Team9nine

I'm sure you'll get a lot of theories on this, especially the crawfish eating connection. It definitely seems to be most prevalent in colder water temps from early winter through very early spring. That said, I've spoken to several of the leading fish physiology experts in the country about this, and none of them knew about this condition and could only speculate as to why, the predominant opinion being hormonally related due to season. I've done a few experiments myself to try and tease out an answer, but to date, have largely come up empty. Edit: Here is a previous comment clarifying the subject a bit. I'm sure Paul will chime in when he sees this thread as he’s got the best take on the subject at the moment: "We’re still trying to figure this one out. The main person to start the “red lips/teeth” inquiry was Paul Roberts in Colorado. He and I have been in contact trying to figure it out, and we have theories and anecdotal evidence, but nothing exact yet. It definitely seems to be related to cold water, the colder the greater the degree of red, and Paul suspects it might be hormonal. As temps warm, redness fades. Very prominent immediately after ice-out. I contacted one of the best in LMB physiology and spoke with him about it and he had no idea either, suspecting length of fight might come into play (we've tested and shot that theory down). We were hoping we might intrigue him enough to study it, but nothing yet. Fairly safe to say it is not related to spawning or crayfish eating, IMO. I’ve even run some tests by putting bass from warmer water that didn’t show the red much into severely iced down livewell water (at 32-33 deg. F) and held them for a couple hours to see if that would cause the red to return, but it didn’t. This is partly why we believe it might be hormonal in nature." -T9

Two quick points: - Yes, current is just another form of (creates) a breakline - A great quote from Don Dickson to keep in mind: "Now look, it's the breakline that forms the structure. If you have no breakline, you've got no structure - you've got a flat." OK, one more... Remember, Buck stated that a fish can be caught most anywhere, at most any time, on most anything. He even wrote about fishing backwater areas far from deep water and filled with vegetation, or shallow weeded over ponds. However, his "guidelines" were written in order to put the odds in his favor when approaching any body of water and trying to find and catch fish as quickly as possible. He felt the most catchable fish would be those found on or around the structure situations in a body of water. Similar to Catt's comment, they are not absolutes that negate finding or catching fish elsewhere in a body of water. They are guidelines to allow you to eliminate water in an orderly fashion to arrive at the fish regardless of where you are located in the most efficient fashion. -T9

I once worried about all the little intricate details, but no more. That said, I'm sure with just a little bit of effort online you'll be able to track down some experts who can give you detailed theories on all those things you mention. Now days, I side with Buck in my approach to fishing, who wrote; "It appears to me a fisherman should realize there are so many variables in so many things, that on any given day (much less over a period of time), any one particular variable would play a very minor role in the overall picture of catching a fish. ...What was present or true yesterday, may not be true today or tomorrow...it would be a sad state of affairs, if you and I had a different set of rules to follow every time we went to a different body of water, under different weather and water conditions, or when seeking a different species of fish."

My old friend RZ, he'll be tickled you shared the article. Too many triangles, lines and arrows for me to follow , but Rich has always been one step beyond... -T9

No, you're right, one group of anglers per day over a period of 4 days. Separate filming and marshaling each day. Guys not fishing that day just sit around and hang out. They send each group of 6 to a different lake, or a different section of the lake so that no information by competitors on later days could be utilized to an advantage (against the rules anyway, but a nice practice/precaution regardless). -T9

None - they all pretty much suck, IMO Yeah, bits and pieces of good stuff here and there, but not worth subscribing to in order to get it...but I've been around a while. The old stuff (60s, 70s, even early 80s) was infinitely better. Glad I still have most of my old magazine collections For everything else, there's the Internet. -T9

