Clark Stewart

What are the best colors for night time smallmouth fishing? Heading up to north Alabama this weekend to visit my wife's family. Her uncle fishes semi-pro FLW and Stren and I'm sure he'll want to go smallmouth fishing on wilson or pickwick. We always use hair jigs but I have never caught any on them in the 3 times I've been. I was thinking of trying tubes or grubs but not sure of the color. Straight black or pumpkin or white or what.

I do the same thing with the back end of an old dried up Sharpie permanent marker. Snapped it in half, pulled out the inners and away I went. Works great with the o-rings. Just wish I could fish wacky style more often. Too many weeds where I like to fish. Every cast seems to dredge the lake and I spend more time cursing and picking weeds than fishing > use a weedguard hook. It helps

Tell Chuck Norris the jig eye called him a girl.

There's a 13.5 pounder on the wall of the clubhouse from this golf course lake. I've caught several 6 pounders out of it, and had at least an 8 pounder on line when I tried to hoist her out of the water and broke off. I nearly broke my rod in half that day screaming! http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=pndfkp7v58m4&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=39582423&encType=1

Have you tried pvc glue? Does it make the bait hard where it's mended?

I guess what I'm asking is are there members here who get approached to try out new baits just because of their reputation here, or does one have to know somebody in the business. If members here get that honor strictly by being a respected "old head" so to speak then that's certainly a goal to dream about, if not then I'll chalk it up to the old adage - it pays to know somebody.

If you put in at that really nice newish launch (the one the pros put in at) then hang a left toward the plants you'll do pretty well fishing those barge docks - they mostly have clay banks and we've slayed the crappie there too in the winter. There's probably a mile worth of weeds in the middle that you can flip/pitch but I think that's pretty obvious. Also the train tracks and the marina next to it are good for plenty of kicker fish. If you've got the stomach for it then head back up the creek on the marina side of the train track in Decatur - it's stumpy and super shallow so be careful but one of the classics was won there a year ago I think. Not my lake I'm from Gadsden, but I have family who I fish with on Wheeler periodically.

It kills me to read about a new lure that's on pre-order (think eeliminator) and here about how much people like it. How does one become a bait tester? That sounds like heaven to me. I know that the pros probably laugh at us commoners when we brag about a "new" bait on the market that they've probably had in their bags for a season already. Aside from going pro - how do you get in on bait testing?

http://www.menditglue.com/ best thing to happen to my tackle bag since rage tails. Got it a week ago and it's already saved me about 10 bucks. It's nearly paid for itself already.

Does anybody remember this bass fishing game for PC. I downloaded it to the school's computer in the library when I was an aide in high school 10 years ago - it was freeware. Can't remember the name of the game but it was very low tech. You had a lake and everything was an aerial view. You had a big choice of lures and a ton of rod choices too. Everything was displayed on screen in a dashboard format. You used the cursors to get around and it had a depthfinder. Used the mouse to make casts. All you could see was the lake and the little boat shape casting. Gameplay and graphics were simple but I've yet to find another game that had such accurate fishing patterns. You'd catch a ton of dinks all day and would break off on snags etc. I loved that game but I can think of the name to save my life!

Liked the look of mega whatever's new wing ding so I got the mend-it out and started making my own. I think it might do some damage as a carolina rig. Also created my own lure. I call it the hammerhead craw. We'll see how it does! I've also made a hammerhead craw using a 3 inch *** trick stick and a 3.5 inch *** beaver craw. It looks a lot better as they're both watermelon red in color.

ive somehow acquired 2 packs of these but ive never fished em. anybody ever tried em or had any luck?

I keep a cap from a big highlighter that went dry in my bag. I place the o-ring around the cap, place the senko inside the cap, then roll the o-ring off the cap onto the senko. Same as the wacky rig tool but free instead of 9.99 like the mend-it manufacture guy wants on his site!

I've never heard of the toothpick trick - sounds genius

I've never heard of anybody who could truthfully justify why a genuine senko is better than any of the knockoffs. I really like the big bite baits and the tiki stiks. *** are great too and if I'm not mistaken made at the same factory as big bites. Can't confirm that though. You can try using a twistlock hook for texas rigging and I'm gonna try a weedless hook (the ones with the little catch that goes against the barb) for wacky rigging today. I'll see how that does. Needless to say you'll still lose a ton of these things and it makes no sense to spend 7 when you could spend 2.09 for big bites at academy

The fish have been tearing up my Rage Shads, mostly where the tail makes the "U" shaped bend. Don't think the lighter would fix this type of "injury". I have a bottle on order and will post an objective review when it finally gets here. It works perfect for this - in my slideshow you can see the repaired shad tail. I've already fixed 2 more tails with mendit.

Jigs are bad about getting snagged on stuff

I'm assuming you're talking about the old tiny black shimano bantam mag reels. If you can find one then buy it. If you can find 10 buy em! My all time favorite finesse reel. It will cast a 1/8th oz jig head a quarter mile! I even use it a lot on my bigger gear simply because of it's size and how smooth it casts. Troll ebay and see how much they go for. Do good to get one in decent shape for under 40 -50 bucks - and they're nearly 30 years old! Also if you ever find a lews speed spool buy it no matter what the condition and then find parts to fix it. Totally worth it All that being said I've got that exact combo and I like the reel but I put it on an allstar rod pretty quickly. I use the original rod for spinner baits now exclusively

I'll say this about ugly stiks - I really like mine for fishing crankbaits. I can get away with fluorocarbon line that does not stretch and is generally a no no for crankbaits for that reason. However when paired with the ugly stik it works well. You're crankbait rod needs to have some flex and be mostly made of fiberglass to keep from jerking hooks out. I seldom lose a fish crankbaiting with that rod. That said I hate the ugly stik for anything else except for maybe spinnerbaits. It's just too limber for me. My favorite setup for now is a bill dance edition quantum reel on an all star 6'6" medium heavy rod. Very sensitive rod and still feels like a broom handle for big fish. I'd ditch the 2 piece and get a berkley lightning rod at walmart. They're cheap yeah but not junk and still one of my favorites. I don't believe in having the most expensive stuff out there. Heck yeah it's fun to fish with but if I can find decent quality tackle without having to budget for it then I'm happy. If you want to go higher end without breaking the bank then start buying quantum anything! I've never fished a quantum reel or rod I didn't like. The quantum torsion rod is really cool and the 1310 albeit ugly as sin is a beautiful casting reel even for light stuff

Now you've got me wondering if I'm doing it correctly! What is the correct way?

They're all over ebay for cheap and I'm sure that's just what they are, but I have had good luck with cheap fishing equipment in the past on some reels so I'm curious. Anybody ever heard of em?

are you skin hooking it? If not then that's the cause of a lot of misses

definitely talk to DNR. If I'm not mistaken they'll even come out and do a kinda survey of your pond and tell you how many fish it could hold and what types would be best. From a family experience be careful with the cats. My uncle put them in at the wrong time and they ate all his yearling bass. 5 years ago we were catching 3-5 pound spots like crazy then came the catfish and within 2 years you never saw another small fish - now the only thing left is old spots and catfish. We're having to catch all the cats but a few back out

You'll notice a small difference for sure, but like what others have said the real benefit comes in the smaller package.

Is it sad that I know exactly what you're talking about? Yet I can't remember where or on what bait I did this?