Eric Peterson

I am buying my first boat, and plan to fish BASS Opens or the FLW Costa series in the coming years. That being said is it unreasonable to fish those events out of a 18 foot boat? Will I be screwed if the wind blows? Thanks for the advice

I am buying my first bass boat in the next few months. I have never driven a bass boat but have ridden in alot of them. I am looking to seriously get into tournament fishing. I want a 20-21 foot boat to compete the best I can and to run big water easier but I think of getting a 18-19 due to cost and availability. I am taking a loan out and plan to have the boat at least 5 years. Will I be disappointed if I go smaller?

Really just looking for opinions on the possibility of a double digit largemouth swimming in WI. I personally believe theres a few lakes that have the potential for a fish that big.

I live in the Fox Cities but travel all over the state. When I pick out a lake I try to go to a lake with alot of fish and go on a windy day. Like to windy doesnt exist. Fish flats getting hammered with wind and they will be up there munching. I fish swim jigs, chatterbaits and spinnerbaits mostly.

What kind of structure do you swimbait guys target with your huddlestons? I just got my first huddleston and want to use it to its full potential. Rof 12

What do you do to find fish that will win you the tournament? From past tournaments on that body of water you know what it takes to win. X amount of pounds. But how do you try to make it happen?

Thanks for the replies, I haven't fished offshore a lot and I am just trying to find out if I should bother looking for schools or just fishing structural elements.

How many of you have had or not had experiences where bass are schooling in the northern states? I usually hear about the big southern reservoirs and offshore school fishing but not much around me. I am more targeting the smaller under 8000 acre lakes.

Absolutely 100% Snagproof Ish's Phat Frog. It is soft, good hooks, it walks with ease and my favorite, it's unsinkable. Literally. The hooks are in a seperate tube then the hollow body so there is nowhere for water to get in. At 9-10 bucks a frog it's everything I want.

I have Berkley one that was around 30. So far I have had no troubles

I recently came across one of the Snagproof bleeding frogs with attitude in my local clearance bin. I bought one because I was intrigued with the idea of having a Trailer hook on the back of the frog. My hook up ratio is considerably bad so I wanted to try it. I fished it though slop and it was surprisingly weedless. My hookup ratio went up greatly. I'm wondering how many others put trailer hooks on their frogs?

When I'm only catching small bass I just smile and keep on catching them. I have come to realize there are lakes with big fish in it, and there are lakes that just dont. I fish one lake exclusively and the biggest I've caught there was a 5 pounder last spring. I caught at least 300 under 16 inches there. So pretty much 1 of 300 is the big to small fish caught. So I go to New lake last week that is known for having giants in it. I caught 4 fish. 1 of them was a 4 pounder and my buddy lost almost a 6 at the side of the boat. Total 6 fish were boated. 2 fish were over 3 pounds. Not including pig that came off the hook that's a 1 to 3 ratio of big to small fish. Moral of the story is some lakes just don't have quality. Lake A has quantity but Lake B has quality. Its very rare (at least around me) that a lake has both.

I appreciate the responses. I disassembled it and I cleaned all the parts that engage the reel and its working better then ever now.

1. Texas Rigged Pit Boss 2. Frog 3. Jig n craw 4. Squarebill 5. Lipless

Thanks guys I'm going to try both.