Minnow

i used a sucker meat big chunks of freshly cut up sucker meat. I hada 5/0 hook with a 2 oz sinker and 50 lb braid and the big cats loved the huge chunks. I would let them run with the bait for about 30 seconds and then set the hook and hand on! Good Luck

Nice Cat!

Nice Carp WTG!

Those are some Huge Cats! Congrats

Nice Boat! Congrats and Enjoy it!

Nics Catfish guys! Definately Need some good line for the bigger cats!

Hey guys Headed out yesterday in hope of some steelhead but all I ended up with was this HUGE sucker! Not as bad as it sounds since that sucker was put to good use today! Today got up early and headed to the Dunnville Dam in search of some big channel cats! Launched the boat and was on the water by 9:30 AM and cut up the sucker from the previous day and used huge chunks of meat on 5/0 hook with a 2 oz sinker in the current. I had 50 lb braid with a 30 lb florocarbon leader. Cast out the huge rig on my Ugly Stick Catfish Specialty rod and waited a total of about 5 min until something smacked the bait and started to take line, FISH ON and its a nice one wasn't a long fight though since my equipment could probably land 100 lb catfish but still a nice fight. Not a giant but a good one I rebaited and cast out again and not 5 min and Fish on AGAIN! This time a nicer one so I hand the rod to my grandpa to fight the fish and he was impressed with the power of these cats! This kind of action continued for about 2 hour and landed 8 big channel cats! After that all we were getting were little guys which were 1-3 lb range. Overall counting the smaller catfish landed about 20 catfish between me and my grandpa which is not a bad day on the water especially when its a weekday! Here are the pics of a few of the fish!

I would say go with 6 lb test because that is good for panfish but will be able to land a decent bass as well, 4 lb test is great for sunfish but a good sized bass will either break you off or take 20 min to land (i know from experience). I might pick up one of those just to toss in my car so I can go fishing almost anytime! Looks like a nice little outfit

Some nice Steelhead there!

Nice Cats

Great Suits, Great Price and would definately recommend one!

Congrats on your first crappie, try fishing near sunken logs or trees they seem to all be there

I have a shimano sedona 750 reel paired with a berkley ultra light lightning rod which was $37.99, used it for crappie, perch and bluegill last week and it was a great rod! I have even hooked some 3 lb smallies on this combo and with a bit of skillful fighting was able to land all of them! Definately do not get a fiberglass rod as there is not enough backbone to get a hook set with lots of line out. I definately would not recommend spending too much since you are not going to be using it too much and it is only panfish so no need to spend more than $50 for the rod I beleive, unless of course you are a proffessional rock bass fisherman!

What a report just amazing! Great fish Congrats!

Nice Cats Rich!

Nice Fish!

Nice chrome!

Well headed out for Crappie yesterday and since almost every place is still frozen headed to Bradford. This is not my favourite place to fish but sure beats sitting at home. Got there at around 12 pm and launched the boat there was a crowd of boats by a fallen tree but I decided to stay away from the crowd and find my own school of fish! Started fishing any kinds of underwater structure or cover I could find and in about 5 min we had our first crappie! The action stayed hot during the whole day, we caught 27 crappie and about 10000 small dinky perch and bluegill! Still fun to catch on a very light set up and was great way to start the soft water season! The place was suprisingly packed with people for a weekday don't even want to imagine what its like there on the weekend! Finished fishing at about 4 and headed home, overall not a bad day and I can't wait for annual G-bay pike opener trip May 1st (which will hopefully be in my new RANGER!!!) Here is one of the many crappies we caught no real slabs but at least we got our target species!

Was hoping to get out for some steelhead on the Niagara River and was wondering how the conditions are on the river? Have never fished for steelhead on the Lower Niagara in the Spring and was wondering if anyone could help me out on what the best method would be to catch them right now? Any help is really appreciated!

Nice Chromers! Solid fish and Solid Numbers! I need to get out for some steelies!

I never used to use them until I was casting a Storm Kicking Minnow and caught my Personal Best Pike I now use the smaller storm baits to for smallies, largies, and pike. You definately won't catch tons of fish but the bass that you will catch will be huge! I have also caught 1 walleye on the smaller storm swimbait. I would definately recommend them but you have to have confidence in them and don't expect to catch quantity but instead quality.

Nice Carp Rich! Seems like the late January carp bite is hot! I didn't even know you could catch carp in the winter!

Amazing Report and Hooking into a Marlin is my ultimate dream! Thanks for taking the time to write such an amazing report

Thanks everyone and thanks irishfield for the verado break in tips will be sure to follow those to a tee! See you guys on the water and maybe a few tournaments as well gotta win some money back to pay for all this

Hey guys! Thanks for all the advice from my two previous threads on tournaments boat and lund fiberglass! After some serious research and shopping around my dad and I decided to go with the Ranger 620 VS! We ordered the boat from D.T Powersports at the boat show and Greg the owner was a really nice guy and helped us customize our ranger to meet all our needs. He even introduced us to Joe Noel who is a pro fisherman I saw him on the CFT super series, I also saw Dave Mercer with him. They showed us the great humminbird side imaging technology, which is amazing by the way! Thank you to everyone on this board as well after reading all the discussions it really helped me make the right decisions! This is the exact rig we got! Here are the specs 2008 Ranger 620 VS Dual Console (Custom Colours) 2008 250 HP Mercury Verado 2008 9.9 HP Pro Mercury Kicker MinnKota 101 Maxx Trolling Motor Humminbird 997 Side Imaging in the Console Humminbird 787 in the Bow (Navionics Gold Included) Custom Ranger Trailer Plus countless other features that come standard Also we got Ranger 40th Anniversary G Loomis Rod Rapala Ranger Tackle Pack Ranger Custom Boat Cover Free for the 40th Anniversary Will have to wait for 10-12 Weeks while our Ranger is Custom Built at the Ranger Factory in Arkansas, Can't wait to get it out on the water in April! We wanted a boat for hardcore fishing as well as family and the cottage. A boat that can handle rough water and looks nice as well, and of course the most important is quality and I think we found it all and more in the Ranger 620! Can't wait for Bass Season!