Bluebasser86

My favorite fall baits are swimbaits and big, bulky jigs. The larger sized squarebills can be really good too. This year has been opposite though. All the shad around here are tiny because they spawned really late due to the cold spring. So right now it's been pointless to fish bigger baits and most of the fish are eating 1/4 or 1/2 ounce rattle traps or 1.0 and 1.5 sized squarebills.

I use my 6' 10" ML/XF St Croix LTB rod for jigging walleye. It's a dropshot rod but makes a great walleye rod for the couple times a year I fish for them.

Even the walleye I catch get tossed back if I'm not fishing with someone who wants them. Walleye tastes alright, and I've had catfish and crappie that was decent, I just don't enjoy it enough to bother filleting and cooking them.

You should, they're great baits at full price, let alone on sale.

I wouldn't spend the extra money for a Premier unless you're wanting one of the split grip versions. If you liked the Triumph then just stick with that. For a little more I'd probably go with a Mojo though. I've never fished a Fenwick spinning rod so can't really give an opinion on them but I love my St Croixs but I try not to use anything below an Avid for baits where a lot of feel is required.

I was thinking it looked good just like that also. When a rat/mouse gets wet they get those light and dark spots depending on how thick the fur is in certain areas, probably gives it a pretty lifelike look in the water.

Owner Mosquito hooks for DS.

Mattlures hardbass and hardgill, MS Slammer, Bull Shad, and S waver are some of my favorite hard baits.

You got that right! The first largemouth picture is cropped down to keep signs and buildings out of the background to help prevent IDing the area around it

I started out fishing as a nonboater in a bass club where everyone fished against everyone, so I was competing against my boater in the front of the boat. One of my favorite baits to follow a boater with was a stick worm with a 1/4oz bullet weight. It appeals to all sized fish, can be cast pretty much anywhere, and is a presentation I don't think they see very often. In clearer water it's pretty hard to beat a shakyhead. If your boater gets right on the bank flipping and pitching that means a lot of fish are behind the boat in deeper water still. Cast the shakyhead out and drag it back up the drop offs towards the boat. A C rig can do the same thing. A wacky rigged stick worm will also pick off a lot of fish that were just a little too finicky to pick up his jig also. If they're just really eating his jig you might try a different color or weight. A lot of time he will pick up the most aggressive fish, which may be the smaller fish on a lot of days. If you pitch a bigger jig behind him you might not get as many bites but will be getting better quality fish at times.

Sounds like perfect conditions for a rattle trap to me. I like to parallel riprap or weed edges.

The fall bite has not happened for me or anyone around here really. I have a theory on why that I posted on another topic. Most of our lakes have gizzard shad in them that spawn during the late spring/early summer period and are then fed on heavily by everything all summer long. Those YOY shad are reaching prime bass forage size by fall and are supposed to be thinned out. Problem is we had an extremely cold spring, even snowed in early May this year and water temps stayed below 50 into May. So our shad spawned very late in the year and are still tiny (1-2 inches) and way more numerous than they're normally this late in the year. So now there's tons of food in the lakes while the fishes metabolism is slowing down and they don't need to eat as often. So basically they can sit around and wait for the food to come to them instead of having to fly around chasing bigger shad that are around in much smaller numbers. This is just my theory that I've come up with and it's probably 100% wrong but it makes me feel better about my lack of productivity this fall

Is this happening after a cast or just after you spool up? I doubt anyone who has ever used a baitcaster hasn't gotten the little V shaped loops over their mainline after a backlash. Usually you can pull on the V shaped loop and it will pop loose.

For breakfast we just put a pound of chopped up bacon into a saucepan until it's crispy. Dump out a little grease then crack a dozen eggs into the pan. Fast and filling. Dinner is pretty similar. Couple big cans of baked beans and some chopped up lunch meat or hotdogs warmed up. It gets a little pungent in the tent or around the fire at times

Yep, .22 to the noggin will put him down before he has a chance to do anything. If he has any kind of regular schedule just sit out with a spotlight and wait him out.

Ugly game today for both teams. If they don't get their offense going I wouldn't be surprised if the only other win they get this year is against the Redskins. I wonder if any other team has ever started 9-0 and finished 10-6??

Two weeks ago we had a really slow day fishing and then to add insult to injury I broke a rod swinging a freaking white bass into the boat

San Diego Jam with fluoro, Palomar for everything else.

That's a good looking bait! Are you going to paint it also or just seal it?

I used to be the same way, but I'm getting better about it. I've tried to stop buying all the eye catching colors and sticking with the baits that produce every year. I'll still get a couple different baits each year to try, but I usually come back to the proven baits. As for the OP's question, I used to be stuck on the nothing but Zoom baits boat also, but since I discovered Netbait and Berkley introduced the Havoc lineup I have a lot fewer bags of Zoom in my boat.

Any idea what your water temp is where you're fishing? In a lot of places across the country the water temps are getting down towards the lowest end of the effective temperature range for a buzzbait. As long as it's above 50 I'd just crawl them along as slow as you can while keeping it on the top. My experience is that when the water temps cool off it's sometimes best to go against the typical way of thinking that buzzbaits only work early or late or during low light periods. For me when the water is cooler like this my best buzzbait bite is usually after it warms up a little bit. It also tends to catch far fewer numbers but much better average sized fish for me this time of year. I've had some great buzzbait bites during hot, sunny days during the summer too though.

Already!!?? Our lakes are still in the high to mid 50's, lots of fishing left to do

Keep reading and learning and the catching will increase along with your knowledge. Even after fishing for almost my entire life I'm still amazed by what I learn on this site from all the great members. I think the willingness to openly share information is a lot of what makes it so great. I'm on a couple other forums too but a lot of time getting even the simplest information is almost impossible on any of them.

If it's legal in Florida 4-6 inch live bluegill are great live bait for big bass and readily available in pretty much any body of water that big bass swim in. Just take an ultralight with a small hook and a piece of nightcrawler and catch your own live bait. Again make sure you check your regulations before you do this to make sure you aren't breaking any laws.

Did it look like this? http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/bryozoa.html I see the stuff pretty often on tree limbs and such. I believe it's supposed to be a sign of a healthy body of water it's called phylactolaemata bryozoan. No idea how to pronounce it, but that's what it's called