Team9nine

A bit too hot and sunny during the day, especially since we had very little wind, so waited until the last 2 hours of light before heading out. Fished half way around the pond without a bite before figuring out the trigger(s). After that, I was able to catch 8 bass before finishing the complete circuit. Ned scores again.

Certainly hoping for the best of outcomes, and a reasonably short stay in the hospital.

For who? ? I like east winds

Probably not, but could be. BPS has their line manufactured by other companies under their brand name (private label manufacturing), so hard to tell who currently makes it. I’m pretty sure they shop the contract around every so often, so the manufacturer could change every once in a while. I know the line characteristics seemed to have changed some over the years according to many, myself included. I used their line for spinning purposes (6, 8, 10 lb test) about 20 years ago, and it was pretty good stuff back then.

A month ago I couldn’t make a cast anywhere in this pond without hooking weeds. Today, I almost couldn’t make a cast that DID hook some grass. Pretty thorough nuking job by the sprayers. Not many places to hide, so guessing many have abandoned the shorelines except for the juvenile “biters.” Bigger fish are probably pretty selective with their feeding times. Still managed 20 on Ned this afternoon, mostly concentrated on the one deep end of the pond. This size was pretty typical of catches today.

Slow afternoon at a micro lake today, probably due to the weather and my timing, but managed 7 bass and the overall quality was better than most recent trips. Weighted wacky, and 4 of the 7 were caught sight fishing (“cruisers”).

I’ve used Borax/boric acid successfully. Can spray into cracks and crevices, or make a feeding solution. Not the fastest acting (which is what you actually want - slower acting), but a pretty good safety profile for people and pets vs. most commercial insecticides.

I’ve been doing the long arm selfie thing more lately because it’s pretty straightforward with reasonably sized fish. With any big fish, I use my rod as a stand for the phone (on the ground) with a 10 second self timer. I’ve also brought a tiny tripod along a few times, as well as just taken video and selected the exact frame I wanted to use as the shot.

Fairly common. I see bigger groups at other times of the year, but nearly always see some shallow, though that behavior is more prevalent in certain bodies of water than others. Here’s a shot I took last fall. You can see at least 10 bass in this group that were just running the banks.

Small clips or split rings - always. More freedom of movement and less wear and tear on the knot. You can use a loop knot, also, but the tie to a clip or ring is a stronger connection.

wind from the east makes the bass feast. wind from the north anglers better go forth. wind from the west bass often bite best.

First thing I noticed yesterday as I walked up to the micro lake was that they had nuked the water primrose…like mostly brown and crispy. See last pic for an example. Had no idea how it would affect the fishing since it’s really not a submergent. As I kind of expected, I caught very little around the dead grass, instead finding most fish out deeper around the Chara weedline or shallower in areas where the primrose didn’t exist. Ended up with 15 fish to about 15”, so not much size wise. Clear blue skies, bright sun and very little wind combined with the weed treatments and shallow depths in this lake made catching a challenge. Half a dozen on the pre-rigged worm today, then the remaining balance on Ned.

That sounds like a great place to start to see if it makes a difference. I’m betting it will. Most frogs ain’t Spooks and don’t walk near as well. Seems like it would be very hard to make the sometimes tiny, sharp and precise twitches necessary with some models if you aren’t pointed right at the frog, tip down. Twitch down, slack up.

Maybe a smaller frog like Pad Crasher Jr.? And only delay 2-3 seconds, just long enough for them to turn down or away, then hit them with a worm type fast set, not a slower sweeping set. Just my first thoughts…

We’ve cooled down just slightly, but the sun was out most of the day, so kind of negated everything. I decided to go “old school” on ‘em today, partly because I just wanted to and partly because I thought I might show them something they haven’t seen in a while. When was the last time you threw a pre-rigged worm? ? Yeah, those things with multiple little hooks in them. The sunshine and lack of steady winds didn't help the cause, but didn’t hurt it too bad, either. Ended the afternoon with 17 bass, but nothing over 2 lbs. it was still fun and nostalgic. I had mentioned I was going to update my catch records for the year, and I finally did. We’re 211 days into this year, and I’ve fished just over 125 of them - pretty good for central Indiana given our penchant for frozen water in Jan, Feb and often into March. It was a fairly mild winter overall. Seven of those trips were crappie, the rest were bass. Counting today’s catch, I’m over 1700 bass for the year, along with another 500+ misc fish, mostly crappie, but a little bit of everything. I’ve got maybe one more month left before things come to a big slowdown.

I can tell you that in smaller bodies of water, the only thing more important than fishing the prevailing winds is to fish the heavy rainstorms. It’s pretty high up the list IME

Bass stop feeding??? No they don’t… ? You’ll be good. Just adjust presentation speed to their mood.

May not be an exact "night time" setting, but nearly all of them have a screen light intensity adjustment ("brightness") that can be lowered for night time fishing and then raised for day time trips. Look in your manual if you still have it for this setting adjustment, or find a copy online (most companies put theirs on their website).

Upside down trampoline. Hoping the bass aren’t all trapped under the safety cage ?

Been hammered by two good storm systems in 24 hours. Lots of rain which I thought would help our bite, but that hasn’t been the case. A dozen bass from two different locations is it, and nothing big. This morning’s storms did add some extra cover to one of the lakes which was sorely lacking ?? …but the bass haven’t started using it yet - lol

Rule #1 - Don’t blank I don’t care if it’s the first cast that day or the last (I really prefer the first). After that, it’s catch as many more as I can.

One of the best books ever written on the subject. An encyclopedia of both nightcrawler fishing as well as structure fishing.

I’m fine with the line itself on a baitcasting outfit. I’m more thinking along the lines of the “negatives” of braid outweighing the positives in many cases, especially with people newer to baitcasting, IMO. Too much changing and altering of existing technique and equipment in order to accommodate the line characteristics (like in this example). Just my $0.02

Out of curiosity, why did you change to braid/leader from straight mono/fluoro? I’m still in the camp of braid doesn’t belong on a baitcaster unless it does, and in those few instances a leader is unnecessary. Spinning I’m entirely opposite, nearly all braid to leader setups, and the best advice I tried all year (kudos to @A-Jay) was to finally go to long leader lengths - very eye opening difference while preserving all the best aspects of the system.

Nobody has mentioned the ‘alien’ response yet. I get it about 1/3 of the time or so. Not sure it really means much though, but it is a bit addicting ? Anyone else?