mjk86

I could not disagree with you any more.

oh me too! Its a HUGE urge i have to fight every time im fishing.

You def do NOT need good electronics to catch deep fish with a DS. Good electronics helps tremendously, however, it can also hurt you too. If you pull up on a spot, and see all kinds of goodies below you, you can spend wayyyyy too much time trying to catch those fish regardless of their willingness to bite. I just got a humminbird 587 or something like that (500$), but before that i just had depth sounder, all you need to know is how deep of water your in. Look at a topo map the night before, pick out a dozen or so points/docks/whatever that look appetizing. Hit each point and move quickly spending maybe 30 min working each one, work the thermocline depths starting at the bottom and zig zagging out to deep water (sometimes over 100ft), but keep your bait 20-30ft. Pay close attention to any strikes you get, how deep of water you were in? how deep your bait was? which point? what type? Even when you get a bite/fish, keep moving, but make a note of the details. Then go back over your "bite" spots slower, and more thoroughly. If you do have decent electronics, the deal is still the same, you just can eliminate unproductive water without fishing it.

Yeah!!! You punk kids get off my lawn!! Old folks griping about "kids these days" the ancient cycle. Dont you think our parents/grandparents thought the same thing about all of us, no matter what your age is? All kids are little ******* and they always have been. The world will keep spinning, and the kids now will be old and complaining about how the kids now dont have any respect for adults these days. My opinion is that future generations will be kinder, more open, and more tolerant to others differences than any other generation in the history of human kind.

I could totally understand the difficulty of launching a boat that size and a rig that pricey....id be frustrated and angry and everything that guy was and then some. My question is......if you spend all that crazy money on a huge boat like that, then get super frustrated and angry every time you use it is it worth it? I mean, I could spend 100000$ on a trip the the DMV if I wanted too, but most people would think i was nuts right? Having a cheap boat means your less nervous about using it, and a small boat is quite a bit easier to launch....I only need 8 feet, and have launched from gravel, mud, flooded steps, bushes, and yes have also squeezed up on the curb (trim the motor up in case your tire falls off the other side...). This all severely decreases the amount of stress involved in boating/fishing. My cousin has a "who knows how much it costs" bass cat with a 200hp merc and power poles and all the nonsense. He doesnt allow any live bait in his boat, he wipes off his shoes before entering the boat, and is very very careful not to hit the hull of his boat with a crank bait. Then after taking his boat out gives it a nice shiny wipe down and polish. Im too scared to fish outta his boat for fear of scratching it, thats not fun to me.

I agree with this on just about every soft plastic lure. The less hook wire through the bait will increase the action of almost any soft plastic. For crappie I use a 2 inch swimbait with a #8 hook, and for bass I use a 4 or 5 inch swimbait with a 1/0 hook. I find that texas rigging really inhibits the action because the bait is locked into position. For worm fishing I prefer a wacky rig because so little of the hook is in the worm.

Im pretty sure its the last part that sells the most.

I really need to practice my ned rig skills. I caught a few dinks on it a while back fishing it like I would a weightless wacky worm. The big difference between the ned and other little finesse baits is efficiency, you can catch like 30 fish on the same stupid worm, so you end up spending more time with bait in the water and less time messing around with worms/lures. Its just like when you find a bunch of white bass going crazy on the surface....are you gonna throw a crankbait with 3 sets of treble hooks, or a spoon with just 1 small hook?

I really dont know why anyone would get a boat not made out of aluminum? Are there advantages to a fiberglass boat? If so what?

Ill try to find the study. Actual c/r mortality was as low as 1 percent for perfectly hooked fish brought in quickly and released immediately. The range was like 1-3 percent average as some fish are handled worse/fight too hard or too long/ improperly hooked fish. Gut hooked fish for obvious reasons had a very high mortality rate.

Thats a good point. I cant remember the last time I lost a topwater bait. Plus with as many keitechs as I go through I dont have any room to talk.

17$ for a jointed jitterbug...sign me up!! Unfortunately 17$ for a topwater is cheap nowadays. There is another company that makes a black jitterbug with a powerworm glued to the back and calls it a 90$ rat bait. I guess if people have that much extra money, more power to em.

"For a biologist to impress me he'd have to teach me something that I can't learn from a Google search"

ALso....where does the fisheries information found on google come from?

No comparison can be made. I can google the shortcomings of my outboard, also its chapter 3 in the clymer manual...troubleshooting. Takes care of about everything that can go wrong. ALso the MDC does not come to the conclusion that they are regulating resources perfectly. They come to the conlclusion that based on the science and data available these are what the guidelines should be. Is the data perfect? no way, there are way too many variables to account for, that would be impossible. That said, all the MDC hate seems to come from people who have no other data to share...just speculation.

Thanks for the information. I honestly didnt know, it just seems like they do quite well based on what ive seen and caught. Also, I have NEVER ONCE used the information on here to catch and keep bass. In fact i posted exactly how I catch my table rock fish on here as detailed and explicit as I could make it, and I even posted a few spots to try it out on. None of the table rock reports are ever helpful to me with the exception of enjoying fish pics and reports. I do blame guys for clamming up on information.....its childish nonsense coming from 60 yr old men...time to grow up there fellas. If you think that your reports were never being used to catch and kill fish than you live in a fantasy world.

Where does the "reliable" information contained in a google search come from? I say reliable cuz well...its not like the internet to mislead anyone. Also...you can google most motors, or at least get the manual, its what ive done with my boat and hasnt failed me yet....knock on wood.

Maybe you should mention that to buster knifing the much rarer 10lb walleye with a "gut full of bass". How would you feel if I caught a 10lb largemouth, cut it open and found a 14inch largemouth in it? Nobody would give me high fives like they gave him, id probably get death threats. What "makes me so sick" is the nonsense floating around here. Much prefer to cut up a very common 15 inch spot than a not so very common double digit walleye...but they are stocked right so they dont matter? Gimmie a freakin break. You of all people should know how well bass do in table rock, and buster of all people should know to release a 10lb eye.

Do bass have trouble spawning in table rock? Do they need supplemental stocking?

Great fish!! What a goliath. Id say that was worth the crowds!

Table rock is loaded with big gills. Love me some bluegill catching and eating! I leave the skin on bluegill fillets after scaling em. One fillet gets the tail. The tail fries up like a wonderful little chip. I think bluegill eats as good as walleye or crappie just gotta find big ones worth cleaning.

I must be really lucky cuz ive never once had an issue anything close to what is described on this site regularly. Seems like other fisherman are the major problem? If fishing was that stressful I wouldnt do it.

A knife works much better than a saw.

Also since its in march I wouldn't catch anything anyway. Would have no idea what to do...id throw jerkbaits the entire time? I have a bunch of pre rap warts actually but ive never used em except for trolling. Id be so lost and frustrated id go walleye fishing lol.

Was thinking that knifer sounded kinda awesome myself.