jaymc

Those bass are eating the state stockies. Find out where the trout are concentrated and fish a swimbait or crank that imitates a rainbow. All those stocies are is bass food. If the trout are to far offshore for you to reach, then spring spawning amybe your only shot at reaching the bass.

I ahve this really good pout to which my wife eventually says: " If you're just going to be a pain in the a$$ all day you might as well go fishing." I rarely fall out of the boat, anymore, and I won't step on your rods.

I'm looking at three different reels in the 50-60 dollar range. The BPS Extreme, the Daiwa XiA, and the Shimano Sedona. Can anyone give me a personal insight on any of these reels? Also curious as to your favorite line for spinning.

It's going to be slow. There is a lot of ice. The only hatches you might encounter are midge hatches. Bead heads will work and also dragging a woolybugger through the bottom of deep holes.

Man, I miss the Herter's catalog! You could read that bad boy all winter. There was a sporting good store I used to frequent when I was a kid. The had a little clear plastic fish bowl with an electric motor in the middle . The motor ade an arm circle the bowl, and the arm was dragging a Vivif. I was sold. It took me weeks to save up to buy one. I'll be 64 next month. Always like to hear from you old guys.

My problem with glass was the weight. I have a glass Cortland for 9wt that weighs 6.5 oz. Cast that for two hours and your arm is killing you. I got a Woderrod for xmas when I was 14. I fished that rod until I went int he service in '66. When I got out I purchased a Fenwick.

Nah, it's the other side of the country. But thanks for thinking of me.

When it comes to heavy lines, 6wt and up, first generation graphite was better than the best fiberglass rods ever made. Ebay usually has some very good deals on graphite fly rods.

If you're looking to getting into fly fishing for bass you don't have to spend $600 for the latest carbon/graphite technology. The super fast high end fly rods are not necessarily as good as the slightly slower IM-6 models. Don't get the idea that a LONGER fly rod will cast further and easier,. It ain't necessarily so. Lefty Kreh can throw and entire line with just his hand, no rod. That's 90'. A longer rod gives the advantage to a hooked fish. In open water that's no big deal. When you are trying to move a bass away from cover it is a big deal. Dave Whitlock had a series of shorter fly rods for heavier lines but they never caught on with the herd. I see Redditngton has 4 short rods for heavy lines in the BPS catalog. Trout fisherman favor the longer lengths because it makes it easier to control line on moving water. Line control is 75% of fly fishing for trout. Fly lines are important. All the major manufacturers offer a special bass line. I think they are worth it. However, a good old Cortland 333 served me well for several years at half the price of the hi-tech stuff. Years ago, Jason Lucas said that when bass are fishing on or near the surface, the fly rod was the most efficient tool for catching them. I can't prove him wrong.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Largemouth fishing in northern natural lakes is a whole different deal then the impondment fishing that we see mostly see on TV. To me LMB fishing in the northeast and upper midwest is dealing with the grass and slop. Yeah, you find wood here and there, but mainly it's grass fishing. In terms of terminal tackle it is amazing how little is really NEW. I caught my first bass on a Lucky 13 over 50 years ago. Creme worms were just coming out then. What made me think about was that I see someone is bringing back a swim bait, the Vivif, from that long ago era. For a walk down memory lane, I grew up and lived most of my life about fifteen minutes from where the pros launched on Oneida Lake at the Oneida Shores county park. Back in the day, the 50's and 60's, almost no one fished deliberately for largemouths on Oneida. I bet you could put all the Oneida L. largemouth fisherman of that era in a minibus. People fished for walleyes, pike, yellow perch and even smallies, but not bigmouths. Heck, even the brown bullhead was more popular. It was paradise. Our favorite spot is now the most beat to death community hole on the lake. We never ever saw anyone else fish it for 15 years. Can you say paradise? Iwas so young I thoght the whole world was like that. Thanks for listening.

Smithwick Devil's Warhorse. They haven't made any in 30 years but I have two left. Hopefyully I'll run out before they do. The Warhorse is a stick bait that stands up perpindicular to the surface at rest, When it enters the water it goes in vertically like a diver and then bobs up and down when it comes to the surface. If you give it a little twitch it darts under and bobs again at the surface. You can also walk it, but it walks just under the surface. Too bad they stopped making them. Heddon used to ahve a similar bait called the Dying Quiver. Floating Rapala Heddon Moss Boss for slop.... Prop baits and poppers, like the Hula Popper, for when there is a chop on the water. Dahallberg Diver in Frog when I'm using my fly rod. I never use more than 12lb test and short stiff rods. You can hang yourself with 12lb line.

