WRB-2.0

Don't bother, the Splash -It has all Zell Roland's mods plus feathered Owner hooks. Pop-R's were designed to be fished slowly, however they work better fished faster. Zell Roland was one of the original modifiers of the Pop-R, he sanded the lower lip to spit and shaved the sides to be more stream line. The Japanese took this to another level with a Pop-R type lure called a Michael, others followed until the Splash-It put all the mods together. Tom

Mike, The vast majority of what is written and discussed on forums like this centers around reservoirs in the heartland of bassdom; deep structure hill and high land reservoirs. In-Fisherman has published some very good study reports on bass in natural lakes that can help you out. Natural lakes located in the northern states or near the Canadian Shield are very different than reservoirs . A reservoir is created by a dam that fills a river valley or canyon that at one time didn't have any water flooding the area. All the terrain underwater was ounce dry and had rivers, creeks and streams with trees, roads, farm houses, etc. A natural lake never had any of those features. Water fills in the lower areas creating a natural lake. Every wet season soil is carried into the lake from run off and the natural lake slowly fills in and eventually becomes a meadow. Your lake is middle aged and about 1/2 filled with silt, bass do not like silted or muck areas. This is one reason your bass are shoreline fish. The other reason is more complicated and has to do with the type of prey this lake has, it's dermasil prey that also lives near shore. Trolling isn't a popular modern bass fishing technique because it isn't allowed for tournaments. However it is the best method to learn how to fish a crankbait. The crankbait stay down at the depth it works best and covers a lot of water at that depth. It takes skill to troll effectively and keep the lure in the right depth water without hanging it up in weeds or snagging the bottom. When you start to hit the bottom, move out a little deeper, this is a good way to find structure like isolated rocks or high spots and bass. Mark your map as you find stuff or catch bass. Then go back and fish those spots with other lures. The eastern half of this small lake has steeper banks and a few good looking points and island. This is the area where trolling would work best. Fishing heavy cover requires special tackle and without knowing what type of rod and reel have, it's impossible to recommend a presentation for you and I have doubt that bass in this lake relate to heavy cover often. They more than likely relate to the cover edges and pockets. Add a Teaxas rig 6" to 8" plastic worm, peg the 3/16 oz sinker when fishing cover, fish the weed edges and pockets. The buzz bait also works good along edges and in pockets. Everyone targets docks and on this lake it's a good choice. Tom

This is a small natural lake with mostly shoreline bass habitate, little or no main basin structure elements, except an island and a few longer points. Rocks are the natural structure, man made rip rap, dock cribbs or pilings and the highway bridge. No creek channels in a natural "meso" natural lake. The 8' to 10' zone that has a steep break near shore, island and points is the zone the smallmouth prefer. The largemouth will use the same areas at times and the docks or any other cover areas like weed beds. You may need to add a few lures; a buzz bait, hard jerk bait and mid depth deep diving crankbait. White perch may be the primary prey, so fire tiger colors should work. You could troll the crank bait like a Bomber model 6A around the shoreline in 10' of water and learn a lot about this small lake quickly. Fish the few longer points and the island often, plus the rip rap and bridge on the NW shore. The deeper water zones could be silted in and muck and of little use, unless there is an isolated rock pile. Good luck. Tom

Crank bait rods should be slower action and forgiving in regards to lure weight you mentioned. The issue is lure water resistance; deep divers require more rod power to effectively retrieve the lure. Try the lures on both crank rods and use the rod that works best! Tom

If you noticed that I haven't givin you any advice on technique or presentations. You have not shared what tackle you fish with or techniques you prefer or are skilled at. Your first task is to learn basic bass behavior, then we can discuss where mid day bass may be located and how to catch them. Success is far better than failure. Tom

Mike, time on the water is only important as a learning experience if you don't learn bad habits. The school of hard knocks is one way to learn, why when skilled anglers are trying to help you? Tom

Don't want to start a p*****g contest on fishing term definitions, however the cover and structure could be easily misinterpreted. Cover is anything growing or organic in or on the water or floating on top of the water, man made or natural. This does not include permanent structure items like rocks or pilings, both are structure elements. Structure is any man made or natural permeate element below the water surface; the entire lake bottom and any physical contour including rocks, dams, road beds, bridges, creek or river beds, cliffs, ledges, underwater islands or humps, rip rap rocks, gravel, sand, clay, soil, pipes and culverts, ditches, revines, gulles, canyons, steps, tunnels, caves, wells, cinder blocks, foundations, etc. Just shows you how difficult it is to come up with a comprehensive list of definitions to satisfy everyone, due in part to regional differences. Tom

The package has a hanger for pegs and the hooks look black nickel. The original Fred Young Big O's came in egg cartons, have bronze hooks and sell for over $100 each. The chug bug is a current production lure. Tom

