culprit71

;D

Thanks for the excellent tips people. Maybe the bass are seeing the ribbontails as a kind of large leech which could explain why they hit it when dragged on the bottom. I have som red shad culprit ribbontails that I can try too. They don't seem to fish like purple worms either. I'll try it in the muddy water. On a side note I've been to Bradenton FLa many times to visit my family there and on Anna Maria Island. They all fish of course, but mostly for grouper

Yeah man, I took as much time as I could to paddle out there and found myself putting the rod down and just taking in the scenery. There must be smallies all over that lake I have to get back soon. I love Lunkerville and you get to fish with some real characters and knowledgable guys....... keep "listening to the fish" heh heh ;D

I have wondered if kissing the fish and exposing the fish to human mouth pathogens that a fish isn't usually exposed to could affect the fish. I never kiss the fish to avoid this possibility Also, does anyone know if Berkely gulp or senkos when eaten affect the fish?

Hello KB, Maybe I'll run in to you some time in the Croton watershed!!!!

I think maybe I'm afraid of the color and maybe I'm not throwing it enough. I'll have to try it again. I had some excellent fishing this weekend creek fishing for smallmouth throwing smoke with black and purple and watermelon senkos.

Hey guys , I have not had good luck with this color fishing mostly weedy lakes in south jersey. I'm interested in hearing other's success or lack of success with this color :-/

Nice man! No doubt he liked that 10.5

I wade my local creek and flyfish for stocked trout and catch probably 60:40 trout:smallmouth on very small flies (eg. beadhead caddis, cj's, soft hackle wets) the smallmouth seem to inhabit some of the same lies as the trout. Except the big ones were not looking. I switched over some of my tackle and painted up some jig heads with twirltail grubs and landed some bigger fish on spincast and I've had even more success dropshotting Yamamoto's tiny ika squids. Anyone have a problem with the Yamamoto twirltails getting the tails bitten off by sunnies? the bait is soft and this seems to happen quite a bit.

Welcome to the site, I'm new to the forums as well. Just wanted to add that you are in an excellent fishing area with bass fishing at your finger tips. Adirondacks are so close and you have many bodies of water around you....I'm jealous

You guys sound like you have a good system. I generally have started to just keep my soft baits seperated in their original packaging by category in the gallon ziplock bag-senkos and worms in one bag , tubes & tiny ikas in another, twirltail grubs in another, and so on. That way I can grab what I think I might need to target fish and I will carry some in my vest so that I can minimize the weight I carry. I will have to look at some of those other ideas for a more durable and permanent system. Oh yeah by the way I also started soaking Berkely gulp minnows in the juice in small horseradish jars. Holds the sauce in a lot better than the original jar, and it's small and perfectly sized for the 2 inch minnows. I also saw at Dick's a cool screw top container designed especially for this purpose, though it would be more apropriate on a boat rather than carried in a backpack while wading due to the size of the container.

Maybe less likely to spook em with the smaller topwater

Went up to Lake George with the family the week before 4th of July after some inspiration from Mikey D'Avila's Lunkerville episode about the fishin chef. I had a great time in my Bell canoe, fishing for smallmouth and occasional largemouth. Water temp was 70-72 and air temp was 70 on up to 85. I caught my record size for largemouth, 23 inches and she had to be 8 to 10 lbs, a real hawg, so big she couldn't even jump she bulldogged and ran my line down I fought her for a couple of minutes, in 15 feet of water on the drop shot. Some fish including my biggest smallmouth (around 3 lbs) were caught shallow on DD20 crankbait but most were in average 18 feet of water. I'll try to post a pic, that's a size 13 foot next to that fish. All fish except for one unfortunate gill hooked fish were released.

That's a respectable fish....strong.

Hello all my name is Andy and I've been using Bass Resource for probably 10 years, but only recently discovered the utility of the message board. Thanks for all the tips, I hope to contribute and help others be safe and successful on the water. I fish mostly in south jersey and philadelphia area, wading for trout and smallies on the fly and spin fishing for largemouth in my canoe.

;D ;D ;D Quite a story! Been there, with too close calls with flying rattl-traps....can't be too careful!!!