abkeenan

Wow, that might be the fattest fish I have ever seen! Look at that gut! Awesome fish! What did she weigh?

Thanks for the reports and pics guys. Awesome for you roy_eros! Meeting KVD and cashing some checks is pretty sweet. I hope they put it on again next year as I really want to give this event a shot as it sounds like a blast. Sorry about the weather but thats Table Rock and Missouri in general, especially this year.

Aftershock- if you are wanting an offset hook here is your solution made by Chompers. These are new (atleast I've just noticed them on the market) and there are a fair amount of brands that offer them now so you can choose as you see fit. I haven't personally used them but these seem like they would work great. Best of both worlds bewteen a football jig and texas rig. http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Chompers_Wobble_Head_Football_2pk/descpage-CHWBBLE.html

I'm assuming the person who posted their guess first would have claim to that guess/weight. But you know what they say about assumptions...everybody has one.

Funny how some of the "lurkers" come out of the woodwork when something free is involved.

So I wrote a long report and tried to attach some pics and I managed to mess it up and delete the whole dang report!!!! So here is summary of the weekend. With the weather changing daily or hourly these reports probably won't mean much but hey I'll throw my 2 cents in anyways and maybe it will help someone. Although I think Mr. Babler has helped just about everyone out with the jig report so this wont mean diddly squat! Congrats Bill, impressive run you and Mr. Beck are on. I am glad to hear that you guys are having success and it couldn't be happening to a person more worthy. Must be the fishing God's paying you back for all the reports and knowledge you have shared on this forum over the years. Thursday- Fished the Kings with minimal success. 2 barely legal keepers (1LM and 1 football K) on a silver rogue in less than 8 fow. A few small male LM, a white mixed in and a few crappie on the rogue and a swimmin minnow. Caught 2 shorts swimmin a s&p grub both on bluff ends. Also 4-5 shorts on a green craw wart. Friday- Dam Area. As mentioned in earlier reports super tough day. Managed 1 short K swimmin that s&p grub on a gravel point with some timber in Jakes Branch. Truly pathetic. Threw a wart also in watermelon seed to no avail. Spent the afternoon burning off fallen limbs, branches and some leaves which was more productive than the fishing. Sat- Brushy Creek, or on that particular day Wind Tunnel Creek. Cold front rolled in and hit hard . Wind blew straight down the chute ALLLLL morning with zero letup. Just brutal and unrelenting. I think I now just regained the feeling in my extremities. Caught a few crappie on jigs tipped with minnows, a short LM on a white w/ sparkles swimmin minnow and had something big on that also that broke me off with ease on the 4# p-line fluoroclear. Off the water @ 10:30AM and went back out to Brushy at 3:30pm and caught 1 14" LM on a norman flake mcstick on the first cast on a chunk rock bank with cedars in about 15fow. I thought hey they might have turned on...... Not another bite after that naturally, first cast kiss of death. Sun- back to Brushy starting a little after 7AM for some crappie. Wind was calm and sun was up as was the temp. Crappie cooperated a little more than Sat and was also easier to get the minnow where you wanted it and keep it there. Was using a jig (maribou or just a plain jig with no skirt) tipped with a live minnow about 4-5ft under the bobber. Find a bank that has a laydown going from the bank and extends into the water and you should get bit. Fish were towards the bank on those trees in 10fow or less and they coming to get that minnow. Had some nice 12+ inchers. Threw that watermelon seed wart in Brushy and nada on that for over an hour or so. Caught one short on a aurora black LC pointer 100 and that was all for the blacks. Had to get off the water at 10 to get back to STL. Not a single smallmouth all trip which is strange for me fishing the Dam area. Hope this helps someone, atleast somebody wanting crappie near the Dam as I am no help with the blacks/browns. I'll leave that up to Mr.B. Also, good luck to all of you fishing for that Z-9 Nitro this weekend. I hope someone from this forum is the skilled/lucky winner of that nice rig. PS- I'm having issues posting the crappie pics, keeps telling me upload failed even though its not over the maximum 2MB and is in .JPG. format???? I'll try to get them up.

