A-Jay

A-Jay

By "customize," you mean they had to match your Crocs? A-Jay

I said goodbye to the 2024 Sierra AT4 today and dropped it off at the dealer. Checked out my new 2026 rig and it's a Beast - They'll be installing the BedRug today as well as transferring my ARE Revo CX cap onto the new truck. Picking it up tomorrow morning - very exciting. Which reminds me - I need to transfer my vehicle insurance - #usaa A-Jay

The big-time snowmelt combined with the dam-busting repeated & excessive rain events have resulted in historically high water levels for most of northern lower Michigan. The majority of the Lake Menderchuck boating access points have remained closed, even today. The few times and places I have been able to get on the water, I have been very fortunate to bump into a few plus-sized brown bass. Like that quite a bit. Jerkbaits and a crankbait have been good. Common thinking is that the water will recede and that lake levels will eventually 'get back to normal.' I am not in that group and expect what we are looking at now to be the new normal. The results of which will most likely have long-lasting repercussions that alter our world up here for years to come. Time will tell. I am hoping that I can get out for the late summer bite, which has been world-class for me a few times. A-Jay

Nice bass. Not sure on the weight But she probably would have weighed much more if you caught her on Saturday. A-Jay

The 2024 Sierra AT4 goes to the dealer tomorrow for trade it. Detailed the motor Monday. Detailed the interior Tuesday. Once the sun gets a little lower, I'll do the wheels and the exterior today. Be the final time cleaning this one up. And come Friday afternoon, I'll begin my life with the the 2026 model. Good Times. I must say, this one didn't need much in the way of detailing. But I'll do it anyway. Especially since GMC is paying off the lease for me—several months early. Someone's making some money, and it isn't really me. A-Jay

Although it's often hard to identify them, IME, level-headed bass always weigh quite a bit less than the reckless, hot-headed fish I catch . Especially the ones that smash an A-Rig. A-Jay

Thanks. Lake Menderchuck has very little rock and the few spots I get on that do never see a swing head. They will see action on sand. Especially when these just a few isolated areas of light soft cover. Eel grass is money. I have not tried that jika rig but it looks like an effective option. A-Jay

