AlanM85

Storm makes great lures for the price in my opinion. Their Wiggle Warts are one of my most productive cranks, I've also used their soft plastic Wild eye shiner I think it's called (soft plastic swim bait) and it worked pretty well for me.

They must have improved stealth since I used it last. I bought 2 spools of it a year ago. I spooled up a couple rods with it, went fishing... came home 45 minutes after I got there, and cut the stealth off my reels. My experience with it was that it wouldn't cast for crap, lost its color, and the braid would loosen up after a few casts.

Jigs, jerk baits, and swim baits are my favorites.

Wow, nice fish. Congrats!

I can't help but wonder what exactly you're doing when the rods are breaking halfway up? Pretending they're horses and riding them around the boat? Staging sword fights with your buddy? Most of my rods are All Star, for one reason... They're great rods. I've never had one break.

Megabait LA slider has been great for me. http://www.extremelures.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=54

I'm pretty good at 'reading' the water and other factors, and determining where the fish will be. I'm extremely accurate pitching and flipping (long hours of practice in the yard). Strongest lures - Swim baits, jerk baits, and jigs. I'm very stubborn, which can be a strength or weakness, rarely will I give up on a 'fishy' spot, or a bad day. Although not asked, now that I'm thinking about it I want to put it in words, . So hopefully I can work on these weaknesses. I tend to stick with only 2 or 3 colors, rarely moving out of my 'comfort' colors. I am very timid when setting hooks with soft plastics, no idea why. Spinnerbaits, I rarely use them, lack confidence in them. Sometimes I have a short attention span for slow retrieves. Mostly with plastics.

There is no other way to learn really, than to fish. No one else is going to hold the rod for you, and retrieve for you. One piece of advice is to not try to learn too much too fast, when you're reading about a particular technique go out and try it, learn it. When you're comfortable with it, learn another one. Also, pick a good spot to learn. A smaller, out of the way type of place where you're not having to not only learn technique, but learn where the fish are going to be.. Pond or creek, something like that where you don't lose confidence thinking there aren't any fish here or something like that. Get a good lure, one that's simple to learn to build confidence. I'll not try to give advice on lure selection as it would just be an opinion, but if you're hearing of a lure that is super productive in your area, give it a shot. Ask a lot of questions, etc. Good luck... and don't get discouraged.

Old Hickory Lake for sure. Been fishing there since I was old enough to hold a rod

Yeah, heh. I've read through the tackle tour test 2 times now. Kinda surprised at the knot strength test mainly, would have thought fluoro would hold up a little better. Thanks for the info dodgeguy and surfer. Maybe I'm just biased, when I switched to fluoro I was hooked on it, just gave me a better feel overall, pitching a jig for the first time with it felt like I was under the water with it. Seemed to improve my presentation greatly being able to feel everything so well.

i am also using flouro but let's get some things straight.it has as much or more stretch than mono.tests have proven it.it is not invisible in all circumstances.it is less visisble than most mono.it is not stronger than a good mono and once stretched to it's max it does not recover where as mono does.tests have proven this also.it is abrasion resistant and much more sensitve than mono due to increased density which is why it sinks. I was just stating my opinion based on use of both types. I would really like to know what mono this is you're comparing to fluorocarbon and what # it was, cause I've never seen these characteristics myself. Mono from my experience is more prone to breaks, stretch stress (although every time I've seen mono stretched to it's 'max' it was followed by a snap), and memory problems. I use P-Line Halo fluoro exclusively, I have not seen any stretch problems, and it seems pretty darn invisible. I'm basing this off of use, nothing more. I don't mean to argue, I'm really just curious what mono and fluoro these tests were done with. Maybe I had been using some really crappy mono. >

Nice looking stuff you got there. rofl "mysteriously fell into my box". My dad used to have the same problem with his lures. Now when we go fishing together, my lures fall into his box . I'll try to get some pictures of some of my stuff, but i gotta do a little *cough* cleaning and organizing before I try that :-[

Welcome! This is a hard transition to make when you're comfortable with shallows and shorelines. Try finding a good contour map to put you on potential spots before hitting the water with the electronics, will save some headaches. There are some really nice maps like this out for most likes, 'fishing hot spots' maps or something like that. http://www.utmaps.com/main.cfm has them, but I've never tried their maps just a suggestion.

Awesome fish! Congrats to both of you on a great day fishing, and a PB.

Oh yeah, and congrats on the new rod and reel! Bet you're itching to use 'em huh?

Tough call, but I'm partial to fluorocarbon. So I'll just give some info... Flouro sinks faster, is imo more sensitive, invisible , abrasion resistant, waterproof, doesn't stretch, and stronger than most mono. However, from reading some of your other posts, you like the wacky rigs, so you might just be better off with the slower falling mono for a leader. Best advice I can give, since all but 2 of my rods are spooled with flouro is to try both, and see which one suits you better.

Just be sure to keep in mind that fluorocarbon will break at the slightest nick or imperfection. Grab a magnifying glass and look at your line again, especially at the knot. 2 days ago, I noticed a small 'bump' in my line in the spool, and since I was retrieving when I noticed it, I didn't pay as much attention to it as I should have thinking it was far enough back in the spool that it would be alright. Couple casts later, I lost a Yo-Zuri jerk bait on a long cast, and of course the line snap caused a back lash that cost me that spool of line, and a good 20 minutes trying to pick it out, heh. Lesson learned for me. But, I'm glad that you're liking the fluorocarbon so much, XPS fluoro is good stuff. If you decide to put fluorocarbon on another reel, I'd suggest trying P-Line Halo, it is fantastic.

Get a bag of 'Cheap' shrimp from your local market. Cheap because they're usually not as covered in the 'anti-stink' oil most non-fresh shrimp is, and the smell is what you really want to catch the cats. Seems to work very well

Personally I think the advice given here by LBH and Fluke is great, and many anglers should pay attention to it. I know I need to. There's been many times I get to a good looking spot, and tie on a lure I'm not too confident with just to toss it a few times and change out to something I'm more confident with. I do this knowing that I should be throwing that other lure all day, practicing my retrieve with it, figuring out how to make it work for me. I'd say just start small building confidence, and start fresh. Don't go out thinking you're going to catch them all day, that can lead to some serious let downs imo. Start building confidence one step at a time; Be confident in the spot you've picked, be confident in your casting, your lure, and your presentation. When you get a bite with that base of confidence, just be sure to remember everything that was going on when you got bit, find the pattern and stick with it. If you're just casting and reeling, catching a bass means little more than that, giving you no more confidence than you had before. Also, probably doesn't need to be mentioned. But no matter how much confidence I have, if I just get to a lake I look for other bass anglers. They could have been there for hours, so that can tell me where to start looking for spots if I can see what depth they're fishing.

Great fish, congrats

I fish a creek like this, I used to bring a backpack full of lures and walk for miles trying different things, now i just take a box with what works best: roostertails, crawdad cranks, rapala original floater (silver/black) and rapala suspended jerk bluegill color.

Well, I had to register for this one, as I'm an absolute fanatic about jigs and trailers. (favorite lure anytime, anywhere) Sadly, I'm probably going to get laughed at for my trailer choice . -For pitching/flipping I usually use a jig with a tube, or craw-tube trailer. -For swimming I use pretty much the same, with a longer tube. -For bottom dragging I like to use.. well I pretty much use a tube now for every trailer They work great