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There are two ways to do this. One method is through the back of the mouth and the other is through the side. Both involve a hypodermic needle. Your best bet is to get a local wildlife officer to instruct you in the proper method. I can explain it, but it is much easier if you can see it being done. You are actually "fizzing" the fish when you decompress the swim bladder. (Bleeding air out of the swim bladder) It is like when a scuba diver returns to the surface to quickly, we get the benz. (Nitrogen in the blood stream) We have to either go back down and decompress and return to the surface slower, or be rushed to the hospital and placed in a decompression chamber. This also happens to some fish if they are yanked from water depths of more than 40 feet. (Except it is not nitrogen in the blood, it is the swim bladder becomes over inflated.) Fish extract the gases in the water and actually cycle the oxygen into their swim bladder. You can help prevent this if you fight the fish slowly when fishing deep.

Has anybody ever caught a largemouth that has black spots in their mouthes? I have seen fish with markings in the mouth , but this find is a little disturbing. A fish that I found floating on the top of the water today on Douglas in Tennesee had these spots in it's mouth. The spots were not part of the fishes markings as whenever I lipped him the black stuff on his lips came of on my hand. The stuff was not leeches because it was like a granular feeling and looked like black powder. It also had blood running all the way to it's tail after I gave him a good look over trying to figure out why he ws floating on his side. I figured somebody had pulled him from deep water and didn't know how to depressure hs swim bladder is why I stop to scoop him up. It appeared to be a healthy fish with plenty of fat reserve left to make it thru the winter. It weighed out right at 2.5 lbs. Probably was about 18 in. long. Gave him a running start head first back into the water and he swam away. I waited about 5 minutes to see if he would float back up but never saw it again. The water temp was in 39 degrees so I am not sure if a fungus could still survive. So I am wondering if any body else has ever seen this before.

Has any one else ever heard or seen one of these? Yes I said Carolina jig. It is a jig that is not made with any lead for the weight. It has a small rubber head instead of a lead head. Everything else is the same as a regular jig, silicone skirt and all. If anybody else has one of these how do you fish it? I am thinking on a carolina rig, (hence the name)then working real slow but with the same motion as a normal jig.

Nick I agree to a point. However, moisture doesn't always float. If you have 100% humidity, then the vapor is also at ground level. The weight of the moisture has to go somewhere, and be accounted for. Example: You have an empty glass box that weighs exactly 1.0 lbs. Now place a hummingbird that weighs 2.0 oz. in the box and let it hover in place with out touching any of the sides top or bottom. How much will the box weigh? Answer:1lb 2oz. Because the humminbird is occupying the air inside the box, it's weight/mass must be accounted for also. I know that a humminbird is not water, but it does float like water vapor when hovering in place.

Carolina rig, deep running cranks and a 3/4-1 1/2 oz spinnerbait. Most times I start retrieving at an angle to the drop to cover more depth changes faster.

