Red Bear

http://www.switchfisher.com/navigation/smallmouth/UpperPotomac.html the link above contains some decent info about smallmouth fishing the upper potomac. hope it helps

red shad baby bass would be 2nd

yeah those big turtles are nasty. saving a lure is not worth losing a finger or two. i would of cut my line pretty much right away. me and my bro-in-law were fishing off a dock one night at a lake using night crawlers and live bluegills for catfish and this one turtle kept tormenting us. we caught him like seven times on both baits. he was a good fight though, poor guy had hooks all in him by the end of the night. it was hilarious at times but got old. "i got a big one, get the net" only to pull up a turtle lol

hahaha thats pretty funny

i also think i was probably some slack in the line when they came up. everyone has lost a fish now and then

wouldnt surprise me either, gaston is an impressive fishery

i agree with brushhoggin about stretching, its a good idea before any physical activities. no matter what kind of shape youre in stretching beforehand will help prevent injuries or really sore/tight muscles.

a snook doesnt have a mouth like a trout

berkley shakey worm, 5-7 inches, red shad

ive also noticed them rising, but its not at a rapid pace. i didnt use them till last year and from my experience the bass i caught on them really slammed the xrap, especially had good luck with the rainbow trout color. but what i have a problem with is that the eyes seem to easily fall out, though i still caught fish without the eyes, and the i had the lips break off a couple. pond fish seemed to really attack it aggressively and thats what i attribute the damages to. but still i cant see spending too much in a bait that seems to be easily destroyed to me. i should check into the lucky crafts

i was just watching strike king pro team journal earlier this week and Kevin Van Dam and some guy were burning sexy shad spinbaits on kentucky lake with good success on both large and small mouth. i cant remember the exact conditions though. they noted the spinner bait had narrow blades for a tighter spin to keep them under water better while burning them and that the wire was adjustable to suit your needs. you may want to check it out. i know it was the great KVD but it was on an every day lake and not some stocked private bass haven. one of the better SK Pro Journal episodes ive seen, and was informative

when you move it use a side sweep motion and just drag it. dont get discouraged if you dont have immediate success. i hear glass beads are better because they make more sound than plastic beads

haha thats pretty funny, reeling in a boat

rebel crickhopper or the rebel crawdad. theyll chase them or come up and get them off the top. a story about the crickhopper. i had thrown several other things that day in a pond and not even a bite. i was getting a bit bored i guess and tied on the crickhopper figuring i would atleast get some bluegill. well i got a bluegill, a small one, when i wasnt even paying attention looking off at the highway. so there is this small bluegill jerking on my line in the water(about 6-7 feet of line out) right at the bank, i look down and from under a patch of algae comes this probably 4lb bass. he absolutely crushes this bluegill, im watching in awe as i had never seen this happen before. the bass with bluegill in mouth jumps out of the water into a tailwalk, splashes back in the water and tries to run out into the pond, feels the tension on my line and circles back towards the bank and dives out of the water right at me, still in awe and not knowing what exactly to do as im watching this bit of nature, fish still in the air i yanked on my rod, saw the bluegill go down the basses throat and the back treble on the crickhopper sets into the top of the basses mouth. the bass fell back in the water and i brung it in quickly. it was wild to watch and it was almost as if it happened in slow motion

haha, i know it was there this past summer and it was chained down. it wasnt very good anyways. that dock was probably more of a hazard than anything, it wasnt very stable. im surprised you havent ever seen a warden out there though

i thought i saw some of the baby bass kinami flash baits at walmart a couple weeks ago. i should go check and see, i only have 3 left from some i bought last year, ive had good success on them as well

that is one place i will never fish without a proper license. it has been heavily patrolled by game wardens since the 80s. but back then they didnt care if you had beer at all, in fact my uncle knew one of them he met there who would sit around and get drunk with my uncle. its the only place ive ever fished that ive seen game wardens checking people, i remember my mom getting a ticket there for not having a license on the church side when i was a kid. back then the place was cleaned up real nice along the banks and i wish it still was. i remember on the church side to the left of the floating dock thats there now used to have a nice clean bottom with a bunch of small rocks/stones/pebbles on the bottom. we used to wade out into that. its a shame that place is so overgrown now, i must get me some sort of watercraft to get out there and fish it. anyways sorry if i went off topic...

bing.com maps are even more outdated than google. i was looking around one lake and houses that have been there 2-3 years are not even on the bing.com map, but are on google maps...

i think taking kids fishing is great even if it doesnt leave me much time to fish myself. everytime my niece visits i have to take her down to the pond to fish, shes not quite ready for artificial so i usually just get some nightcrawlers and target the bluegill and still usually get a some bass. last year she caught her first bass and was so excited. Sam would be happy to know she was using a lightweight shimano spinning setup this year i plan to work on her casting...and patience haha...

closed face reels can handle big fish...in open water. but if your pulling fish through heavy/thick grass and weeds you should be using atleast a spinning reel. i love bass fishing an open pond with my zebco 33, its fun because the 33 isnt a heavy set up. but it seems to me your problem is accuracy with your casts. that catapult cast you speak of seems dangerous. you should set up buckets 30-40 feet away in your yard and practice casting into them to improve accuracy. as far as the quality of your spincast reels, try cleaning them and greasing the gears and such, maybe theyll reel smoothly then. not much you can do about the drag on them, just learn to fight the fish a bit longer, work your rod more to gain leverage on the fish, its not all about the reel power everytime. i cant explain the line going slack though, may be something in your technique...

its no lake, but my uncles pond is still frozen over, its killing me, its close by and i like fishing ponds. the worst part is i drive past other local ponds every day and theyre not frozen, they all thawed within the past week. oh, and the people out here wont let me fish those ponds, i've asked...

late spring/early summer, at night, just before a heavy rainstorm

i caught a decent sized carp last summer, had to have been around 10 lbs give or take. when i set the hook in it, it felt like setting the hook in stone or something. seriously, my hook set stopped like midswing of it and my reel made a funny sound like it had broke(it didnt), guess it was just the drag. it was a fun fish to catch though btw, nice fish FPBG

i've never been severely hooked, luckily. the most is just a small poke/stab from the point of a hook, but never past the barb. and i always try to pay attention to whats going on around me as far as myself or someone else making a cast. also when fishing top water im sure to miss some hooksets, so i always try to be ready to dodge out of the way when a frog or whatever comes flying back at my head 100mph.

What if the fish read it and move down to 6' ? ;D