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Sad news & sorry for your loss.

I wasn’t aware that SPRO had gotten into the fishing reel business. Is this something brand new? This model the signature Jason Christie looks kinda cool & budget friendly too. Will be interesting to see some reviews about quality after it’s been out on the market for a bit. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/SPRO_Jason_Christie_Elite_Casting_Reels/descpage-JCECR.html?from=gshop&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADkexy6G7N4aROo5b_Rl1htRZsNdG&gclid=CjwKCAjw4ri0BhAvEiwA8oo6F_WGu8kiMCHBTV_yZjX8YaTBPo1dv3I0-VCi8ZH0WtET7ldTQ16GBxoCKp4QAvD_BwE

I love Shimano Sienna spinning reels. They’re inexpensive & work really well. If I can get 4-6 yrs of good use outta them, it’s a win! At the price point, I just toss em when they start acting up & go buy a new one at Wally World.

I’m a die hard MSU Bulldog myself. And I’m wearing my maroon apparel proudly every time I visit the va home there. 😂 @Smirak Almost forgot to thank you for your service! Thank you sir & wishing you good health.

Happy Independence Day! I spent the day at the VA Home in Oxford, MS where we recently moved my Dad on Tues July 2nd. He’s 84 yrs old & a Vietnam Veteran that served two tours over there in the Air Force. Full enlistment was 10 yrs Navy + 12 yrs Air Force. Then another 22 yrs working on the air base as a civilian. My Dad has been slowing declining with dementia over the last 6, 7, or 8 years, especially the last 2 yrs. And it had gotten to the point that my stepmom was overwhelmed and could no longer care for him. Long story short, the last 3 days have been an emotional roller coaster full of doubt, fear, sleepless nights and anxiety. Now the good news: I think I just had the most meaningful 4th of July of my entire life. Not only does my Dad seem to be doing great, but I think he’s happy. He continually walks up and down the halls talking to everyone: the resident veterans, the staff, security, even the janitorial staff. I think he’s truly brightening people’s day. Furthermore, I have made friends with a few of the resident veterans and I’m really enjoying getting to know them and talk to them. There are 3 or 4 that have really touched my heart. I find myself thinking of them often & being inspired. And I look forward to my next visit to see my Dad and my new friends. I feel truly blessed to know these people now, including the sweet wonderful staff, that obviously care about these veterans. Sorry for the long post. I wanna take a moment to thank these brave men and women that have served our country. You deserve the highest honor and admiration. I look forward to making more friends and getting to know my new friends even better at this VA home. THANK YOU VETERANS! And God Bless! (One of my new friends is a former Marine drill sgt and Vietnam Vet named David. We’ve talked during both visits. On my first visit he told me a Marine saying, “You can be an hour early, but don’t be a minute late”. I thought of him as I rushed to get to the VA home on time this morning so my Dad, sister & I could attend devotional. I saw him first thing and told him I remembered the saying. I started with……. you can be an hour early, and he smiled and finished with…. But don’t be a minute late. I looked up and his wife standing behind his wheelchair was grinning ear to ear with tears in her eyes. Yep, I think I’m falling in love with these fine, brave people. And yes, there’s a lump in my throat & tears in my eyes as I write this. And I’m not ashamed.)

You’re killing me with all these great pics! I love your locale and the scenery. If I lived close to that, I’d be worthless….. fishing all the time & getting nothing else done. 😂🤣 FWIW, I too am guilty of fishing history and trying to force feed the bass what they don’t want that particular day. I think every fisher person is guilty of it at some point.

You continue to slay ‘em and I continue to be jealous! 😁 Great job. Me and buddy only caught 11 on our last outing this past Saturday. Nothing over 2 and half pounds. But we did have fun.

