Jig Man

This is the best article on Drop Shot that I have read: http://www.richz.com/fishing/articles/dropshot.html

The closest place I fish is 1 hour and 15 minutes away if I push it hard and 1 hour and 30 minutes at top of speed limit. I figure it is only money and that is replaceable as long as I have food and shelter besides.

I would be careful buying used reels. We have one local guy who has bought 2900 of the "didn't work returned to BPS" reels and sold them on ebay.

Thanks, I hadn't even considered that 'cause I usually dropshot with 8# line. Are you fishing this vertically or casting?

Looks like a thrifty idea alright. Where do you put it in the boat?

I was just at the workbench making up some brush jigs for this evening and got to wondering if I am missing something. We have a gazillion brush piles made by our conservation department and the corps of engineers not to mention what individuals put out. Many of these piles are made up of dozens of Christmas trees cemented in 55 gallon drums and dropped in big piles. Some really nice bass live there not to mention a lot of good walleye. Most of these piles are in 20-40 fow and are 5-10' high. Dropping into them and/or fishing through them brush jigs and trigs are all I can ever get throuh 'cause I raise and lower the bait over every limb as I come through. If any of you guys fish this way, do you have a method that I am overlooking?

I have 2 gps units networked and can get them to share waypoints just fine. Is there a way to get them to share saved trails or placed icons?

My neighbor is having that problem. He talked to a tech who said to change the old gas line. If that didn't fix the problem then he would need carb work.

That's a good thing cause I am not a Cabela's fan and I do kind of like Gander Mountain, too bad the closest one is over 200 miles away.

I have had water come in like that in an alum. boat with a really big guy. I thought about an inline check valve but never got around to it while I owned the boat. Another option might be to plug that hole and reroute the bilge pipe.

I own both Stradics and Symmetries. I also have a couple of Saharas. You don't really notice much difference until you have them apart. I don't know about the different materials or the quality of the bearings but I find that Stradic has 1 more bearing than the symmetry. With bearings costing $30 and up there in could lie the difference in price.

I guess I stand corrected then. I was told that by a Gander Mountain employee when I asked why I stopped getting my catalogs. He said they went belly up and Cabela's bought them. Since he was employed there I took his word for knowing who his employer was.

Sounds like a bunch of good ideas to me. I'd rather have the tmotor pull than push anytime.

I use it anytime fish are working the surface.

I recycle some of my old plastic. If it has salt then it is a pain. The colors always seem to get darker for me since I usually don't do all of one color at the same time. One thing you might do, when you have a torn bait you can press the sides of the tear together over a candle flame and do a pretty good job of mending it.

I guess my strongest point would be understanding where the boat needs to be and being able to keep it in position so that my partner and I can have the opportunity to make the very best casts and get the baits presented as well as possible. I keep one eye on the depth finder and a foot on the trolling motor at all times.

It all depends on what kind of water I'm fishing. Usually it is rocks and I like the jig best. We have a lot of man made brush piles in our lakes and nothing comes through a bunch of cedar trees like a trigged craw. You can crawl it over a limb and let it drop, then crawl it over another one till big mamma grabs hold. The jigs tend to do the grabbing in the brush.

If you have sycamore trees, they will sink without blocks tied to them.

That all depends on how much you want to spend.

If you live near one you can take the old one in and they will replace it NQA. I loaned a guy one of my rpds that was 7 years old. He broke it for me. I told him to take the 2 pieces to BPS and buy me another one just like it. They gave that lucky dog one and didn't charge him anything. You can't beat that for customer service.

You might look at the Shimano Symmetry for $40 less than the Stradic.

1. Lots of knots work just fine. I use the San Diego Jam because it is fast. 2. I use trailer hooks if I miss a fish or two. I seldom use trailers. 3. There is not a thing wrong with chartreuse I like white, silver or salt and pepper better. If I want to throw a wake I'll use a double Colorado blade setup. If I just want flash I use a Colorado and willow combo. Color is not that big of a deal. Wind and cover are much more important than color.

There are a lot of different sealers out there. It would be beneficial to know the material in your cover because some sealers are material specific. I get mine from Aurora Canvass in Battlefield MO.

Since Cabela's owns Gander Mt. probably the same folks that make Cabela rods.

If you don't mind spending a couple of bucks on a phone call, you can try Bob or Nancy at the Bass Pro Shop Catalog outlet reel repair. I sometimes am amazed at the stuff they can dig up. The store number is 1-417-887-7334 ask the operator to transfer your call. Good luck.