basser89

I've been a member since '96. I get it renewed for Christmas every year so I'm not investing any of my money in it. If I want to learn more about bass fishing, I just come here! By far, the BEST place to learn! ;D

I do have luck on a steady retrieve at times but I am usually working it past some type of cover when I'm doing this (the bass are usually real aggressive when I'm using them this way). Other favorites are ticking them just over the top of grass bed, ripping them free from time to time. Burning them right through standing timber and laydown logs banging into as much as I can, and as Matt said slow rolling. Varying the retrieve, making the blades stop briefly, and just making the bait look real erratic can really entice them into biting as well. Hope this helps!

<-------------Look here! One of the BEST days of my life! My little girl is 5. Young kids can get bored pretty quick and thats ok! As long as they are having fun, they'll keep wanting to go out! And eventually, they'll want to stay out longer and longer. If you're going to be on the boat, let them take other toys and such they can play with if they get bored fishing! And if they want to go home, take them home! I don't want to force anything on my kid, IMO, it'll just push them away from it. My parents did this with me and it seemed to work.

MD has one or two "fish for free" days a year as well and also offer a 7 day license. I don't worry about it cause I get mine license within the first 2-3 days of the new year (can't go long without wetting some line!). I had a friend two years ago that accidently left his license in his car (which was about 500 yards from him at the time) and a park ranger gave him a $25 ticket for not having his license on him. I got stopped once a few years back with out my license in PA (was a spur of the moment outing and I had left all my gear in MD, including my license). Luckily, this ranger was pretty cool! All I had to do was fax a copy of my PA license to him.

What are your strengths? What do you have confidence in? I'd start with getting baits you have condifence in for different conditions. Then look for a new bait or two that you would like to learn to use. If you can be more specific like Cephkiller said, we'd be glad to offer more details offerings!

I have two brands of the Senko style baits. Kinami Flash and the Tiki Bam Boo Stiks. My fishing partner almost exclusively uses GY Senkos. There are days we clean up on the Flash/Senkos and there are days that all they want are the Tiki's.

For me, it has to be a spinnerbait! You can do so much with them and I have so much confidence in them!

Thanks RoLo! That's just what I was looking for! I'll be book marking those when i get home!

Now to be honest, I haven't looked real deep at all on the site, but can anyone point me in the right direction to a place that shows you what the different types of aquatic vegatation looks like and its characteristics? I fish a couple of lakes here in MD that have hydrilla so I can identify it with no problem. But when it comes to other lakes with other vegatation, I'd like to be able to identify them quicker and know how I should fish it easier. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

It was a toss up for me here in MD but I went with wood. The other part of the toss up weeds.

Oh yes, I almost forgot my fishing hats! I always have to wear one of my hats that fishing related: BASS, BPS, Evinrude and so on, with a gold hat clip on the left side. Now if I plan on doing some type of fishing besides bass fishing, I can't wear on of the hats I wear when I'm going for bass. I don't want to cross-modulate the MOJO in my bass hats! ;D

Thinkin back about my outing today with tuxdad, I'm fairly sure I told him that we were going to do real well today! End result, one dink. :-/ Me and my BIG mouth! Sorry tux!!!!! I'm not sure how I picked up this one, but I have to do the "Jimmy Houston" kiss to each bass I catch. If I don't, I'll go fishless the rest of the day. Last one, LOL! After I change lures, I have to completely close up my tackle bag. Everything put away, zippers zipped, carry handles secured together and my clippers tucked into the one side pocket and the two zippers need to be zipped together on the clippers!

Welcome to the boards! Good to see another MD angler on here! I know that MD and PA used to have an arrangement that PA supplied MD with muskies and MD supplied PA with stripers (not sure they are still doing it). Also, I know there are ponds in Washington and Frederick counties that were stocked with bass, bluegill 'n such years ago as part of some program the state had back then. Others may be privately stocked. Hope this helps!

Most of the time I use tubes to mimic crawfish. My top producing colors are watermelon/red flake and green pumpkin/red flake. Reading a few of the other posts about the blue hue, I was wondering if anyone makes a green pumpkin/blue flake? Sounds like it would be a good color.

Without being able to see her belly real well, I'll say 8-9 pounds. As a few others have stated, much bigger than any I've caught! The bass in my avatar went 5lbs 12oz, when I lipped her, I would have sworn 6 1/2 at least! But the truth teller showed me how far off I was! LOL!

I broke my previous personal best (5lb 9oz) back on April 9th with a 5lb 12oz. Looks like most of the waters I'm fishing are just about over with the spawn so it'll be a little tougher for me to break that mark. I'd love to break the 6lb mark next! A couple of my fishing buddies are trying to talk me into a trip to Briery Creek this year, so I may have a chance IF we make it down there!

You took the words right off my fingers LBH! ;D Spinnerbaits are my go to bait for windy conditions and I too try to throw into the wind as much as possible. If the bass are not as active, I will switch up to a tube or jig but you may have to up the weight so you can keep contact with the bait during the retreive. For tubes, I usually start off with a 3/16oz bullet weight (I t-rig my tubes 90% of the time). If I can't keep in contact with the bait, I'll gradually up the weight until I find the lightest weight that lets me handle the task at hand. Hope this helps!

DCE, Check out the fishing articles section on the spring, summer, fall and winter sections. It will give you an idea of what to use in the different seasons. Speed and colors are what I usually change (for a given season) with water clarity and current weather conditions. Example, this time of year (prespawn) my go to bait is a spinnerbait. Usually, the water temps dictate how fast I'm going to work the bait. Water clarity is going to tell me what color "should" work the best. Hope this helps!

Welcome to the boards VABasser! Great name by the way! Did you happen to check the water temps? Here in MD, most of the places I've been fishing, the surface temps have been running in the mid sixties. Just coming off a full moon, those bigger bass you saw cruising may have already spawned and are just starting to recoperate from their spawn (that is if your water temps are running about where mine have been). The bass you saw on the beds, I would have thrown lizards, crawfish or jigs. Something that you could move onto the bed and leave it there, moving it only a little to give it a little action. Multiple casts may have also been needed (10-20, maybe more) to provoke them into biting. One other thing you could have tried is switching colors to see if they preferred a different color over another. The bass the were cruising may have wanted an easy meal (again, if they were recoping from the spawn). Did you try weightless t-rigging a Senko and casting it in front of the cruisers and dead stick it? When they came close, I'd give it a soft twitch or two and then dead stick it again. I've tricked cruisers before by doing that. That's about all I can think of right now. Hope this helps!

Here are a few old threads on this topic! Hopefully this will help! http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1138286808 http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1137692024 http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1134821169

First goal I set was to beat my PB! I did that back on the 4/9! I also want to get more confident in using jigs. I've managed to land two on a jig so far and have missed a few on them as well, so they're coming along. My fishing partner would like to see one of us break the 7# mark this year (this one we're still working on)!

I use them from time to time to mark weed edges. Other times, when I'm cruising looking for a sweet spot, I'll keep one on the bow of the boat and when I hook a bass on a search bait, I'll kick the buoy off to mark my spot so I can come back to that spot and probe the area more effectively with a tube or worm. Madhouse, I really like your idea of using two different colors to mark different spots of the area!

Good luck Al and enjoy your time away from work!!! Let us know how you do!

Great looking bass southern! Congrats on the first of many on a CB too!

California dreamin! What a fish!