Several key points to keep in mind. - Technically, none of the guys knew exactly where they were going until the night before they went. They are all huddled down to meet at a location, but then where they actually fish is at the discretion of the tourney directors. Any lake within a reasonable drive is fair game. - They chose to fish Dale Hollow at a particularly tough time of the year for a highland event where smallmouth might be involved. - They are not allowed to practice or pre-fish, and it is against the rules to solicit information from anybody, including other competitors to try and get an advantage. They can and are polygraphed in this regard. The only "practice" they get is the 15 minute "drive around" right before the start of competition that morning. Nobody has any waypoints stored in their unit. No one has spent 3 days of practice idling around with side imaging marking schools. They are going in as "cold" as they can possibly make it. - In the case of Dale Hollow, competitors were broken up and then sent to fish different sections of the lake. In other words, they were restricted to where they could fish. Wheeler mentioned this in his Q&A after he won the 3rd Select event. They were launched and restricted to fishing a section of Dale Hollow well upriver which he stated wasn't conducive to catching or preferentially targeting smallmouth. Others were likely in better smallmouth waters during other days of competition. But the trade-off is that given no time to pre-fish and being against the rules to gather information (even looking at your hi-def map chips, I believe), it is a huge gamble to blindly start idling around and trying to find something deep when most guys are going to go straight to the visible stuff to try and start picking off fish. Since anything over 12" counts, a bank beater can get you down in a hurry. In hindsight to how tough the fishing was, I'm guessing some of the guys wish they would have taken the gamble, but that is not an easy decision to make when it has to be decided in the 15 minutes before take-off after looking around. The guys are even restricted from finding out who won and how much weight it took in any of the previous days event (s). This format is about as fair as you can get in a modern day professional event. You should enjoy watching them struggle from time to time. When a pro can't get help or insight in any way before an event, and they aren't there fishing during a time of year when a major shallow water slugfest was going down because of planning by the event coordinator, and they didn't have several days of practice going in, they end up winging it to a large degree just like us regular folks Kind of refreshing to see IMO. With a couple tweaks, this could/should be the future of professional bass fishing. -T9

One theory on new moon vs full moon is simply one of behavior, whereby molting puts the crayfish in a vulnerable position to predation, hence cycling on the new moon would help "hide" the crayfish from predators who might normally feed at night using the light of a full moon to their advantage. But as the paper went on to say, it likely isn't the full answer to the question: So it may be a case similar to barometric pressure, where the most obvious and easily measured/seen factor, in reality, may not be the actual trigger for something, but merely a corresponding agent. Plus, the paper only deals with a single species of crayfish in the lab. You'd have to believe the variability among crayfish species in the wild would be much wider. Still, you gotta' love the science -T9

This is probably the best overall paper on the subject. Doesn't necessarily argue for or against, but certainly leaves the door open to the possibility, especially when you move away from the molting issue and deal with behavior, where the argument for such a phenomena becomes stronger. "Lunar-Rhythmic Molting in Laboratory Populations of the Noble Crayfish Astacus astacus (Crustacea, Astacidea): An Experimental Analysis" http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068653

This ^^^ Not the same formulation as larger bulk spools. -T9

I use fluorocarbon leaders about 75% of the time, and nylon/copoly about 25% of the time, so no problem either way, especially in a lake situation.

Don't overthink it 8# PowerPro with an 8# leader. Ditch the Fluroclear. 6# Yozuri would likely be fine as a leader also. Just depends on the amount of cover in the area given your shore bound nature. -T9

Yep. There is also the smaller 1-1/2" 500 (2'-4') and 2" 400 (4'-6') Series, along with the 5" 800 (20'-25'). And don't forget that they can be cast and retrieved as well as trolled. Most every species of fish will hit them which always makes it fun. Never know exactly what you might catch on any given pass. But as Catt mentioned, there is way more to Spoonplugging than just a bait. -T9