Roland Martin was on Versus this morning fishing NYC resivoirs. They'll rerun it. You can get some info on what bass fishing is like in New Rochelle by watching it.

Look for humps tha come up close enough to the surface to have weeds on them. Color is less iimportant than finding the fish and getting your lure to the right depth. My favorite lure for Oneida smallies is a quarter oz lipless crankbait in firetiger. But if the bass are up in the water like early in the morning they will clobber a chartreuse spinnerbait, jerkbaits, and even a Rapala twitched on the surface. But the real key is to find structure.

There is a lure that was made by the old Smithwick Co. called the Devils Warhorse. This isn't the prop job but just a plain stick bait that stands straight up and down in the water at rest. They haven't made them in years. It was my Dad's favorite lure and he fished with almost nothing else. I have one of his left. Its pretty chewed up. My father was the best fishing pal I ever had or ever will. He never went fishing withoutme from the time I was six. When he passed, he left me his shotgun, a couple of beat up old rods, an old Pflueger Supreme reel and a lifetime passion for hunting and fishing. I can't look at that lure without remembering him and the times we had together. It is a very lucky lure.

I'm going to take this seriously against my better judgement. what you got is a northern redhorse more commonly called a redfin sucker in my neck of the woods, or just a sucker. hey are found only in relatively clear cold water streams and lakes. They are intolerant of pollution and sedimentation. We used to catch them by the ton when we were worm fishing for trout in the spring but I've also caught them on nymphs fished on the bottom. April and May are the best months and they feed voraciously after spawning. They grow to 12 pounds but the average is 2 to 4. Trout love sucker roe. Suckers are real good smoked. Try flaking the meat off the bones after smoking them. Dipped in cocktail sauce they are excellent. Small suckers are dynamite bait for pike and muskies. Central NY streams are loaded with them in spring.

I agree with everything I've read above with one other addition. In this day and age some cover is very obvious. If the lake is heavily fished everone will pound that particular spot. So if you want to find a honey hole you need to find something that isn't obvious to everyone and then keep your mouth shut. 8-)

I can remeber when the Phenom Worm was the basic worm for NYS tournament bassers. Everyone fished them. I don't know why they wouldn't be just as good today. The 3" Twister Tail has caught a pile of smallies and walleyes for me over the years.

New Rochelle is a very upscale suburb of NYC. NYC is what it is. Not bad people but we're not talking down home folks here. I always thought New Rochelle was a nice looking town. But it moves at a NYC pace. If you include striped bass in your bass targets we are talking world class fishing. Due to protection the stripers are back in huge numbers. The Hudson R north of Newburgh and all the way up to Albany is a terrific fishery. More water than you can cover in a lifetime. But what interests me is all the little resevoirs and lakes in that area. I think the biggest bass in the state may well reside in those lakes. And I think they are very underfished.

Owasco Lake in Auburn is a tremendous smallmouth fishery, but not in February.

You might want to try your luck for steelhead up in the Salmon R.

If the top fly rod afficiondos are happy with four piece rods, and four piece is becoming the standard, then they can make a good multi piece casting rod. Buy some ferrule wax. A fifty cent piece will last you two lifetimes. The rod won't come apart and it will be easier to take apart when you want to do it.

Even on the Finger Lakes and Ontario you have micro habitats that hold LMB. The north end of Cayuga is all shallow and weedy and there a numerous bays on Ontario that are the same way.

Hey bassdoctor thanks for the response. The way most guys approach weeds is to fish the edges or run a weedless topwater over the mats.

A lot of the fishing shows and a lot of the info in magazines is about fishing large southern impoundments which I would argue is a different deal than our weedy, relatively shallow, northern lakes. Now I'm talking about largemouth fishing not smallies. I tend to think the lakes in N. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, NYS, and New England tend to be very similar in terms of largemouth habitat. The rest of the states listed here for the Northeast are different in terms of LMB habitat. We don't have the long tapering points in our dishpan lakes that they have in the southern resevoirs, and we don't have nearly as much wood. Our lakes don't heat up in the summer the way southern lakes heat up. Fishing in the north for LMB is about fishing the weeds. It sems to me as the season wears on the bass bury deeper into the heavy weeds, maybe moving to the edges in low light periods or overcast days. It seems like there is about a month in the post spawn where you can clean up on the weed edges, or fishing over the weeds, or in wholes in the weeds, but after that you have to get down in them to get consistent results. Very interested in other people's opinions.

You didn't say how far you want to go. Just as a general rule, I'd always look for the places closest to home, unless you like burning gas and wearing out tires.