Champ188

That's great news. God is good.

Now that's funny right there, I don't care who you are.

Very nice, Terrin. Glad you got out and got into some. This working business is killing me. It would be better if I wasn't spending 80% of my time sitting in a cubicle with NOTHING to do. I can handle the idea of not being on the lake when there's work to be done, but sitting here watching some good early winter fishing days slip by while I try to stay awake is not to my liking at all.

Thanks for the detailed report. Glad you got them to cooperate and obviously had a good time. Very pretty spot in the picture.

Beautiful pics. You've had a very nice trip and lots of action considering how slow it's been lately. Always enjoy your reports.

Thanks for the report, pal. Just a hit and miss deal right now. If you see me, keep going. You're nowhere near any fish. LOL

That's absurd!

OK, OK ... the rods are Denali Kovert LT's in a 7-2 finesse jig model and a 6-9 spinnerbait model. Picked 'em up yesterday from a great friend. Was briefly able to test fire the 7-2 and loved it. It's a M power with fast action. Plans are to use it as a Wart/Rock Crawler rod. So far, so good.

Alex, you can't skip Rock Crawlers or 6XD's no matter what kind of reel you have.

Thanks, kbillb. Now you've done it. With 2 new rods coming tomorrow, what was I supposed to do? Put old reels on them? Not hardly. Done went and pulled the trigger on two of those $179-down-to-$119 jobbers. Guess we'll see if they're any good. LOL

This forum gets scarier by the day.

Now THAT's the funniest thing I've heard in a while! BWWWA HHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!'

Santa's not real? WTH?

Hey, you're on my spot!

I've not tried those and don't know how they compare, but I've had 4 or 5 of the TS1H's for about 5 years now and they are holding up well. Really happy with them.

Donna and I will be there Saturday, too, and maybe Sunday. Loading up at noon Saturday to go eat lunch with some friends then planning to come back for the afternoon. White Ranger with silver/gunmetal stripes and a Merc with a canvas engine cover. Tall fat guy aboard with gorgeous back-deck candy, although she'll be far too bundled up to see anything more than the tip of her nose ... and even that's a maybe. If you see us, keep moving. I'm a jerk and will throw baits at you. Just ask 96CHAMP. Kidding, of course. Come say hi and tell me how to catch one.

Texted with him yesterday and he's in great spirits. Donna and I plan to go visit one evening next week. Will report back. Hate to see a man down but this does give me a chance to sweep up any overstock of hot lures at Hook, Line & Sinker and keep QB relegated to online shopping at Tackle Warehouse. I don't expect any dropoff in his buying power there, however, since the hands and fingers are normally unaffected by knee replacement procedures. We are also fishing Saturday and perhaps Sunday, too ... depending on Saturday's results and the weather ... and I have every intention of running all of his holes. Every last one. And I'm relocating all of the keepers to mine.

And Pork-O's. Gotta have them. ?

You don't suck and if I haven't already said so, welcome to the site. I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't suggesting sending one of those contraptions down into the deep blue on 8-pound mono. That could get real expensive, real quick. LOL

I wasn't advocating light line for A-rigs. I used 65-pound, too, back when I was throwing them. Light-wire hooks also can help you pull them loose from deep trees.

Keep hanging around here. There's some awfully good info divulged on this forum by lots of very skilled and experienced anglers. Drink it up and put it to good use, then come back and tell us about it.

The pros preach fishing your strengths, and sometimes that's the thing to do. For them, that's MOST of the time because the BASS Elite Series visits the nation's best fisheries at their very prime times. A good portion of their tournaments are held with fish in all three phases of the spawn ... pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn. With all that going on, there are fish to be had by just about any reasonable method at all. Granted, sometimes they get hit with unfavorable weather or the bite will be off for another reason, but that is the exception rather than the rule. For us, it's mostly like Hammer Time described above. Sure, some days we can fish our strengths and pound on them, but not always. We have to learn to be proficient at a number things to consistently catch fish on this old lake. I'm not a world-class dropshotter and truth be told, I'd almost rather go home than have to fish with a spoon (unless I'm with Babler and we catch 150 whites in a day's time). My first order of the day whenever I get to the lake is to figure out what kind of mood the fish are in. So I try to go directly to a place or two where I KNOW they live and see what it takes to get bit. From there, I can expand my horizons (hopefully) and continue learning throughout the day how deep they are, what kind of cover/structure they are using and what kind of feeding mood they are in. You can also experiment with lures, depths, retrieves, etc., to see what it might take to catch better quality fish over numbers, if that's your desire. Again, as Hammer said, keep an open mind and pay attention to what's going on around you. Not only can things change in a day's time, they can change multiple times within a day.

Shut it, farmer

Nice job, Terrin. Glad the drop in line size seemed to help. I don't know if I'm going to help you much more, though. I think you're doing just fine catching a tournament limit and a dozen total in 2 hours. Hey, have you thought about trying The Helicopter Lure? It's an amazing piece of technology.

Another quirky thing about The Rock is that on some of the darkest days when you'd think for sure they'd be feeding up, they'll be looking down and chewing the dickens out of a jig, Ned or shaky head. And I've seen them looking up on some pretty bright days. Hard to tell about them sometimes. Just don't get "Champ Syndrome" and get your mind set on catching them a certain way and not be willing to adjust when it doesn't happen the way you want.