Pg. 108 in the green book: "When presenting lures in the shallows you must work all sections - top, bottom, and all the water in-between. You must 'strain' this total section with your lures. Only in this way will you attain depth control in the shallows." Plus, fish that have moved past the "scatterpoint" could be "anywhere" in the shallows, and are (typically) more aggressive and willing to move further (up, down, or horizontally) to hit a lure. Once you move deeper than 8-10 feet, you only fish the bottom, or as close to it as you can, concentrating on the breaks, breaklines, and deep water that the fish use. Buck wrote a couple articles on suspended fish, basically stating that by focusing on trying to keep your lure in position working the bottom, you will by default figure out if the fish are suspended when your baits come off breaklines, dropoffs, etc. and you work to get them back in position. The fish tend to suspend in some relation to these bottom features, and if they are doing so, will likely contact your lure when it comes off these same features. In later writings he said it also wasn't out of place to use your fishfinder to "see" if fish were suspended in relation to these features while you were trolling the deeper water (structures), but to never just go out looking in open water for them. -T9

Just depends on who you talk to. Lots of opinions on the matter depending upon your own experiences or preferences. Elite Series pro Gary Klein has long argued for using parabolic (moderate action) rods for just about everything, including flipping. Here's a short video of him explaining why (you can ignore the specific promo aspects). Gary Klein on parabolic/moderate action rods -T9

The baits shouldn't be "sinking like a rock" if they are really suspenders, but I haven't thrown McSticks either to see what their tendencies are. As has been stated above; The colder the water, the slower a bait will fall through the water (if your jerkbait sinks), or the easier/faster it will rise if a floater. The warmer the water, the faster your sinking bait will fall through the water, or the slower it will rise back to the surface if a floater that is pulled under. So, for example, in any given water temperature, if you have a bait that sinks slowly instead of suspending, you can A) mark that bait to be fished in colder water temps, B ) change out the hooks to some that are slightly thinner and lighter, C) increase the size of your line to create more drag, or D) use a mono or braided line instead of fluorocarbon. On the other hand, if you are fishing a bait that has a tendency to rise slightly, you either can, A) weight it slightly with suspend strips/dots, B ) increase the size of a treble or two to add weight, C) change to fluorocarbon line (if not already using it), D) mark the bait to be used in warmer water temps, or E) go to thinner diameter line to reduce line drag. Some baits are much more touchy than others, but since you stated you had previously used some of the same brand with no problem, it sounds like it might be a rare or random event. Either try a couple more McSticks to prove whether they really might have a production issue (you can always sell them if you don't like them), or just take some time to tinker with your baits and see if you can resolve some of the issues to your satisfaction. -T9

1/2-ZinkerZ green pumpkin on a 1/16-oz. Gopher or 1/15-oz. ShroomZ jig head (chartreuse) - because I really enjoy catching lots of fish

Pretty much agree with RFSims. Only thing I'd add is that you might try and see if you can find a 3 or 4-blade prop that will work on that motor. While you lose some overall thrust, it should also diminish the torque. You just have to decide on whether the trade-off is worth it to you. I ran one for a year or two on my TM before ultimately going back to a standard 2-blade prop. -T9