8.17

Busch Stadium

dtrs5kprs- Thanks for the heads up, guess I will just stick with putting in at Viola. As for the Rock Chalk Jayhawk, why dont you just rub the salt in the wound a little deeper why don't ya. My Tigers are playing a lot more like Pussycats than Tigers and I am adding the "cats" to the end of that word to be nice. They are playing worse as the season goes along and it has been torturous to watch them play the last month. I think just the last week alone has taken 1 year off my life expectancy due to high (boiling) blood pressure. I guess I will say congrats to the KU team and their fans and also say I hope North Dakota State makes this years March Madness Tournament I will be down to TR next Wed-Sun and most likely hitting the Kings on Thursday and maybe bouncing around the lake depending on our successes or lack thereof. Will have 3 guys (Dad, brother and I) in an older navy, silver and red Nitro with a 150 Merc. If in the area stop by and say hello. We will be the ones with no fish in the boat.

Nice reports, thanks. Is there a place to launch that is more south than at Viola?

SPRO is absolutely awesome. Great customer service, products and they catch fish. Still want to get my hands on some McRips and givem' a shot.

Dude those look awesome, especially the jointed ones you custom made. That bill angle should wake real nice without diving even at a faster retrieve. The redfins I have are a pain to get them to wake, you have to pull them just at the right speed or they dont run correctly. If you did some field testing with your jointed balsa and got them to wake right I would totally buy a few off you rather than giving Buckeye $20 bucks for a non-jointed Wake Up. Don't know what you would charge for one since I'm sure I am clueless as to the amount of time it takes to make one of those beauties but its something to maybe think about. Anywho keep up the good work and let us know how the field testing goes when you get around to it.

Is the name of that color jig "roadkill"?

pretty sure he is joking about his dream

Anyone have a chance to throw one of these? If so, how did they perform? What colors did you seem to prefer? Also thought I would give you guys a heads up that www.basstackledepot.com/ is having a 72 hour 20% off sale. Its the first time I have checked out their site and I was surprised at the selection of tackle. There are some good deals to be had there. And no I have no affiliation with their site just thought i could save some of you guys some $ wanting to gear up for spring. -Brett

Made it up to Bass Pro today and returned the broken crucial no questions asked. I guess the rod was purchased on sale for 129.99 3 years ago and was also the drop shot model which is less than the model my brother wanted (7ft.MHF), so my brother had to pay the difference of $30 for the new rod that was 159.99. So thats what happened which I think that was fair. I am also looking to buy a rod but I am waiting til their spring sale in Feb. to see what all goes on sale. So lets say I fondeled just about every rod in the joint. Here are my opinions on the rods I have been looking into only based on in store handling (All were each brands 7ft MH rods). Falcon BuCoo- very light and very sensitive. Seemed just like the Cara only cheaper components (guides, foam handles). 5 year warranty. $109.99 Falcon Lowrider- light and sensitive. Similar to the Shimano Crucial. Liked the smaller guides and cork. 5 year warranty. $149.99 Abu Garcia Veritas. super light and a bit stiff but really liked it. Foam handles were a bit denser that the falcon bucoo. For $100 bucks seems legit. Hate the 1 year warranty. Handled some All-Star rods. Felt like they were made with bricks compared to the other rods. Handled all the BPS CarbonLite models: the Carbonlite, the new Carbon Black and the new Johnny Morris Signature Series II Black. Was actually really impressed. Super light and lots of quality fuji guides. The guides/inserts are nicer the higher up the price goes. Like the Carbon Black because it has the cork handles and not the foam like the Carbon Lites and JMorris Signature Black. Like the 2 piece reel seats so you have contact with the rod on your fingers. Not sure on the warranties. 1 year???? $119.99-139.99 Shimano Compre- Very nice for the $. Thought it was similar to the BPS Carbons. Love the cork and the lifetime warranty. $109.99 Handled the Cumulus, well beyond my price range. Holy Crap Awesome. $349.99 Temple Fork Outfitters. A bit heavier than the others but components seemed nice and well made. Like the look of them and the cork looks to be nice. They are new to the bass fishing rod arena and I would let them work out some of the kinks before buying one of their rods. Could be really nice in future models and rodmaking. I think they have a lifetime warranty but for a price. $100.00 Also handled the Duckett Micro Magic rod. The lightest rod of the bunch. Felt like you didnt even have anything in your hand. I am not considering buying this rod but wow was it light. Thats all I got. -Brett

I was talking to a guy that works at Bass Pro in Council Bluffs IA and he told me that most of the BPS/Browning brand rods are made by Shimano and Quantum. Also, the BPS/Browning reels are made by Shimano, Quantum and he thought Daiwa also. The lower end stuff is the Quantum and upper end stuff is Shimano according to him. Can anyone verify that this is the case?

