Good Ole Boys Bass Club

of

Central New York

 

03/20/2005

The meeting was called to order at 6:00 pm by President Tom Hudson, and Craig Raponi gave his treasurers report.

Connell Raate reported that the search engines have now picked up our web page and we have been averaging 315 hits per day, or 10,000 per month.

The floor was then handed over to Jack "Meatball" Loughrey who gave a demonstration on how to properly rig and use the drop shot rig.

Jack likes to use a 3/16 oz weight on the bottom with a #1 hook tied up the line 18" using a polymer knot. He recommends using 8# test line, but has gone one size up or down depending on conditions. He uses the drop shot rig mostly for smallmouth bass and has very good success.

He states, like all the pros., that feeling the fish is the hardest thing to get to know, and will take some time working the rig to "get the feel". He recommends using the same weight most of the time so that you can get familiar as to how the weight feels, because with the drop shot rig there is very seldom a "strike". Most of the time the line just becomes heavy, and when that happens set the hook by "sweeping' the rod.

Jack passed around 9 packages of drop shot plastics that he uses. He made sure that he got them all back too, even though we wanted them for the lure draw.

The plastics that he uses are all small, 3 - 4 inches long and he looks for plastics with wimpy tails. He feels that the wimpy tail creates more action when "shaking" his pole.

We really had a lot of fun with Jack about him "shaking his pole". LOL

Next, Dominick Maio talked to us about the advantages of joining the Bass Federation.

We would all have to join "National BASS", and then at least 6 of the members would have to join the Federation.

After much discussion, there were many questions to be answered.

Our club liability insurance would cost us less, but we are not sure if the coverage is the same. Tom Hudson is checking into that.

Supporting BASS and the Federation is a plus.

There was a lot of discussion on the fact that we would gain more members by becoming a Federation club. We can take on more members and want to, but there was some fear that we would be seen as a easy route to the Federation tournaments by some fisherman.

Our club has always been a "teaching" club, and we don't want, or need, someone who is using the club for a easy route to the pros. Anyone joining our club must be honest when he "shows and tells" his technique for catching fish.

Joining the Federation was left on the table, until Tom can look into it some more. Tom will be calling a meeting in the first part of April after he gets some more information. Watch your e-mail for time and place.

Our thanks to Dominick for taking his time to tell us about the Federation.

The meeting was closed at 8:30.