Nick

All the super glues seem to be made out of the same chemical. I like to attach enough jigs and trailers when I know which types seem to work ahead of time at home, not in a rocking boat. I save lots of monye on plastics this way. I hate to use it in a boat because I've had some glued fingers at the worst time! Here's a tip if you don't use this stuff yet: Put your plastic trailer on about halfway, then put just a dab of glue right under the skirt and on the shank of the hook. You'll have about 30 seconds to slide the trailer up before it locks in position. Once I super glued a tube on the collar of a ball head jig while fishing an FLW tourney on Champlain and I caught over 14 pounds of smallies from the same tube. At noon, the tube had one tentacle left! Without the glue, I would have gone through a dozen tubes at least. Since the smallies couldn't pull the tube down the hook, they often came back for a second strike on the same cast.

1. Look at the lay of the land and banks you are fishing. You may be able to get some general ideas of the slopes, flats and channels. 2. A decent depthfinder goes for $100 or less, get one. 3rd. Use trolling a deep diving bait to get an idea of the depths. 4. Use a heavy jig to do the same while casting. 5. Fish early and look for schooking activity. Often this occurs around places that have deeper water holding places that bass relate to.

Aromatics like cedars and pines to me give off odors that repel fish for a while. For that reason, I don't like using fresh ones for brush pile making. I do like heavy green tress like sycamore,cherry, and oak because they sink easily. I have used others like willow that require too much weight to sink. All sem to hold fish if they are put in migration or "fish highway" spots. A large naked flat close to a creek channel would rate tops for me.

Slack line is the enemy of worm and jig anglers. Keep that line fairly taught unless you are working a bed and can see the fish take the bait. I've fished with lots of the top pro's on tours and I've never seen one purposely keep slack in the line unless they were peeling it off to get more depth immediately like in a dock fishing situation.

How can you call yourself BigBass if you don't fish jigs? LOL Anyway the two previous posts will get you started. Try to buy a jig with a cone shaped head with a line tie coming out the front if possible to minimize weeds tangling around the line tie. If that is a major problem, do minimize the weight. When I swim my jig, most of the time I cach more when trailed with a single tail 4-5 in. grub close in color to the jig. Keep you rod tip at about 10:00 pointed toward the jig to help with hook setting. A light wire high quality hook without a wedguard really helps the hooking percentage.

Regardless of the lures used, we always catch a representative sample of what's in the lake (dam?). If really big bass are present, you'll catch them on lots of stuff. Through the years I've had secret lakes to myself: some had big bass and others had very few big ones. After each was fished, a basic population sample is what I caught esp. since I was able to cover the bulk of the water. From one particular lake, I caught literally 100's of bass all under two pounds, then one lucky day in October, I caught one that weighed over 6 lbs. Very long and lean she was, which told me the growth rate just wasn't too good in that pond. All the other hundreds of dinks had the big head/small body look. In another pond that had lots of forage, I caught the thunder out of big ones. They were dumb, the water was colored, and no one else fished it. There I caught 3-5 big ones over 4 pounds every time I fished the lake's only sunken brush pile just about any time except the spawn. Unfortunately, this pond was drained is how I know I absolutely had them cornered. It was the big bass hotel! In summary, you'll catch what's in there!

3 Kings, I've been at this since the 60's with worms and most of the time if you think you have a strike, go "on point." That is, take up any slack keep your rod tip at 11:00, and feel gently for the fish that could be taking your worm. Overwhelmingly, the bass will let you know it is one by moving the line or giving you a definite tug. Then you can lower the rod tip and snap your wrists hard to set the hook. I don't deep hook bass this way because the entire game takes only a couple of seconds. If you go "on point," and nothing moves or tugs, you have some sort of false alarm. You won't be fooled nearly as often as you would by setting the hook every time you hit the bottom or an object.

