Paul Roberts

Well I could wax poetic about grubs for a long time, possibly even surpass the site's text limit. Simply put grubs can be the simplest bass catchers out there. They won't call bass from afar, but if you know where they are, grubs can work really well. The simplest I've used were the broken off heads of plastic worms threaded onto a jig head. So simple it's stupid but bass will eat them. Add a clip-on overhead spinner to slow it down or for dingier water.

For fishing through shallow grass and slop, I've been using a Brewer wide-gap Slider Head jig head. Simple. http://sliderfishing.com/Spider-Wide-Gap-Pro-Head3-0-Nickle-Hook-3-per-pack-SPHWG-U-3-SPHWG-U-3.htm

FF runs at a slower pace than conventional. Try to avoid the tournament (competitive) mentality at all costs against your conventional buddies. But over time you'll figure things out and can catch a lot of bass. And there is something enormously satisfying about success amidst self-imposed limitations. There is one situation in which I've had FF consistently outproduce conventional and that has been during tremendous hatch years of baby bass filling waters with hordes of fingerling bass. The bass become focused on lots of little prey and the big stuff falls off the table by comparison. I've done VERY well with keel streamers -bucktail tied on a "keel" hook. I also just make the hooks myself by bending the first quarter of a straight worm hook down. Fished in short pulls through shallow cover can be quite exciting. As to tackle, you don't need to spend a lot. For a lot of LM fishing you'll need some power and I'd suggest minimum 8wt for the mass to move big damp flies and for wrestling LM from cover. For open water fishing and a lot of SM water, a 6 is fine. You don't need a long rod, esp for stillwater, so you can get by with less expensive graphite compared to 8-1/2Ft plus trout rods that begin to get "clubby" if you go cheap. Reels do not need fancy drags; bass won't run. Leaders can be a couple short lengths of tough mono. Here's a "lake record" (lol) bass I caught a few years back while teaching a FF class. Someone spotted a "big bass" under a bridge that spanned the narrows of the pond. "I know how to catch her" I boasted, and grabbed a 9wt rod from the saltwater instructor and an "eelworm" -a striper fly tied with long black hackles. It was essentially a feathered version of a plastic worm. While the class watched, I pitched the fly past the bass so's not to spook it, swum the worm to it, then killed it, letting the worm fall into the green depths. The bass followed it down. I layed the floating line onto the surface, drew it slightly taut, and watched. Shortly the line twitched. I set the hook and she put on quite a show, even leaping clear. She taped 19" and the pond owner said she was "the lake record". Yes, that's a smug look on my face.

Family comes first. And my wife just isn't as gung-ho as I am. But then, almost no one is. (sigh)

Certainly not in terms of enjoyment. I don't think a camparison, competition, or qualifier necessarily needs to be applied to it. Unless you are a tourney angler I suppose who travels the breadth and depth of the country. And there is a point where one can go too far, own too much "junk". "Junk" in my mind meaning "amassed stuff that'll never put to good use". But the point of my OP was to show that one can expand horizons, discover the breadth and depth of what bass will respond to or ignore, learn to become a versatile angler in few water bodies and over a small geographic range if you explore enough. We all have places on our favorite waters, and conditions, we never catch a fish in, and that is not always the fault of the bass, the conditions, or that particular spot. I said "show" bc as I was looking through my digital photo's to illustrate something and saw how many images I had that showed bass caught with so many different lures and techniques, and during a relatively short span of time on only a handful of small waters. After reading the "How do I wean myself off of Senko's" thread I thought I'd share those photo's along with some explanatory text. But, alas, I surpassed the site’s image limit. I kept deleting them until ... lacking the images I thought the text was dull in comparison sans the impact eye candy offers best. So I pulled it. I see a "specialist" as someone who narrows focus for a certain end. That is one way to get something done, or find enjoyment. But the bass world is bigger than any specialist will ever learn to appreciate. And that is AOK. Pick any one narrow slice of nature, go in deep, and it can get complicated very fast. Tom, I think you answered your own question. More seriously, specializing allows one to get really good at something, which has great carry-over if/when they branch out. Imagine being really good at a variety of techniques.

It dont need no stinkin feathers

Thanks for the responses all. I think I'll leave it stock. I have some other reels that really need the attention and $. Like the two ABU XLTs I have with weak drags. Couldn't find replacement parts so I thought I'd make something, or talk to someone with more experience than I have.

Thanks. Sounds like bass fishing.

Decided to pull it.

OK...I'm all ears, but ... not all wallet. I suppose if you had to do one thing, it would be the bearings?

All lures have places they shine. But you can't get to know them if you toss only one thing. But you already know that. Imagine having such confidence in MANY lure types. You can fish evry day? Get busy!

What he said ^ ^ ^ I use both during early spring. I may alternate them on the same stretches of water and pick up more fish. In fact, I often alternate 3 types of CBs -jerks, shad crank, and lipless:

130+. I stopped counting. It was a 35acre impoundment, a flooded woods that had never been fished. And the bass were stunted. Almost all were 9 to 10" long and very thin, the biggest were around 15". That very winter it winter-killed with thousands dead, including about a half dozen short and very fat 3-4lbers. The following spring I was only able to catch a handful of bass. Within a few years later I was catching numbers of healthy 2lbers.

Cool. I'm all ears.