While this information centers around how I present these baits in Northern Michigan for brown bass, there’s a decent chance much of it can be applied effectively in other areas where smallmouth inhabit. Might even come in handy for a few green bass as well. These choices have evolved over the past few years, but this is where my vibrating jig fishing stands currently. Why do I fish a vibrating jig for smallies? The short answer is because they eat it. Beyond that, there are several baits and presentations that I can and do fish at similar times and in similar scenarios that take brown bass. However, the more I fish a vibrating jig for smallmouth, the more and bigger fish I’ve been catching. Perhaps it’s because a vibrating jig is "the new kid on the block" and there’s a bit of a novelty factor involved. Either way, after a couple of seasons throwing it, I’m convinced I have only scratched the surface of the vibrating jig's full potential. I am most often presenting these baits low and slow. Not that the baits are less effective in the middle or upper portion of the water column, just that for me, I seem to have my best success this way—in 3 to say 12 feet of mostly clear or slightly colored water. I’m usually reaching for something else to fish a little higher or a little deeper, and that might simply be personal preference more than anything else. To also help answer the where, I use vibrating jigs sort of like a shallow- to medium-running crankbait—except in places with bottom vegetation. In these areas, a crankbait usually bogs down, but these baits come through nicely. While a lipless/rattle bait often works well in these same grassy areas, the advantage I’ve realized with the vibrating jig is that I can fish it super slow and the bait still has sufficient action and attracting qualities to get bites. When chasing big brown bass, early and late season are the prime times. Fish are generally shallower, which makes them a whole lot more accessible, and they are looking to eat (which I really like). These are usually times when the water is cooler. Being able to crawl a bait along the bottom, in and around vegetation, and have it fish effectively makes a vibrating jig a killer option. Clearly, there are a number of baits that offer many of the same benefits—swim jigs and swimbaits come to mind—but there is something about these bladed jigs that seems to get bites when other presentations in the same areas do not. It keeps me reaching for the rig that’s got one tied on. The how in this case is the actual baits themselves and the gear I fish them on. Clearly, most all of this comes down to personal preference. After a serious amount of R&D (trial and error), I have landed on one brand and three specific models. Each is a little different, but they can almost be utilized interchangeably: Z-Man Evergreen bladed jig: Some love it, some hate it. I’ll keep my comments on this one brief: if I could only have one, this is it. Since getting a few, it’s the one I reach for most, as it has accounted for several trophy-sized brown bass. IMO, it does it all and it does it well. Other Z-Man Chatters: Alongside the standard bladed jig, the Baby bladed jig and the Elite EVO / Mini Max line completely round out my box. I fish the 3/8 oz and 1/2 oz sizes almost exclusively, reserving the few 3/4 oz baits I carry for casting into a heavy headwind. For colors, I’m throwing pretty much natural patterns. A lot of green pumpkins, perch, and crawfish shades are happening, with a smattering of white & chartreuse because I think there’s a rule somewhere that says I have to. Painted blades as well as shiny silver and gold all work for me. The Trailers: There are a million trailers that work, but I use two about 95% of the time: Gary Yamamoto Zako: This rides on the standard full-sized baits. Yamamoto Zako Slim: Fits perfectly on the scaled-down profile of the EVO and Baby Jack. Again, I have to say it: these baits are so versatile yet unique that they can be fished on just about anything you’d like to throw them on. Is one type "better" than another? Who knows? I use what I like and what I have confidence in—that goes for all my fishing, and I’d encourage that mindset to anyone willing to listen. What one angler uses and finds success with may not be right for another. Here is what works for me, split into two different approaches based on the calendar: Approach 1: Early & Late Season Presentation Style: Fished like a jig: low, slow, with lots of stop-and-go. Working the bait with the rod tip and picking up slack with the reel. Rod Setup: 7' Medium-Heavy, Fast action graphite rod. Line: 15 lb Seaguar Tatsu Fluorocarbon. Approach 2: Mid-Season to Early Fall Presentation Style: Fished as a pure moving bait: a steady, aggressive swimming presentation. Rod Setup: 7'4" Heavy, Fast action composite rod (same setup used for spinnerbaits) Line: 15 lb Seaguar Tatsu Fluorocarbon Good Luck. Fish Hard A-Jay

Hello Mike and Welcome to Bass Resource A-Jay

Thanks ~ Question 1 ~ answer: When I'm checking the wx forecast (Chapter XIII) (something my bass fishing lives by and I do several times a day) I'm always looking for what I like to call (and Hope) are 'good big fish days'. Several factors go into it. Wind speed, direction, and duration; sunshine or clouds; and air temperature trends up, down, or stable. Wind speed and direction as well as the 'fetch' (distance the wind can blow and how waves build) plays a role on each lake & the structure I plan to fish on that lake. One set off conditions might set up great for one lake but be a total blow out on another. And as it relates to boating traffic, and not necessarily anglers, just the days of the week—certainly there are peaks and valleys on this one - I prefer the valleys both before & especially during my time on the water. As noted, Pre-frontal opportunities are almost always pretty decent, especially this time of year here. But a version of this (with different air temps) can be a winner any time during open water. This one was from September. That Thursday afternoon, Friday and perhaps even the Saturday conditions caught my eye. Question 2~ Answer: I have not tried the War Eagle offering. I could be persuaded to check a couple out, thanks. A-Jay

Went on the IL yesterday with torn rib cartilage. Good times Rehab started today. Could be a few weeks. No videos for a while A-Jay