That's just like my pond. Lot's of decayed weeds and algae. What I do is throw a weightless Senko and don't try to move it for at least 20 seconds. I have had some great success lately swimming a 1/4 oz. brown jig with a five inch Fat Albert grub occasionally killing it to drop down a couple of feet. I like the Manns 1 minus for cranking. You can keep it just a few inches under the surface. On top I like buzzbaits and waking a spinnerbait.

To Road Warrior and others: I fondly remember when the 600 Bomber was the go to (about the only) deep diving crankbait, and the first summer I fished it ( '69), I caught two 7 pound largemouth when I banged it off some wood in about 9 feet of water. I'll bet that if anyone is man enough to throw one of these (and can find one), the results would be very good today. That is a pulling son of a gun, even with the 3-1 Ambassadors we used those days! I've been banging baits off stuff ever since. If I'm not hitting bottom with a deep diving crank, I'll change up until I do hit it.

Nearly all really big bass have struck my crankbait or spinnerbait just after it contacted an object: bottom, wood branch, boulder, piling or even a dock. That deflection is a key thing. To not get a crank bait hung up like a BB 2, I like to retrieve it at a medium slow pace and let the object I hit deflect the bait instead of me trying to make it act erratically. Ditto on the spinnebait.

In the last two weeks in very different latitudes, I've had to really vary my retrieve speed and pauses to get bit consistently. I don't believe that there is an absolute rule that can be relied upon to get results, but please try a different retrieve, lure, or speed of retrieve if you are not having success. Example 1: While floating the Menominee in Wisconsin, we sere struggling a bit. The depth with the severe drought was very shallow, under six feet and fairly clear. After trying spinnerbaits and tubes with little success for 30 minutes(we could actually see the bass ingore them), the Pop R worked wonders especially when rested at least 8 seconds between gentle pops. This type retrieve rarely works as well in my home state, but those Wisconsin smallies couldn't stand it. We caught upwards of fifty per day there. Example 2: Fished Mark Twain Lake in Missouri yesterday way up a heavily stained creek. While watching a squirrel chasing a mate up a tree, I let my tandem willow spinnerbait sink to the botom in about four feet of water. Peck, Peck, I got bit like I was using a worm. Up comes a fine 3 pound bass. That told me to slow down and work the blade like a worm hopping it gently off the bottom. It worked. I caught two more nice keepers, and just for the sake of argument, took the same spinnerbait and worked it conventionally steadily and near the surfacefor fifty casts and never had a strike. Just goes to show that presentations, when adjusted just a little, can be very productive.

If you have a good depthfinder, always look for humps in a natural lake. Often they exist, and they nearly always hold smallies. Those that rise to about 6-15 feet of the surface are often good no matter what the season is. I would throw a green pumpkin gold flaked tube for most of my offshore, deeper angling. Go with8-10 lb. flourocarbon if that water is clear. Also concentrate on those long points with the most numerous basketball and even larger size rocks if they are present. Sometimes the edge of softer bottoms meeting harder bottoms is all it takes on drop offs or shelves to hold some big fish. The outside edges of weedlines especially if they are on tops of fast tapering points could be good for you too. Never neglect the wind. Smallies can really stack up on the windier banks far shallower than you would expect especially if you see lots of bait in the shallow, windier areas. These banks could even be sandy and the smallies can hold there if the bait is there. Get the tandem willow spinnerbaits ready in a silver blue skirt or just plain old white skirt. One silver and one gold blade is often a good compromise on the blades which could be 4 to 4.5. on the larger blade. Good luck and keep us posted.

Senko, You remember when they were called Fly and Rind and simply doll flies? Think the Tennessee fellers get credit for these names! By the way, I look for no current in streams when I catch my big ole winter time smallies. I'm fishing water that sometimes has a skim of ice in the backwaters though. We're talking mid fofties water temps most of the time. Black hair jigs rule!

I call the clevis attached one the front blade, and the other one the rear blade.

