TOXIC

No contest. A 5" Senko in color 297 (Green Pumpkin/Black Fleck). I have caught bass in every type of water from tannic in Florida to crystal clear in Wisconsin and Michigan and stained on the Potomac. I wrote an article for Yamamoto years ago and I came up with 78 ways to rig this bait. I never hit the water without it. Anywhere.

If it were me, I would hire a guide to scout out the spots near where you want to fish.....tell them for example Sturgeon Creek since you can rent boats at the marina and the creek is big enough that you could fish it in a small rental boat. Then hire a striper guide like Jim Hemby to take out your whole crew for a striper outing. So, a bass guide for 1 day, a couple days in a rental boat and another day striper fishing would pretty much fill your week.

Honestly, if you are considering Anna during that time frame, I would hire a guide. I was a guide on Anna and that is our busy time. It's your best chance for a trophy fish. Unfortunately the key to fishing Anna is #1 being on the water a lot and #2 knowing where there are brushpiles and certain structure that hold fish. Not having fished the lake before and trying to put something together would be difficult. The only rental boats you will get are small v bottom aluminum with 40 horse motors and no trolling motor. All that being said, there are some big girls in Anna as well as Stripers. Another option is to hire a Striper Guide since they use pontoons and live bait and you will have a blast. I know people who own vacation homes on Deep Creek and it's also a tough lake. Since it is a mountain lake, it will be behind Anna on spawn. In summer, it is a dock flipper dream. IMHO, neither is a good candidate to go and try to get on fish easily.

As a general rule, bass don't care what you throw on their bed, they just don't want it there, so I tend to throw whatever I can see the best when they pick it up to move it off the bed. I prefer baits that I can set the hook and not have to go through a lot material. I also prefer a compact bait because they are not "eating" the bait, they have a habit of just picking it up by whatever is exposed, moving it and spitting it out.

First drop adjacent to a spawning flat.

Exactly. Buy what you can afford and make sure you can afford what you buy. There are too many companies out there that will finance you up to your eyeballs. That's a recipe for disaster. There's always going to be someone with a better truck, boat, house, you name it. Don't fall into that trap.

All of my dropshotting is done with the Gamakatsu EWG #1 size (not 1.0). BUT....I do not nose hook or wacky hook. I Texas rig all my DS baits.

When I fish a frog, there's nothing finesse about it. I may throw it on either a baitcaster or a spinning setup but it is always braid and a heavier action.

Beaded Nymphs, poppers or Hellgramite imitators work well on my home river system for anything that swims in it. I have caught Largemouth, Smallmouth, Gills (big Gills), Pumpkinseeds, Warmouths, Rock Bass, Pickerel, water snake (don't ask) and even a 12lb catfish. I have taken a 9wt out on a striper charter and did very well in the chum line with a streamer.

I hope it's filled back up but I gotta say the Powerplant's readings and my guessestimates based on being on the water didn't really match up.

I saw a study done at one time that showed if an angler caught 5 2lb fish at every event they would make the classic every year. It may be glorious to win but consistency throughout the year is paramount.

When I was guiding, I explained it to my clients like this.....Every single day I drop my boat in the water it's like dumping a 500 piece puzzle on the table. The more of those pieces I can put together the better day we will have. I use all the tools at my disposal plus my skill as a guide.

another thing to remember, is that science is never an absolute. The nature of science is to be questioned or we would all be "flat earthers"

My first truck was a deal due to a sponsorship. I got a deal on the truck because someone special ordered it and then backed out of the deal. It was ordered to pull a 5th wheel. I only used it to pull the bassboat, a horse trailer and a couple of dual axle U-Hauls, all hitches and no 5th wheel. Because I am so anal on care and maintenance and my sponsorship with the dealer included all oil changes and maintenance, there were records from new with everything that was ever done on the truck. That maximized my trade in value. I did have a couple of oil changes in Florida when I was detailed there for 2 years but I still got the truck back to my home in Virginia for most all of it's work. When technology got to the point that a newer truck was a consideration....i.e., better towing capabilities in a 1/2 ton, better MPG plus the fact that that my other vehicles for commuting and the rest of my family (wife and daughter and my daily driver) were getting well over 100k, most over 200k and the fact that I am looking to retire in a little more than a year, made a new truck a consideration. In retirement, I plan on using the truck as my daily driver and getting rid of at least 2 of the others I own. With the deals I got from both the added discount from my GM buddy and purchasing at the end of the model year and a good relationship with my dealer plus top trade in value, I got a very good deal on my current truck. I will admit, the High Country package was a gift to myself. All that being said, I didn't pay 60,000 for my truck and through my credit union, I got a great rate on a new vehicle. I just consider myself smart with my $$ and took advantage of all the deals I could. FYI, my boat is a 2005 model that I also got a great deal on, I looked for 2 years before I found it. I have added poles and upgraded many things as my finances have allowed. You don't have to be Dave Ramsey to get a good deal.