Back in the day, 1989-1990, I worked at Scum Frog making the frog bodies while I was in college in a little town called Columbus, MS. The founder of the company was a bass fisherman & owned a printing company. He started messing around with making the frogs in a little room in back of his printing shop. He eventually got to where it worked & he could make some good frogs. Once he expanded, he sold the print shop and moved into a building next door to make the frogs full time. Me and couple other guys made the bodies and we had a group of gals we nicknamed “The Frogettes” that glued on the eyes, inserted the hooks and packaged products in bulk. At the time we had 3 main frogs: the original Scum Frog, the BassRat, and the Scum Frog Popper. At one point, the owner added a few new frogs to the lineup. One was a buzzbait frog with a propeller in front. I help name it….. The Thundertoad. He had another idea for 2 smaller frogs connected by a leader. I helped name it too…… Two Tiny Toads. Eventually I left for grad school but kept in touch with owner/founder some over the years. He was a great guy to work for & would even occasionally take us fishing to some of his honey holes on the Tombigbee River. Think he sold off the company about 10 yrs ago and retired. The new company/owner is the one responsible for the newer frogs like The Launch Series. Forgot to add. Original name of the company was Southern Lure Company.

I really wish you’d quite posting about all these awesome fishing trips. It’s making me jealous! 🤣 Great pics & fish! Sounds like one of those rare fishing days. I too am an all braid fan. My mortal enemy was lily pads. After numerous break offs and lost fish, I switched to braid about 20 yrs ago. I use mostly all braid on my spinning set ups too for topwaters, shakey heads, Ned rigs, etc.

Anybody have any recommendations for artists/taxidermists that make bass replicas and can also restore older bass mounts? I’m in need of both. I’ve already reached out to Dave Campbell based on a thread I read earlier. He’s backlogged 3 yrs on work & is reluctant to take on new projects. From his work I’ve seen, I can understand why he’s so busy. Any recommendations would be great, especially if they have a website with examples of their work. I live in Memphis, TN area so Southeast region would be more convenient I guess. But it’s not an absolute requirement. Thanks!!

Nice pics & fish!!!

Wish I’d seen this topic earlier, but I just pulled the trigger on a 150 yd spool of the camo Beyond braid from Amazon. Oh well, it was only $12. I’ll try it & see how it performs. I’ve tried 4-5 other braids in the past, including Suffix & Daiwa J braid, and I just keep going back to good old Power Pro 4 strand. You’d think by now I’d learn my lesson and stick with what works for me, but that camo braid looks cool. 😂🤣

Yes they are. Unfortunately, days like that are few and far between. Crazy thing, I stopped by same pond after work & couldn’t get a sniff on same exact popper. The feeding frenzy was over. ☹️

Yesterday was one of those days they wanted the popper worked aggressively, fast & loud. Small schooling largemouth feeding under balls of baitfish. At one point, I had a bite on 6 consecutive casts. I caught 7 in 45 mins during my lunch break. On last cast I caught a twofer!

My braid always does that too after a few fishing trips. To me, it’s a good reminder I should retie anyway.

I love fishing poppers! It’s one of my go to warm water techniques. I’m too cheap to buy a Pop Maxx 🤣 but I have good results with a KVD splash, Rapala Skitter Pop, old fashioned Rebel Pop R (change the hooks) or even the Academy Sports brand popper. One of things that really helped me was learning to walk the dog with a popper with sporadic pauses. It’s a more subtle approach than the traditional big ploop, ploop retrieve. I get more bites that way prob 90% of time & it works great on calmer days. I tend to only work poppers loudly/more aggressively on higher wind days. Everyday you gotta let the fish tell you what they want.

Where do ya’ll buy your fluorocarbon line? I’m big fan of 12 and 15# Seaguar InvizX and it’s starting to get really pricey. Just ordered a 600 yd spool of 15# InvizX from Academy for $53 total with tax; not too bad. But the 200 yd spools are really getting high approaching $30. 😳😬 Seems like I remember a topic about this a few yrs ago & somebody mentioned ordering from Amazon. But it was also mentioned that occasionally people felt like they were getting low quality line or that the line wasn’t the brand they had ordered, like something shady was done by the seller. So I’ve been leery of ordering Seaguar from Amazon. Anybody know if Walmart has InvizX? In past, I’ve only seen Red Label at our local Walmarts.

