I appreciate all of the thoughts on ledge fishing. I also did the ledge trip with Dave later in the season (August) last year and it was a great learning experience. I can't say enough of how informational and useful that session was with Dave and I also look forward to doing that again. I didn't get much of a chance after going out with Dave to try out what I had learned on the ledges but since I have put a Lowrance LMS520 and the Navionics chip on my rig and I am raring to go for ledge season this year.

One twist on lures that I am thinking for ledge fishing is tubes. I like to fish tubes on KY rigged on jig heads in which I swim them more than hop or drag like a worm. Smallies at night love tubes fished that way and I am thinking that same technique with slighly heavier heads may be pretty interesting on the drops. Time will tell.

One last thought on equipment. I have not fished the large, super-deep diving crankbaits much like you guys are using and watching that BassMaster show yesterday KVD talked about using a 7'10' graphite composite rod with flourocarbon line and he said that the right rig was crucial for fishing large cranks. I don't have such a rod and I wonder if it truly makes that much difference. I once purchase a "David Fritts" crank bait rod which was kind of like a buggy whip and I did not like the feel. I tend to use MH loomis rods and like the feel much better than the whippy rods. Any thoughts on rods for the big cranks? What type and action do you guys like?

kc