Well I wasn't going to post this, but Nick brought up some interesting points. This is a fairly lenghty write up that I have from another forum on the same topic. Granted this is wrote up more for lake/resevoir fishing ratherthan river or stream fishing. Why do bass bury up in cover after a frontal system passes? This one make take a while to explain. IMO the reason that bass bury in cover after a front passes is to conserve energy. They have learned thru past experience that catching prey in bright sunny conditions is hard for them to accomplish. They are more easily spotted by their intended prey at this time. Not to mention, bass are in cover to ambush prey even when it is low light conditions. Why do bass gorge as a frontal system passes through? IMO Thru their own experince they have learned that catching their prey is going to be harder once the system has moved through. Do they realize that it is a front? Not in the way humans do, but I do believe that there swim bladder is sensitive enough to their enviroment to let them know something is changing. Does the front have a effect on the bass itself? IMO, if it was a bass that was in shallow water, yes. Deeper water, no. Here is where my opion gets really different from most people here in the forum. I think that the air after the front passes, although more dense is actually lighter. Now don't go thinking I'm crazy yet, here me out. When a front comes in the air is not as dense, but it is filled with moisture/humidity. After the front passes through the air looses the majoirty of the humidty in the air. Water weighs more than air hence my theory on the air being heavier before the front passes. This would also explain how a basses swim bladder could become extended after a frontal passing. If the air were heavier, would the swim bladder not become compressed instead of extended? Less humidity in the air also allows more light penetration as well. IMO the most effects of a frontal system passing is going to be on the bottom of the food chain. The plankton and other micro-organisms that the filter feeders eat take the brunt of the effect. The sudden change in the water temp on the sirface where they mostly live, could very well either kill off some of them or simply cause them to stop doing what they do. So that being said, shad may be mindless little fish that only think of how and when to eat, but I think they know when their food source is going to be disrupted. In turn this cause them to go on the binge. Going on the binge also causes them to be out more in the open for a bass to take advantage of an easy meal.I feel that nature has allowed the bass to know that his food source is soon to be harder to catch, so he gorges himself as the front passes through as a result of the shad being more active. Now back to the first topic. The majority of baitfish after a front passes are hiding. They are not out swimming in the main creek or river channel. Why? If they were they would be way to easy fo a hungry predator fish to spot them and eat them. They are buried up in the the brush and cover hiding from predators. Sure they can also get some nutrients from the algae growng on the rocks or other cover as well. This is also my opion as to why bass are in the cover after a front passes. They know that this will be their best chance of finding food untill the eco-system gets back in gear. Why do shad move daily to the shallows? To eat mostly. They come in the shallows in the evening to eat the micros that have been blown onto those banks or brought in to the water by wave action during the day. They also use this as a hiding place because there is more stuff to hide around in shallow water than in open water. Come morning they simply pull out of the shallows and form back into their tight schools and surface feed on whatever micros they can find. By them staying in there big schools they are actually harder for a predator to catch than when in smaller groups. It is harder to key in on one fish that way.

Back when I was A kid, my dad was crappie fishing at night off the side of the house boat. We woke up the next morning to an awful squacking and sreaming like I have never heard. He did not remove the minnow from the hook the night before and a crow had swooped down to grab it out of the air and had hooked himself in the process. Black feathers where flying every where.

Hope ya hook em. The nastier it looks, the better the spot is to drop a lure.

That is true road warrior. The river bass is less effected by a frontal passage, and it does have to do with the current. I wrote my post in reference to lake and ponds in general. Most of the rivers where I live contain mostly trout, so I normally forget about writing anything about them as I don't fish them that often.

Man you are going to open a can of worms on this one. Reason being is there are so many possible reasons and ways that bass are affected by frontal systems passing. Notice I said frontal system passing. If high pressure is constant, the affect is minimal. It is after the pressure drops during a frontal passage and high pressure builds back up after the front moves through, that is when the effect that you are referring to occurs. If you give the fish a couple days after the front then things will stabilize and go back to "normal". If you you have to fish the day after a frontal passage, then be prepared for a tough bite. Not only will bass go deeper, but they will also bury up in the nastiest stuff you can find to flip into. If don't have any cover to fish, then try finding vertical strucure.

I currently have a Lowrance X-125. I am looking to put a 2nd depth finder on the boat. Has anyone used the Eagle Fishmark 480? I am wondering if it is a good investment seeing as it is a Lowrance product. I know that it doesn't have the power of the X-125, but I am just looking for a few opinions.

I personally wont use a crimp shot when fishing for bass. Main reson being is that the crimp shot crimps the line also, which inturn creates a weak spot. I lost two fish in the same day using a crimp shot. If you still feel the need to use a crimp shot, I would recommend using a rubber core crimp sinker instead. The rubber helps to keep the line from being damadged. Just my .02 worth.

I can't honestly sat that I have one lure company that I like over the others. I have lures from just about every lure mfg in my tackle box. Lures from different mfgs do preform differently, so I can't limit myself to lust one company.

Cost was 99 bucks. For the money I have been pleased so far. The tip is a little heavy. (I think this is a marketing ploy so that you have to buy thier balancing kit) Other than that I don't have any complaints. Sorry that I left this out in the first thread, but I forgot that you ask.