@senile1 Brown Bass Tools - updated The Song Remains the Same ~ Things that haven’t changed when it comes to my brown bass fishing approach. "Bass is bass" has some validity, but when we’re talking trophy-size brown bass (5 lbs and over), I believe that viewing them as a completely different species is mandatory. The "Smallie mindset" has helped me cast away general, common approaches and focus on what makes fishing for them wildly different. I still believe smallies love to chase their food. When given a chance to trigger that switch, I do well. Along with that, speed can be a real game-changer—we’ll get into that in just a bit. I still prefer to fish for feeding fish. Mostly because that’s when I’ve had the most success slipping the net under a plus-sized mutant. Wherever that feeding is taking place is where my focus is concentrated. In the waters I fish, that usually means depths less than 15 feet, regardless of the season. It doesn't mean brown bass don’t feed deeper; it’s just where my confidence lies. When it comes to smallmouth, big baits are not necessarily better. I still do best with baits that match the size and profile of whatever they are targeting. Clearly, tiny Ned rigs and giant glide baits catch plenty of great fish, but I’m sticking with baits they can actually swallow. Because isn’t that the point? I'm still a big believer in stealth, long casts, and the absolute importance of boat position—perhaps more now than ever. I have changed how I manage that boat position, but I’ll add to that later. As usual, aftermarket hooks and heavy hardware go on everything they can fit on. What Has Evolved Where experience has rewritten my own rules. I started out believing that sunshine was just about mandatory. Somewhere along this journey, I realized that was just not the case. The problem was me. With more experience and time on the water—lots of time—I’ve learned that sun, clouds, wind (and any combination of them), or even a flat calm can produce trophy-class fish. The days of me sitting on the beach because the sun hid behind a cloud are long gone. I prefer clean water over colored, and I don’t get spun up over water temps like I used to. I still note it in my videos, but it’s a reference now, not a rule. If my casts aren’t bouncing off ice, I’ve got a shot. I haven’t mentioned boating traffic because honestly, where and when I fish, there just isn't much. A lot of that is by design. Either way, I prefer to be alone—just me and the loons. I am still a complete weather hawk. During open-water season, Weather Underground is my homepage, and I check it several times a day, especially early and late in the year. Why? Because pre-frontal big bass fishing can be that good. Finally, the best big-fish bites for me are always very early pre-spawn, late summer, and into the fall. I no longer fish at night. After several years of trying it, I’ve found I catch bigger fish at first and last light than I ever did in the pitch black. The Tactical Toolbox: Right Now The consistency list for Northern Michigan. Right off the bat: any bait or technique listed from this point on is here because it is a consistent trophy smallmouth producer for me. Some are staples I've used for a decade; others are recent adaptations from the last season or two. I don't leave home without them. There are no secret baits here—just conventional tools used on public waters. For simplicity, I’ll break them down by where they operate in the water column. Topwater I like walking baits and poppers. The Strike King Sexy Dawg and the Megabass Pop Max are best-in-class. The Rig: 7’ Medium spinning gear, 15–20 lb Sufix 832 braid, and a long 10–12 lb Big Game Green mono leader. I’m usually fishing skinny water in low light, and I need to be able to cast this stuff into the next time zone. Just Under the Surface Burning a spinnerbait. This has remained a staple, and it's where that "speed trigger" shines. It's a mid-summer to early-fall presentation where wind is incredibly helpful. The Bait: SK Burner Spinnerbait or a Freedom Freak (½ or ¾ oz) paired with an SK Blade Minnow trailer. The Rig: 7’4” Heavy composite rod, 15 lb Seaguar Tatsu, and a Shimano Calcutta 200D cranking reel. Yes, a low-gear cranking reel. It makes it easy to burn a heavy blade all day without wearing out your wrist. Long casts give them room to track and commit before they reach the boat. Short cast = follow and turn away. Long cast = the net. Mid-Depth I am never pulling a bait mid-depth through cover-free water. It is always near cover, soft or hard—skimming over the top of it or ticking the edges. The Bait: ⅜ or ½ oz bladed jig bladed jig with a Yamamoto Zako trailer. The Tactics: I fish this two different ways depending on the calendar. Early and late season, I fish it like a jig: low, slow, with lots of stop-and-go. For this, I use a 7’ Medium-Heavy Fast graphite rod, working the bait with the rod tip and picking up slack with the reel. Mid-season through early fall, I fish it as a pure moving bait, switching back to the 7’4” Heavy composite setup used for spinnerbaits. Both are spooled with 15 lb Tatsu. The Jerkbait I have so much confidence in a Megabass Vision 110 that I expect a bite on every single cast. The 110+1 Jr. and the Silent 110 are deadly. The Rig: 7’ Medium Fast spinning rig for regular 110s; 7’ Medium-Light for the +1 Jrs. Spooled with 10 lb braid and an 8–10 lb mono or fluorocarbon leader. The Tactic: Angler input is everything here. There is such a thing as too much or too little cadence. The magic happens in the middle ground. Make it look like it's trying to get away, but easy to catch at the same time. On the Bottom Aside from working the bladed jig low and slow, my main dirt-dawg presentation is a Strike King Rage Bug on a ½ oz swing head (or a paddle tail) with a 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG. The Rig: 7’ MH Fast graphite rod, 6.6:1 casting reel, and 15 lb Tatsu. The Tactic: I use a stop-and-go retrieve and fish the bait entirely with the reel, leaving the rod in the optimal hook-setting position. Be ready to reel fast on the strike—big smallies will often feel the steel and rocket straight at the boat. If you aren't picking up slack instantly, they'll win the race. The Final Piece: The Waypoint Purge I deliberately saved boat position for last because so many bassheads completely miss the bus on it. For me, it’s where success begins and ends. My casting distance, my casting angles, my orientation to the sun, and whether my bait even enters the strike zone are all determined before I ever press the trolling motor pedal. Clearly, this screams "I don’t use FFS," so if you use live sonar, keep doing whatever gets you bit. For how I fish, I recently erased all my old waypoints and started from scratch. It was the best move I could have made. It cleaned the clutter off my screens, and now every single pin means one of three things: A boat ramp. A hazard to navigation. The exact spot where my boat needs to sit to fish a piece of structure. No more marks "on the fish." Marking the fish just leads to drifting directly over a school of dream smallies, only for them to give you the finger and swim off into the deep. Put the boat where it belongs, stay back, and make the long cast. Fish Hard A-Jay

