? I think they are called the same in inline skates. Hey Cabela, Yeah that is me. What in the world are tuuks? If you tell me what they are I'll let you know. I get a new pair of skates once a year, and change frames once every 6 months determining how much I skate. Wheels are hit or miss, sometimes it will be 8 months, others a week.

please don't mind the music. My friend edited this for me. :-[

I have 2 extreme baitcasters, one is a normal one and the other is the wide spooled one and they are GREAT reels! My brother also has one and he loves his as well. I recommend this reel!

Yeah man! We stay at sherwood forest campground which is in peahill creek. We can't go farther than that as you can tell from our boat. ;D Have you fished that ABA tourney at gaston? I was thinking about maybe trying my 1st tourney, I'll be 16 by then Matt. And thanks guys

Went down to lake gaston for the weekend, and had a real good time as usual. Didn't catch anything on saturday, but sunday was pretty good. We got on the boat about 930 or so, and water temps were about 46-48 degrees. Caught the 1st fish of 07 on a piece of structure we found with our aqua vu at about 16 feet of water on a black and blue jig n pig. It was also the 1st fish on a jig n pig which is definetly a confidence booster and I caught the rest of my fish on the same lure. ;D. The 2nd fish (smaller one of the two) was caught about 100 yards from the 1st fish in about 7 feet of water about 5 feet off a dock. The 3rd fish was caught in about 8 feet of water in a very small cove that the water temps were up about 3 degrees than normal. It was about 49 degrees in there. I casted in and jigged it a few times then started to take off my big coat and then noticed a strike right after I put my hand on my coat and then I set the hook with 1 hand (stupidly) but still caught the fish. It came in at 2lbs.

I use GRAVY in garlic. Im not sure if it gives me more bites, but it boosts confidence a little bit which helps alot ;D

In my youth now. Everyone in my family fishes, I have a picture of when I was about 2 in my dad's lap fishing. Gotta find this picture its awesome. My Brother

Could you do me a huge favor and take a picture of the bolt? I am hoping to do this as well and really dont want to mess anything up. ~Matt

For some reason, Saturday has been a skunk day for us when we go down to the lake. We go down Saturday and sunday and we always catch fish on sunday but never saturday (atleast for the past 3 months). But this past sunday we were skunked for the whole weekend, we had a few bites and I had one on but we are just learning to fish jigs. Its awesome.

hey welcome I have seen your boat a few times and it is awesome! I'm planning on doing that soon as well. Where abouts in VA do you live? I live in Arlington but often travel down to gaston to fish. I'm going on saturday for the whole weekend actually. Again, extremely nice boat. Matt

I have seen some pictures and some videos of people having 2 trolling motors. Why is this? Does it make it much faster or is it just incase one dies out? Also, can you use 2 different lbs of thrust motors and get the same effect? I have one 32lb and one 40 and I'm just wondering if it will improve if we used both. I don't think it would make a difference but hey, I'd love to hear some opinions. Thanks alot, Matt Strykul

bow3022 I dont know if your exactly right on that. I live just outside of washington DC, and there are PLENTY of things to do besides fish. You would be surprised how many people actually do enjoy, and go fishing. I myself fish very frequently, and also am a sponsored rollerblader, and I find the time for both. I think it also has to do with where you live and how you were brought up (most of the rich kids that live around me wouldn't be caught dead fishing) , but thats just my 2 cents.

thank you very much for the help reelmech. I've already started, and I'm loving it!

Today, my dad picked us up from my moms house and took us to our grandmas. He had a few presents for each of us there. He remember about a month ago when I was talking about how I would like to learn to make my own rods, and he actually almost made one of his own as well but just bought a book and never got into it. Well we got there and he gave my brother and I a rod building kit. He got it from mudhole he said. It came with a rod spinning motor, racks, and he got 4 blanks and some extra stuff with it. I have already gotten it set up, and my brother and I have been reading all about it. I have to say it has been the best gift given to me, because I didn't even ask for it, but he knew we would love it. I also love that we are going to learn to build our own rods, I have wanted to for the past 5 or 6 months!

gaston is definetly a nice lake! I love it there. Fish there every other weekend. Do you have a place there or just go there to fish?

hey, I live in the DC area as well, arlington actually. What about you? I've fished burke lake twice this year. Got skunked once and the other time I caught 1 dink. That place is a bit over fished imo. I fish at gaston alot, but I've been to anna. Do you fish on the private side or the public side?

Hey were you fishing burke lake? I know that place has some muskie.

Sweet fish there Avid!

thanks alot guys. We are both itchin to get back down. I will post pictures of some fish we caught over the summer later on in a different post, just thought I might let you all know. ~ Matt

yeah it was a bit cold.

thank you lightninrod!

Yeah, sorry I didn't know you had to be registered. Here they are.

sweet. Its too bad we are going back down in 2 weeks. It makes alot of sense too because my brother and I were catching shad in a thrownet for fishing on the docks at like 3 oclock. They were around huge grass patches. Seeing the pods was pretty sweet, we always caught a big one in them. thanks L.B.H. Matt also here are some pics (don't flip out, I took off my life jacket for the pic really quick, and my brothers was taken a foot from our dock. ;D) http://www.fishlakegaston.com/v2pics/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=30 http://www.fishlakegaston.com/v2pics/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=29 http://www.fishlakegaston.com/v2pics/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=-13&pos=0 http://www.fishlakegaston.com/v2pics/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=-13&pos=4

Yesterday (12/3) my brother and I were fishing our cove on lake gaston, and it was a morning that we have never experienced. The water was 54 degrees, and the sky was cloudy. It was about 45-50 degrees out and clear water with visability of about 6 feet.To start this off, I'll tell you what happend to me. We were going to go to the end of our cove, and we only have a jon boat with a trolling motor, so I was trolling a chrome/blue shad. We trolled down half of the cove on the high speed, then switched it to the low because we were looking for humps where we thought the fish would be holding so I start reeling in. I saw my line jolt left as fast as I have ever seen it and the fight began. This fish was pullin drag so much I thought it was gonna spool me. My brother drove the boat toward it thankfully otherwise I would have lost it. It ran all the way across the cove about 200-300 feet and it was still fighting strong. I had no traction on this fish at all. Everytime I would start reelin it up keeping pressure on it, it would just take 2 times the amount of drag out. The fish got really close to the boat 1 time and dove under, and I saved it. The it took some drag out, then started going back the other direction, then jolted back toward the boat again and dove under and the lure popped out of its mouth. :-[ I hate that feeling when you lose a fish, but I never even got to see this fish. The fight was probably 3-4 minutes and I was so dissapointed with myself I felt sick. Well, after that dissapointment we went down the cove and started fishing the humps. It was one of the most productive days we have ever had. My brother caught 8 and I caught 3 within an hour and a half. We found the big bass traveling in pods chasing shad around, that is when my brother got a 4.5 pound large mouth. We caught 3 more fish in these pods and I caught a 4.2 pound bass. All of the others were nice, but only about 1-2 pounds. Concidering we really started fishing in april, we have really learned alot more about fishing. Thanks for your time. matt