Team9nine

I’ve never been more disappointed in a fishing book than with that one. Ralph Mann’s 2 part In-Fisherman articles on Hope and his tracking studies was much more informative than the book itself. I got the sense from reading the book that he really didn’t want to divulge any “secrets” still at the time of writing. YMMV

Our waters are just now starting to cool, and the crappie have just started to group slightly and make their first moves toward the shallower water. Lots of guys like to fish the laydowns throughout the fall around here, especially on a few of our reservoirs that have them in abundance. In those cases, the little weedless slider grub is about the best bait for a cast and retrieve type presentation that doesn't spend more time hung up than not. That said, I don't like fishing the laydowns much because everyone else likes to, so I avoid the easily spotted ones and just fish those I find out deeper using SI that are out of visible eyesight. Was out Tuesday casting Bobby Garland shad baits over stump flats in about 8'-12' of water and managed about 50 crappie, including a limit of decent sized fish, the first good ones I've seen all summer. Think they're finally moving in from being suspended out over deep open water much of the past few months.

I was in nearly the same boat as you. Lost ~3 weeks due to being down sick, and just started back fishing the past 7-8 days. Still not 100%, but gained a new appreciation for just how much I've been able to go this year up until that point.

This guy doesn't look like anything special - lol - but according to my counts, this bass was number 2,000 for the year Front came through yesterday with blue skies and 15-20 mph winds, but today the winds calmed to 5-6 mph. The fish, which really seemed to shut down yesterday, have adjusted and started prowling the deep edge of the weedline or slightly out from it (you can see that edge pretty well in the pic above - at very top). Managed 26 fish in less than 2 hours on Midwest Finesse gear (1/16 oz. mushroom head jig paired with slightly shortened Zman Finesse WormZ). Now sitting on 2,008 bass with some of the better months ahead of us as the water cools, and assuming we don't drop straight into a winter scenario. However, my bass time might start getting conflicted with my crappie time

1970s Chevy Monza 2+2 I bought for $600. Was mostly all primer gray and yellow except for the drivers door which was burgundy - lol. A guy was restoring it and must have decided to sell. Kept it until the timing chain broke somewhere over 100k miles and about 3 hrs from home. Had an 8 track tape player that I used the heck out of when I found half a dozen classic punk rock albums on 8-track in a $0.99 clearance bin at JC Murphys - lol

And on the entertaining subject of Berkley, science and bass, a timely story by that bunch that fits the thread subject: Berkley science

Two finds this week. The first is my own pair of hemostats - lol. Got home from a bank walking trip yesterday and realized they weren't in my pocket. Back out this morning to the same pond knowing that I had to have dropped them somewhere...sure enough, right where I used them and thought I slipped them back into my back pocket. The other find from the res earlier this week. Not sure I'll be brave enough to try and reuse all the excess line as leader material, but the crankbait is near new, so I'll certainly chunk it around just to see what happens.

Another solid fish (4.01#) from the local res over the weekend on another of my favorite finesse jigs, the Booyah Baby Boo.

Scents - meh. Been 30 years since I've used them, and don't see that changing anytime soon. Give it a try if you think it will help. I put my confidence elsewhere.

Pike do not seem to be affected to the same degree as some other common fish as they have a pneumatic duct that lets them control air bladder expansion to some degree. Most devices use between 8 oz and 2 pounds of wt. depending on design.

Thanks - I'm digging a little bit right now to figure out what the possibilities are. I'll definitely be in contact if things look like they might move forward.

Finesse jig bite continues (Bitsy Bug) with this fish hovering around the 5 pound mark

Yeah, I finally deleted the site for good this spring ? Yep, BIB was my personal site. I was just a contributor to In-Fish, BassBlaster and BFA pages. Still have a currently unpublished site that I might meld with/into BFA somehow down the road. Will see what kind of attention I draw first with the BFA FB page revival before doing that. Have had several industry people take notice this week already, so that’s a good sign ?

