Team9nine

My short answer: Buck Perry showed us that (bass) fishing, in general, is a science, but certain aspects of it, like big bass/trophy angling, is an art, IMO.

More the cold weather than the wife Cold enough to pull out the ski bibs for the next few months, I imagine.

Dropped down to 20 overnight, but we clawed our way back to 50 by late afternoon, so I hooked up and ran to the lake for about 3 hours. Sunny skies with SW winds of 10-15, gusting 20-25 were a challenge, but I managed to get half a dozen bites on a mix of jerkbaits and blade baits, including one that hit the 6 lb. mark, making it worth being out there.

Sometimes/Most times (~90% of the time)

This ^^^ works for me, too. I used hitchhikers (screw lock/twist lock/CPS spring) in Indiana with smaller soft plastic baits as “dummies” on top 2 arms where 3 hooks was the limit.

You have to vary the jerks and pauses - let the fish tell you what they want. Some days really hard and fast twitches with little pausing works; other days just slight twitches with little movement and long pauses are best. This is where different rod types can come into play and be equally effective depending on the mood of the fish. Just to make that point, here’s another video on jerkbaiting and you’ll see the recommendation is for a ‘very parabolic’ (slower) action. You’ll find this difference in preference across a range of pros. M Stefan jerkbaits

IMO, jerkbait is one of those techniques where you can truly use either rod type and be just fine. You’ll find equally good arguments for both - and I’ve used both extensively. You definitely want to drop some degree of slack between twitches/pauses because tension will drag the bait forward, then line watch for the “jump,” though often it is like blade baits where the next time you go to twitch, the fish is just ‘there’.

I really don't have any advantages anymore - technology has pretty much taken them all away - but I still have plenty of disadvantages I could list

I tend to go with the more historical figure of 55 degrees and under as defining the cold water period.

Oops 🤗 wrong thread…

Pretty strong front set in today. Highs barely broke 50, and winds were steady out of the north 8-12 with the occasional stronger gust. It was a bad setup for where I wanted to fish, but was still able to scrounge out 4 bass in just under 3 hours. I've fished in worse, for less, so no complaints Now we wait for the eventual warmup.

And therein lies the biggest obstacle to this concept actually working, because the goal among most all fisheries departments across the country is not to produce trophy fisheries, but instead, to maximize sustainable harvest and yield. Outside of Oklahoma’s new bass regulation and a handful of specific waters in certain states, minimum length limits are the rule and probably always will be. There is very little desire on the part of state fisheries to create trophy focused waters. Additionally, once you get above a certain sized body of water, your ability to control harvest and enforce regulations is highly diminished, and increasingly cost prohibitive, and so subsequently, your desired outcome will likely fail.

Very nice but slow afternoon on a local reservoir until I got lucky and pulled up on the right spot at the right time with about 40 minutes to go and limited out in 20. Blade bait in 58 deg. water.

My old favorite was the Craw George - I just liked the shape better. Was a good bait from shore because you could launch a cast about as far as the amount of line on your spool 😆

Not sure if I’ve figured it out, and I’m not one to play much with colors, but if I had some variation of junebug, green pumpkin, black and/or PB&J, other than a pink trick worm, I could fish with a peaceful mind the rest of my life 😎 That said, I did have one lake I fished that “seemed” like junebug/chartreuse was THE color. I’ve also found a lake where green pumpkin/orange appears to be a big deal during the cold water period, but otherwise…

Lower unit gear case ratio. Divide 29/14 and you get 2.07. I believe those first numbers are the number of teeth on the gears. Someone else will be able to confirm or refute.

2009? Is that a typo? Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point. Perhaps you mean as a company, their entire lineup of all rods offered are technique specific? Dobyn’s started in 2009, but technique specific rods had been around long before then. Anybody remember this 1990 lineup of application specific rod lines?

This year - just about everything except Ned/finesse, crank baits, and jigs…and jerkbaits. Those 4 categories accounted for 95% of all the bass I caught this year. Hardly threw anything else.

Welcome to “Club 2000!” We know how to party around here…

Worth what you paid for this opinion 😊 but go Garmin. H’bird has been so far behind the curve in FFS terms vs Garmin/Lowrance, I wouldn’t even mess with it. Reminds me of their “SI from DI”. Haven’t tried the H’bird FFS myself, but everyone I’ve talked to that has has not been impressed in any way with what they saw - FWIW

Yes. though IMO, the bigger concern is just the rebending of that whole hook arm (point, barb, and length of wire to the bend, sometimes referred to as the throat) after it gets bent out a time or two. What I've experienced is that once it is bent out and rebent into shape, that metal "softens" for lack of a better term, making it easier to get bent back out of shape the next time. This ends up happening most often on a solid hookset, and the point never gets to bury into the fish like it was originally designed. Thinner hooks are worse about this than thicker ones, but once I've had one bend out, I will only rebend it back once if in the heat of battle before replacing it, because it inevitably ends up causing me fish. Eventually though, if you kept rebending time and again, that whole barb end will completely break off. Specifically on just the hook point, if I roll one over, I replace it. You can sharpen dull hooks that still retain their shape a time or two, but a bent point isn't worth messing with because the wire is so thin in that spot, it's bound to cause you heartbreak when you least want it to.

Coming from Indiana, I’ve spent a lot of time chasing and catching bass from partially frozen waters, including reservoirs. Even in winter, the most active and catchable bass tend to be shallower, especially if you have rain/stained water. However, these shallower bass are still often immediately adjacent to the deepest water in the area. So I usually focus on steep banks (>45 deg.) that fall off into the river or creek channel (bluff-like); main lake or secondary points that have deep water off to one side; boat docks over deeper water; etc. Keep in mind, deep water will be relative. The type of reservoir can make a difference. If you have deeper highland type lakes, a certain population of the bass will stay deeper, though that is often spots and smallies, not necessarily largemouth. The same would happen if you were primarily a threadfin shad base. Shallower flatland or river run type lakes are often largemouth dominated, and I would expect active fish to be shallower. Same in gizzard shad fisheries, which are usually found shallower than threadfins.

Short answer is, it depends. Generally, the strength of the wire (hook) would be proportional to its cross-sectional area. So, if they had to make the larger hook sizes slightly thicker, then yes, they should be stronger even though they are the same material. If the larger hooks are the same diameter as the smaller hooks, then no, they probably wouldn’t be any stronger. Time to pull out the micrometer - lol

I’m actually having that debate in my mind right now. Already sitting quietly on a few that never saw the light of day last month 😉

Bass bite was off today, but the crappie bite picked up at dark, and the sunset made for a great ending to the day.