I've always heard that a meanmouth was a spot and smallie hybrid. I don't believe the largemouth is in the mix. The meanmouths we catch behave and look like smallmouth and Kentucky bass, not largemouth. Check with the Missourians and their articles for real "Show-Me" answers. I'm with the Road Warrior on this one. About 20 years ago, I caught and had one mounted that I thought was a bulky smallmouth from a river here Missouri. The taxidermist colored it like a smallmouth, but I think I had the meanmouth record for quite a while and didn't even know it.

Be careful about using a specific hook size based on length alone. The thickness of the plastic really determines the hook suitable hook size. For example, most tubes are pretty thick so I use at least a 3/0 even on the 3 inch models.

You could help us by identifying both the water color, and available depths, if you are fishing from a boat, and the dominant forage in this lake. If this is an impoundment, I would check out several points both in the main river and the larger creeks with my depthfinder looking for both baitfish and cover and other small features such as rock piles, fingers, vegetation, or boulders on the points that could hold bass. Provided your lake is a fertile fishery, these points will be fine to fish especially if any wind or particularly current is moving past them. Good depths could be from a few inches to 30 feet depending on the clarity of the water you are fishing and the depth of the forage. I would use both crank baits and jigs and worms to cover these areas deeper than 10 feet. For the shallower bass particularly early and late, a topwater or spinnerbait would be a good choice.

Fish a 5 inch Senko Texas and weightless in the holes of the moss. Let it sink and wiggle. Green pumpkin and watermelon are pretty universal colors. Hold on tight.

Yes, even in Missouri, it's my favorite time for both streams and lakes provided the temp is above freezing. If you are in Florida, why even consider not fishing during winter?

That sounds a bit odd. 2-3 feet waters should be mixed with winds and such at the surface. Never of heard of thermo so shallow.

I used to fish with a good angler who waited a full three seconds to jerk back when a fish struck his topwater. Amazingly, he had a near 100% hook-up rate. He claimed that bass didn't try to spit them out as quick as people thought. These fish were not in heavy cover, however.

I agree with the Brat. Keep it simple. In soft plastics, green pumpkin catches fish in just about every condition. Red shad is very good for stained waters. Black and blue jig is pretty universal also. For cranks get a few in crawadad colors reds, oranges, browns for early spring, and switch to shad patterns in the postspawn thru winter. For dirty water stay with the chartreuse, and firetigers. Spinnerbaits: small silver willows with a clear to firecracker or silver skirt for clear, and move to whites and chartruese skirts with larger blades in silver and gold combinations for dirtier water. Real murky go with painted blades in chartreuse , black, and even orange. These are general guidelines, so exceptions do arise.

Several Ozark fellas have fished the "Holey Rogue"for years. Drill out a 1/8 to 1/4 inch hole in the throat of even a floater model, and you can fish this rascal as deep as yo have the patience to. I don't think it wiggles as good, but sometimes that's the way the bass want it. All your shot falls out by the way. I intentionally overweight suspending Rogues with very good results when I need to fish 10-15 feet deep in winter. I get a sink rate of about two inches per second, and this makes a big diference at least to me.

This happens pretty often. It's obviously a sign that you're around a good school of bass. Don't be surprised if a large one actually atacks a smaller one. Often if the bass are close in size, by letting the hooked bass swim, you can get a double header if using a two or three hook bait. Liek a pack of hungry wolves, they always want what the other has. When a fishery has lots of bass in it, you'll see this quite a bit, but when it declines, it's more of a rarity. Looks like you have a good place to fish. Years ago when few access points were available, we used to have two or three follower smallmouth regularly on our floats, but as civilization esp. more anglers found out about the quality of fishing, we rarely see quality bass following the hooked fish these days. The decline in numbers of fish is the reason.

Preston, if you fish in waters below 50 degrees, I'd recommend a black hair jig esp. maribou. It's a pretty forgotten presentation that works well for me in winter. I would put on a small eel behind a 1/4 oz. model and work it slowly on channel banks if you have that type of topography. Fish it pretty slowly right along the bottom with very small lifts. The strike will be quite lights for a second before you feel the sweet surge of a nice bass.