boudroux

Sorry about the delayed response. I got a 5 pack from salt armor and they seem to fit me and my boys without any issue. They are very stretchy. Another thing I just recently got into using are these. Keep them wet, wrapped around your neck, tucked into your shirt. These things are killer. https://www.froggtoggs.com/chilly-pad-33957/

3 Years into my bass fishing and I'm convinced the best rod and reel is the one in your hand at the moment. When I first got into this I made a post or two that in hind sight were a combo of blind enthusiasm and a bit of being overwhelmed at the options and number of manuf. in this sport. These probably made the experienced folks here take a deep breath and sigh and think geez use the search button guy. ha A few years later, some sweet second hand purchases, more ass chewing from the wife about purchases then I care to count, a couple broken rods, 7 and 9 year olds who go through tackle and gear like a candy bar and now I'm feeling like offering a simple piece of advice to others who might be new to this. Worry less about the gear and more about casting skills. Because my sons are young but can throw a baitcaster very well they have a few 30'ish dollar BPS rods with KastKing assassin reels. Wrinkle your nose but I can promise this much. With these cheapo combo's I'll out fish a guy with top shelf gear who hasn't taken the time to practice casting until accuracy is achieved along with the ability to skip baits into small spots. Another thing I keep running across is a lot of times you are never in a perfect position to do a easy front hand cast so being able to fish backhand, out of position and such has been a huge help. I swear I catch more fish when the boat gets pushed out of position by wind or current and I see something I want to target and instead of taking the time to preposition the boat I just fire a cast with confidence that I'll hit it. My primary fishing grounds is a river with strong current so this out of position stuff might not apply to some folks however I'm confident that casting skills would apply exactly the same on lakes. One more thought for the new folks that I just recently figured out. Find a person who is super experienced, buy them gas and food and spend all day on the back of their boat. It was mind blowing watching a local bass club ass kicker grind for 6 hours straight. I swear he got 3 casts to every one of mine and could hit a gap between tree branches the size of a freaking baseball from 35 feet away, almost every time all day long. Stop obsessing on which $100 dollar rod is the most sensitive and get out there and practice casting with the same intensity, your fishing experience will be far more rewarding! Just my opinion based on personal experience thus far.

I frog fish a lot where I'm at. Tonight I just tried my first SPRO bronzeye and am ready to throw it in the trash. I generally use live target hollow body frogs and they work well for me. I've tried Matzou, Bass Pro house brand and a couple others and have never had a frog as tough to work over laid down reeds as this SPRO. The eye catches everything when trying to pull it over. At times it felt like there was a darn treble hook on the nose it hung up so bad. Also, when it lands it slaps down like a kid doing a cannon ball from the high dive. I've always heard such great things about this frog and am scratching my head on how poorly it just performed. Had 7-8 blowups and zero hookups. From personal experience on my other frogs I guarantee I would have gotten at least a few of those in the boat.

Just an FYI gorilla glue is dangerous to dogs. I've not had my dog chew any baits yet but something to keep in mind. I only mention it if there is anyone like me who regularly has their dog on the boat where there is a possibility of a glued bait laying around. http://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/poison/gorilla-glue/ She did chew the foam handle knob off a reel though.

Our routine is fish until it feels like you are about to melt, jump in the water for a couple minutes, back on boat until it feels like you are about to melt again. HA The fishing here is worth the heat for sure.

I've lost 3 combo's overboard. One was my 8 yr olds fault when he snagged a tree in heavy river current. He tried to clamp down the line with his fingers, got cut and let go. The second I hastily set down on the deck with the lure hanging over the edge about an inch under water. We passed over some surface grass (trolling motor speed), the lure snagged the grass and over it went. I spent three hours in chest deep water using a metal rake trying to find that d**n thing. The third was trying to squeeze through a gap in tule reeds, somehow one of the rods on deck got tangled up and pulled over. The most darned one was when 3 plano boxes full of jigs blew off the deck at speed. I would have never thought in a million years boxes that probably weighed 5 pounds each could get blown away like a tissue.

