Nitrofreak

They don't have to be there, eventhough it may look enviting to you, something about it may not appeal to them. All bass hold to structure, but not all structure holds bass, what you need to do is fish that area all day and watch your sonar, note the time of day they may pass that location, if at all, it may be just a place they use to travel during the spawn on their way to the shallows, or back to a place to where they use for something else, regaurdless it may not be a place they choose to travel at all.

Shoreline fishing is the hardest thing in the world for me since I purchaced my first boat, but I have done my fair share of it as well. If the water is clear I use bright colored plastics, 6" motor oil/chartuse swim tail worms, pumkinseed/chartuse swim tail lizards, if it is a little stained I tend to want to shift to a more natural color, greens and browns, Strike King 6" and 8" worms on shakey heads. Strike King bitsy jigs are a must for the rivers up here. The best advise would most likely be a tube, either on a drop shot rig or a C-rig, really cheap, fun to fish bait that will attract some big attention. And from what i have seen from the new river area, you guys have some biiiiiiiiiiiig fish. Hope this helps, at least a little, be safe and have fun !!!

Taking a young child out can be a daunting task, you can keep her intrest by using live bait, that would be the best starting point. My youngest had got bitten by the bug on her first big fish, a 5 lb striper, since then she has been by my side for every fishing trip doing the homework and packing the tackle and cleaning the reels. She now has as much or more knowlage about a body of water we visit as I do and challanges me to be better than she is, it goes by in a hurry man, enjoy it !! Have fun and be safe !!!

MCS, Looks like the smiles are bigger than the fish are LOL, good job taking the children out and having some fun with 'em man !!! I miss my girls being that little and having fun with them, enjoy it as much as you can !! Have fun and be safe !!!

I look forward to it, I have just found out they do tournaments on tuesday nights over there, my youngest daughters boy friend has never done one before and wanted to know what it's like. Well, i'm not sure I want to do one on an unfamilure lake especially since it runs until after dark, but if the fish are game I may just give that a try too lol, it should be fun to say the least. Thanx again and I hope to bring you a good report.

Is that somewhere I can use a glass boat? I will definatly check into that for sure !!! Thanx !!!

Exactly what I was looking for !!! Thanx a ton !!!

X10 !!!

Don't feel so down, fishing from shore is a tuff, tuff thing to do at times, the bite right now is very slow, if you could get a photo or name the lake and where it is located you are fishing, maybe we could try to give you some areas you can hopefully get to.

Ethanol is basically Alcohol in this case most mixtures are a by product of corn, it has good qualities and bad, 99% bad in my opinion, when used in two cycle engines it has a tendency to reek havoc on fuel related parts and in some cases mechanical issues have followed. The content ethanol level or percentage will dry up fuel lines, gaskets, oil mix in some cases will not suspend very well alowing internal engine componants to run un-lubricated or less lubricated. In short it makes things go BOOM !!! if your not careful.

This time of year when the bite slows way down is a good indication you should be doing the same thing. Structure is key and your knowlage of it is even more important. Get out in the middle of the waters look for grass/rock bottoms, humps, fish every point you can, if it has points. Slow down and use a c-rig or t-rig big fish are deep, you too must go deep if you really want to find them. If you are thinking of getting a sonar, get the biggest bang for the buck in your budget. Don't trust your sonar to show you fish, the lower end models will give you a flat one dimentional picture, so a tree limb could produce arches and resemble fish, find something on the bottom, drag a rig across the area, figure out what it is and remember what it looked like on the sonar screen.

Muddy dark water usually equates to dark topwater baits for me as well especially if the water has any ripple to it at all. If it's calm, a slow worked spook is what I will start with, and work my way down the water colum from there. Dark or muddy water tends to make me move a lot of water to get noticed.

Nice post WRB !!! I have to agree, especially with this part of the statement, some of the things that have helped me to find bigger fish are fishing the deeper areas of a good location, lay downs for example, I start at the outside and work my way in, 90% of the larger bass have always come from the deeper end of cover that I fish.

I think the sad story was the older women getting her leg bit off while standing in her front yard, OMG, REALLY !!! Gators should be delt with by pro's not dumba##es who want to tempt fate, I am with traveler on this one...he got what he deserved.

I am taking the family to Claytor lake, leaving this Sunday and staying through Friday. I would think this would be my best shot at my very first small mouth ever, and a really good time for the family. I have never been there before but with all of the homework I have done this is what I am thinking. It looks like the best area to fish would be in Peak creek, other areas of intrest to me look like clapboard, spooky and texas hollows, there are more areas around the coves and state park that offer up some decent shallows, at least for LMB. As for the SMB I am looking hard at the steeper rocky shorelines especially around and below the state park. Anyone know the water conditions there etc...

This is something we all have to put to good use, glad to hear you are doing your homework, if you have the chance, talk to the locals there, they are really good people. The last time I visited there I fished the NC part of the lake and did not get the chance to fish the places I wished to fish. I can tell you this, I found a fair amount of fish in the coves last July, the water was stained, and dark colored c-rigged lizards worked ok but the top water baits about 20 yards off shore, especially when there were rocky areas, really hauled them in, they would come up from depths around 15 ft when the water was calm or just slightly wind blown surfaces, brighter colors seemed to work better in the clearer parts of the lake when visability was around 6 ft, any less than that I used more natural colors around rocks and black worked pretty good on the bottom. Not much more I can tell you, that was the first time I had ever been there, I know the bridge pilings offer some good fishing, and around the state park as well when I talked to the locals. Best of luck to ya and be safe !!!

If I find a bait ball such as you did, I will stay with it for as long as possible, especially if it is going to be a place I am going to frequent. That allows me the time to look at the structure the bait fish are using and mark it for later use, the other part is if the fish were biting and I was only going to be there for a short period of time, I would have only hung around until the bite ended, I will normally give a spot no more than 10 minutes to produce if I were in a tourny, it would depend on the location and the amount of fish on the sonar for longer periods of time if I were not in a tourny.

Thats the fill port? If you put a catch tray there you have to avoid it all the time when fishing from the back, at least I would assume. Whats your thoughts on moving it to the gunnel?

I dunno, sounds like they were pretty frisky to me.

X2 as well. Nice post WRB !!! Other times I am focused on a c-rig after the am bite, 20-25 ft of water and just stay with that as well for the remainder of the day.

I feel your pain lol, I get picked on a lot by my friends as to how many times I get checked, one time my best friend was no more than 50 yards from me, I got checked but he didn't, go figure !! We did a friendly get together one time and three of the boats saw me get checked twice, I don't know what the deal is other than it must be my charming personality and really good looks LMAO !!!...either that or I look like a terrorist when I wear my cammo.

When you had the engine running did you notice a small stream of water coming from the lower engine case?

Just like in the above post you had copied from traveler's post, you do not need a 7' door, 5/8 to three quarter the length of the rod will work just fine. If traveler is not able to post a pic before, I will post one from my boat for you in the morning.

When fishing muddy waters you want to move as much water as possible to get their attention, top water baits would be my suggestion, dual bladded buzz baits, black in color, poppers work well also.

X2 But if you can, try your luck on points, they are much more effective to fish than wide open areas.