OK - I'll play along and contribute to this topic Why I am a better "Ned Rig" angler than you are... Let me first preface this by saying that the term "Ned Rig" is rather unfortunate. Kind of reminds me of the confusion around the spoonplug and "spoonplugging." While it may have been in use locally before then, the term "Ned Rig" doesn't appear anywhere on the internet until the summer of 2012. At that point, it is used to name "the bait" Ned is using, which in itself is already misleading. The term catches on, soon the thing blows up and gets bigger than life, ultimately leading to a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation being posted and written about. As such, most people "new to the party" haven't taken the time to research and understand the story behind the bait/name. Covering much of that in this post so you can understand what "Ned rigging" truly started out as will hopefully make you a better Ned Rig angler. So to begin, let's clarify that the "Ned Rig" is technically not a bait but a specific philosophy or mindset of fishing called "Midwest finesse." It has its roots in the 1950s, in the heartland of America near Kansas City, initially with Chuck Woods, one of the fathers of finesse, as well as the creator of the Beetle, Beetle Spin, Puddle Jumper, Texas-rigged jigworm, as well as a variety of other baits and ways to finesse bass. In addition to Woods, Ray Fincke, Drew Reese, Dwight Keefer, Harold Ensley, Gete & Guido Hibdon, Ted Green, Virgil Ward and Bill Ward all have played a part in its history. But it is Ned Kehde, long-time editor and contributor to In-Fisherman magazine that I believe first coined the term "Midwest finesse" for this style of fishing in order to distinguish these methods from the finesse techniques that are employed in Japan and the Western states, including such things as drop-shotting and shakyhead fishing. After fishing some traditional bass clubs and events for nearly 2 decades in the 1980s and 1990s, Ned and a few other NE Kansas anglers grow weary of the typical tournament angling approach and results, especially with its emphasis on "power" baits, and begin to research and resurrect a form of finesse fishing based upon those local anglers mentioned previously and their methods. By late 2005, Ned has the basic outline of what we now call "Ned Rigging" all hammered out. He calls it Midwest finesse, and at its core, there are two basic tenets: 1. That the method and its adherents practice frugality, and; 2. Instead of catching big bass, its goal is to catch a lot of bass, 101 largemouth, smallmouth or spotted bass on every four-hour outing specifically, and we jokingly call this 'bass fishing 101.' The majority of the waterways around the Kansas City area are flatland impoundments, and as such they tend to be shallow water fisheries with stained water and abundant shoreline cover. Midwest finesse anglers spend a lot of time focusing on what Guido Hibdon used to call nothing-looking areas, and catching the majority of their fish in from 1 to 8 foot of water, and only rarely venturing into more than 12 feet of water. We have found that the bass that inhabit these featureless areas are often overlooked by other anglers, and we also suspect that these bass are more active than the ones that are buried in brush or other objects. We also probe beds of submerged vegetation, such as coontail, bushy pondweed, milfoil, and curly-leaf pondweed, as well as the outside edges of patches of American water willows. Lastly, riprap and rocky shorelines, as well as shallow offshore rocky humps are common targets for Midwest finesse anglers during the course of the year. This is one of the big reasons for using small, non-weed-guarded jigs/hooks. There are several other little known nuances with Midwest finesse as practiced by Ned. They include; Almost all of Ned's outings are 4 hours long and occur during the midday hours, such as 9 p.m. to 1 p.m., or 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is tied to a theory on oxygen and submerged vegetation, as well as comfort/convenience given his age. Standard finesse tackle revolves around six-foot, medium-action spinning rods that are fitted with medium-sized spinning reels. Ned uses $20 Shakespeare Synergy rods paired with 40 year old Cardinal 4 spinning reels, all with their bail arms removed. These reels are spooled with inexpensive 10-pound-test braid and a five-foot 8-pound-test fluorocarbon leader. After every season, the braid is tied to another reel and then rewound from one to the other, exposing all the fresh unused line underneath and assuring at least 2 years of use with every spool. Again, frugality is a virtue. Throughout the year we employ just three sizes of Gopher Tackles’ Mushroom Head Jigs: 1/32-ounce with a No. 6 hook, 1/16-ounce with a No. 4 hook, and 3/32-ounce with a No.2 hook. The heads of the jigs are mostly painted red, chartreuse or blue. The 1/16-oz is most used, followed by the 1/32-oz. The 3/32-oz jigheads are used less than 10% of the time. Anything heavier, from 1/8-oz on up is considered "power finesse" and not used as part of the original system. It is hard to explain why the mushroom head is the