Team9nine

He seems pretty happy with it Believe the “big reveal” comes next month.

He’s not fishing the entire circuit, just 3 of the 6 events, so he’ll have minimal impact on standings or guys advancing to the BPT circuit. Some guys who might be on the bubble with staying on the BPT circuit might fish both just to try and guarantee staying on the main circuit. You see that all the time on the Elite Series with guys also fishing the Opens. Another common reason is just to have a chance to make more money. As a professional angler, the more events you fish, the more chances you have at cashing a check. For most tour pros, only fishing 6-8 events a year simply isn’t enough tourneys to try and make a living doing it. A lot of two circuit pros, and even a few who try and tackle three. In Wheeler’s case, since they’ve been “off” since around November, he just wanted to use this event as a dry run for the first BPT event which follows shortly after this one, and to get his mind back into that competitive mentality.

My view from the pond today…

Yeah, jighead of some sort. These are prerigged in the pic, but you could do the same with most any standup type jighead.

Another open water trip before the rain…different location. Managed 8 this afternoon, but quality was better as all were between 14”-17.” Lots of rain and wind in the forecast, but several more warm days after it clears, so looking like open water for the next week or two at least

Easy - Some variation of a Ned rig and Z-man plastic. Been a contender, if not at the top, for about a dozen years now ?

Mister Twister

Ice off! Again - lol. Saw a place on my walk yesterday that was 95% ice covered, so was surprised when I went by again today and found it 99% ice free from just overnight. Needless to say, I grabbed a rod and walked back over there and scored some February bass - 10 to be exact. Love the feel of the finesse rod loaded up Here’s a few…

The older I get, and the longer I fish, the more convinced I am that this “need to explain” is the greatest hinderance to catching fish that most anglers face. This was the genius of Bill Murphy and Buck Perry, two sides of the same coin ?

Don’t give the fish too much credit here ? I do tend to pinch off excess appendages like little legs and such, but that’s only because they are unnecessary and get in the way more than anything. Any soft plastic has a shape and profile, and that has some effect on how it fishes. Removing appendages and such tends to streamline a bait, and makes it fish with a little less bulk or drag, which most days I tend to prefer. That can also decrease profile size, and even affect fall rate. In a muddy water scenario, I might leave everything intact. Same with shortening a bait, removing claws or tails, etc. Removing large pieces like a single claw might make the bait unbalanced, and hence a little “wonky” on the retrieve - similar to why some recommend shortening one set/side of legs on soft-bodied frogs. That may help, hurt, or make no difference in terms of bites. My general rule of thumb is to just keep fishing a bait until the bites slow down or stop coming, or until I don’t like the way it fishes. But often that’s left me catching fish on some of the worst looking, pieced-together-on-the-hook pieces of plastic imaginable - but the fish obviously didn’t care. They’re not counting things like how many legs my bait has left, why the glued on eyeballs fell off, etc.

I’m about 8 miles from the nearest boat ramp, and have half a dozen HOA ponds within walking distance, and numerous park lakes within a 20 minute drive…and I’m retired, so I try and get out for at least an hour or two 4-6 times a week, even through the winter.

Just track every so often when I want to learn something, but between bank and boat, I’ve probably been running close to 200 days a year for the past 2-3 years. Didn’t track this year but did the year previous, and the trip breakdown would have been about 45% boat, 55% bank.

This morning's local ice status - maybe open water by mid-week?

I’m a leader, not a follower ? All these teens paying big bucks to buy pre-torn jeans these days that I’ve been wearing forever ? …and yes, that’s Wheeler If he keeps trying, he’ll make it one day ?

Found the details of my PB smallmouth. It weighed 4.69 pounds and was part of a 5 fish 21.25# catch. This was back in Nov. 2014. Our state record smallie is just over 7 pounds and has stood for over 30 years. Around here (IN), a legit 5+ pound smallie is about as rare as a 9 or 10 pound bass - they do get caught, but not very often, and certainly not as frequent as they used to be. Not even sure where the best shot for one around here would be - perhaps our little portion of Lake Michigan , so I'd probably have to go to another state to break it.

THIS ^^^ for me, too ?

What I consider my first PB came in Mar 1989 and just a tick shy of 7lbs. I beat that in Apr 1992 with a 9+. The only fish close to those was a 7lb class fish from Chickamauga while practicing for a B.A.S.S. Top 100 event in 1990 (unweighed). And then just recently, after all these years, I got an 8 in Dec ‘21 and a 7 in Jun ‘22. Both were pleasant surprises, but not an official PB.

Yes, there is, and we’ve already reached it…or exceeded it, IMHO. If cast nets were legal for gamefish and allowed in tourneys, you can bet some pro would use it, probably in combination with his FFS (search YT), and have his name all over it. Have you seen the videos where they catch panfish off beds using drones (no rod/reel)? Or the (mostly saltwater) versions using drones to scout and deliver your bait to certain spots/fish, typically farther than you could ever cast? Individuals can ultimately choose to do whatever they’d like within the law, but I’d really like to see the tournament organizations step up and place limits on technology.

Shimano Clarus ML - Now $90 (used to be $80). Great bang for the buck IMO (own 2).

If it helps, I bought the smallest FFS capable unit available, used, and have never upgraded a thing ? I figured if I was going to have an opinion on the topic, I needed to at least try it.

I keep it simple and inexpensive and just run the FFS transducer on my TM. Easy to do because I’m set up as a backtroller. You quickly learn that setting up downwind and facing your target, whether cover, fish or structure, is the easiest and often best approach most times. Doing this in a river situation with steady current should be similar. A lot of my friends tried separate pole mounts, but running the TM to hold boat position while trying to scan with a separate pole, cast and fish what you see, keeping it all on the screen, all at the same time, takes some degree of coordination, and can be downright frustrating. Many of the bass guys went back to mounting on the TM, but a lot of the crappie guys didn’t. They fish differently though, so it’s not quite the complex procedure…or just drop the coin on Spotlock TM and Target Lock.

Understand - just saying it doesn’t take a lot of baits to catch a lot of fish, even these days. Most guys own way more stuff than they need - “just in case” ? On the other hand, you can buy and own everything available, and should be able to catch fish on all of it if you’re into that kind of thing Hard to take it all with you, but I always see plenty of guys out on the water giving it their best effort ?

“Let us assume we have proper ‘tools’ such as rods, reels, lines, boat, motor, etc. However, we will not assume we have proper lures. Since lures play such an important part in most fishermen’s minds (and normally create the most confusion and concern), we will reduce them all down to a couple basic types which will give proper depth and speed control on the troll and on the cast. By doing this, our ‘needs’ become very few, most of which could be carried in a small paper bag.” Buck Perry Needless to say, I almost always travel “light” ?

Like shaking the rod in the store or flexing the tip against the carpet ?

“Mr. Jig” ?