Im with cajun on this one. McSticks are frickin awesome for half or less the price of the megabass visions and I cant imagine the megabass doing any better than the spro IMO. The McSticks have nice colors to choose from and are coming out with more each new year. Cloudy days I use the blue bandit or norman flake (caught my biggest TR bass on it) and sunny days I throw the chrome shad (caught the most fish in one day on TR on it). You wont feel as bad losing a 12$ bait as a 25+$, but i have an old blue david fritts lure retreiver connected to a 20ft retractable dog leash that has gotten back every single mcstick that I have hung in a cedar that I didnt see under water. Yet to lose one, knock on wood. Spro also has AWESOME customer service. My brother had a leaky mcstick that was a factory defect right out of the box and he sent it back (cost about 1 buck to ship back) and in about 2-3 weeks got 2 brand new replacements in return. I broke the bill off one of my chrome shad mcsticks after catching about 20 fish on it and threw it over an tree limb and tried to pop it off and the bill cracked off when I did that. It was 100% my fault and I sent it back to spro anyways just to see what they would do. After about 2 months I didnt get anything or hear anything back from Spro then out of the blue I got a package from them with 2 brand new chrome shads and 1 blue bandit. Yes, 3 new baits for my 1 broken. Spro has been great and I will continue to buy their products and vouch for them.

I use 12# Berkley 100% fluoro now for jigs which I really like (although its the only fluoro Ive ever tried but have had no issues so I like it thus far). I think I am going to go up to 14# though this year. I was using 10# fluoro for cranks/jerkbaits but I think I am going to switch to 10# Yo-Zuri Hybrid. I like P-Lines fluoroclear but I want to give Yo-Zuri a shot after hearing good things about it and the reviews on BPS are good also. Fluoro is just so darn expensive and for reaction type strikes where you don't really need the sensitivity or feel of fluoro (cranks, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, etc.) I dont see spending the extra $ on fluoro. Not worth it for that type of fishing IMO. I use 8# P-Line fluoroclear on my spinning outfit and like it so far. It might have more memory than mono but DANG is that stuff strong. I have had problems breaking off lures (on purpose) that I couldnt get unsnagged with this stuff its that strong. It makes the loudest noise when the line finally breaks it sounds like a bull whip cracking. Topwater I use 17# Trilene XL. Anywho, thats my 2 cents and thanks for the replies and suggestions fellas. -Brett

What brand, type and # line are you guys/gals throwing jerkbaits and crankbaits with?

Winston, thanks for bringing this topic up as I am curious if anyone uses this technique at TR. Ive been thinking of trying it out for the last couple of years but just haven't gotten around to it yet. One would think that if it works great on smallies in the Tennessee lakes then it should work here on TR also....but you never know. If they want something suspended like a jerkbait, which clearly does well on TR during the cold water months, this little jig should also do pretty well one would think. Maybe even tip it with a live minnow or something. Here is a website that explains it all in great detail and should help: http://www.floatandfly.com/

Wondering what you guys think about the micro guide craze. Seems all rod makers are offering micro guide models now and was wondering if you guys/gals think they really make a difference or are they just hype to "catch" more fisherman like many products. Pro's and con's? Experiences? Opinions? Lovem? Hatem? Etc. -Brett

Thanks for the input guys. Do Falcon or Shimano Rods ever go on sale at BPS? I know Shimano's reels never do.

Looks like the majority of guys here like the falcons and looking at all the info at bassboatcentral that looks to be the heavy favorite unless when i go to buy BPS has a great sale on the Compre. My next question though is, are the falcon lowriders worth the extra 40-50 bucks over the Original Series models? Also what do you guys think about micro guides?

Sorry to bring it up again but atleast Ive narrowed it down to 3 choices. Have looked online at all 3 and my head is about to explode.