best jighead to use with this technique, but Ned has tried most of them and settled on Gopher's mushroom. That jighead was originally given to him many years ago by Ron Lindner, as the mushroom head jig-worm was a staple in Minnesota and other natural lakes waters in the 1970s and 1980s. There are about 8 or 9 different Z-Man soft-plastic baits that account for about 85 percent of all the fish caught using Midwest finesse. Several other non-ElaZtech baits from YUM, Gene Larew Lures, Zoom and Strike King make up the remainder of the baits. At times, we also used marabou-tailed and wool/bucktail or tinseled-bodied 1/32-ounce and 1/16-ounce jigs. From Ned's experience, Z-Man’s ElaZtech finesse baits are the best soft-plastic finesse baits ever created. He finds that they elicit more strikes than any of the other soft-plastic baits. Furthermore, they are so durable that the same bait can be used to catch 150 or more bass, and as these lures become more worn and torn, they become even softer and catch more bass (frugality and efficiency). Another positive feature is that the well-worn ZinkerZ readily absorbs a scent, which Ned has used since 2011. There are now 6 "official" retrieves used with these lures: swim and glide, hop and bounce, drag and dead stick, straight swim, drag and shake, and strolling. Again, we rarely probe water deeper than 12 feet and prefer depths of one to eight feet – even in the dead of winter and heat of the summer. About ninety percent of the time, we shake our rods during the retrieve rather than holding them steady and implementing the do-nothing retrieve that Charlie Brewer of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, popularized decades ago, or the I-Motion tactic that some Japanese finesse anglers have recently discovered. Sometimes the shakes are slight and intermittent, while at other times they are vigorous and constant. Shaking seems to help with getting more strikes in the stained waters we tend to fish. Shin Fukae is credited with both our coloring of jigheads (red, chartreuse, blue) as well as putting the "shake" into the basic retrieves. This happened after Ned spent a day in the boat with Shin back in 2006 at an event that Shin ended up winning, the same year KVD gave him (Ned) his first ElaZtech baits. One other very important aspect of Midwest finesse is what is termed the "no-feel" retrieve. Contrary to what you have likely read recently in various places, Midwest finesse anglers actually don't want to be able to feel their baits touching bottom. Most retrieves keep the bait off the bottom the majority of the time, and so using braid, along with the lightweight jigheads and the buoyancy of ElaZtech material assists in this effort. It is also the reason why "cheap" rods are perfectly fine with this technique. Standing up on its nose while resting might provide some benefit at times, but is NOT the primary reason for using ElaZtech baits. If you insist on using heavier heads and NRX-type rods so you can "feel the bite," you have a misunderstanding of the original technique (that's not to say they won't work, obviously). We prefer to make short 35-foot casts, mostly perpendicular to the bank. Shorter casts provide greater control and are usually not an issue in the stained flatland reservoirs we fish. As more and more people use the "Ned Rig" you will read about more and more variations and riggings and retrieves that others will espouse. These likely all work to some degree, or might even be necessary depending upon the waters being fished. However, the important point to keep in mind is what formed the basis for all the interest and where/how all these variations came from, and that is the basic Midwest finesse foundation written above and still practiced by "hardcore" Ned-riggers like myself. Hopefully this write-up will give everyone a little better understanding of the technique and the bait as developed, practiced and espoused by Ned. -T9

^^ This ^^ Use them both for various applications, but would pick the PP for frogging, personally. However, I also usually go with 65#. -T9

Apparently no one (34 views in) LOL...My take is I couldn't justify spending the money to subscribe to the show. Perhaps someone else on here has and can report. Doesn't seem like you hear much about it other than the advertising. -T9

Yep, I believe so - can't ever remember having them bleed on me or having any other issues the times I've thrown a handful into a small box or bag and left them that way. -T9

Looks like someone just playing the market to find a niche between Megabass ($25) and LES RC STX ($9). Can't see RC STX fans wanting to try something for nearly 70% more, but lots of people that might like MB that would try it for 40% less -T9

My solution isn't to organize, but instead, to eliminate. Mobility is more important to me from the bank than having everything I own with me. A few baits that can be stuffed into pockets or carried quite easily in a single small container, along with a single outfit, is all I ever take. -T9

100 views in and it looks like the Hoosier guys have abandoned you LOL. Same side of town and same basic waters as you, though mostly the area reservoirs. -T9