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go to pool 10. It is awsome right now. Crankbaits are doing good there. i was there on friday and sunday and i probably got 15 keepers from 7:00-1:00 got my limit of 4 pounders and one 5 pounder. it was so good i got 2 fish at the same time, like they both hit the same crankbait. two one lure. most of the time they were small ones, when i got two at one time but one time it was two keepers that did it. the second slough towardst the dam there is this sand point right at the entrance on the side with the fallend tree, bring that crankbait right up and over during the moring it is every cast.

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during the week those points are good, but come weekends, they shut down completely. everyone fishes them during the weekends. they were my #1 adn #2 spots for the Bass World i won two weeks ago but they moved off the points to an undisclosed location where whacked ’em good. try back in the second slough down from the dam. that first slough below the dam is loaded with pike, so watch out.

pool 9 has been giving up some huge sacks lately, we’ve been whacking them pretty good, our best 5 the other night was probably 18 lbs easy

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When Dad and I used to fish for largemouth on some local lakes we always used braid. Just from the fact that we liked to flip into trees and the strength helped get those pigs out of there in a hurry. We used 20 lb, what you have to remember is that braid is much thinner than mono so it is harder to see, especially dark colors in dirty water. The sensivity is also a great advantage.

Just remember when using braided line has no stretch so you have to loosen your drag up a ton for hooksets until you get used to it; also if the fish decides to jump then you have to drop your rod tip a little to give it some loose line. Or you can compensate for that by going to a lighter action rod.
Hope that helps.

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i disagree on loosening up your drag. when flipping/pitching any kind of cover, especially with a texas rigged plastic or jig, you want to get the hook into the fish and get him outta the cover ASAP before he wraps you up. if you loosen up your drag and set the hook with any force whatsoever, your drag will slip and you probably won’t get the hook into the fish.

if you’re thinking about possibly tearing the hook out on the hookset because you have next to zero stretch, i dont think you have anythign to worry about. you have have remember you’re fishing with a large, single hook, which is very hard to tear out on a hookset. Trebles yes, large single hook, no.

it’s 50 lb Stren Superbraid for me pitching jigs. You can feel everything, and especially with all this wind we’ve had lately, thats key.

i know this topic is old but i had to give my 2 cents..One of my friends that fishes team supreme, its all he fishes. literally. he throws it all day. defintely not how you use that lure. Personally, i’d rather throw a spinnerbait or swim jig. the chatterbait is overrated.i caught a few pike on it up north, but after no bass after some good amount of use, i threw it into snags until i finally got a tree bass and lost it. about the only use i have for it..

yeah..3/8 oz in Gil..with a 5″ bluegill grub on that thing..catches a lot of fish for me..Booyah makes eel grass as well though

first off, im not much of a flipper, but if i chose a rod, it’d be at least a 7 1/2 H rod..i’d ratherpitch with say, a 7′ MH. just my opinion.

secondly, about this Switchback XT business..i used to shoot Mathew’s, i shot the switchback XT and the Hoyt Trykon XL and all that good stuff, but hands down the best is the Bowtech Allegiance. i got mine for free, i could get any bow i wanted for free(long story), so i had zero bias, if any it’d be towards Mathew’s because i shot them before. Bowtech seemed to have a more solid wall, they dont use the whole tree trunk in their grip, and they’re about 15-20 FPS faster. Mathew’s good, yes, but Bowtech is now the bow to beat IMHO. lol i got pretty carried away there didnt I?

maybe ill stop in and say hi, ill be down there jacking around trying to find some fish for the Team Supreme

current is key right now in 90% of my spots. some slop spots dont need the current but the eel grass and milfoil points have to have some current to hold the bigger fish.

If you want some areas to try, PM me. i can email you some info or maybe i can meet up with you if you come to PdC and show you on a map or go out and show you some stuff to try. i dunno if ill be around though, so just PM me.

I’ve started using the swim frogs more and more lately, but i still am going back to the topwater frogs. I really like the mann’s hard nose frogs off the weed edges and around cover because they have an awesome action when swam below the surface.i kinda twitch them like a fluke.

as far as plastics in general go, just maybe go out a day and force yourself to use a tube all day to learn how to work it. that’s how i learned to fish swim jigs. i forced myself by only throwing a swim jig one day to learn how it works and how to use it. but for plastics, just go out with a tube someday and try different stuff and see what the fish want. some days i just dont use plastics because i dont need to. if i can get that power bite going with a moving bait i wont pick up the tube or worm.

one thing that nobody really has talked about is open water frogging. my partner and I get a lot of fish on spro frogs walking them away from the weed edges. i even caught a smallie working the frog on a rock bank. last nite we busted a school of 2 lb LM’s in a backwater by the lansing bridge, i was tossing a white spinnerbait and my partner had a brown frog, he caught 4 to my 1. they wouldnt eat my spinnerbait bait but he’d usually get a hook up on the 2nd or 3rd blow up of his frog. they just wouldnt let that spro frog get back to the boat. i think he’s up to like 15 keepers plus 9 or 10 non keeprs on that same frog, including a 5.75 and a 4.1 on it. frogs really get the pigs..

i have two set ups i switch off for my frogs. First off: The spro frog is the best frog on the market, durable, the hooksets are amazing, and the action is amazing. i wont buy anything else. white, brown, and green are my top colors.