I was wondering about this exact subject myself the other day. I went on a couple of the sites that sell all the blanks, guides etc. I spent a couple hours pricing out different combinations of guides and such on just a couple different blanks. It was a real eye opener on how much guides change the price of a build. You could take a blank that is say 70 bucks and turn it into a 100 dollar build or a 200 dollar build with just guide options alone. Thats before getting into all the options of cork and such. It was interesting to do and probably worth the exercise on your part to see.

Most has been covered here but I'll add this. The neck gaiters suck wearing over your face but I don't go out without them around my neck. There is a company that regularly runs sales of neck gaiters where you can get 5 for around 30 bucks. If I recall it is Salt Armor or something like that. My boys and I spend all of June and July and part of August on the Colorado River in CA/AZ. Well over 100 every day. most days over 110 without a single cloud in the sky. We are on the water everyday, all day and use the SPF shirts, lots of sunblock, hats, neck gaiters and haven't had a burn yet.

I've called the local LEO once and have also spoke with the tournament director about it on another occasion and nothing seems to change. In my area there is only one outfit that runs tourny's and he doesn't seem to care what the entrants do once they blast off. One of these days a homeowner below us is going to flip his lid and it will get ugly.

I run a little campground on the water. We are located on a backwater of a main river and upstream from our camp is very good fishing but you have to go a hair over a mile to get past us. There are many houses with docks, our camp with a dock and it is 5mph/no wake until well past my dock. I can't begin to describe the bad manors some of the bass fishermen have when going past the houses and us to access the fishing area. It is generally during tournaments that the actions are the worst. We can hear the boats coming from way up the main river long before they make the turn into our channel. It is like a race between the first 5-8 boats coming up the no wake zone. I've never done it but I've been so tempted to jump in my boat and wake the hell out while they are trying to fish but two wrongs don't make a right.

I love my crocs. All day comfort, water friendly. You just need thick skin for all the croc haters.

I have braid main line on everything and use the blood knot. I find it super easy and fast to tie and in the times where I break off I always get my leader back. In my experience the blood knot is stronger then my improved clinch knot to the lure. Tying the blood knot takes about 30 seconds and is easy in the wind/dark etc.

Very nice! I'm actually gearing up to do a ton of flyfishing for the spawners this year. As I type my old man (retired and jonsing for stuff to do) is tying up his take on a wacky worm fly. Awesome post, thank you!

Awesome thread going here. Been fly fishing entire life, started bass fishing in 2016 when I purchased a business on the edge of a killer river. Initially, I read, read and read some more here and other places. I even asked the typical newbie type question or two. One thing that does jump out at me on replies to the type of questions highlighted in this thread is the following. It isn't often a poster worrying about the lure is told to get better at casting. My experience since picking this up has been the more I practice my casting techniques and accuracy the more fish I'm catching. Granted I'm lucky that since 2016 I'm spending almost 200 days a year now with a rod in my hand if only for an hour and am progressing quickly on casting. But even if only in the back yard or a soccer field practice casting like a fiend. I also will spend a little time each outing in the boat dedicated to strictly boat control. A little wind and/or river current and the best lure for the current situation ain't doing squat if you can't get into position to even cast. As a quick example. Mid January a huge scrub bush thing got hung up in the tules where I'm at. It had a massive root ball and 6 inch thick trunk. For a week straight I caught a fish a day under that root ball on everything from a spinnerbait, wacky worm, creature and a paddletail. It was a relativity technical cast to get the lure over the root ball, between the bush branches and tules but if you got a lure to fall in that spot it seemed like it didn't matter what lure, a bass smacked it. At this point in my personal journey of bass fishing I'm of the believe that being able to cast very well is every bit as important as what is tied on the end of your line.

Early Jan, my last time out there, they were in the mid/upper 50's. In the summer the water on the main channel is upper 70's to lower 80's.