Yeah, it was actually a little confusing. They had a US Reels Pro for $40 too. I have three US Reels and knew my xtra spools would interchange so I was going to grab that too, until I realized someone had mismarked things. So I put it back and they pulled it from the shelf. The Fuego I bought and it wasn't until a manager lead me up to the register to see the deal through that I realized it was mismarked too. I actually didn't know what they retailed for. I said, "Jeees, I don't want to take advantage of you guys." He said, "You should. Our mistake. Take it. Merry Christmas." I used to work in a large tackle shop and remember some mistakes made there too, and saw people try to take greedy advantage. We were a local shop too. One time I remember a guy came to the register with a basket filled with a grossly underpriced item. Our shop manager allowed him to only take one. The guy said that he'd sue! The manager said, "Go ahead." And the guy left with one item and we re-marked them.

Well, I have one. Paid $80 NIB at BassPro. Seems they'd mismarked it. I've scarcely used it though so I can't say much about it.

Nice video. I like the clips popping into photo frames. Hey, what's the song? I liked that too.

Nice catch. Congrats.

Just a great report. Loved reading it. And great images and catches too. Yours are the only bucktails with overhead spinners I've seen, beyond the ones I've made. I conjured them up years ago as something to literally crawl for coldwater bass. I tied mine with more bucktail and called them "hairbrushes". The overhead spinner really slowed them down. But I was fishing them shallower than you probably were. Next up in speed was the bucktails or marabou with a pork strip. Just great to see them still in action. They truly are of the very best coldwater lures. And the coldwater period really is one of the best times to hang some of the biggest bass in any given lake or pond. You were sitting in a fine spot at that place and time. Lakers -I'm actually not surprised, being from NYs Finger Lakes country. Your water column was virtually isothermic there, and our FL lakers come shallow then and we'd catch a few too, although most of our fish tended to suspend in those elongated bathtubs. In Lake Ontario, our spring and early summer fishing on certain rocks piles often bounced between smallies and brown trout, depending on wind rolling up cold water or not. Love your jig drying set up too. Its nice to see a thoughtful angler at work. Thanks for sharing your fishing with us. Tell me, if you will, how did you choose the areas you fished? What did you look for, or find?

They're all good. First crank I ever fished was a Big O, and I still like them -a confidence bait. I have some Bill Dance Fat Free's I really like, now discontinued, and found some on ebay for $12ea.! And he appears to be selling them. SpeedTrap yes! Awesome bait.

That would describe a lipless. A very versatile lure. Ripping weeds is one way, but try burning one -just aobut as fast as you can reel. Sometimes varied speed, that is slowing then short accelerations is what it takes. It's still a "fast" water covering technique. In colder water that yo yoing, a short rip and drop, really triggers strikes and allows you to cover water as fast as a jerkbait. There's something you can do with them year round. The only downside to lipless is that they are prone to snagging, esp in wood.

Hmmmmm... need more info, I think. And you might not be able to give it. Might be the way the fish were taking? Assumning your hooks are sharp, either they aren't actually taking it, they are small, or maybe you are not detecting them in time? During the retrieve, slack allows the bait to do its thing, but too much and fish will spit them. My retrieve is a tug and slack, then immediately wind that small amount of slack so the line is hanging with a little tension. It's controlled and I'm watching the line too. I come back into contact by adding tension, like weighing the line, in case there's a fish there. Really, the attracting part is the dart. The pause is the trigger. The pause and very first moment of further retrieve is detection. I do set the hook and it tends to be a sweep like John mentions as those hooks are small and sharp. But some fish will take and head toward you and are tough to detect immediately. I then have to react more aggressively. Not sure if this helps at all. Might just have to play around with those fish some more.

When water temps are between 55 and 60F TW is a possiblility where I've fished. At the lower end of this the bites tend to be few and done just to see if I can. The first TW I go for is a #11 Rapala floater cast, paaaauusssse. twitch. pauuuuuuuusssssse. twitch. BANG! I fish it like a subsurface jerk, except its on top. I also fish it as a shallow subsurface jerk at this time. And can bounce back and forth between encouraging TW bites and going subsurface. Sometimes fish are simply reluctant to break top (or move to the surface), and fishing just below is required. Overcast, a slight breeze ripple, or low sun seems to embolden fish to come up that last foot or so. I've not tried a jumpbait that early, just bc they rely on forward speed to trigger. But maybe with long pauses? I dunno let us know. But, if you want to test it against something, try a Rap.

Fishing writing caters to a relatively small audience. Parse out subsets of the fishing world and it gets smaller still. So, the big bucks just aren't there. You'll make some money that can help offset your fishing passion but you'll do it by sheer volume of published material. $5k articles don't exist in the field. You'll need to be an efficient writer and producer of saleable article packages, which includes being a decent photographer, since magazines are 75% eye candy. Doing your own illustrations can help free up a busy magazine's house illustrator, but study their work as many mags like to keep a consistent look across their publication. If your stuff is good you'll get published and, within fishing writing, there are a lot of markets in bass fishing writing as you are already tapping into. And you can get creative and make markets in regional pubs and other venues such as vacation rags. Get a current Writer's Market and check for any crossover. Most writers that make a "living" at it tend to have a regular gig, like a local newspaper column, and a supportive and gainfully employed spouse that can take up a chunk of slack. They way I tackled magazine writing was to produce really good packages that I was confident could sell -and my sell rate was very high. But each were a bit of a project, esp with the old film cameras I used. Digital makes things much easier now. And I found the efforts not very lucrative in terms of $/hr. This may be fine but sheer volume added may serve better. Some advice: -Get to know your editors. Eventually I had some calling me. That helps a lot. Eventually you may be a writer they can rely on for quality work. For every 100 writers there is an editor looking for articles. But really good writer/photographers save editors tons of work. Everthing you can do to save an editor time is in your stead. -There should be a point where you should not write for free. You are a professional and need to be paid. The only viable alternative to begging is to consistently produce good stuff. As you get better, good editors will pay you better.

Victoria's Secret.