Team9nine

Usually within a week or two after ice out if temps warm the water above 40 deg.

Winds 16-24 out of the SW gusting 33-37 mph, so you take whatever the lake will give you on these kind of days. That’s the price we pay for highs in the upper 50s in Feb. - not complaining. Took 14 bass, all on jerkbaits. Supposed to be a little lighter winds tomorrow. We’ll see.

Wow - sucks to be you. I just checked our forecast and we’re supposed to be within a few degrees of 70 a couple of those days ? Looking at the 10 day and highs don’t dip below 40 here in Indiana during that period. I’m pretty certain this Feb. will go down as one of the warmest on record…which means we’ll probably pay for it in Mar and/or April ?

I love offshore structure fishing, but I still enjoy going shallow at times, just because…kind of like watching a bobber get slowly pulled under and out of sight - it never gets old. Paralleling a riprap bank with a buzzer or shallow crank, or just pitching the edge of emergent vegetation - good stuff. I just do it whenever I feel like doing it, or if I think conditions are right or the lake is set up for it.

It was great, much better than today in many respects…and we still caught fish - lots of them. …And before flashers…

Here’s a shot from the local lake cam this morning showing foam lines on the water. These are known as ‘Langmuir streaks’ or ‘windrows.’ They require steady and sustained winds of at least 7-8 mph in order to form, and become more apparent with stronger winds (10-15 mph). If you see them on the lake, you can be confident the wind has been blowing strong out of the same direction for several hours. In the spring, this means the warmer surface waters have likely been piled up in downwind pockets and coves. It also means there has been enough time and strength to form mudlines on susceptible banks. This, combined with the wave action, will often lead to more stained and warmer water, resulting in shallower, more aggressive bass.

I Ned rig tiny brush hogs in spring…Pretty much just C-rig the baby’s

Sounds like you’re over focusing on keeping a tight line wrap on your spool - don’t! Just fish - cast and wind. As @ska4fun mentions above, eventually loosening might affect your casting, and when it does, just make a bomb cast to clear it as several have suggested, or strip off the top layers by hand and wind back on…then keep on fishing

That’s my ‘Rick Clunn’ version of getting myself accustomed to the weather elements. I don’t feel hot or cold when I’m fishing - I’m just ‘one’ with the fish

Went 45 minutes without a bite and almost left. Then I decided to fish in the brunt of the wind (blowing 22mph with gusts to 35 mph) at the mouth of a small pocket and caught 18-20 in the next hour. Was also able to stick one nice one for this place. Some of these smaller guys have great color and markings in this cold, clear water.

Lol - Those first LCR/LCD units were crap, no matter which company you went with ? I refused to give up my flashers and paper graphs for another 10 years until the technology finally became acceptable. That was around 1993/1994 with the introduction of the Lowrance LMS-350 & X-70 units (GPS & Non GPS respectively). It wasn’t terribly long after that that paper graphs started to get phased out by companies, and then the paper rolls got really difficult to find to keep existing units running.

Don’t overthink it. You either believe in the power of the buzzbait or you don’t

Whichever bait comes out first when I reach into the compartment of reddish baits …depth appropriate, of course ?

Don’t know your lake or the conditions, but first guess would be scattered small fish/baitfish that get more compressed as you move up that incline. Possibly a few bigger fish (relative) right on bottom near the base breakline.

The joke with a few guys around here was always, “1 foot, 2 feet, too deep.” If you can’t touch the bottom with the end of your pitchin’ stick, you need to get your arse back in tighter to the bank. Sounds like this fits you and your partner ? I, personally, love fishing offshore structure for all kinds of species, not just bass. I also love my sonar ?

In between pressure systems here. Temps rising into the low 50s today, but clear blue skies, no wind, and clearing waters. Fished right through them today on the first pass, just getting one dink, so bumped up the jig head weight and slowed down, and that did the trick. Quickly picked up a bunch more after that from the same spots, ending with a dozen. Extended forecast still looks pretty promising through next weekend

SDJ and Palomar test out amazingly similar, so that kind of shoots down this ‘high pressure’ vs ‘low pressure’ theory, wherever it came from. Use either of those two knots and you can’t go wrong. If you want to wrap line, use the Fish’N Fool (double wrap uni). Anything beyond that is totally unnecessary IMO.

Another vote for “both.” I’d use up all my daily likes in this one thread agreeing with most everyone above ?

I enjoy pulling out the old baits every once in a while. This fall/winter I caught a lot of bass on an old Buck’s Baits SJ “Action Jig.” This bait is at least 55 years old, last manufactured in the mid 1960s as best I can tell.

This is an Invitational, not a BPT event. I believe all the lower level events (below BPT level) are traditional ‘boat 5’ events. First BPT with the new format starts next week, I believe. Peeked at results daily just to see where Wheeler was at and see who was atop the leaderboard, but that’s been it. Might watch next week just to see how the ‘feel’ of the events have changed. Personally was a fan of the ‘all fish count’ format myself, but get why they changed. Would have liked to have seen more of a hybrid/compromise like ‘best 8/10’ count, but…

Better looking - yes, but more informative - no. Top pick demonstrates this well, where the right side is just a pile of tangled arches, but on the left, you can practically count how many individual fish are down there. Also look at the bottom definition difference. Try and drive over some cover like a brushpile or fallen tree and see how each shows up when making your decision. Definitely play with settings until you get something you’re comfortable with for the way you fish. Every unit is different, and even different units from the same company will read dissimilarly.

This ^^ Some units will let you run a hybrid screen that combines both frequencies. Might see if your unit allows that, or some variation of. ‘Chirp’ often is the hybrid, so you might go with that and then play with power and scroll speed settings. Otherwise, it comes down to what is most important to you - target separation and bottom detail as mentioned above, or fish schools. Whichever it is, on a small unit like that, I wouldn’t split the screen. Pick a frequency and go with it full screen. The “clutter” on the 77 deg screen is simply a larger cone picking up more fish, and then also exaggerating the arches - the wider the ‘cone,’ the more exaggerated the arch.

Because sometimes you just want to see if you can do it or not… ?

We usually get whatever you get, just a day or so later - lol - but fortunately not this time. Last of the storm line just cleared us with 50+ degree temps. Ended with 1.36” of rain, and now have 20-50 mph winds with temps falling the rest of the day…but that’s still better than snow ? Hopefully it’s enough warm rain to buffer us from a pair of forecast hard freezes overnight this weekend. We get through those and we’re back to the 50s most of next week

Me? I haven’t actually seen it other than what is out in the public domain. I’ve just talked to him and got his thoughts on the whole deal and what comes next.