MassBass

I think yellow perch color is just a good clear water pattern for when you need a natural color. I think rainbow trout color is also a great clear water pattern. The small mouth, always being an opportunist, doesn't necessarily have to be 'on' yellow perch or rainbow trout to go for those patterns. Just looking natural and realistic in the moment can be enough to trigger the bass. I found x-raps are better for casting, do you have any easy cast recommendations especially for downsized minnows?

Brown trout and some scenery.

How about this one...New Hampshire

You have good luck with yellow perch as chunk bait?

Not bass but my state pin got approved for rainbow trout

Good fishing weather again, big 'bow to show for it

I am targeting cold water species until ice up. Fairly unlikely to get a bass with my trout presentations this time of year. The colder the water gets, the bass slow down, but cold water fish get more invigorated and oxygenated.

I set off in the rain across the river, far up a tributary to the kettle pond. It was only the beginning of my journey, but already my hands were cold. For a passing moment I thought I should turn back, but this is what I wanted on a free weekend- low light conditions and wet weather. I had already gone all the way around the pond with a spinner and a mouse imitation, with no signs except a big rise a way out. Some guys soaking bait said nothing. There was a flock of some kind of ducks far out in the middle of a wide cove, diving and being very active. In a last ditch effort, I tied on the only thing with a potential to reach, a big casting spoon. Even though it's heavy, with the erratic wobble it can ride up in the water and above the weeds. I was bringing it in, a little too fast and it broke surface, but then there was a fish's swirl on it- I kept bringing it in quick and I see a good fish following it right up to shore- with no more water I hold it dangling from my rod inches from shore, and it takes it. In the moment I was surprised the fish took it, I wait briefly and lightly set the hook and drag the fish up, where it quickly came off the hook and almost escaped back into the cold waters. I made tiger trout white rice.

I think a magnum Rat-L-trap would get them

Personally if I was helping guide such an expedition in the Maine backcountry, I would be throwing a multi specie bait, something that could pick up brookies and browns as well as bass. Little jerkbaits like the x rap would be a go-to.

I look forward to the report. The ultimate bucket list adventure for me would be going far up the Congo River deep into the heart of the dark continent for the 'mbenga', the goliath tigerfish.

Put the little spinner bait to the side and try a 1/4 oz inline spinner. On a short leader to a swivel to the mainline.

I think when you can take you strengths, and apply them and have success in new waters, that is strong. I think it is invaluable to have a water system or two that you know, or once knew, very intimately, so you understand how deep the rabbit hole can go trying to understand seasonal movements, interspecies interactions, etc. so even if you go to some new water and have success, you still know there is so much you don't know.

Got out to a local pond before Thanksgiving dinner and caught a rainbow. It was early in the morning and I think I was able to draw a bite in the low light situation, before the bright sun and wind became prominent.

That seems like fun fishing, wading the fertile marshes

Textbook knowledge would say fish will position on the downstream side of a current break. In practice I think you should make a number of presentations both upstream and downstream of a defined break, including casts angled both cross current and down current. One time I was with an older river fisherman in his boat. He pulled a nice striper off a bridge pilling in swift current, but it was off the side of the bridge facing direct current. This catch was kind of impactful for me to see, the fish will use that immediate upstream break as a feeding ambush point. They might not hold there all the time, but will fight the current and hold there to feed.

I set off further up a small tributary to it's source, which is a kettle pond. I caught and kept a nice rainbow. Good take and battle on a spinner.

So you have poor salmon returns, even worse Steelhead runs, and then you remove the Pike minnow, in some streams you will have nothing.

Great report. Where I'm from it is illegal to target Atlantic sturgeon, all the time. Here and there a striper fisherman soaking bait in the brackish area will catch one as by catch.

Trout!

I intend to set off into the backcountry of Mexico, far up a Rio.

We got sea gulls eating rats around here

I have to disagree about the lowly Pike minnow, this was a once great fish, co-evolved for millenia with salmon and steelhead, and decimated by bounties, like many other once great predators of the American West. Edit to add, when I was out there was an all-time bad year for summer steelhead, maybe the worst ever, without the Pike minnows the streams would have nothing there. Sorry to deviate from The South's issues with their bass.

I suggest you look for deep cuts, and spots where the river narrows. In a shallow sandy river any kind of deep pocket or deeper run can hold fish. Also there may be a lot of unproductive water. You may need to 'sift through the sand' to find fishy spots.

I think the high speed reel is good for wtd baits. Each twitch is a half a reel turn, and would be easy to speed up maybe if you wanted to trigger a follower.