Mitch f

My thoughts as well, I though the lines on a hybrid were broken. Doesn't matter, thats a huge fish. I cant imagine how you landed it without it stripping all the line off the reel.

Indeed! Someone in my neighborhood put up a small awning on the backyard kitchen window....savages!

Wow, that's a tank!!

Ha Ha, I think you hit the nail on the head!

Dammit, you're always right! please be wrong sometime and give the rest of us a chance!

My sincerest apologies!

I agree with ya on the environment, republicans are wrong. Tolerance? gotta disagree there, Black caucas ladies screaming racism for questioning someone. not a good showing form the dems. Tolerance is a fake narrative designed by the libs to as a rallying cry, racism is another dog whistle. now to the good stuff: Ghost minnow is an awesome clear water color, was the water ultra clear? BTW, you stopped at one of the best hole on the river!! hope you fished it. dont tell anyone!!! @ cheif, thanks for chiming in! How many times do we all have to read "Which line do you use on your spinning reels" before you want to choke yourself? anyway . I wish phil would start a political thread so the other threads stay clean!

Awe, Ness, reasoned discussions are boring and overrated!

There's a guy I used to go to Canada with that would pickle northern pike and can it. Strangely, the only guy in Missouri that I heard of canning fish was a gigger. I'll try to call the Canada guy and send you his pickling recipe.

IMO, since you have to tie a leader on a C-rig anyway you might as well put on mono or fluoro. But for T-Rigging I think the hassel and stability of the knot stack the odds against you. You definitely need to adjust the speed and power of the hookset when you have a leader tied on.

No worries

Wasn't even referring to you Exile

JD's not far off the mark, I'm no GW fan but certainly no Obama fan.... How come, minus a few exceptions all the die hard "Obama can do no wrong" fans I know are all on a shoestring budget? When you become more financially secure you will start to question why over 50% of your hard earned money is gone right off the top, spent on God knows what. Have you ever met a government program that's fiscally solvent? and that includes the military. When you get a little wiser you won't miss the ponytail you left in your humanities class, and start to realize your professor was full of dung.

That's a perfect description of what I've been fighting. A rod that loads good with a light jig is usually too soft for an adequate hookset... Or it's too stiff and can't cast well. I'm tempted to get a 6 1/2 ft. ML and take it to a machine shop and have them keep cutting off 1/2" at a time until I find the combination. I've had to re-educate my thumb so many times I think my thumb has developed Alzheimer's

Makes you wonder I guy I used to work with had a 12 year old son killed by a landowner who was riding his mini bike on the neighbors property, he had been told repeated times to stop, they stretched a cable between two trees and almost took the kids head off. Sad day, although the kid was in the wrong he didn't deserve that. There are some mean people in this world. Not referring to you JD

Also for jigs I would use no lighter than 6lb test ever, and 8 most of the time for 1/8 oz or smaller. I would also reccommend a spinning rod for the tiny jigs. It's hard to throw a light jig with a baitcaster. Anything over a 1/8 oz I use a baitcaster. On a different thread Al said he was going to try a new casting rod and set up for hair jigs, I cant wait to hear how he likes it. Ihave tried several (casting rods) for lighter hair jigs but can't seem to come up with the right combination of stiffness for the hookset vs being able to cast well. It's also difficult to fish jigs if you are wading vs from a boat. The trolling motor helps you free the jig from a snag in water too deep to wade. I would suggest you start tying hair jigs yourself, it's very easy and with a relatively small initial investment you can tie jigs and combinations better than you can get from the shops. Plus it's nice sitting in front of the fireplace watching your favorite fishing show.

I wouldn't go with an Ardent reel, I've got a Denny Brauer flipping and Pitching reel, POS. No more twinkies folks

My 2cents: If the small hair jig you are using doesn't have a weedguard, go buy some with weedguards. As exiled guide says you might be using too heavy a jig or too light of a rod. Use a med or at lightest a med light. Also, regarding the jig, I've always had a little push back with guys that use "slow fall" jigs thinking because it's wintertime you want it to fall slow. My question to them is how the heck do you fish them in slight current? It will never touch the bottom. As far as jerkbaits are concerned, a great finesse jerk bait for the Meramec is a Yozuri 3D Fingerling, both bass and trout love them.

You should have seen what he did to the Boy Scout who put a leaflet on his truck!

Snicker snicker @ Eric glad to see you back from MFU land

Conformer vs non conformer on river bass migration? This is not a contest! Seems like making a mountain out of a mole hill

With the exponential rate of technology this is not too far fetched!!!! the sushi was great BTW

I can see it now, just as Hank Patterson said, "Create your own hatch" ... you release a couple of hundred of these babies and program them to come back to the homing device on your PWC at a specified time. The little fish lures take an average reading of preferred forage and like a chameleon change size and shape.The telemetry camera in their eyes pinpoint the exact time and location of the feeding fish and relay back to a Lowrance HAL 9000 fish locater. The linked trolling motor takes you to the exact spot and chooses the correct lure and guides you where to cast. The smallmouth are judged for their size and photo quality before you're allowed to waste your time casting, making your day off work much more enjoyable. The data is wirelessly relayed to the MDC and helps with their tagging survey. Seems pretty simple to me.

I think you're on to something!!

Like Nitro I love Yozuri hybrid, I use it on everything except topwater. For topwater I either use braid or Sufix Seige