Bluebasser86

It helps when you make your own.

It's so weird that smallies are so thought of as being a colder water fish than largemouth, yet when the water temps drop below 45*, they seem to evaporate from our lakes.

I took (almost), everything out when I had to take my boat into the shop a couple years ago. I'm not curious enough about how much gear I carry to do that again.

I love "some" wind. I don't want it to be dead calm, but we have a lot of days with 20+ mph winds that I'm not much of a fan of but I still go.

Hoping my season starts Jan 1 with the same baits that I ended the season with.

Of my top 5 biggest fish this year, only 1 was caught after 8am. 2 of those before 8am were caught in January before it had even thought about starting to warm up for the day. I like to catch them whenever they'll bite.

Haven't in years, but when I went to Mexico last time when I was 18, I was about 20lbs over the limit, which I believe was 60lbs. Had to move a bunch to my clothes bag to avoid paying a fee.

Anyone have any experience with these? Got a giftcard from work for my 10 year anniversary (a couple years late but I guess better late than never), and I'm ready to step up my cold weather gear from my basic hoodies that I've been wearing on top of my base layers and under my outer shell and hoping this will be a solid option. https://aftco.com/products/reaper-windproof-fishing-pullover?variant=32566666362985&gclid=Cj0KCQiAk4aOBhCTARIsAFWFP9HfmnabQyo-Ae-pl03tbVkK-H_WEHoui_1pmTHgs4MGH7mgRFs3tXkaAnw1EALw_wcB

Guessing you don't fish water willows? They'll eat that 20lb braid for lunch, especially if you mix in a sprinkling of zebra mussels.

Never hooked a halfway decent sized bass in heavy slop on a frog? I use 20lb braid for my treble hook topwaters, it wouldn't get it done in the stuff I frog fish though.

Mine leaked last year and threw grease all over on the way home from the lake. Then nobody around here would/could service them.

YUM Craw papi, but I rarely catch bass on jigs in the winter so take that advice with a grain of salt.

They actually had them for awhile but discontinued them, and now brought them back. Hoping they'll do the same to my favorite color of their jerkbaits since they decided to axe it. Wabi Sabi, it's been a good one in clear water for me.

I've caught way more white bass, wipers, and crappie with mine than I have bass. It's a multi-species bait for sure.

Welcome!

This one ate my Ned rig right off the end of a boat ramp dock. I was looking for a big cull smallmouth and thought I'd found it, even the color looked right in the dirty water. The guy on the bank laughing when he saw it was a carp didn't help.

We only have smallmouth in lakes here, none in ponds or creeks/rivers. Every lake that smallmouth inhabit have shad, bluegill, crappie, various shiners, and rough fish that are the smallmouth's main baitfish prey items. Our smallmouth rarely seem to venture deeper than 10' when feeding, so most of my spinnerbait fish are caught on windblown, rocky points, around docks, and bushes. Water clarity is typically a foot or two to maybe 5-6 feet.

Hook size is going to vary a lot depending on the size of bait. I've got everything from #8 up to 2/0 trebles in my boat. I've also got an assortment of round bends and EWG hooks. The round bends I like to put on baits that fish tend to slap at, like topwaters and jerkbaits, the EWGs go on cranks and traps, although I'll occasionally put an EWG on the belly and a round bend on the tail of my cranks. With the short shank hooks, you can actually upsize your hook because there's less material there to weigh the bait down. This is a common practice among lots of anglers and professional fishermen, removing say a #4 round bend off a bait and replacing them with #2 short shank EWGs. Some baits will say right up front what size hooks they're running, sometimes you can find out with a little research. After you change a bunch you get to be pretty good at eyeballing them. A few of my favorite replacement trebles in no particular order; https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Gamakatsu_Treble_Round_Bend_Hooks_Black/descpage-BLICK.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Berkley_Fusion19_Treble_1x_Hooks/descpage-FNT.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Gamakatsu_Aaron_Martens_TGW_Nano_G-Finesse_Treble_Hook/descpage-NFH.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Gamakatsu_EWG_Treble_Short_Shank_Magic_Eye_6pk/descpage-GET.html On sale right now! https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Mustad_KVD_1x_Strong_2x_Short_Triple_Grip_Treble_Hook/descpage-MKVDEST.html https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Owner_Stinger_Treble_Hook_Black_Chrome_ST-36/descpage-OST36BC.html

Haven't fished on a long time but use to catch fish with them often. Just one of those baits that fell out of favor because they're not the hot new thing. I like the Wing Ding because it's a line through so it's harder for the fish to throw. I've got a ton of KO Dark Sleepers that don't swim very well, or at all, might have just found a use for them.

In just an everyday situation, I don't worry about them. In fact, smallies will even follow feeding carp as they'll dislodge prey from the bottom as they root around the bottom. When carp are spawning, bass seem to avoid the area. When bass are spawning, carp can be a big issue because they can destroy a bed very easily. They've coexisted for over 100 years now though, I don't worry about it too much.

I love fishing for them, but the closest ones are 3 hours away. Fishing for them in standing timber in Missouri is a lot different than fishing for them up north. I'd like to catch a real big one though. I caught a keeper (42") fish a long time ago in Missouri and that's the biggest I've held by far.

Happy birthday! Not too far off from my boys birthdays, they just turned 8 and 5 this past week. Their birthdays make me feel older than my own birthdays do.

Saturday was the first real cold day I've had to fish in this year. Temps weren't bad, the wind sucked though. It was supposed to be 13mph from the NW, the whitecaps argued otherwise. Couldn't even fish a couple areas I wanted to fish the waves were crashing into them so hard. Stayed just warm enough all day that my guides didn't ice up until the temps started dropping from an approaching cold front at around 2, and that's when I left. I bounced around and scrounged 8-10 green fish, several whites and wipers, and 1 each flathead and channel cat. A 2tap caught the 2 bigger bass on the day, shakyhead and Ned caught the rest. Wipers ate a swimbait, flathead was on a jigging spoon.

Sapphire Blue, Junebug, black neon/watermelon laminate.