Mike, Everyone assumes that bass angler must own a bass boat with high end electronics to be successful and may be true if you complete for the same bass the average bass angler targets. Your boat has a few advantages over today's modern bass boat; 1. You can troll, not in tournaments, but to learn where and at what depth active bass are located. 2. You go into places a bigger, heavier boat can't go without getting stuck and flip ot pitch heavy brush cover. 3. You can fish with live bait, but not in tournaments, to determine what the bass are ering when you find them. Your boat isn't designed to fish outside deep structure very well unless you anchor, something bass boaters rarely do. You should get a basic depth finder to know how deep the outside water ( water away from the shoreline) and find a topographic map of the lake you plan to fish, so you have an idea where the shallower areas off shore are located. You don't need to buy a lot of different types of lures, start with lures that you can fish effectively with the rod & reels you have. If you like tell us what type of rod/ reel you have. Last but should be your first, learn about bass behavior and their food source where you fish. No lure can catch bass if the bass are not located where you fishing or are not active, this is important to understand; inactive bass are extremely hard to catch on lures. The basses annual life cycle is divided up into 6 calendar periods; Winter, cold water. (40-55) Pre spawn, cold water warming before the bass spawn. (55-60) Spawn, warmer water protected from wind where bass nest. (62-67) Post spawn, the bass leave the nest areas. (65-67) Summer, the warm water period. (70-80) Fall, water cooling before it's turns to winter cold water. (65-55) Bass in every lake locate at different places and depth during each of these periods. I recommend Bill Murphy's book; In Pursuit of Giant Bass to learn basic and advanced bass behavior. If you plan to tournament bass fish, you need to first be able to catch bass consistantly, then focus on catching 5 bass every time you go fishing. Tournament fishing is about catching 3 lb bass 90% of the time, 4+ lb bass about 5% of the time. You will need a mentor to become a good tournament angler but you can learn on your own how to catch bass consistantly. Tournament bass anglers need to locate active quickly, recreational anglers just need to learn to locate active bass and catch them. Dee Thomas, the man who introduced tournament anglers to flipping, won a lot of tournaments fishing out of a boat like yours. Dee is a master flipping expert and he believes shallow bass are active bass. I fish differently and target deep structure bass, however I am a big bass angler and only tournament fish at night events. Good luck. Tom

First things first; send or take the Sol to a good reel technician and have it cleand and tuned, change the bearings to C05's. Next choose a good casting line. Premium mono's cast better than FC or hybrids. Line size is important, 6-8#, for light weight lures. The rod will make or break this outfit and needs to be a slower action then most those mentioned IMO. A rod rated moderate fast is a term for slower action. Shimano rods tend to be slower actions, so you might want to check out a medium/ light crankbait rod. If you want a very good medium action small crankbait rod look for Loomis PR843C GL2, 7' , 3 power popping rod designed for casting live bait long distance for bone fish. I use this rod for small crankbaits, high wind resistance lures and structure spoons. Not your typical "bass" rod, good match for the Sol. Tom

A bowl shaped 1/2 acre pond without any cover or structure elements can not sustain a bass fishery very long without constant food source being replenished. The real problem is no nursery area for the young of the year to survive. The bluegill that are under 4" will be eaten by the bass 2 lbs and over at a rate of about 2 bluegills per week per bass. This upcoming spawning season, the bass will spawn, the bluegill will raid the nest because they are egg eaters and bass fry eaters. The bluegill will spawn shortly after the bass, the bass will target the smaller size bluegill and birds will target the both the bluegill and smaller male bass protecting nests. Some bass fry will survive only to be eaten by the other bass, big fish eat small fish. Crawdads, salamders also raid the spawning nest of both bass and bluegill, it's a jungle in your small pond, survival of the fittest, 24-7.Tom

The Bassmaster Classic is coming up soon and several Elite anglers are sponsored by Berkely. To date I haven't read 1 article from any pro fishing the Classic that has promoted Nanofil line or has Nanofil line spooled on their reels. If any of these anglers thought Nanofil gve them an edge over their competition, they would use it. Tom

I can give one answer that may help; knowledge of how a specific lure works to trigger strikes. Some anglers never try to figure out how the lure actually triggers bass to react and strike it. The angler that never watches how the lure swims, stops and goes or doesn't have a clue when a bass has the lure in it's mouth until the bass turns and swims away with the lure will struggle. The anglers that takes the time to study all these factors catches the most bass often, the other anglers thinks they don't have the right lure, line, rod, reel, lure, cadence, attractant ..........fill in the blank. Tom

It's hard to imagine we have a generation of anglers that have never killed fish to eat. Fish are a renewable resource and good source of food. It's OK to buy fish fillets from a market and not think about how those fillets got there. I blame the the fathers of these anglers for not taking their kids out and teaching them how to humanly treat fish or animals they plan to harvest for food. Simple method is put the live bass in a ice chest with crushed ice. This will keep the fish fresh and it will die in a few minutes. If that bothers you, knock on the top of head between the eyes with a solid hard object, then put the fish in the ice chest. Tom

