Seth

Well I can check that off the list of things that I never really knew the answer to. I just knew it sounded like "barber ran". Barbara Ann makes more sense.

I used for my Ultrex in a similar fashion on Taneycomo during the CAM tournament. I'd run up above the eddies holding fish, hit spotlock and it wouldn't hold me 100% still due to the heavy current, but it would slow me down enough that I could catch a fish, measure it and get several more casts in before I'd be past the spot. Without the those I-pilot features, I wouldn't have caught nearly as many fish as I would have been way out of the hole by the time I landed and checked my fish.

My buddy has the same motor and I was never a fan of the spotlock on it for the reasons you mentioned. My Ultrex is fantastic though!

Decided to pick up the trout rod instead of the bow since the weather was so nice. Got down around noon and stumbled upon a lunker in short order. It was hanging out near some weeds and setup just right. Two cast later with a 1/80oz olive micro and it bit. It didn’t put up that great of a fight. It mostly just wallowed near the surface for a few minutes before I was able to coax it to the net. It was 19” Long with a 14.5” girth and weighed 5# even on my digital scale. The park scale said 5.25# so it reads a bit heavy. This is probably the fattest trout I have ever caught. My intentions were to let it go, but I could not get it to stay upright. I made sure to keep the fish in the water after it was netted and only held it out of the water long enough for a picture. After working it back and forth for 10 minutes with no luck, I decided to go ahead and keep it for a skin mount since it is my second heaviest trout and had good color. Fishing wasn’t that great as I only caught another 10 trout. All but the other three that I kept were fairly small. There were quite a few nice stockers around, they just wouldn’t bite. Wacky orange trout worm caught all but a couple.

I think encouraging kids to get in to fishing is good enough. If they decide they want to pursue it a higher level, make them understand that they need to have the income to support that hobby/habit first and foremost. I'm not saying to not encourage people to chase their dreams, but always have a back up plan in case it doesn't pan out. Kevin Vandam started out with the intentions of going back to the family construction business if it didn't pan out for him. I'm sure several others had similar plans in place, but it worked out and they were able to continue living the fishing dream. I enjoy tournament bass fishing, but I don't think I could ever do it on a high level. One day of tournament fishing is enough for me. If I had to practice for several days BEFORE actually fishing the tournament then I think I would get burned out really quick. Some guys have that drive and will fish every single day though.

I haven't sank a boat yet, but I've put a pretty good hole in one that would have eventually lead to a sunk boat. That's why the Legend is now black instead of orange. The Meramec was responsible for that one too.

Flathead is my favorite catfish to eat, but I rarely have any. They are about like walleye/sauger for me. I"ll luck in to one every once in a while while bass fishing. I'm too lazy to set lines for them lol.

I can take care of the potatoes for Friday. I've got a deal that dad made for me that cuts potatoes in to those twister deals and they fry up real nice and crispy without having to soak them and get the starch out. Would I need to bring a fryer or are those being accounted for by somebody else?

Same here sir!

Sounds like I will be meeting up with JestersHK and whoever comes along with him and riding down together. Hopefully there is room left for one more. I'll have my boat and I'm sure I can bring along some form of deer/elk meat treats.

Sonny's and fresh chicken/turkey livers are all I ever messed with for channel cat. If I can't get fresh shad, I don't even bother going after blue cast.

We went to the game yesterday and it was painful watching those at bats. Scherzer is a monster though and I was afraid that was going to happen. I was hoping that the Cardinals could do some damage once the Nats went to their bullpen. It got better, wasn't enough. Waino did great and it stinks they couldn't help him out. Flaherty has had that happen to him plenty of times this year as well thanks to the bats going ice cold so often. Who knows, maybe they will snap out of it and win a couple on the road. It's such a gamble with this group. I saw a stat right before post season started up that stated that there were only 3 teams without a single player having a OPS+ rating over 120. The Cardinals were one and the other two both lost over 100 games this season. It's crazy that the Cardinals were able to make it this far.