That didn't take long. Unit sold in two days—young man got a solid unit with many years of service ahead. Good Times. A-Jay

Thanks—and that is a very good question and one that I feel like I'd like to give some thought to. The short answer is yes. It would be a good time to make a "Brown Bass Tools Update" post within this thread. Give me a bit to get my thoughts in order. Keep an eye out for it, as I'm looking forward to sharing some of this stuff. Fish Hard A-Jay

I can't even imagine. And those Higgins boats (officially designated as LCVPs) carried American soldiers to the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. While the U.S. Navy provided command and transport vessels, Coast Guardsmen acted as the coxswains (the person who steers the boat and controls the throttle) for the smaller landing craft during that infamous invasion. A-Jay

Good question. While I hardly do it, the only time I do the Hollywood Break Neck Drop the Boom Hookset, is frog fishing in the slop. Mostly just because I can, and it's a pretty good time too. Other than that, my hooksets are all almost identical, regardless of the gear (rod, line, hook type & size & terminal tackle) I may be using. I feel like the tackle sends the charge down the line and sets the hook. The heavier or lighter the tackle, the more or less impact will result at the end of the line. So I let the tackle do its job. Helps take the guesswork out of a sport that already has more than my little pea brain can process. YMMV 🤪 A-Jay

No Question— However for me, the challenging aspect of gaining sufficient experience with any presentation To where I have a little extra confidence leaning toward success is learning, knowing, and being able to embrace the process that always takes considerably longer than I would expect going into it. Once I learned it was not a race—the shear amount of R & D (often several seasons) I need to get over the Mendoza line with any rig, is what makes any & all success so rewarding. In this day & age of "right here, right now," the speed at which the newest electronics packages make fish catches appear to occur, is the blink of an eye. That's just really not my experience. Fish Hard A-Jay

When we have that 'one bait' that we just believe in so much. The more I threw this one so far this season, the more I was reaching for the net. I will say the angler input when presenting these baits can make quite a bit of a difference. Fish Hard A-Jay