Well its just about time to oil up the fishing reels?

[BigBill]

Yup its time to wash out those tackle boxes to get the foul oders off your lures, lube our fishing reels and go over what were missing or lost last year to get ready for the spring trout fishing. Then its the Bass fishing season next.

This is the best time to shop for great/awesome deals on sporting goods too.

Its also time to watch your local walmart for there yearly clearances on fishing stuff from lastyear. Look at walmart for hunting clothes on clearance too. http://www.cabelas.com and http://www.bassproshops.com also has sales at this time too.

Here's some more to checkout;

http://www.gofishing.com/ Discount stuff

http://www.fishingworld.com/brannansbass/ This site proves why the southern pros aresuch good fisherman it has all the different unique stuff that the others don't have.

http://www.overstockbait.com/ Great deals / discounts

http://www.fishingtackleoutlet.net/ Good discounts in discintinued stuff as well as some of the current baits too.

Don't buy until you looked them all over.

Make sure you checkout cabelas and bass pro shops for clearances on the hunting stuff too. You can get the insulated hunting clothes at great discount prices right now too.

[wfmdfm]

Your a lure builder also you must be putting together a few this winter?

[BigBill]

I just sent some more out for custom painting. I should have them back soon. I been buying up the discounted Northern Pike and Muskie lures to have them painted in my favorite Bass colors. I have had experiences were the bigger hogs won't strike the smaller sized baits. I been getting all my topwater stuff custom painted. Next i'm going to get all my older crankbaits custom painted too. With the high cost of the new stuff with the fancy paint jobs its cheaper to send my stuff to http://www.tclarkcustomlures.com to get them repainted. The only thing is they look so awesome i hate to use them now. But i will in the spring.

Things that i have noticed about lure size and color while fishing;

I was using a Mepps #3 silver blade w/ brown buck tail and was getting strike after strike when all of a sudden the bite stopped. I switched to a larger #4 mepps in the same color and caught a bigger bass that came in to see what the frenzy was all about but she won't hit the smaller baits.

Another time in the late afternoon i was using a Joesfly's new 1/4oz bass lures. I was using the blackgnat (silver blade / black tail). I was catching fish after fish and the bite was on. As it got darker the bite stopped. I switched to a joesfly 1/4oz in a firetiger apache and pulled out a few more fish. This tells me when the light changed they couldn't see the silver/black lure. Its funny every article we read about fishing in the dark it says to use black colors. I'm fishing when the light changes from late afternoon to dusk to dark. I'm learing at this low light time to use a firetiger or bright colors with my lures.

I been also testing the antique Combo "C" Lector when i can too. It tells the waters PH, the Temp and it picks a combination of lure colors to try for that moment that the fish can see. Dr. Loren Hill of Ok university developed it and it took him ten years to do it. With the different hues in the water conditions there are colors that the fish can't sees at times. For me being a late commer to bass fishing it kind of gave me a head start on selecting lure colors. Plus on a tough day the selector really comes in handy. Kevin Vandam also uses one on a tough day of fishing.

Nothing beats the time we spend on the water for experience but i don't have a lot of time left.

[wfmdfm]

I go with the thought of big bait big fish. Not always true but seems to work out.

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

Oil up the fishing reels? Around here it would be oil up the chainsaw, or maybe some fresh dynamite. We have had record length cold spells here, and everything except the spring fed streams are frozen over, some pretty deep. As to clearances, our Walmart never seems to have much of anything on clearance. I don't know if they send them to other stores or what.

[daddydip]

Big Bill, you my man are reading my hand, i have both boxes sitting here in the middle of the living room and the wife keeps coming in and just shaking her head and pointing. i have both the salt and fresh water boxes getting prepped for some serious angling this year. a few upgrades are that i'm trying out the fenwick poles this year for the big game fishing. a 7' hmg heavy fast action with a pflueger trion spinner and a fenwick canadian medium heavy with a abu garcia vs6000. good stuff cheap. that's the fresh water , i have to go over my salt poles before i make any decisions on how i'll deal with that mess , but i'll probably have to do something as far as reels because the old ones are pretty beat up. salt can really mess up an aluminum spool. i'm still bookmarking all your links and we are planning to make a trip up to bass pro in harrisburg soon and from there it's a short trip up 81 to 78 and cabela's up in hamburg. the new stuff is starting to come out and i need to be having a close look at the close out's on last years gear. i'm spooned out and in need of some soft baits so i guess i better find some more money. hey on a note the heavy fast pole is rated to 20 lb mono up to around 1 1/2 oz. lure and the med. heavy is rated to 30 lb.up to 3 oz. i think i'm going to go with braided line this year but still need to do a little more due dilligence. i'm also looking at the abu garcia stx casting reel. the drag on that thing goes up to around 24 lb. it rated a 9 on tackle tour.com.i think i will add casting gear to my bag of goodies. oh well back to the grind.