My first is a my all purpose stick, a St.Croix 7′ MH witha Quantum Energy PT 7:1 reel, 50 lb PP braid. i can launch frogs out there with this to cover massive amounts of water. when i get to the unproductive areas and i dont decide to “walk the frog” over open water, i can zing it in with the Burner reel.

my other stick is a 7′ H with a Pflueger Trion and 65 pound braid. i usually fish hard nose frogs and horny toads on this because its a little stiffer and i get better hook ups it those on it.

i might get a st.croix legend tourney slop n frog rod, depends if i get that or a Finesse spinning rod. my hooks up are about 80% with topwater frogs and 70% with swim frogs. with topwater frogs, i usually go “one thousand one” and then slam the hook home. its essential to give the fish enough time to get the frog in its mouth. when i first started fishing frogs, i sucked because i would pull the thing away from them way too early. now i’m fairly proficient at it. i got my buddy to switch to braid and the result was a dozen keepers boated on his frog in the TS compared to going 0 for 9 on frogs in the previous TS.

i have a pretty vague river map, i got it at Stark’s on Blackhawk Avenue in Prairie, but i’m sure they have got them at Cabela’s.

As far as going up, for pdc tourneys, i stay down. its a lot tougher to get on kicker fish but if you hit your bites you could manage 14 lbs a day/5 fish limit. try around the wyalusing state park area in the wood and grass. frogs and swimjigs are getting a good majority of bites. Most every slough around PDC is above water. Black slough holds a few fish. i really honestly havent done a ton of fishing around pdc, i’ve been concentrating on some other areas around Guttenburg, we hit our 5-12 in the last tourney outta there in a spot that doesnt get a lot of pressure, we got probably 15 keepers plus 4 times that number in blow ups in a very small area. i’ve seen a lot of guys fish the main chanel rocks, i dunno if they’re getting any smallies off them or not.

i pump in fresh water about every 20 mins to half hour manually because i dont trust my boats timer. i also put in rejuvnade powder, seems to work. other than that toad dying on us sunday, i’ve never had a single fish die on me.

i talked to my partner about it last night, he said he wishes he woulda requested to get the fish to mount but that really wasn’t on our minds on sunday. we were both just so sick to our stomach about it and ticked off that we just wanted to get away from it. lucky i didnt have my light in, i only went ike on a gatorade bottle. it was tough. my partner wishes he would have at least gotten measurements for a replica, it was defintely a special fish.

i fished rocks today and didn’t get squat. day markers and stuff. i saw a few fish crusiing around the rocks but no takers. im just sticking to my wood and grassline patterns for the TS

sounds llike a fun day. brovarney really does make some great swim jigs, im a big fan of the gil pattern. ihave to order some more one of these days. i combine them with a 5″ mag grub, huge tail on it, feels like a colorado blade on that baby, tends to weed out most of the non-keepers you’d usually get.

sweet fish..yeah those wakes off those big boats are rediculous. personally i dont think those big cabin cruisers belong on the river, their waves probably erode the bank fairly well. im usually all right with hitting those but last weekend i got turned on one and came down funny, just about flipped my boat, pretty scary.

First and foremost: d-nort, saw your rig parked at the motel friday nite, i was going to drop in and say hi but i was in a hurry to get somewhere. i stopped and drove past it close up later, all i have to say is sick! haha..just a sweet looking boat, must be like riding a rocket eh?

as far as mental things go, i probably have most of my breakdowns due to a lack of sleep. most tourney nites i stay up till 11 PM getting stuff ready, finalizing things, just stuff that always seems to make me stay up late. therefore, i have to drink 2-3 Monster energy drinks the next day to get my [censored] in gear. the whole first half of the year for me went terrible. boat problems every tourney, had to pull out of two, just frustrated as heck. but the first two tourneys of the second half of my season have went without problem(except for a charger failure so i ddnt have a trolling motor in the lansing TS) and i’ve brought in limits. not anything thats putting me in the money, but for me, its a step in the right direction.

one thing for me that has gone differently is that i’m in the zone for longer periods of time. sounds weird i guess, but i just get where i know that im ticking stumps and not a fish ticking my jig, and i just automatically thumb the spool to make sure the drag doens’t slip with the power pro on it. just little things like that, hesitating on my frog strikes to get good hooksets, making perfect casts, just everything goes right. now if i can just get on some bigger fish..

Interesting note: i was fishing a point on a grass bed in Pool 9 saturday that had shad activity like mad, fish busting them all over. There were about every kind of species present. i saw carp all over in there, but we were still pounding bass(brown and green) as well as a few pike and a 2 pound sauger. it was pretty nuts. not much for good size on the bass but all the fish seemed fine around each other, the carp were all over with the bass on the edges adn teh saugers out farther. just some food for thought..

in a tournament this spring when i ran into carp in my #1 spot, i just pulled up the trolling motor and fired up the big motor and idled farther away. the bass moved to adjust for the carp that rooted up the bottom somethign terrible. my rule of thumb on the river is that if you’re all over carp, get away. not going to find many bass.

i switchedfrom MG to MK on my boat when i got it, had to drill new holes.

