EC1

Well, I am confirming that this line is never going to be seen on my rods again. After making a trip today to the same spot after hearing about a tough bite, I was told amongst 6 people, the only guy using fluoro was able to catch fish. So I tied on some more of this stren onto my rods, broke again at the hook knot so I'm either gonna get myself some seaguar or xps. But yes, for the most part, I am going to go without a leader when fishing the pads.

Thanks for all of the tips guys! As for the fluoro I bought, it's going to go in the trash for now. Gotta get myself some good fluoro. As for my connection knot, it seems to be the better of the two knots. It seems to be strong enough, and remains in a very low profile so that I barely even notice it when it's reeled into the guides. I'll try the swivel idea soon too.

Hm, I'm almost confident my knot should be pretty good, I've been using that fish what fool knot, the attention checkout girl guy's knot. The knot where it's a uni knot doubled over at the eyelet. Before this, I tied directly and never found problems like this, so I was wondering whether I'm using a very bad fluoro, or that 17# test is too light, or I should just give up on fluoro as a leader for now. As for my so called "horsing the fish in" is just to bring it out as fast as possible, because I'll have a pound or two of salad that comes with the fish

Good evening all, Being relatively new to this fluorocarbon deal, I was wondering if anyone could offer me up some knowledge that they have with this stuff. Recently, I bought some of the new Stren Fluorocast in 17# for something along the lines of $10 for 200 yds. I was thinking that even if the stuff was bad, I wasn't throwing away $20-30. I tied this stuff up as a leader, with an albright to connect to 30# braid, and that knot has been flawless for me as of yet. What I am finding is that on two occasions I've lost a very good fish (I'm guessing in the 4# range) breaking very cleanly somewhere at or near the knot. When horsing a fish out of heavy weeds, should I expect 17# fluoro to break or am I just using a bad Fluoro? Don't know if it matters but I'm usually breaking off on 5/0 Gamakatsu EWG's with a 5" senko. I did end up with a couple of smaller fish, largest being in the 3# range.

Nice job toughing it out! Those look like fantastic fish!

The Abu Garcia rods, Patriarch spinning, and possibly the sufix/gore tex braided line!

See, that's exactly what I meant. Even a different colour and possibly they could have even used the Scorpion colours and I would have bought it. Jchau, that looks amazing! Ready to sell it yet? haha I'll save the flame decals to cover landmarks in my pictures

I agree with the fact that people choose function before form, but then there are a ton of other factors after that. If I can find a similar performing reel for the same amount of money, I guarantee you that the Curado's will not be my first choice. Whether you get a scorpion, or another reel that performs at the same rate, Shimano could dominate (Yea I know they do already) the market even more if their Curado just used an extra few months to develop in terms of their visuals.

Glad I made it out before everything happened today. It didn't seem like a very big storm came in though. Got onto the water at 9pm, fished close to 12am and was hearing thunder in the distance with the winds and rain somewhat picking up as we were going back. The fishing didn't really pick up either even though it was the time right before a storm kicks in.

Jchau, I cannot believe this reel is of any interest to you! I bet this reel is going to perform, and get lots of praise for it, but I find that Curado's are kind of boring in terms of how they look. Especially when their 50, 200, and 300 sizes are all going to be the exact same colour.

Nice fish mike! If I can finally catch crappie tomorrow, hope to see you sometime next week!

When I think telescopic rods, there's probably only one I can think of that is general purpose..and I don't even know if it's made anymore...the Shimano telescopic rod which was sold at lebaron for close to $100. It also came in a 6 piece version... If you're willing to shell out $200, I wouldn't even think about that one. And as for most telescopic rods, I find they are usually the 7'6 - 8'6 flipping rods. Lots of companies have them, and I'm always under the impression that I might as well go for something slightly shorter and 1 piece instead...If length really is a big deal. I find that a small sedan could easily fit an 8' rod without too much difficulty.

Nice fish dude!

