Big_Bass_Rich

Wow I guess anything can happen in the world of fishing! And that looks like beautiful water you're fishing there too!

Rapala Fat Rap

I rarely fish deeper than 4 ft unless absolutely necessary when chasing largemouth, for smallies its a different story. Not that I can't fish deep water - I can, I just have more fun in the shallow stuff! I guess thats what you get when you grow up fishing shallow ponds.

Sorry, I understood "backwater" as those bog like sloughs, almost like marshes that you find very shallow. That was what my reply was referring to.

Couldn't be any more of an obsession for me! ;D

Quietly. I like to use small finesse baits texas rigged and flip gently to any good cover, usually pads or wood. If you are too loud on these "backwater" areas you will spook big bass into not biting. Another great tactic is long casts with topwater scum frogs or slug-gos on braided line and a hefty rod to horse em out.

To date I've caught 4 decent fish on senkos, and one huge catfish. I think they are a fad type bait and are dieing real quick in popularity. I've always done way better on fry type baits when others are using senkos. But when I do use senkos, I fish them weightless most of the time but had some luck flipping with them too.

I tend to put the commercial scent on my hands throughout the day just to mask odours, and use my own personal scents on the actual lures. Reason being I don't like to waste expensive scent by applying non stop to baits every cast. And I think there is such a thing as too much scent. Think about it if they smell 700x better than a dog, then strong odours could offend them. Like cologne.. a little bit attracts 'em, dump a whole bottle on yourself and you're guaranteed to have no friends for the day (or lady friends).

Just thought I'd share some more pics from last year! Enjoy Action Shot! ;D

On tough days try a suspending jerkbait on the edge of that drop. Could work wonders.

Even if your motor pollutes that's no reason to pollute even more by spraying the oil on your baits. We have enough pollution as it is and plenty of ample alternatives.

Jitterbug for sure!

I've been in a slump since mid-december.. it's called WINTER. :'( How do I get out of it? Patience.

Well my only bad day that I really remember was a couple of years ago. The fishing was amazing, I mean we're talking nice bass almost every cast, a couple of pike and even a walleye (on a spinnerbait nonetheless!). It was going great. We were fishing from shore in a marina, which just happens to be a no trespassing area unless you're a dock slip owner, lol ... oops. ;D Anyway, I get a huge hit on my jerkbait. The bass seem to be in schools, so my dumb friend decides to run over with his Terminator spinnerbait and see if he can score some fish from where I got a hit. He rears back to cast as far as he can, and pulls forward and I go down on my stomach on the dock. It felt like someone hit me in the back of the head with a bat. I gained my bearings and realized that he had hit me with his spinnerbait in the back of the head! I reached up and could not tell if it was in the back of my head or my hat. I ask my friend to check, and he says no he can't because he can't stand the sight of blood. > So my other friend who was further down the shoreline comes our way and sees what's going on, and PANICKS like I've been hit by a train. I try to explain that its not a big deal and all we have to do is pinch or file the barb off and pull it out. I've got a huge headache and buddy #2 runs to get help from the marina owner!! She comes over and luckily didn't address the fact that we were fishing illegally in her marina, she just tells me I have to go to a doctor. But I don't have my health card, it's at home and without it I can't go to the hospital. We call my parents who come down with pliers. Great they know what to do!! Thank God someone does! But we find that this Terminator hook is incredibly tough.. we can't cut or file it! So we grab my health card and head to the hospital 15 min away. We get there, wait for half an hour (my headache is horrible) and finally get in. The doctor says "all you have to do is file or cut the barb off". Yeah.. right... never tried that. : So he tries with pliers and cutters, and can't do it. Dang that hook is strong he says! NO KIDDING. So after giving some anaesthetic (finally no more headache!) he pulls out a file.. After fiddling for a while he tells me to get on my stomach and look at the floor, he's going to "try something new"... :'( Now I'm thinking just leave the hook in, I'll be a trendsetter and start a new fashion for God's sakes! lol All I hear is sawing, twisting and a very uncomfortable sounding crack... good thing I had anaesthetic, cuz I'm sure what he was doing was painful. Anyway eventually out comes the bait, in 3 pieces, and a hacksaw drops to the doctor's side. After all of this harrowing experience I thank the doctor, and get home to bed so I can go back out fishing in the morning! Okay so it wasn't a horrible day, but it was an experience to say the least!

I learned to be versatile and use baits that I might never think of using on any normal day. I learned to make these baits a major part of my arsenal. For instance I had never used a crankbait or thought I needed to use them til about 4 years ago when my friend and I went out and he beat me like a drum with crankbaits. I finally gave it, tied one on and caught bass - and learned that crankbaits have a major place in any lure arsenal! I also learned how to develop patterns, how to read sonar and get the most out of my sonar, how to properly fish certain topwater baits (Zara Spooks in particular). And a lot more. 80% of what I learned is just from fishing with others and in tournaments. You have to keep a keen eye out when fishing with others because sometimes even novices can teach you a thing or two!

Snag, it's as simple as it sounds! ;D Get a pot of water boiling on your stove, and add as much garlic salt as you want to the mix. I also add regular salt.. dunno if it does anything but couldn't hurt. Then I add a package or two of Kool-Aid, depending how much there is. Then just stir til it's all dissolved (and your house stinks like you work on a garlic farm, lol). Let it cool and put it in a spray bottle. I've been using it for a while and it seems to work pretty good. I also put fresh garlic cloves in the blender and made a paste which was deadly! I thought of doing this for bass because for years I have boiled corn in Kool-Aid/Salt for carp. I figured the scent seems powerful enough that it might work for bass too. Added some garlic and it works great, and it's cheap!

I've heard of people using WD-40 but it has to pollute at least a bit. I can't see it being a safe choice for the environment. But yes it does work. And you can make your own scents like JD Fisher said, you can also make them water based so they don't float to the surface and spread through the water column. Personally I like boiling garlic salt and Kool-Aid. The oil based ones like JD mentioned stay on your bait longer though.

I've encountered the blackness in the mouth of a few bass I caught. And they were all in the same muddy water pond. Perhaps has something to do with pollutants...?

My buddy just got a 2lber thru the ice while crappie fishing yesterday. It's never too cold!

I used to use only Terminator spinnerbaits for the most part but now I've expanded to try different ones. I use a whole variety of brands and Terminators are still my overall favourite but I also like Strike King Redeye spinnerbaits for certain applications, and I just got the Evilution V4 from B&D Custom Lures in the mail a few days ago and it looks like an awesome bait. It has a twin wire and 4 blades which makes it perfect for reeling in slowly over weedbeds, logs etc. As for tweaking sometimes I will drill holes in the blades, paint them, add reflective tape or glow in the dark tape, add trailers/trailer hooks, trim skirts or change skirts, add spinnerbait rattles and even bend the wire or blades to get a different effect.

Wishing everybody and their families a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy, Healthy & Safe New Year!

When hell freezes over! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Glenn, thats why when you practice flippin in your backyard you DONT USE HOOKS!! ;D ;D

I've caught 2 snapping turtles to date, they really seem to love corn. Also caught a few seagulls, they love to hit minnows in mid-cast when we pier fish in the spring. Weirdest thing I ever caught would be a bumper off an F-150 (no idea how I actually horsed it up to the boat) and a wallet with nothing in it except $50!

njvbass It's kinda tricky but you kinda just strip out the amount of line you want to cast and keep hold of the line in your other hand, then just cast it out and it freelines out to where you want. Hard to explain lol but you're pretty much throwing your bait out.