CheeseWeasel

Urban, You still want to check on your big fish in the livewell. It seems that they get stressed out easier than the small ones and dont take to livewells sometimes. Just a word of caution as it has happened to me and my friends before you look one minute and ten mins later your trophy class bass is belly up and barely moving.

Invest in a gorilla pod or similar item. They can grip to just about anything or work as a regular tripod. You an attach it to a windshield, seat post, seat back, put it on top of your engine etc. Get a camera that has a self timer that focuses and takes the picture for you and there you go! As far as holding the fish while you set up seems like the net method above will work that way you don't have to bring any extra gear.

Merry Christmas all! My there be many Black Dog, Tylures, 3:16, Rago and other baits under the tree along with many LDC, Dobyns and Phenix swibait rods to go with!

Anything Nikon, they make the best lens glass on this planet. The U.S. Military has a contract with Nikon for the digital camera the military journalists use so with out being said they can also take quite a beating.

I've dropshoted swimbaits before. Its fun and EZ. Hard or soft baits. Hard baits are a pain though because the trebels always want to get tangled with the dropshot line.

Damn toothy northerns! They are fun on topwater though.

This is not a story of sweet success ... in fact I still have nightmares about this story. If you don't like a bitter taste left in your mouth quit reading now. I am not joking ... just skip this. Two years ago I went to my home land of California to visit family and more importantly do some fishing. I called my friends back home and set up trips for nearly the whole time I was home. Thanks to my friends Matt (couldnt spell his last name if I tried) and Jeremy Anderson. For a week I camped on Jeremys couch, helped him paint baits and do things around the bass cave and learned some of the basics of painting with an air brush and compiling a list of what I would need to get started oh and fishing almost every day as well. Jeremy took me to one of his spots that he knew had giants. We fished this spot several times that day, we went to get some late lunch and cool off at Union Point. We filled our bellies and shared stories with our buddy Justin and headed back out. We fished a bit and got back to the spot right as the sun was setting. My first cast to the spot I wing a Gen 2 punker in Black Dog Shad way back into the spot and begin walking it very aggressively. The next thing I know a giant to gos completely ape $#%^ on the punker. I let the line tighten and swing hard, we are hooked up, the fight is on!. The fish runs to one side of the weed line and back to the other I raise my rod tip to keep my line from hitting Jeremy the fish comes up, she is gigantic, well into the teens by our estimates. As she surfaces she is swinging her head wildly and tosses the punker 5-feet into the weeds and slips back to her watery lair. I couldn't believe it. How stupid was I to raise my rod. why didn't I go to the bow? What the $*%& was I thinking. I claim temporary insanity on just how big that fish was and swam like a Russian Typhoon class nuke sub. I was so mad, disappointed and just plain miserable. Quite possibly the fish of a life time ... gone just gone because I went nuts. I reeled in the punker and kept fishing knowing that wasnt going to happen again but maybe something. I had nightmares the next few nights just revisiting that ugly memory. I still have not had my redemption but one day I will. I told you this story sucks and will leave a bitter taste in your mouth. You were warned.

There are several apps for that! Jimmy Houston's Fish notes is one of them it records gps, time, your bait, water color, depth, temp etc. You manually put in some information but the time date and gps location are entered for you. I know it has a community feature where you can see what others are catching and using around you and vice versa but I believe you can also turn that feature off to keep your info to yourself.

I say you want innovation keep your eyes on the following companies: 3:16 - you know Mickey always has something up his sleeve. Black Dog Bait Co. - Jeremy is like a mad scientist I've seen the bass cave and he has some sick things that have not been done in the swimbait world in the works. TyLures - Ty and chris are a couple die hard swimbait nuts and really think outside the box. Matt Lures - Already has some off the wall designs and super realistic finishes on his soft baits and innovative tail designs. I see good things in the future for matt. JSJ - What can I say with things like the hell bird you know he's got sick projects on the burner that will wow the crowd. That's my take on it.

