basser89

Hair jigs, tubes and suspending jerkbaits are my go to baits for those water temps for river smallies. You'll want to look for deeper slackwater areas. The females will hold up in these spots to help conserve their energy over the winter months.

Hey Big Fish Frank, Check your email.

Back in my teen years, I was running around with a couple of my friends around halloween and we decided to go scope out this old "haunted" girls school that had been shut down for many years. To add to the thrills, the school was located behind a cemetary. There was a bright full moon out that night and it was pretty much sitting right over top the school. Well, we decided to drive up into the cemetary and walk back through the field. We park the car and decide to make a game plan on what we were going to do at that point. While we're scheming away, I looked up at the school and all of a sudden, this blue hue appeared in the second story window. It lasted for several minutes and then went away. It wierded us out and we decided to move on to some other mischief instead. Later on we talked ourselves into believing it was the moon's reflection in one of the windowns. The next day, one of the guys and I figured we check it out during the day. We drive back to the cemetary and look up at the school, that's when we realized that all of the glass had been broken out of the windows! We later learned all of the floors had fallen in over the years. Still can't explain that one to this day! A few years back, I lived in Sharpsburg, MD (home of the bloodiest 1 day battle on American soil, during the Civil War). In September, around the aniversary of the Battle of Antietam, I would be sitting in the living room watching tv and would here a chain rattling outside. Since I lived in a delevopement, I initially dismissed this as someone walking their dog on the street. One evening, I heard the noise several times and it sounded like it was right out infront of the house, so I popped on the front porch light and opened the door to see who was in the yard. I looked up and down the road, no one there. I went out and checked all around the house, no one there either. My only guess it was Union soldiers that had been captured by the Confederates (General Lee's camp was roughly 1000 yards away from where I lived)! Ironically, the name of the street I lived on, General Lee Drive!

I use the same OcheeChobee Fats bag that Muddy and slomoe uses. It holds most of my tackle but its mainly my boat bag (it weighs around 50lbs). My only complaint about the bag is the zippers aren't the greatest. The plastic piece on the handle needs to be cut off and sown on (I used 30lb Spiderwire Stealth and haven't had any issues with that! LOL!). For shore fishing, I have a cheap backpack that I picked up at Wally World. It holds 3 3700 boxes with room for some plastics and my scale and tape measure.

Its called short hand! It only takes a second! LOL! Weather.com helps out on references there, a quick note in the phone on the water when I have a chance covers most of the rest, oh yeah, I got a counter on my watch too (hence total number of fish for the day and times caught).

Off the top of my head, here's what I have in mine......... Location Date Times (start & finish) Moon phase Water and air temperatures Barometric pressure Water clarity Water level (include flows if its on a river, if I can) Sky conditions Wind speed and direction Number of fish total Species broken down (LMB/SMB) Size and weight Times caught Lure Presentation Water depth Structure/cover (ledge, laydown, stump, grassbed, etc) Vegetation type Other baits used that didn't produce

In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using live bait (of any kind). I've used night crawlers when fishing with my daughter and have caught bluegill with them. Years ago, I used to use them for catfish and also used minnows for trout. But for me now, I enjoy the challenge of getting Ms Bass to hit an artifical lures.

Tragic indeed! I was brought up around guns. I was first introduced to shooting at a very young age. It was a pellet gun and I was never allowed to use it unless my Dad was with me. I graduated up to a bb gun and when I proved that I was responsible enough with it, I was allowed to use it unsupervised. Eventually, I moved up to a 22 and a 20 gauge, and so on and so on. I can't see any reason why anyone would want to encourage a young kid to handle, let alone shoot an automatic weapon!

For those that don't know much about the lake Dave is talking about, here is a little information that I know about it. Marburg is a 1275 acre man-made lake in south-central PA. The lake is gin clear (there's no problem seeing fish down 15-18'). The species residing here include: largemouth and smallmouth, musky (pure strain and tiger), pike, yellow perch, white perch, bluegill, crappie, trout, catfish and gizzard shad. Most of the coves, at least the ones that I have fished, are fairly shallow and are over run with hydrilla in the summer. Similar to Lake Raystown, when the area was dammed, houses and other structures (including a few road beds and small bridges) were left intact. As far as the crankbaits that I have had success with on Marburg, the main one that I use is Bass Pro Shop's XPS Extreme crank. They run about 12-15'. btw, GREAT posts Sam and WRB!