You honestly don't know what you are missing if you don't fish into the night sometimes. Walleye, crappie hit exceptionally well at night, and bass do not just go to sleep at night either! If fishing from a boat, just make sure you know exactly which way you came from, and where the general hazards are. As for ice fishing, only drive out if you know exactly where you need to go. You can always walk past where you parked, and only end up losing time...But if you were to drive past, you never know if you've driven yourself into a spot with current/thin ice etc. I actually like doing all 3 types of fishing well into the night!

Rob, but you have to admit the game was going to be completely different had the England goal counted before the half! As someone watching, I feel that morale was taken down a notch since they had to play into the second half down a goal. Who knows, maybe they would have won either way, but I still blame it on that very bad call Was England playing well at all this year during the world cup? No. But hell, I thought they would have made it to the quarterfinals, only to be beaten to death by Argentina.

Oh my god, I am happy for the Netherlands! Woke up this morning and showered and put on an orange tshirt similar in colour to their team jersey and was thinking they lost it after the first 10 minutes when they almost were down 2-0. I even went to work in the bright orange t-shirt after they won Was rooting for them since the beginning of the this year's cup! I really hope they get their first world cup champions! Ghana deserved that win more than Uruguay though. It was just too bad that they didn't capitalize on the last penalty kick..Oh well, they were going to lose to Netherlands anyways.

This whole time starting from the bass opener has been tough fishing for myself. With this slightly colder weather, I found fish to be slow to attack baits. My thinking would be to put something in front of them with some more flavour, gulp/etc. and dragging it slowly across the bottom with a jighead.

Never tried the spray by trigger x, and had only one experience with the gulp spray. I guess I would say the gulp spray works, but I'm not keen on the super watery formula. In the plastics department though, Gulp takes it by far...Well, since I've only caught a couple of fish with TriggerX while Gulp is like my go to plastic.

Nice job Garry! My opener was a bust, but it's good to see that your tactics are working!

Don't think I'll be in water that is going to be all that clear, but even if I was fishing in clear water, I think those crazy colours would still be what I would have thrown. Hope you get into some quality fish with those techniques Garry!

Haha, Thanks Mike, and you're right about the weather. I don't think the thunderstorms actually made it over to the GTA last night. I'll give it to them on the weather for now, and they better not be too far off. Sunny and a light breeze would make the day much more awesome though. And are chatterbaits just another name for buzzbaits? I've no experience on them, maybe so I can learn another tactic.

Great! Thanks for the tips everyone! So who is feeling good about the opener this weekend?

That's just too bad, Sorry to hear.

BTW, I think I will start by throwing some frogs, poppers, and topwater crankbaits in a variety of colours, mainly firetiger, chartreuese, white and black. All of this will be done near surface weeds or a shallow weedflat less than 5FOW. Depending on the results, I think I would move onto texas rigged plastics, senko's, tubes, and creature baits (Bubblegum, Junebug, Black w/ Red flake) and finally spinnerbaits (white) into the same area. If these tactics are not enough to bag some fish, I think I would move onwards to flipping jigs either through mats or possibly into deeper water. If that STILL doesn't work, it's probably probably time for me to try to crank some fish in some deeper water, hoping that something will come up to attack...And if all of the above fails, I believe it's time to pack it home and quit fishing

With the opener coming up this weekend, I've been losing sleep just thinking about hitting my location at sunrise to find myself some Largemouth, and possibly some smallmouth. I haven't noticed anyone talking about it yet, so I think I want to see what you guys are up to in terms of tactics. First off, the weather is not looking as good as it said it would have been last week. It's pretty much going to be the coldest day of the week, and the rain looks pretty much like it's going to happen, whether we like it or not. With this weather, I am kind of feeling that this might act like a minor cold front, so what are you guys thinking about using on your lake? Do you think that the topwater bite will be affected? The rainy conditions might also lead to low light conditions for much of the day, so will that play into your strategies of fishing? Do you feel that the fish will stay in the shallow weedflats with some surface weeds, or would have moved to deeper water by Saturday? Let's have our bass discussion