Team9nine

This ^^ These maps are fine for finding general areas of interest worth checking out further, but I would not over invest my time and effort into interpreting them for subtle details. Mark a handful of areas close to the launch and go check them out thoroughly with your own depthfinder. If you have live mapping capabilities, start there. If not, bring paper and pencil and create your own detailed map of each spot - then fish them and add more notes and details to your map each time you do.

That poor thing almost has no tail fin left. I’ve caught a couple like that over the years. It’s like some type of fin erosion that slowly makes them lose part at a time. I say you split the difference and call it 18.5” ? ?

Sort of - but there are two forces involved; the fish biting down and the hookset moving the jig in the fishes mouth. I’m guessing the latter plays as big a role in weedguard compression as the former. It’s a balance that you just have to play with and decide where your comfort level lies. Lots of variables involved.

My braid/line cutters….they’re small, but good.

They’re a neat bait that still catches fish. I admit, I’ve got a pretty good collection of them back on the mothership

Good deal - I stayed inside today. If I find an open spot Monday, then maybe, but I’m not crossing my fingers.

There’s a real good lesson in these two posts somewhere ? Have I posted the tacklebox I’ve been working out of this past month? Caught them good on a 55 year old Spoonplug just 2 weeks ago that had some old galvanized type hook in it…

Thanks - very interesting, and explains/supports why Buck and others would have noted and mentioned this behavior at the time. I don’t believe gobies were introduced/discovered in the Great Lakes until 1990 or shortly thereafter, and probably took a while to spread and proliferate before the smallie behavior changed to match and take advantage of the new forage.

We'll see. I see 34-36 with flurries tomorrow, and 35 Monday if things aren't frozen, but I'm not quite as bitten this late in the year as I have been in the past. Lots of it was always going just to prove to myself (or not) that you could still catch fish under even the worst conditions. Been there, done that. I don't think I'll fight freezing guides and that kind of stuff just to catch a fish this year. I'll post if I go though

Well, this season is a wrap. Always sad when it finally arrives, but forecast from here on out is nothing but cold, especially later next week. Took one last pass at a couple spots today under cloudy skies, breezy winds, and 38 deg. air temps. Was able to swing on 5 and connect on 3. Now I’ve got all winter to decide on my approach for next year.

Good job. I went out in the mist and wind half expecting a good bite, but was disappointed when I could only get 5 to play. Everything on jerkbait today. Wouldn't touch Ned. Hopefully one more shot at them tomorrow sometime, but I’ll change water bodies if I do.

Not sure what's going on, but two of the ones I fish are lower than I've ever seen in 5 years of fishing them. All the others, and most I've seen driving around appear to be near normal. Seems like a strange time of year to have lost that much water. Was beginning to wonder, but sounds like it might not be specific to just mine from your report.

Finally got some wind today, which seems to be key to getting many bites right now despite the cold. Briefly touched 42 degrees, with an east wind from 14-18 mph. Made for a chilly couple hours, but managed to load up on nearly a dozen bass before calling it. Most came on Ned, but also scored a couple early on jerkbait. Not much size to them, but we probably only have another couple days of open water left before we lock up for the year. Another good cold snap is supposed to hit Friday and last for most of next week, so it's all but over. Rain all day tomorrow, but hoping for one more shot at a fish on Thursday.

Relativity aside, ‘Yes’ - that is ‘deep’ in both cases. Buck defined deep water as any water having a depth of 8 to 10 feet or greater. YMMV

Start with the link in A-Jay’s post above …but yes, Buck treated smallmouth, and all other game fish, just like largemouth. He did note them having more of a penchant to feed “off bottom” than a largemouth.

My thoughts: 1. Yes 2. Yes, but banning trolling eliminated a lot of the faster speed controls. Newer high speed reels have somewhat offset this, but you still have to control depth at the same time. 3. Yes, in many cases, though they are much more pelagic in nature than originally thought in some bodies of water.

No, don’t pay those collector prices. You can get a 5-Pak from Buck’s online store for about $35 plus shipping, or wait and buy a group of used ones when they get posted. They usually average about $5-$6 a piece. Sometimes you can pick them up cheap at garage sales.

That was a fun piece to do, and we (the remaining Spoonpluggers) debate FFS all the time. Spence and I were in the same camp on this one - no way in hell

Not a secret any more, other than using them how Ned instructed ? which no one seems to do these days.

Buck Perry Spoonplug - shhhh ?

There are a lot of books out there, but most of them, at least those from a purely professional standpoint, tend to be very technical in nature, and also very specific or limited in context. You could potentially pick up a generalized book on say, limnology, via most college book stores that might serve your needs. Another option would be something like LakeLine magazine, the publication for the North American Lake Management Society. It reads a bit less technical, and a bit more generalized in nature, and covers a wide variety of subject matter, all in regards to lake management and water quality issues, and each quarterly magazine is topic related (lake assessment, exotic species, limnology, etc.).

You fishing reservoirs (then this above) ^^ or natural lakes (then this below) vv

Only thing I’ve thrown for years - Power Pro micro line - 3, 4 or 5lb. test (yellow) depending on what you can still find. Use leader or not (4 or 6 lb.) based on personal preference. Caught over 5,000 crappie last year. Have made many a boat partner convert ?

Charlie Brewer Crappie Slider is a popular one around here

Probably just a factory print error - someone forgot to update the metric conversion - just a guess. For those that may not know, this is how you can tell the manufacture date of any of their line (from an old post). Seems like it always “worked” on the spools I’ve checked. Neat way to tell how old your line may be, or how long it’s been sitting around. “ALL Pure Fishing lines have a date code on them somewhere on the spool. The code is read like this example: C-12-10-1 C is the month starting with Jan. being A. Ex. c- means March 12 is the day-meaning, well the 12th day 10 is the year and 1 has no meaning. So why is it there? internal reasons So examples date is.....March, 12, 2010 manufacture date.”