Lived in KC for 7 years and was scheduled to go to Judging School so that I could judge at the KC Royal BBQ competition. Sadly, I got transferred to New England before I could attend. I still get my sauces and rubs from KC.

Just keep the weights down on the lures and a 3 inch grub or 4 inch senko like I mentioned can both be thrown on that rod.

I am having meat sweats. Just like that dang bear staring right at my smoker. Some of my favorite.

I saved my pennies and lunch money from 2004 when I bought my first truck a 2500 HD Silverado with the 6.0 and a 4.10 rear end. 4X4 and I traded it in on my 2016 High Country with the 5.3 and 8 speed tranny. I got an unbelievable amount of trade for my truck because it was in such good shape and it had 159,000 miles on it. I also have a good friend who is an engineer for GM and I got an additional discount from him. If you know how to play your cards right you can get the price on a truck down to an affordable level. Here is my old truck right before I traded it in.

Having been a guide, safety is always on my mind. Due to recent events, I don't think it's beyond reasonable consideration for those of us who fish rivers and larger bodies of water invest in an emergency beacon GPS alerting device of some kind. I go to Wisconsin on big water and the Fox Chain, I go to St Clair, I have been on Champlain and plan on going to Erie sometime this year, my home water is the Potomac. All of which can and have gotten nasty. I think it's time to step up the safety measures.

I understand what you are saying but I went Contrasting colors. My last truck was Black and I buy the best deal I can get without regard to color. That being said, I am a bit anal about keeping my vehicles/truck and boat clean.....well, ok.....a lot anal. I thought black was bad so when I got the new truck in Iridescent Pearl Tricoat (special color for High Country and upper trim levels on Silverado) I thought it would be easier......WRONG!!! It is worse than black EVER was. Road Tar, bug droppings and just general road grime is terrible. Drives my OCD off the charts!! Love the truck and love the color but hate keeping it clean.

Just because the kids are little, doesn't mean the lures need to be. They all can toss "normal" size lures that will catch the same fish and numbers that the "mini" lures do. I've had a lot of kids on my boat guiding and they throw the same things the big boys are. Makes them proud as punch, especially if they hook into a goodun!! Now if you are going after panfish, that's another story. My setup for kids was a 3 inch Kalens Smoke Salt & Pepper grub on a 3/16ths jighead or a 4 inch Senko texas rigged with a 3.0 EWG Gamakatsu hook. Preference went to the Senko since I don't like getting hooked. And that happened a lot!! Oh, the other exception was Crappie fishing. Live minnows on snelled hooks. Plus they got to play with the minnow bucket waiting for bites.

Milk/egg combo to get the breading to hold. That is for Crappie and Bluegill and both White and Yellow Perch. The only odd thing I have done was told to me by a charter Captain when I lived in New England. He told me that a lot of people don't like Bluefish because of the strong taste. After we caught a boatload of Blue's up to 10lbs, he showed me how to filet them. Cut out the bloodline and told me to put the fillets on the grill and marinate with mayonnaise. Per him it would pull the oil right out of the fish. Danged if he wasn't right. It was delish.

I Smoke a lot!! Every cut of meat and even some cheese. My grill of choice is something simple. I take 6 racks of rib up to Michigan every year when I go up for a week. But.......I do have a problem.............Sometimes my "neighbors" like to try and cut in line for my BBQ...... Pretty funny considering I only have 4 acres and pretty much live in town. There are some wooded tracts that stretch up into the Blue Ridge but it's not at my backdoor!!

And it's for this very reason I went back to a vest style PFD from an inflatable. Too many stories of them not inflating. If I am fishing rough water and want a PFD on when fishing, I will put on the inflatable. Another thing to remember is that if you only have inflatables in the boat, they must be worn to keep you from getting a ticket from Johnny Law on a safety stop. In Virginia you must either wear your inflatable or have another non-inflatable in the boat to be legal. That's for every person as well.

Bass Pro and Cabela's store employees do not order their own product. They have corporate buyers that order product and centralized warehouses. The store employees order from the warehouses with little to no input on what the warehouses stock. Then there is the internal pecking order on which stores get first choice of the available product in the warehouses. Having represented product manufacturers I know for a fact that smaller lower volume stores do not get an equal shot at product held in the warehouses.