BFA as a website was taken down by the site owner a couple years back for a few different reasons. There were 3 of us contributing to it. The domain is still owned, so I’d need to see if it’s in the original owners hands or not. I have admin access to the Facebook page, so I recently fired it back up, and it is now being populated with current material. Might be able to merge the two again somewhere down the road. I can tell you from my experience, and @whitwolf might be able to chime in here - and agree? But there is very little interest by today’s anglers in the history of our sport. It’s a pretty small (niche) market.

Thanks - I keep it pretty simple, using mostly 1.5" to 2" crappie tubes (BPS, Southern Pro, MidSouth) as well as similar sized shad bodies (Bobby Garland). Every once in a while I'll pull out small hair jigs, too, usually in the cold water periods. Love feeling the thump of a crappie sucking in a jig

To me, the answer depends on the context of the question. If you are a big bass chaser, or are wanting to target big bass, then I agree with ‘never’ being close to the right answer, as on any given day, no matter how poor the conditions, it only takes one bite to make the trip a memorable one. On the other hand, if the question is posed as just a general one to bass anglers, then I agree that the answer will be much more variable, to the point of even never specifically targeting them as others have mentioned.

Agree that it’s not plastic ingestion causing this. Was likely pure coincidence that the one you opened up that looked this way also had ingested plastics, which will cause weight loss and possibly even eventual death. What is shown is referred to by biologists as DELT anomalies. The ‘D’ stands for deformities, one of four categories of health anomalies that get grouped together. Biologists do surveys and use the percentage of DELT anomalies in a population as an indicator of possible poor environmental conditions. There is always a low percentage of fish naturally born with defects, but a higher than background percentage might suggest some excessive environmental exposure to chemicals or other potentially toxic or physically deforming exposure (radiation, PCBs, estrogen altering synthetics, etc.).

Been down sick for nearly 3 weeks, but finally started getting out again over the holiday weekend. Have managed 32 bass in three short bank trips, finally crossing the 1900 fish threshold (1,916), and closing in on 2,000 as the new target. Related to the finesse jig rod thread, this last trip fishing 3/16 Bitsy Bug on 12# fluoro with a Loomis MBR 783c paired with an old green Curado 200BSF reel, my favorite finesse jig rod. Previous two trips were Finesse TRDs worked through chara patches...a really fun bite when bass eat the jig off the veggies in mid water

Yep - clinch knot. A pretty basic knot that I rarely use bass fishing because of so many other better knots

Similar to above, but Loomis IMX-783C MBR is what I use for finesse jigs.

Catch and near immediate release. A lot depends on the depth caught, as barotrauma incidence increases with depth. Fish from 20 ft and less rarely show signs of barotrauma based on some study results. The 50% threshold for smallmouth is around 35-38 ft. Most fish caught from less than 30 ft survive, but fish caught deeper, even those released that appear to swim off fine, often don’t survive if truly affected by barotrauma unless “aided” by one of the extra measures mentioned by @A-Jay Length of fight appears to make no difference in whether fish do or don’t get barotrauma.

Yep, that’s it ? DVM

That early in the morning, maybe zooplankton heading back down for the day (the 12’ disappearing line)? Diel vertical migration is very common on a lot of reservoirs in my area through late summer. They rise in the water column after sunset through midnight, then reverse and head back down toward the thermocline by early morning. Just a guess...

In basketball you have a triple double, three “scores” or stats in double digits. In fishing, I guess you’d refer to catches of two species in 4 digits a double quadruple ? lol. Been down sick the past couple weeks, but enjoyed a nice afternoon of crappie fishing right before that happened, landing about 75 fish and putting my yearly crappie total catch count over the 1,000 fish mark. I’m also sitting just shy of 1,900 bass for the year, hence the “double quadruple.” Just started feeling good enough to sneak back out after bass with this cooling weather, so looking forward to topping the 2k mark hopefully in the near future. Here’s a couple ‘specks’ from that last trip.

Whatever floats your boat. Opposite for me. Tourney fished for 25 years on our reservoirs and threw baitcast 95% of the time. Spinning was mostly reserved for crappie fishing. Since I stopped tourney fishing, and started mixing in things like Ned and shaky head about a decade ago, some years I’m 80% spinning or better. Things like accuracy, quiet entries, back casting and even skipping just come with practice. Couldn’t imagine not ever bringing spinning outfits on most trips now.