Team9nine

Not to intrude, but I'll add another comment on retrieves with the Vault or other similar type blade baits. Take advantage of the holes drilled in the bait for where you clip to - they're there for a reason. One of my favorite ways to fish them is by clipping to the last/back of the 3 holes. This creates a very nose down attitude, and more drag, and you can easily slow roll or slow steady retrieve these things through just a foot or two of water without having to burn things, keeping the bait just off bottom and muck. Makes a big difference in cold water sometimes, especially with the lighter versions. I've caught tons of fish doing this in super cold water, often with ice still ringing parts of the lake. They also work surprisingly well in shallow river systems with current fishing them the same way for smallmouth

I’ve still got a few I play around with from time to time…the top 2 are “on white” and the bottom one is “on chartreuse.”

Not terribly surprising to me. It was caught from the largest reservoir in the state that is in the southern half (longer growing season), has high productivity (fertile), only moderate largemouth bass population, plenty of pelagic forage (shad), minimal submerged weed growth and a minimal abundance of smallies (minimal competition) that usually only show themselves for a month or so in spring. You typically see a smallie or two every year caught from there that go 3-5 pounds. It also has a very small spotted bass population. I could see that state record being broken from there, also, in the future. It is now nearly 60 years old, so there has been plenty of time to wash away the dirt that covered all the limestone and clay that primarily makes up the geography of the area, creating small portions of the lower lake that are more suitable for smallmouth. There are two other waters that could eventually produce another smallie of that size down the road - Patoka Res. which is the second largest reservoir in the state, same basic characteristics, but a slightly more abundant smallie population and a little better overall habitat (cleaner with more rock and clay). There is also the IN portion of Lake Michigan which gives up some nice smallmouth every year, but doesn't get near the pressure of most lakes or other sections of the Great Lakes due to its location.

Yup, but you probably already knew that 😉 😎 Loaded up with a nice selection of Slider heads.

And, as you can probably tell from the replies, that wide variation can be seen here, too - lol - because it’s a technique that can truly be done effectively with a pretty wide range of options as mentioned by the reply below: So I’d base the decision on your budget, your level of commitment to the technique, and your favorite line type. Responses in this thread so far to fit about any price point and personality. I’ve personally used several of the variations mentioned and still haven’t settled on just ONE absolute favorite setup.

Absolutely could! It would be a ML spin rod with which I could throw a pretty wide variety of smaller lures for both bass and panfish, and catch a ton of fish. Would I not be able to throw a bunch of stuff I enjoy fishing from time to time? The answer there is, “of course,” too 😄

Mostly cloudy and light south winds combined with highs over 70 today found me back out on the water. After farting around with some deep shad school stuff without luck, I headed to the nearest creek arm and did some scouting for crappie. As expected, they’ve scattered and are probably about to spawn, but I hit a couple bass up shallow and decided to chase them most of the afternoon. Ended up with about 16 fish on a combination of jigs and soft plastics. Did run across a couple crappie though, and one of those was about the most obese thing I’ve ever seen - lol. Fairly short compared to some I’ve caught, but that belly pushed the scales down to 3.15 lbs. 😎

Lol - good to know. I thought my account had been hacked and I got locked out. Won’t be updating any of my “business” pages, so guess I’ll just go fishing 😎

Party is winding down with surface temps approaching 60 degrees and fish looking like they are scattering to spawn. Managed one beastie yesterday despite the conditions that weighed 2.91 lbs.

Since this is a boy doll by the name on his nametag, I'd say if you weren't using FFS, this is where you were hurt - like a swift kick to the -&8t# - or so I heard according to the "whiners" this weekend - lol

Also Trey McKinney on his win: "The Lowrance ActiveTarget was essential to finding these fish up on the shallow flats, too. I started the tournament fishing in 20 to 30 feet of water and then today, I was in 4 feet … They were moving off the timber toward the bank. I had to follow them.”

Big bass, big screens, big dreams!

This response from Rick Pierce of Bass Cat Boats has been shared elsewhere. I’ve seen him post similar previously: Changes will be coming in 2025 for those Tour pros. The level of change is not yet fully known, though Bassmaster did indicate to the Elite anglers at Toledo that it was eminent. They will be addressing crappie brakes, units, heights, transducers and more in the coming season. They also gave firm guidelines on use of Crappie Brakes in 2024. The genie is out of the bottle, though they will be stuffing some aspects in a new coffin. BCB

I think you’ll see some natural segregation by demographic and field between the two - it’s already started somewhat, and these recent events will only encourage more separation from what I’m reading across various forums and other online media. May be the minority, but a lot of anglers have little interest in the guys you named. Just an opinion

I don't think it will be anything that dramatic, but it likely has a solid effect on top end size and numbers. Since all the big bass drama/eyes are on Texas at the moment, consider it’s been more than 30 years since they set the current state record bass, this despite the efforts of long running programs like ShareLunker. FFS combined with social media will continue to put downward pressure on the chances of growing a new state record. It will likely take a big shift in habitat (environmental conditions) to swing things in the other direction. Texas is fortunate in that it has some immense bodies of water that hold up well to pressure. In most states, it’s not unusual to see the entire population of bass get turned over 1X, 2X or even greater in the smaller lakes. In those cases, tournament mortality negatively affects top end size structure. The same happens with pressure in general.

Total sarcasm, Tom (insert ‘stir the pot’ emoji here) 😆

If I had to lay down a bet at this point, I’d go with a limit of 2 FFS transducers on a boat (1 fresh, 1 salt, vertical; or 1 vert and 1 horiz/perspective) combined with either a max combined screen limit per boat (in inches) or a max number of units per boat.

Will take several years, but you’ll start seeing a few of them get dropped off the tour every year if they stick to the current plan. It’s early, but several well recognized names sitting in that group of bottom 10 in AOY standings already. Maybe they’ll increase the number of legend exemptions to accommodate some of them so there’s at least a few recognizable names left 😆

But close behind in the #2 slot is to buy and learn how to use an FFS unit 😉 🤑

Seems like a lot of guys have gone to running a separate battery just for their scope units, especially smaller and lighter lithiums, but you can run them off your cranking battery, especially if you have a larger engine that puts out a good bit of amps for recharging, and/or you do a lot of idling/graphing or long runs. As @TnRiver46 mentioned, you do run the risk of running that battery down and possibly unable to crank the big motor, so you might play with using it in that configuration on a local lake and staying close to the ramp just in case. If you can get through a day without issue and you have an onboard charger that also charges the main starter battery, you should be fine. You can also show the voltage on your fishfinder screen and monitor it so you'll know when you're starting to run that battery too low. Like you, I run all my graphs (including FFS) as well as lights and livewell/accessories off my main battery, but my engine is small enough I can hand crank it in case of failure (and I've had to a time or two before I regularly started charging my main battery).

…and that applies to all age groups, both young and old.

Or he has seen the same meme that everybody and their brother has posted on their social media page this week and he was just being sarcastic 😉

Lol 🤮 He’s one of the reasons I don’t watch coverage. Different strokes for different folks

Lol - I don’t know, but the CDC said my Covid booster shot would protect me against it 🤧

Doesn’t run off batteries or get knocked off in stump fields - you might have something there 😆