Marburg can be a VERY tough place to fish! I only time that I have fished Marburg is in the summer. Most of the bass I have caught there have come on deep diving natural colored crankbaits out off the deep weededges. I have also done well around the islands too with spinnerbaits and plastics (working them over the weedbeds). This time of year, you'll want to slow way down and use jigs or tubes around the rocks and wood. Crankbaits could be an option as well. For smallies on the river, I have 3 baits that I usually switch between. A crankbait (I prefer Bandits in whatever series will keep me just in contact with the bottom), jerkbaits, and tubes. If you can put in at Goldboro (below TMI), you'll have the advantage to the warm water the power plant put out so you should be able to get away with the crankbaits and jerkbaits on days the bass are active.

Congrats!!!!!!! One of the greatest days of my life was the day my daughter was born! One I will never forget! Many many more memories and great experiences have been added since! Here's to as many if not more for you, your wife and the little one! Congrats again!

$2.63 this morning in MD. :-?

Was the river levels up when you found them in that pattern? When the upper Potomac floods, I have a spot I go to where I can find largemouths and smallies in a 10-15 yard stretch. They hold in bushes and laydowns, the stronger current pushes the smallies into this area.

I think you guy under estimat the power of a MH 6'6" rod, I've caught snooks on 1 1/2 once jigs. Yes, you can probably cast that lure BUT one wrong move and that rod is going to snap and you're not going to get the distance out of it like you would with a rod that IS rated for that lure weight. A few years back I started musky fishing again. The only rod I had at that time was a flippin stick. The BEST cast I could make with it was somewhere around 25-30yards (this was a 2 1/2oz bait). Now, PROPERLY equipped, I can cast that same bait on average of 45 yards. Do yourself a favor and get the right tool for the job!

Congrats RW and hope of many many more years to come!

Couldn't have said it better myself!!!!

Can I borrow some money???? ;D Me? Nah, I'd use what I have!

Look here! http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1211682903

As the others have said, tie the palomar and make sure your drag is set properly! If you're fishing heavy cover you may want to consider moving up to a heaiver line also. The only knot, that I know of, that has a stronger knot strength than the palomar is the jansik special. It takes longer to tie and I use it for musky fishing only.

In no particular order: Def Leppard 38 Special Steve Miller Band Aerosmith Led Zepplin Motley Crew Dire Straights AC/DC INXS Poison Chilliwack (and how many actually know what they sang?) ;D Journey Billy Idol

I have a co-worker that has fished there a couple times and I think there's a couple of other guys on here that have fished there in the past. I'll see if my co-worker has any input the next time I see him.

I went with the Rogue since it's my top producing jerkbait. The XRap has a good action as well though.

That had to be on the cold side! water temps down here are running in the upper 50's to low 60's! Have you ever the mouth of the Juniata? I haven't but I've heard there's some great smallie fishing there!

I like the weightless Tiki BamBoo stick for working over top hydrilla (the Rage Tail Toad would be another suggestion). But for working down in the grass a 4" tube t-rigged with a pegged bullet weight will do the job too. Under most conditions, I go with the lightest bullet weight I can get away with but there are times where I'll go way up in weight and use somewhere around 1oz to get the bait down to the bottom and stay there. Usually when I use the bigged weight, I'll switch the tube out for a Brush Hog.

I had this scenerio similar to this two weeks ago when I was fishing from shore on the Potomac. I was in an area that was no more than 2' deep and had a ton of grass. From the bank out about 10' was a small channel that ran about 2' deeper than the rest of the area. I had tried a top water toad but no takers so I switched up to a 4" tube. I Pitched it to the edge of the grass and let the current take it. I had several hits and landed one (guessing most of them were smaller smallmouths) with the exception of the "bluegill" hits. I had the tube t-rigged with an 1/8oz bullet weight pegged.