Tpayneful

Budaman, Have you concidered a Johnny Morris Signature Series reel instead? As far as I can tell they are almost identical. They are manufactured by the same company. The only difference is the spool. The Patriarch has a v cut into the center of the spool while the Johnny Morris reel is flat. Retail is $199 (Floooger) vs $179 (JM) but with the classic sale the Johnny Morris is $129.

Micro, I had tennis elbow in my right arm two years ago. It hurt me most when I was flipping. I fished my way through it but it sucked! The only thing that helped was less fishing.

Happy Birthday crazy4! Happy Easter and many blessings for you and your families!

Kodiak, Those are really nice fish! One thing I always do on the Brush Hog is tear the bottom connection on the arms so they flop around. I love the bait. It is great! The two other Zoom products that I use are the Horny Toad and the Trick Worm. I like a watermellon seed on the Horny Toad and Junebug on the Trick Worm in Florida.

They sell them at www.***.com. Here is a picture of the lure: Mine looks just like it......just missing the tail

Thanks Matt for the great lure! I couldn't get the Blueguill to catch any after the Baby Bass was done but it was really windy. The wind caused the Blueguill to turn on it's side. I will have to spend some time with that bait this spring as well! Rondef, we all might want to try that out on the Potomac this year! Wayne, I will give that a try! I heard some guys in Weekend bassers were tearing them up with a Swimbait last fall! Luckily a buddy has an all electric boat!

Thanks guys! I forgot to mention that the water temperature was 68 to 72 degrees. The water is the standard Tanic (Tea Colored) Florida colored water. Visibility was 2-3 feet. It was windy from 0-30MPH. It blew out of the N, S, E and W. Thursday the wind came from all 4 directions at one time or another, it POURED, it drizzled, it sprinkled, it was sunny, cloudy and partly cloudy throughout the day. I recommend Stick Marsh highly!

Wait a minute......I thought that Shimano reels were the only sanctioned reel allowed on this board?!?!? ;D Did someone change the policy while I was gone the last two weeks? Could have gotten that Shimano BC with the digital cast control that has a little PCB in it!

I have a big spool of 14lb green Excel line that I use on my crankbait rod. I don't have any issues with it. It works great for a Mono. I use fluorocarbon and braid on my other rods.

I can vouch for George! His truck was parked in the parking lot of Stick Marsh everyday that I fished there. I got a chance to meet George and shake his hand. I was the guy in the 17' Silver metal flake Stratos. He gave me a few helpful tips on the lake. Thank you George! It was great to meet you and I appreciated all the help! Hope to see you next year!

JC, Congrats on the new PB! Next time you are throwing crankbaits or rattle traps keep a spinning rod handy with a Senko tied on. When a fish follows your bait but doesn't hit, throw the Senko out in front of him. You would be surprised at the number of fish that will hit the Senko after following a crankbait!

Silica moisture absorber packs fill up quickly and become useless in a very short period of time. We install Silica packets much larger than you will find in most products in my company's cameras. We purchase them with an indicator on them to let us know when they are full and cannot absorb anymore moisture. We found that they would fill up in about 8 hours in our air conditioned building with 30% humidity. The ones that you find in products that you buy are probably full and completely useless. I have to do two things to keep my hooks from rusting. Bring my tackle inside the house after each trip. If I fish in the rain, when I get home I open each of my 3600, 3700 and spinnerbait boxes, place them on a table and leave them open until they dry out. I don't have a garage so if I leave my tackle in my compartments in my boat they WILL rust! If I don't dry off my tackle when it gets wet it WILL rust. Do these two things and you will not have a problem.

I can't wait to try this lure out in Virginia! Here is one 4lb 10oz:

I just spent 4 days fishing Stick Marsh and my best lure was the Matt Lures Baby Bass. I was throwing it on a 7' MH BPS Extreme Rod, Rick Clunn 6.3 - 1 reel using 50lb braid. I caught my PB 6lb 12oz, 3lb, 2lb, 4lb 10oz, 5lb 2oz and 2lb. I followed Matt's advice and performed maintenance on the lure. I glued all of the entry points and lubricated my lure. After each fish I inspected the lure and mended each tear using mend-it. On Friday I got a bite and upon retrieval found that the Baby Bass was missing it's TAIL! > Darn fish! I would just cast it out into a stump field, keep my rod up and reel it in a moderate speed. Enough to get the tail to kick but not drag the bottom. I think I got my first fish in the first 10 casts of the lure. Thank you Matt for making a great lure! I am going to have to hit Greentops to buy a couple more! Here is a picture of my 5lb 2oz fish!

