GobbleDog

From what I've read over the years: Post spawn = sluggish bass who mostly feed on new born fishies. Therefore, the trick is to use smaller baits and work em slower than normal.

I own an 80 horse outboard Mecury built in the late 80's. She's old, ugly, and leaks a little oil, but she keeps on running.

In Central Florida, basically the only river we have is the St. Johns River. And it's a heck of a lot harder to catch fish out of that river than in any of the regular lakes. In my local club, we vote on where to fish each month and NOBODY ever wants to go the river. Notoriously tough fishing. Oddly enough, some of the best places to fish in the lakes are places that have moving water. Go figure.

I want a Stratos. :'(

I've got a 6 y.o. nephew who loves going fishing with me. Actually, he likes to fish for about 5 minutes, then he starts looking for other stuff to do. When I catch a bass, I'll hand him the reel and let him pull it in. Then I'll put it in the livewell (even if it's short). He spends the next couple of hours checking on the fishies and watching them swim around. Of course I always toss them all back before leaving. I spose I'd get a ticket if I ever got pulled over with a short bass in the live well, but it's worth the risk keeping him entertained for hours.

In Florida, you don't need a fishing license if you are: Younger than 16; Older than 65; Handicapped; In the Military; Using a cane pole in the county which you reside; A client for developmental services; in a fish pond of 20 acres or less which is located entirely within the private property;.... and a few more exceptions. Basically, if you're a middle-aged regular white guy - you gots to pay.

I would sell my soul for a Statos. :'(

Well, I went and picked up my dead trolling motor today from the fix it guy. While I was there, I asked the guy what type of trolling motor he recommended. He said MotorGuide sells digital trolling motors that NEVER break down. He said the old analog trolling motors are the ones that everyone has problems with. When I asked him what he thought about Minn Kota's PowerDrive, he said take a look around there were a few of them laying around his shop waiting to be fixed. He said Minn Kota doesn't even make digital trolling motors and MotorGuide is currently dumping the remainder of their analog motors into the market for cheap. He said don't buy em, spend the extra money to get a digital one. I felt stupid for admitting it, but I had never heard of trolling motors being either analog or digital. In any case, I know the guy was being honest with me because I know him personally and he doesn't even sell trolling motors. He only fixes them. So according to him, the best trolling motor you can buy is a MotorGuide digital trolling motor. When I asked him about that neat remote feature on MinnKota he said MotorGuide has plans on making something similar to that in the near future but doesn't currently offer that feature.

My post was refering to worms. I spose with treble hooks you do sort of use a mixture of side hook and verticle. Now that I think about it, with top water lures and minnow baits, my hook sets aren't nearly as verticle as they are with worms.

??? I mostly throw Trick Worms regardless of the season. But there are probably a bunch of post spawn strategies that I'm missing. :-/ Anyone else have some post spawn tricks?

I only use 7' and 7.5' rods with my spinning reels. Better casts, better hook sets, better leverage to easily work your bait through the thick grass. As for side hook sets vs. verticle... I think everyone will agree that verticle hook sets are always the way to go. Sometimes, you'll get a bump at the wrong time when your rod is in an awkward position and have no choice but to give it a side hook set, but for the most part I think you want to try to avoid that. I stand by both of those paragraphs regardless if I'm standing in a boat or sitting in a canoe.

Perhaps. But my bet would be that when you feel two or more hits, but the bass won't commit enough to get a full hook set - it's probably a dinky little bass picking at it. The big one's usually give just one solid thump.

I'm not good with spinnerbaits - at all, but I've always heard the blades should "match the hatch" in terms of size. (match the baitfish) As for Colorado vs. Willowleaf - again, I'm no expert with spinners, but I think Colorado is designed for deap water or when letting the spinner bait fall after hitting cover, while Willowleaf is for shallow water or for non-stop reeling... But there's probably a lot of people here who have more experience with those things than I do. ???

I imagine bass usually are looking down at worm baits and are probably aiming for the center. Of course when they open their mouth, it creates a vacume and sucks in water and watever else is in front of them. Like everyone else though, once in a while I'll set the hook and feel the hook pop off the worm. In those instances I assume the bass accidently didn't inhale the whole worm and only got the tail end of the worm in it's mouth and left the hook part out.

I take it back. I've never been skunked!!! Ever! I don't know what yall are doing wrong. ??? I catch a 5 lber, errrr I mean a 10 lber on every single cast!!! That's because I'm so dang good!

Florida: 1 year freshwater fishing license - $13.50 > (ok, we're not international. But a lot of our residents are)

Power Pro

The first spinning reels I bought for bass fishing were those dinky 1500 and 2000 models. At this point, I ONLY buy the 2500 models for freshwater fishing. Bigger gears = stronger reel. And it feels a lot more solid than those fragile little 2000 reels. In my opinion, the best spinning reel money can buy at a reasonable price is: the Daiwa Capricorn 2500-A. - $115.00.

I exclusively use spinning reels. When trying to make pin-point casts, I tend to intentionally cast a little too far and then I'll use my left hand to gently touch the line around the bail to drop the bait. I s'pose it's sort of the same idea as using your thumb on a bait caster to drop the bait.

To find the grass, we either see it topped out (which is obvious) or we use the trusty old depth finder. In Lake Okeechobee somebody told us to drive to "the Monkey Box" because it was known that their was hydrilla there. Sure enough, when we pulled up up you could see it topped out. We just fished around the topped out areas and felt for the off-shore stuff. But if it's too deep to physically see, I'll use the depth finder to see grass and then just drop the anchor to see what kind of grass I pull up. Honestly, most of the time I already know where the hydrilla is just from experience... ie Lake Conway, West Lake Toho, etc... But in new lakes it can be a challenge finding it. In Lake Conway, there's so much hydrilla that the trick is actually to find where is stops and fish the edges and drop offs. I don't think there's much, if any, hydrilla grass in Lake Harris. Which is a shame. (although I haven't been there in over 2 years so I may be mistaken)

Gauranteed pond buster bait: Zoom Swamp Crawler - 1/0 worm hook - 1/32 oz bullet weight. Finess fishing at it's best. Can't miss.

One of these days, I might take you up on that. It's nearly certain that my club will vote for that lake sometime this year and I'll have to get up there and practice. If we do, I'll be looking for ya. BTW - did you catch that 11 lber or was it caught in a recent tourney?

In Florida, a lot our lakes contain hydrilla grass. Some topped out and some submerged. That's where I find most of my fish. 2 weeks ago I fished in Lake Okeechobee and found some off-shore hydrilla grass that was holding bass. Everyone else around was flipping into thick matted grass, but me and my partner were making long casts into the open water and were slowing working worms through the hydrilla. And we did very well. If I can't find any hydrilla, the 2nd thing I look for is moving water. I fish around locks, spillways, canals, etc... If I can't find any hydrilla or moving water... I look for drop-offs and holes. If I can't find any hydrilla, moving water, or drop-offs, then I'll fish any cover I can find... exposed grass, docks, whatever.

Honestly, I've been serious bass fishing for 10-15 years. And I've only used shiners once. In fact, my fishing partner was casting a plastic worm while I was fishing the shiner and caught more fish than I did. ;D And I kept throwing that dang shiner off the hook. Eventually I realized I had to slow down my cast. By the end of the fishing trip, I decided I was done with shiners. Especially at $15 per dozen.

I just hate that saying. Obviously I've been fishing and not caught anything. Everyone gets skunked now and then.