I much prefer fishing just before the front moves in or during the front moving in, provided it’s not storming & unsafe. Case in point as this just happened to me this past weekend as I fished in South Georgia with a couple of buddies. A front moved through on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, the bite was great. I caught 12 with my biggest 4 weighing: 8.15, 7.00, 6.50, 4.11. My other fish were decent too in the 3 lb range. The biggest ones I caught were all on a topwater frog. One of my buddies also caught 12 with his biggest being 6.11. Sunday was post front bluebird skies. Windy but not a cloud around, sunny but cooler temps. I caught 4 with biggest being 3 lbs. Had to fish really slow with a jig or worm around heavy cover bouncing my bait around on every tree limb in the brush piles. Only had 6 bites all day.

The knots you’re seeing in your line could be wind knots. I’ve noticed it before too when I’m casting on windy days. I use braid a lot on 4 different spinning set ups, either 10, 15, or 20 lb. The 10 lb is the most susceptible to wind knots. I’m not a big believer in leaders. I use straight braid throwing small finesse baits, t-rigs and small jigs. Shakey heads work well too on my set ups. I still get bites. I use Power Pro original. I’ve tried numerous brands over last 20 yrs but have liked none as much as the original Power Pro.

Learned the hard way years ago with too many missed or lost fish. I haven’t skimped on quality hooks in 20+ yrs. 90% of my hooks are Gamakatsu or Owner. The other 10% are VMC, Mustad. Quality hooks are worth every penny IMO. Just look for when they go on sale. P.S. Tried Trokar hooks and hated them. All they did was tear up my soft plastics quicker without benefit of better hook ups than my usual hooks. 🤨

Being a chemist for the last 30 years, I’ve never understood why the US never converted to the metric system. English units are the worst and annoying. 😂 And this SNL skit really hits home for me. 🤣😂🤣 https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=91bI0wBceogqjI0X

I think we all break that wall thinking our parents are one way or another, whether it’s mean or dumb or whatever, at some point in our 20s. I think it’s the point we’re finally mature enough to see things more clearly ? & maybe less self centered. But it’s best too because we really appreciate the sacrifices they’ve made for us, for many years no less.

My dad is ex military also, both Navy and retired from Air Force. Did 2 tours in Viet Nam. He was always pretty strict and strong disciplinarian when I was growing up. I thought he was a bit mean when I was a kid ?, but he was also very funny, goofy, and kind hearted, or I should stay still is. As I got older as an adult, I began to appreciate the discipline & realized it helped me learn right from wrong, not be spoiled, and generally a good person. He also taught me to fish from an early age. We fished together many times for almost 50 yrs. He’s 83 now & pretty deep in it with dementia. Our fishings days ended about 5 yrs ago but 2 yrs before that, it was difficult to keep him focused on fishing for more than about 2 hours. ☹️ It was hard to come to grips with our fishing being over, but I’ve come to terms with it & have plenty of great memories. Here’s one from the early 70s when I was only 7, a 7.5 lb bass he helped me catch on the ole Zebco 33. And another pic of one of our last fishing trips together a few yrs ago.

Hey @catchandrelease I’ve been fishing at the daycare pond a couple of times the last few weeks. Mostly, because I’ve been getting almost no bites at Halle Park the last few trips. I work close to both ponds so I’ll occasionally fish on my way home from work. Last trip to daycare pond I caught 3 on a popper in about 30 mins. Biggest was only about 2 lbs. Might hit it on my way home tomorrow evening. Give me a shout if you’re out there.

I’ve neko rigged quite a few times. I always use an o ring and a big TRD. I hook both the elaztech and o ring when rigging. Never had 1 fly off the hook, but I’m using a spinning reel and don’t sling it very hard. Think I’ve been using with #1 or #2 vmc hooks.