Dobyn's 805CBRM is a great big crankbait rod. Shimano Calcutta C300D reel. Pricy, but will last a very long time. Tom

Excellent links posted. Amazing how many poorly informed legistrators there are representing the public who voted then into office. Plated carbon steel will not corrode in fresh water for example, which mean all fresh water hooks would fall into the banned category. The best solution to reining in these politicians is to write them and let them know how you feel about a representative or congress person who doesn't support you and that you will contact everyone you know not to vote for them. Request they study the issue with facts, not emotionally....it's a lot ask of any politician. I thought California had the crazy politicians, MA isn't far behind! Tom

If bass are caught from clean cold clear water they are excellent table fare. I will keep a bass that is bleeding to eat because they are good firm white meat from the lakes I fish. My wife is from MN and grew up eating walleye, they didn't eat bass there because they were mushy, not firm meat. Now she is happy when I bring home a bass for dinner and that doesn't very happen often. Over crowding or over population of small lakes or ponds usually occurs when the larger predators are missing; big fish eat little fish. Some times the pond that didn't have a bass population gets planted with 1 year class bass and they over run the pond because there isn't any larger bass to start with. Good pond management requires several year classes of bass to balance the ecosystem. Tom

Every pond, small lake or larger lakes have there own ideal predator to prey ratio for maximum harvest rate per man hour of fishing. Fish biologist tend to manage lakes optimum harvest rate of number of keeper size fish (bass) for each lake they are managing. The biologist preform electro shocking to physically count the number and size of bass per acre to determine if the fishery is being maintained properly. If they find an abundance of a year class, they will have anglers target that class to reduce the numbers or put a slot limit in affect to protect a low population year class. If everyone fishing the lake ignores there recommendation then there management suffers and the goals isn't achieved. If a lake or pond is never fished and the predator and prey ratios are unmanaged will the lake or pond suffer a catastrophic population crisis? More than likely everything will balance, nature has away of doing that. The problem is introducing man into the equation, the ultimate predator. Ounce we start fishing. A fishery we tend to set everything into a spin and out of balance. Catch and release doesn't mean catch release and survive, a small % (3 to 10) of every bass you release doesn't survive, so there is a harvest rate and usually the largest and smallest population of bass tend to get over harvested where there is heavy fishing pressure. The biggest bass are the most vulnerable. Tom

Daiichi, Sohumi are also excellent Japanses hooks you may not have heard about, they are all old line companies that make wonderful hooks. Give the Hayabusa a try out, they make a forged light wire off set worm hook that is second to none. Tom

To resolve the tackle issue swap outfits if your partner is agreeable to sharing. A lot of bass anglers love to kick their partners arse and rub it in, like a right of passage. If that is the partnership you have it will be your turn someday, what comes around goes around. In the opening thread the two outfits were very diffident, only the worm was the same. Braid with a very short FC leader verses mono, different hooks and more than likely different hook placement, size or weight. When the bass are active, the.details may not be a big deal, however when they are less active details become extremely important. That is why partners should share and try to help each other, you both benefit. Tom

You. Want a rod that will handle the biggest bass you may catch in the cover you plan to fish. If you catch 2 1/2 to 3 lb bass than medium hvy 7' rod for pitching, not flipping, may work. Why not look at the Rage series 7' 4" or 7'11" HMF then if you hook a 6 to 8 lb bass you may have a chance to land it. Tom

Bass are bass, however LMB differ from SMB and Spotted bass. Spots and smallies spawn in water temperatures about 2 to 4 degrees cooler than LMB; 58 to 62 for the spots and smallies and 62 to 65 for LMB, at the depth the spawn at. Since river waiter is moving with current, the bass will avoid the current when spawning, so locate the current breaks areas with slack water. The pre spawner's simply stay out is the deeper river areas, then move into shallower slack water areas to spawn. Water temperature warming from the colder water period is your key to know when the seasonal change is occurring. Our calendar isn't based on water temps and we can't predict the weather affects to the water in advance and only guess based on regional historic data. Tom

Keystone base solvents my attack any plastic or composite reel parts. If the bearings are not sealed type and you remove them to clean, then MEK or Acetone will not affect metal parts. Tom

BrakeFree CLP is an excellent lubricating cleaner for reels in general and bearings. Avoid using keystone based solvents like acetone. Your best bet is to change out the original bearings with ABEC 05 grade bearings. Tom

High tensile FC or mono will take a set on a reel spool. Run the line through the rod giudes, tie on a hook and hook something solid, then back away about 75' and put some tension on the rod. This should take out the set. Adding a line conditioner may not relax the memory, it's of a line guessing/ lubricant then stress reliever. I prefer TangleFree for FC line and apply it as I fish on windy days. KVD is applied several hours prior to fishing. Tom