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The no-live-bait rule is gonna be a killer for those (remaining) bait shops. I feel really bad for them. Very few people use 8"+ suckers up there for northern/musky, so they're gonna have to live on selling fishing line... This also means no live bait for panfish, which kind of stinks. The lake has some nice crappies and bluegill. I'm excited to hit up those smallies, though. Mille Lacs can really be a blast for bass, but it can be tough, too. It's not called the Dead Sea for nothing. Those fish like to move! And if you don't stay on top of them from week to week, you have a good chance of getting skunked.

Numerous major online retailers have seasonal 15-20% off sales. That's often your best bet on finding exactly what you want.

Depends on how much space one has to store plastics, and if they have a boat or not. Original bags stock in categorized gallon ziplocks works the best for me on the boat. When I was a wader, I used to take a few out of each bag and put them in Plano boxes.

Bass fishing is not immune to pro sponsorships and endorsement deals. I can't blame these guys for lying to sell baits. It's how they make a living.

It's never too late. It may be the only year-round bait out there.

Trial and error, and don't be afraid to snag a few baits!

I would hope they wouldn't price higher that Keitech, given that Keitech is a JDM product.

They're one of my go-to baits; however, I don't really mix up the colors too much. I kind of just stick with 4 or 5 proven patterns and then just alternate between them. I use black a lot, and also mix in a "light minnow" shade with some color and silver blades, a "dark minnow shade" like a bluegill with gold/silver, and a darker spinner that's predominantly gold like a gold shiner. I've really been on a roll with slow-rolled black spinnerbaits in the last couple years. I think maybe it's partially due to the fact that every Tom, Dick, and Harry is throwing white or chart-white and buzzing them within 2 feet of the surface nowadays around here.

I'm partial to the Strike King KVD 2.5 in that price range. I seem to do better on the 2.5 over the 1.5. I like the chart perch, citrus, and ghost colors the best.

I scaled a 6-12 LMB a few years back, and a few days later caught one that was significantly bigger than it, likely in the 7-and-quarter range. Didn't scale that one because I was fishing within sight of numerous other boaters and some residents who had their eyes glued to me as I dock-fished around their brand new pontoons. I didn't want to make a scene, so I tossed it back knowing it was my new PB. Those are my two PB LMB, and they were caught on jigs; biggest was 3/8oz, black/blue, pitched to the scour-hole behind a pontoon motor on a lift, and the second biggest was from a 1/2oz football, PB/J/GP, dragged around sunken laydowns. I also have 6 or 7 SMB in the 6-lb-plus range from years of wading in the Mississippi River near home in my teens and early-twenties before I bought a boat and primarily switched to hunting LMB. The biggest SMB was scaled at 6-9 and was caught on a 1/8oz buzzbait.

I believe it's a lot more likely that invasive species, such as milfoil spores or perhaps even tiny zebra mussels, could be transferred from lake to lake by aquatic birds. There's no incentive for people for manually transfer invasives like there is to transfer fish. I know of farmers within a half hour of here who take buckets full of potato-chip-sized panfish, bass, and northerns from local lakes and put them in their private farm ponds. I've heard they do well for a time, until a hard winter causes the lakes to freeze to a point that cause a major winterkill.

Big, big fan of the plain Hybrid. Rarely have I been this impressed with a fishing product. It's my go-to line for all reaction baits, some jigging (I like straight fluoro on a few setup), and some spinning (braid/fluoro on a few). 10-12# for casting and 6# for spinning. I was lucky enough to find 3-lb spools back when they were widely available.

I'd say about 12-14 hours spread across 3 trips. Happened last summer during the dog days of summer. I caught a bunch of northern pike during those trips, but I couldn't find any biting bass no matter where I looked. I had to resort to fishing Senkos to break my fishless streak, and I can't stand fishing those things!

Nice video, Glenn. I've been away from BR for too long!

There's something wrong with those plastics. It's no wonder they folded. They stiffened up badly in water any colder than 70 degrees, it seemed. Forget about 55 degrees. I've never seen another soft plastic bait do that so distinctly.

This warrants an explaination.

Another easy bait to skip is a frog with the legs trimmed almost completely off, so they're only 1/2" long. Without the legs, it'll be a walkin' fool and will skip like a dream. It's the only bait I'm 100% comfortable skipping with on a baitcaster.

I hooked a loon once on a jerkbait. I'm thankful it was able to shake itself free, because I likely would have cut the line. That bird was going berserk!

Pike really are a delicious fish. Aside from a few panfish here and there, they're they only fish that I consistently eat. I pick them apart like one would do if they were eating a chicken wing . However, people don't want to keep dinky little pike in the 16-20 inch range. Have you ever tried to clean them? Bones as thick as 6lb line. No thank you. Part of me wishes we just had a DNR directive to club/eat any pike we caught under a certain size, say 18", as if they were a rough fish. It'd be a useful experiment to see what would happen. Give it three years. I'd bet we'd see improvements.

Don't overthink it.

Ethanol-free gas and a very mild, continuous mix of Seafoam, Startron, Lucas, and Marine Stabil has been very kind to my motor over the years. By "mild", I mean adding maybe 10-20% of the recommended dose because these products have similar purposes Every so often I'll run a stronger mix for a trip and spend more time running wide open that day. Then I'll add more gas to dilute the mix.

That's very cool, Catt. I'd never heard of those before. I might have to give those a try for panfishing, where I'd prefer to anchor. I bet they'd still pretty well in a mucky bottom if the wind isn't too strong, even with a 18' bass boat.

The only thing you can do about the slime dart problem is to buy duplicate lures. You're gonna lose and few and shred a few some days; it's part of Minnesota fishing. One day I lost three brand-new Phat Frogs in about in hour in three different patches of slop, just hours after I received them in the mail from TW.

That's a LMB. I would have guessed SMB if not for how far back the jawline extends.

I don't find it unethical as long as the fish are handled carefully and CPR is practiced.