Flipin, We will be off and running with good fishing here in Virginia in about a month. The last three years I went to the Ocala / St. John's area in Florida to fish in February and it was mostly strike outs with a few good days sprinkled in. This year I was forced to push it back a month because the wife wanted to take the kids to Disney. After bad fishing on the St. John's last year I decided to look for greener pastures. Stick Marsh is definitely GREENER! Now that I have confidence in that Baby Bass swimbait, I can't want to try them this spring in VA! Maybe I can trick a bunch of the bigger fish into biting that lure!

I just got back from fishing Stick Marsh four times this week. I fished on Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Sunday I went out with a friend Mark who moved from Virginia to Vero Beach. He showed me how to navigate the lake but we only caught two small fish at the spillway and nothing on Rattle Traps eventhough we tossed them all day(saw reports of catching them on traps). On Monday we fished the canals around Ockochobee and Tuesday I fished Ansin Garcia. Wednesday I started out at the spillway because the wind was light. I ended up catching one 3lbs on a Matt Lures Babybass swimbait. I worked my way out of the spillway into the stump field on the left and caught one that was 6lb 12oz (My personal best.....I just don't find as many that big in VA) and a 2lber. At 10 AM the wind kicked up and after getting bounced around for two hours I picked up, went back to the boat ramp, past it and left into the canal. I ended up getting 4 small ones, 4lb 10oz (Chatterbait), 4llb and one 5lb 2oz all on junebug trick sticks. They were all up on the left side flats of the canal at the beginning of the canal. Their are beds on those flats but no fish. I didn't see much evidence that the fish I caught had spawned yet. Thursday It was really windy again and I fished just the canal and wooded flat at the end. I got one 4lb 10oz and 5lb 2oz on the Baby Bass swimbait. I caught 6 other smaller bass on a spinnerbait and trick sticks. Friday had more wind just straight out of the east. I tried the spillway and stump field but it got too windy too fast. So I spent the day in the canal but their was no dodging the wind. I caught a couple small bass and missed another. One fish took the tail off my Baby Bass and my best lure was done. It was a great trip and you guys are so lucky to have Stick Marsh in your area! I even met George Welcome and talked to him a few times while I was there! He gave me a few pointers on where he was catching them! I caught fish on a Matt Lures Baby Bass, 5" junebug trick stick, 5" purple green flake senko, 3/8oz white chatterbait, 1/2oz white/chartruse tandem spinnerbait silver colorado/gold willow, junebug baby brush hog. Here is a picture of my new personal best largemouth bass:

Check your settings for "depth offset". You can compensate for the depth of your transducer with this setting. If your transducer is two feet below the surface you can set it to -2 feet to get accurate readings. If that isn't screwed up turn down your sensitivity and see if that helps.

I switched all of my front treble hooks on my crankbaits to the red hook. I "think" it makes them target the front part of the lure. Red is the first color to disapear underwater so at some depth I would think that it is just hype.

Take Rt3 West and turn right on Ely's Ford Road.

Tomorrow moring I am hooking up the boat and making the treck to Orlando. We are going to take the kids to Disney parks and Universal Studios parks for a week. On the 15th I am going to head down to Stick Marsh to fish for a week. Anyone have any information about the current water temperature, water clarity and patterns that are working right now? Generally I have heard that Senkos and Rattletraps are the goto baits. Fish the gates and spillways when water is flowing and to probably start out in the Southwest portion of Farm 13. Bumping stumps is another thing that has been mentioned. I have read that the grass was destroyed by the series of hurricanes a few years ago. Has the grass come back? Thanks to anyone that has any information.

No offense but the guy didn't ask about a Shimano. It seems like every time someone asks a reel question regardless of whatever reel it is about, the Shimano guys poke in and say Shimano. Didn't mean to hijack the thread. I will not mention it again.

Can't have any reel thread without a Shimano guy saying Shimano is better. :

I would like to date an Amber......wonder what my wife would have to say about that? I read that Amber is the prefered color for sight fishing in an issue of Gary Yamamoto's Inside Line last year. So I bought a pair and look forward to trying them out! Mounting a ladder on your front deck would also aid in sight fishing as well!

Do you mean KVD reel? I have two Rick Clunn Reels and two Extreme reels. I really can't tell any difference in the performance of each reel. I like the metal drag star and blue better than green. So I "like" the Rick Clunn more. My partner has several KVD reels. I have tried them a time or too but not blown away buy it. If you choose either BPS reel, make sure you buy it on sale. They are great deals when on sale! I got a Johnny Morris reel for $138, Rick Clunn for $59.99 and an Extreme for $47.99 over the last two years.

John, Thanks for the update on water temperature! I think we all like to keep an eye on it during the spring. I don't catch much with the temperature below 50. Each time you go the fishing should get better. It is still early in the season.