The eye can come out. I fixed this on it by cutting some of the soft plastic on the nose and pulling it back a little gluing the plastic seam above and below the line tie and putting the soft plastic back in place and letting the glue dry and hold it in place. This improved the durability of it for me. I tossed a few into the middle of the lake before I figured this one out, thankfully the shop I bought them from replaced each one after I brought them the line tie and receipt back.

I had a cat fish blow up on a popper once it tripped me out big time. At Contra Loma in the bay area you can watch them chase schools of shad around and blast them on the surface its the strangest thing. Nice cats though! I would have thrown them back too they are super hard to clean and skin you practically have to tie them to the bumper of your trailer and drag them home to get the skin off of them. Not to mention one wrong move and them suckers WILL stick you and that hurts like a SOB!

I was thinking of jigging a Matt Lures Tru Trout in Ghost Trout. Keep in mind Lake Trout like it in depths to well over 100 Feet so I need something that can sink at a decent rate lol.

screw you guys, I am going swimbaiting. Classic!

If this site ever goes down I'll move forward with my plans of building a site. Also if this site (I dont think it will but ya never know) ever becomes like the others I will move forward with my plans on building a site. Many of you know what happened on another site between me and the forces that be and how it ended up ... me wearing a muzzle of sorts lol. Just saying

Being that I cant pick a favorite I will pick a top 3 listed in no order. Black Dog Bait Co. Lunker Punker 9-inch wood in Zombie Trout TyLures Kicker Sun Fish in "Jail Gill" Black Dog Weed Slingers, so versitile, super realistic profile nice wobble on the retrieve comes through jungles of grass straight, jigged, ripped what ever it does it all!

I got a lunker punker Christmas ornament from Jeremy Anderson. Maybe with enough led wire I can sink it and catch a fish!

Come Jan 12 Im going to start making trips to go fishing Lake Trout through the ice. Any one ever use a swimbait to do this? I know lake trout like rainbow trout and a lot of people jig white 5inch tubes for them so I was figuring I'd give some paddle tail swimbaits for them. So again anyone try it? There will def. be pictures and vid when I do go on this mission.

News Flash it reaches over 100 in Minnesota ... hottest day on record was at Moorhead at a blistering 114*. You guys that have never left minnesota dont know hot till you go check out the deep south. Humidity coupled with just plain hot makes the days miserable and the nights not much better. Its like being stuck in a hot wet blanket.

I'm a real big fan of TW they are super quick the customer service is awesome and they almost always throw in a freebie or two with orders and who doesn't love freebies!

I agree with the lightweight PVC and end caps, also go with as narrow of a tube as you can the wider ones I have found often get flat spots in them from getting crushed the narrower ones seem to not have this problem as much for some reason. Probably some engineering mumbo jumbo I dont know much about

NICE I enjoyed that story. I never would have expected a carp to hit that bait that's amazing! Thanks for sharing!

Yep you can try to email me too I have Adobe Photoshop CS4 so I can defiantly make it work for ya. Using PS4 is a little over kill but it gets the job done.

Way to man up! I don't know either person here but if its true that is pretty shitty. I know from the days I fished Contra Loma in Antioch that some people will do anything to get your knowledge or gear including jacking your rods from a porta potty while you drop a deuce! (NOTE: That one hurt real bad because I had 2 Daiwa TDZs, 3 TDAs and a SOL bait caster when they were all brand new attached to a bunch of St. Croix Tournament Elite series rods!) and you'd see the damn meat hunters or idiots that couldnt figure out that lake for themselves out there sitting on a spot using worms or live crawdads or shad camping there after seeing me or someone I knew catch a big one.

Just wanted to say I got one in the mail from Joe the other day and that thing is sick. Makes me want to fast forward to spring so I can go chuck it! Just had to give this small swimbait maker due props his stuff is sick and swims great. Ill take some pix when I have some extra time.

Thanks darth baiter. May the force be with you!