MassBass

Using two split rings was a game changer for me. Fish jump and just get hooked up more. I wish I knew this secret back in my smallmouth island days. Probably would have saved me a lot of heartache.

Bucktails in shallow water, that is an exciting bite.

I think the only thing that will turn the sport back to a more reasonable endeavor, is that the guys leading the sport should be shamed. To the average sporting passerby, the jogger, the cyclist, the rower; looking at these fishermen aboard computer boats, it looks like a joke. The sport is joke. Sign stealers and spyers are shamed and disgraced in baseball and football, these guys should be to.

I ain't scared of some whiz kid with a star treck boat out fishing me. I know he is blind. It's just sad to see what happened to my sport.

In regards to population stock, rod and reel anglers can absolutely make a difference. They found for sure that sport fisherman (including c&r) were having an impact on migratory stripers. Every beach, every river mouth, an angler here, an angler there, it adds up especially with high catch and release mortality and unenforced poaching. They made an emergency change to the recreational limit. I had to come back to this thread because I had an outing over the weekend that made it hit home. I set off on foot further downstream to the Muddy River tributary. The second bridge I passed, there was a couple folks in a 'bass' boat, heads down on screens, flipping around on the pillars. It looked more like a computerboat. After the long stroll in the heat and sun, I get to my hole in the wall tributary. There is a bass boat sitting right there on the tributary, two guys with eyes on screens, flipping sticko's at the hole in the wall. So I'll tell ya what I did. I walked right down to the side, nailed a perfect cast with my black/black spinner bait, and fought and landed a nice small mouth about 2lbs. Took a selfie than released it and left, laughing. The next spot I hit there was a computerboat just pushing off. He says, yes, there is a tournament today. Then he tells me the river is filled with alewives, he sees em on his graph. I say, 'well they were here in early spring, are you sure it isn't yellow perch? He just looked down at the graph and got further out of earshot. Then I pulled a real solid 3lb Lm out of that spot under the bridge he just left. Picked up another nice bass in a shady spot that a bass boat probably couldn't reach. This tournament was probably running more computers than MIT. Let go of your feelings, your failures, your success, stunt your instincts and disobey your intuition- just look at the screen and flip a stick o.

I'm one of them. Disgusted by it. Turned off of modern pro bass fishing. I used to be a BASS member, and used to be interested in watching the tournaments. I'll still fish for bass for sport, but as far as following the pros, I just read a few articles here and there about how far away electronics have taken the sport.

Catfish will definitely congregate near any kind of sewage overflow. Also, a great cat day I had, I was on a river under some power lines. Dozens of commorants were on the lines just crappin into the water. The cats were under the lines in a feeding frenzy.

Schoolie size striper

Believe it or not, the Northeast Atlantic drainage rivers are far better now than they were in recent history. The older folks will tell you, there was a time when the river smelled terrible when you drove over the bridge, and the water would run different colors depending on what they were making at the paper mills. Today there are still problems, but the rivers are reliably fishable. The Atlantic Sturgeons are showing up in more noticeable numbers, by God's grace they didn't go extinct during the more reckless industrial eras. I think Atlantic salmon could bounce back with more dam removals. But it's not just dams with them, also climate can make the streams too warm. The cod fish will likely never come back like it was, these big huge monsters of the deep. They think all the big cod genetics have likely been fished out. You can go out and catch cod, but you will not see the size fish that made the fishery what it was. The population that remains don't have the big fish genetics. Harvest induced selection; only the smaller, faster sexual maturity genes survived the harvests. I agree I could see that in Maine you have a problem. But there will always be bass. I think you will have big problems with your native trout fishery. Like when they put in a carwash and a home Depot next to a timeless cold water stream.

Cash

Try fishing at sunset in mid summer.

Keep in mind if you use braid to wire, there is no stretch in that rig and you could run into issues when playing big pike. Your rod and drag setting would need to be able to compensate.

My current thought is just a $50 BPS low profile. If the salt and sand eventually destroys it, just replace it.

For what its worth I think they docked me a half an inch from my rainbow trout so they wouldn't have to deal with a three way tie for year's biggest.

I head up to Maine to fish then and again. My fishin bud lives up there now. Usually keep quiet about Maine bass fishing, but I think the cat has been out of the bag for a while now.

One good carp. They were being real shy. The slightest misstep could spook em.

Yeah man come cold water season Im gonna go pretty serious for trophy trout. Last cold water season I had a lot of luck. So much so Im just kind of kickin it thinking about cold water season. I had a huge brown trout come up to shore behind a spoon, swirl, swirl, take! After a short struggle I lost it on a bent treble. It was very savage and it turned me. Turned me to the cold water.

You can train balance, it's not something that must inevitably worsen. Surfers are big into it, stuff like wobble boards, bosu balls, balance training. Even work on standing on one leg. I could say this to someone, but it is up to the individual to be curious and have a drive to get better, and not just be resigned to their current age or physical condition.

Lots of big carp amongst other fish in the Merrimack. But these are from Charles River. That dirty water. A lot prestigious institutions round here:

Two hot weather carp fish today, a 26" and a 27".

Good smallies will cruise right on the bank where the chop breaks. Not just crayfish, but sunfish are usually right there to. When a big (trophy) smallie goes shallow in the summer, it means business. I have seen them seem to hunt in a pair, or duo. A duo could make one run over a shallow point, and right there is a sunfish or two to hold them over until next time, and back into the dark depths they go.

This is cod fish

I started crushing barbs on my striper plugs one year when there were a lot of fish. I definitely lost fish on a plug with crushed barbs. At least one very big fish. I think they can just turn wrong and slip off. I went back to barbs. You need to be very careful with every striper you land no matter how small.

Maybe up in Maine 'boulders everywhere' is why they don't all hold fish. It's just another part of the underwater terrain and not really a valuable piece of structure. But like was mentioned, current; even in a lake, when a wind sets up the same for two days or more, that wind current could be pushing up against a boulder making it a useful piece of structure. Maybe on calm days that is a nothing boulder, but on the third day of a south wind there are two 4s and a 5 on it.

0.5. mono, spoons, and polarized sunglasses