I am currently using a BPS Extreme 6'6" medium baitcasting rod. I prefer the extra feel that I get from the graphite as opposed to the fiberglass rods. Seeing as I use no more than 12lb test mono in most cranking situations, I am not worried about ripping the hooks out of thier lips. The mono has enough strecth to help make up for the graphite as long as I don't try to horse one too hard. Just have to remember to feel the fish before you set the hook when fishing either close to the top in clear water, or fishing topwater.

I don't have any jigs with red hooks, but I do have some spinnerbaits and cranks with them. I can't say foe a definate that they incresed my strike ratio, but I have caught fish with them on these lures.

Everybody is effected to some extent to lure advertising. No one has mentioned the most obvious form of advertising that the lure companies use. This is the very package that the lure comes in. Many hours of design goes into each package placed in front of the consumers eyes. The use of color or reflective matrial in the package is used to make the lure jump out and grab your attention. Then there is the other factor. The majority of bass fishermen are tackle junkies. MOST bassers will go out and buy multiple colors of the same bait and design. Yes having a variety of color is good to have, but this could be done with 4-5 different colors as opposed to 8-9. So welcome to the fact that we all have a disease called bassin', and the lure companies know it. So how long will it be before you need youe next fix? Granted if I had to pick something to be addicted to, this is the top choice by far. Hello my name is Eric and I am a tackleholic!

No it is not showing a decrease in output. Your charger should only charge at 6 amps if that is the one that you have selected. The needle moving is just the mfg way of letting you know at what stage the chraging process is in at that time. Some chargers have a %, which is what mine has. It just shows the battery is 75% charged just to give a guideline. When it is complete, it will register 100%, where yours would show the needle on 0. The 2 amp would be the trickle charge. It will take about 18 hours per battery depending on the size you have. The reason that the needle changes when going from one to the other is because of the amount of power being placed into the charge. If it registers 3 on a 6amp, then it may very well go back to 7 when placed on 2 amp. It will just take longer is all. I am not going to tell you to charge in your garage, but in the auto parts store that my father law runs all charging is done inside. Granted it is not the safest thing to do, but they do it everyday. If you have a window close by where you charge, then I would do it there. Just crack it a little to let in fresh air to avoid a possible build up of hydrogen gases. As far as leaving the caps on, I normally leave mine on even when doing a 15 amp charge. Just make sure that you check your solution levels before charging. If they are low then refill them with either a battery solution or distilled water. Use tap water as a last resort, because the impurities in tap water can gather on the plates and cause premature failure. As long as you don't over charge your batteries to the point of boiling over, you should be fine with the caps on.

Cool. Hope all that helps.

Spinnerbait. You can fiish it from the top of the water column to the bottom. All you have to do is change the weight of the lure and the blade. Not to mention it is almost as weedless as t-rigged worm.

One other thing. It isn't that it is so many charges, as it is charged to a point that it is full. After you reach this point in other charge that is applied is just boiling off the acid solution in your battery. It doesn't matter if you charge with a 2 amp or a 10 amp charge, when it is fully charged it is finished. Sorry that I left this out in the first thread of this post. Now for question for you. What part of NC are you in? I am in WNC.

Lead acid batteries do not need to be run down before the charge is applied. Lead acid batteries do not develope memory like a ni-cad. You can actually cause damadge to the battery in cold weather, because a weak battery will freeze. However, with that said I do not leave my batteries on trickle charge. I do place them on a trickle charge once a month to maintian a fresh charge, then remove from the charger when complete. The # of charges in a battery is not predetermined, but proper maintenance will prolong the life of your battery. When returning from a fishing trip I always put my batteries back on charge as soon as I return. If I have the time, I will use a trickle charge to charge the batteries. A 2 amp charge will charge the batteries more equally than a 10 or 15 amp charge. You can use a higher amp charge if you need to because you are fishing again the next day, and it will not damadge the cells or plates. I hope this answers your questions. If you have anymore, then I will answer what I can. If I don't know, I will find out from someone else.