J Francho

Teeners are breaking him off.

This is an interesting point. In order for me to get my pea brain around offshore bass holding structure, especially on Lake Ontario, where it seems like there is none. I literally treat one the 15' to 30' depth contour as shoreline, ignoring what's shallower. Just pick a depth, and make it your new shoreline. It helps if you have an idea about how deep fish are that time of year. 20/25/30 seem to be right. This helps me target fish holding structures in the key 35-45' zone better.

I shouldn't be so negative. I suppose recounting the day was beneficial in my younger days. Mainly to discover "my process" in starting out the day. But as a tool to look back, and try to determine the future of an upcoming trip....meh. Two or three successive days on the same body of water is far more beneficial to getting dialed in.

Lake Ontario: northern pike, musky, king/coho/Atlantic salmon, brown trout, steelhead, carp, sturgeon, and a couple others can all make drag stripping runs on 12# bass tackle. And yes, there are times of the year where these alternate species' location intersects with bass.

KABOOM! Big knowledge here. I used to keep a journal, and have several salt and pepper composition books filled with interesting crap that I'll never use again.

Not a floater, but an X-Rap, and there was still ice on the pond I was fishing. It was getting crushed as soon as it hit the water. Didn't need to crank it down to depth, and twitch-pause, like the usual jerk bait retrieve. I wished I had brought a popper that day - but who fishes a popper in mid March?!?

ROLL TEARS!

PopMax in Python.

Show me on the map where the bass hurt your ego

17° and no wind feels balmy after yesterday!

Put me in the the senko club - wacky or weedless, depending on the cover.

Like most things I like to pursue, it's a mix of science and art. With practice comes skill.

I think sometimes you can try to make assumptions on the why part. One situation comes to mind. Fishing a a large, deep ADK lake (Upper Saranac), we ran into a nasty cold front, and everyone was saying the bite was off. My feeling is that fish that prefer deep water are less affected by weather at the surface - cooling temps, barometric pressure, wind, etc. We froze our butts off in the middle of summer, but had a banner day fishing deep points and boulder fields. By deep, I mean 15-25', with even deeper water nearby. We even had a passenger boat his PB smallmouth. It wasn't huge by Erie standards, but at 3+ lbs., a trophy for the north country, where the growing season is around 3 months. In that sense, I've learned to make an assumption about "why" - the weather affects the shallow bass, and shuts them down, while deeper bass are still active - though, we still focused on structure, and how we found the fish were relating to it. The rules, or guidelines, didn't change. Wind swept points and islands, with deep water access, and deep flats with boulders, again near deep water produced. Maybe my "why" answer is wrong, but that assumption has paid off more than once.

Just keep using this thread... Start another, and then you'll have people updating two threads. If for some reason this becomes split off another, I'll just merge it with this, original thread. Besides, it's interesting to go back, and see what deals were going on in the past.

An old timer friend of mine (a d**n good fisherman, as well) always says, "Why? Because." His point was that the observation, and putting the puzzle together for that trip was more important than figuring out why. If you get to the "why" part, then great. Often you do not.

No snow, 11°. BAU. Buffalo (an hour west of me) got hammered.

I fished several tournaments on Cayuga, over the course of several years. One year was particularly tough, immediate post spawn, followed by a clear, cool, dry, cold front. The winner that day drowned senkos in one small cove that featured one of @riverbasser's "female points," leading to an adjacent weed flat, maybe around 8' at it's deepest. He didn't know what was so special, but he said all of the bigger fish came from a specific area, and if veered off that area, no fish, or dinks. This wasn't a guy to use his graph, and in fact only had a flasher at the console. I suspect he "discovered" some trench or other subtle feature that pro you mentioned, and KVD were honed in on. Point being, structure can be huge, and blatant, or almost invisible, elusive, as Buck described - only being able to be detected by your lure. The guy that won that day, won by a large margin. He only fishes senkos. When most of the field struggles, he usually does well.

I can tell you this, you better find something structural, that is useful and attractive to bass in the north end of Cayuga, or you aren't getting bit post spawn, and into summer. There are fish there, but if you're an impatient, chuck and duck guy, you'll think it's a barren wasteland. BTW, I came in 3rd one year at a club deal with 19+ lbs. from "particular" boat slips in the far north end, in mid summer. I think less than 8 oz. separated the top five.

Gander used to sell them here locally, but I don't see them anymore. I've used some from fly tying suppliers. They have some different shapes, too. Only thing is, they only go up to 4mm. They come in some crazy colors. They are intended to be thread onto a hook, but they work on line too.

Same here. 21° and windy as hell.

I'll snell a hook, but it's with heavy fluorocarbon. Reason is, the knot is so big, it gets in the way, and I don't like the weight rubbing on it. I also snell my tiny bait hooks for trout and salmon. The angle does make a difference when drift/float fishing, but not really applicable to bass. Braid isn't an issue, and the gap in the line tie of my preferred hooks is problematic. It's all about problem solving, and applying what you know if you have an issue. When you find something that works, keep doing until it doesn't!

That makes sense. Never really thought about it, since I've never tried a hollow belly on a jig with an open hook. In fact, I generally avoid hollow belly baits altogether, aside from the bigger trash fish.

You don't have any snow plows, we lost a few, a couple weeks ago: http://www.twcnews.com/nys/rochester/news/2016/12/25/irondequoit-town-building-fire.html

I have no idea, but it's excellent in coffee.