On our Maxxum on our Lund, theres likea 3 month period in 2003 where they made faulty mother board dealies in teh foot pedal and they go crazy on 100. we just had it redone for the second time..then i shattered the shaft on a stump..trolling motor from hell..

i have the book thinger, but that sucks for depth. Mapping Specialists of Madison(I think thats where theyre at) makes some good maps, they have a pool 10 and they told me they’re mapping pools 8 and 9 and said the maps would be ready in june. they havent called me yet saying theyre done. they have contours and depths and stuff, pretty nice stuff, ive used their maps on other lakes.

i’ve got it both ways. I live within a 3 minute drive of the river, if i decided right now(my boat isn’t loaded, still drying out), i could be in the drink within 10 minutes. Too much flooding for me to have a cabin on the river, buty ou could hunt out of it in the fall i guess.

my family has a cabin on a flowage up north, its pretty nice. the bass fishing isn’t great, they have few numbers of green bass and the smallies are moody because they mess wiht the water levels so much. i guess when i do catch fish it’s satisfying because i have to work so hard for them. thers also a small river that flows into this flowage thats shallow and rocky and loaded with smallies and muskie and thats something i’ve been blessed to experience several times. cons to the cabin- 3 1/2 hour drive. becuase its farther, i dont tow my bass boat up there and fish out of a lund witha 60 4 stroke instead(S-L-O-W! )..less areas to explore, a lot of open water.

did everything, filled both livewells, even filled the boat up with water, im completely baffled. bilge works fine, pumps the water out just as fast as i could fill the boat out.

The night before i did pull the plug and tried to park the boat on as much of slope as possible, even took an extra two trips up the Mondell Hill on Highway 27 to get the water out. im taking it out tommorrow to see if the problem still exists.

yeah, I agree on the take off thing. This is my 6 or 7th tourney, its the lowest i’ve drawn yet but i’ve drawn low before. i was probably the 5th to last boat to register(i got going later than i wanted because a friend fishing his first one didnt know where the ramp was ) combine that with the fact my dad’s never fished a tourney in his(muskie guy, hardcore)life so he took his time getting down to the dock made for some unnecessary hurrying on take off. my apologies to anyone who upset, im usually johnny on the spot for take off.

I didnt make weigh ins, but i heard 20 pounds won it, results were supposed to be on their website

we double checked everything, no idea how that much water got in, but we know the bilge probably malfunctioned because the battery probably shorted out from the high amount of water. other than that, we think that i had water left in the hull from the day before and the little amount that got in sunday just added up fast. i really dont know, from looking at the hull, i have the usual gouges a 20 year glass boat should have, but no cracks that i could find. im taking it out to run either tommorrow or the day after to see if the problem is solved.

haha, yeah, the drain plug was in, i even left myself a post it on the truck to make sure to get that thing back in from the day before. we’ll see how she runs tommorrow..defintely disappointing yesterday, but i’ve decided to use my emotions to fishing even harder in pre-fishing to get on more and more fish. motivation i guess?

i had the same problem in a tourney a couple weeks ago. usually it just means the fish arent eating frogs yet. they’re just blowing up on them or rolling them. like a reaction strike. a bass will hit something just for sake of killing it. like a wounded minnow. it will hit it and kill it but not eat it. thats been proven in tests and experiments. usually throwing back some kind of weedless worm or brush hog or something slower they’ll nail it.

yes indeed, located slightly North of us here in PDC..actually its probably due west of Cabela’s. either way, pool 9, fish the rock by lynxville, should get some fish i suppose. i fished by the power plant last night because i could see pads..nope..water was 91.5 deg, was like a jacuzzi. i’m on a decent enough pattern right now, i just have to find places i can duplicate it for the TS this weekend.

my half jacket XLJ’s just came in the mail today, i tested them out today on the water..defintely worth it. they fit great, zero glare or haze, good vision into the water, much impressed so far

TS did get some excellent coverage today when i watched it.

i smoked them last night,was running to Garnet Lake from the trestle bridge in PdC on pool 10 and saw them busting bait. put on a popper and caught 30, biggest about 2-3 lbs. was fun enough, if i wouldnt have had to take them off the hooks i coulda done better. they were still busting shad when i left, i got bored with them because they wouldnt fight.

nice.. ..he outfished my partner(laid a goose egg at the BWSTA), maybe i could get him fishing off the back deck for me?

yep, defintely carp you observed spawning. they raise quite a ruckus spawning. i tried snagging with a big treble hook one day when they raised cane with the bass. no luck, but we speared some with a fish spear. My rule of thumb for the river this time of year in teh shallows is go where the carp arent and youll be on bass. they really dont get along too well,the carp muddy up the water bad.