I had a few of those phase and 2/3 days this year in our bass tournaments, but typically I'm a phase 4 type. Every now and then I'll be in that phase 5, but it's not common. Tournaments are something I enjoy as it gives me a meter to see how I stack up to others on that particular day. I personally learn quite a bit from other anglers and just hanging around weigh ins and listening to what people have to say. This ain't just for bass tournaments either. I've trout fished Taneycomo for 20+ years and I've become a MUCH better trout angler since I started fishing the winter tournaments three years ago. Everybody fishes a little different and you can learn a lot from others.

Phil can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it is due to the influx of warmer surface water from TRL. Browns don't tolerate the warmer water as well as the rainbows. On top of that, the DO levels are typically lower this time of year and you have a higher concentration of browns in the upper part of the lake going through their spawning motions.

Sounds similar to a spot we stumbled upon. I saw it on my side imaging while moving to another spot around the secondary point and decided to mark it and come to fish it. After dragging a 10" worm and a shakey head through it, I decided to slow roll a 3/4oz spinnerbait through it and hooked up as soon as I started bumping in to the cover. That spot only seemed good for one fish per stop though and I could only get them to bite on that spinnerbait. My only thought was that maybe they weren't buried in the cover and were instead suspending over it and I was bringing that spinnerbait right through them. My partner tried the 5XD over the top of the brush, but I'm not sure he was getting down far enough to reach it. I think it was in 16-18' of water if I remember correctly.

My partner threw an 5XD for a while on Sunday and I think caught one little bass about 12". I don't have any big squarebills either. All of my stuff is 1.5 and a couple 2.5's for river fishing.

I covered MILES of water Sunday with a buzzbait on wind blown rock banks, secondary and main lake points without much to show for it. Found one little stretch of rock bank about half way back in a cove that produced three bites in a bow. One was a good one and of course he didn't get hooked up. Fished several others stretches that seemed to fit that same pattern and never caught squat. Must have just been right place, right time. Even went back and fished that same bank a few hours later and not even a sniff. I'm gonna have to spend some time marking some off shore structure for in the future. The best areas we found the past two years was off shore cover that we stumbled across while fishing. If I had enough of it marked, I would have just ran that all day as nobody else seemed to be fishing it and we could pull up and catch a fish or two nearly every time.

If the three guys I knew and talked to that got money fish, two said fishing was tough and they just got lucky. One guy caught three fish Saturday and one was a check fish on a buzzbait weighed in at Ivy Bend. Another caught a check fish early on a big swimbait and weighed in at PB2, but said fishing was slow. The guy that got third caught his on a bluff end up the Glaize on a brush hog. Not sure how fishing was overall for him. I caught fish on a little bit of everything, but nothing stood out. Had one little flurry in the rain Sunday along a 50 yard stretch of bank on a buzzbait and that was about it. Otherwise it was just a fish here and there.

That bobber stop idea is smart! I can't believe that never dawned on me since I have always had issues with the split shot slipping on the light line. I use them all the time for pegging my bullet weights when flipping and pitching for bass. Instead of messing with a swivel, just slide a small egg sinker in place, a couple bobber stops and tie on the hook and fish.

Anybody do any good? I fished the 1-4mm and never figured anything out. Caught fish from 1’ to 20’ (actually a lot deeper if you count the bluff and wave break fish) on a little bit of everything but nothing over 2.5#. I had a good one blow up on a buzzbait today during the rain, but didn’t get hooked up. Seems like the rest of the lake showed out a lot better this year versus last year.

Do most guys bring a boat or just buddy up with somebody who has a boat? @JestersHK??

I'm not aware of any other tournaments besides the UMBC Invitational where fish are transported from way down river and dumped up river. There are Wednesday evening tournaments starting at Onondaga and running on down to Sand Ford throughout the summer, but those fish are dumped back in at the access and likely caught within 5 miles up or down from the ramp anyways.

A 4.00 might be worth a good chunk of change. The guy who runs the bass club I fish caught one a few years ago in a fall bash and got $500 for even weight plus a couple hundred for hourly placement.

Are there any horsepower restrictions where you guys hold Jigfest on the White River? I've never been there and am totally clueless on that body of water.

I don't have anything going on for either of those dates. Hopefully I'll get to make my first Jigfest this year!