Bluebasser86

The ultralight minnows by rapala sink. I bought some for trout fishing and they do work but they are all countdowns, but they do sink much slower than the countdown rapalas do. Probably worth trying though as they aren't very expensive.

My wife fishes them all the time because she only uses spinning rods and they fish much easier than a regular bass sized spinnerbait. Bass really seem to like them a lot at times.

Probably a weak spot in your line, probably caused from fishing such light line in heavy cover. If it's heavy weeds I wouldn't even be worried about a little extra braid dragging in the water, fish will probably never see it anyways. If it's really bothering you just find a rock with a sharp/rough edge and pull the tag end back and forth across it a few times and it should cut it no problem so you don't have as much trailing. Guard rails or braided cables work great if you're by a parking lot or road.

Definitely looks good. Spotted bass are suckers for shakeyhead finesse worms and wacky rigs, both look like they should work well in an area like that as long as there isn't a lot of weeds. Swimming a grub might work also. Did you see when or how many bass were stocked? It's possible they didn't stock many bass or maybe it was stocked very recently and the bass just aren't catchable size yet. Is it just in that area that you aren't catching bass or is it in the entire pond/lake that you aren't catching anything?

Yeah I wish they had that in my highschool and I tried to get a team together but the school didn't think we would have any other local schools that would participate. Makes me think about going to college just so I could fish the college tour, not much past college age anyways.

If you use a snap make sure it isn't heavy enough that it drags the nose of the bait down. I tie direct to my topwaters.

cast out and reel in slowly, no hops, no jerks, just straight retrieve. That's what works best for me but sometimes putting one on a heavy jighead and snapping it off the bottom will trigger reflex strikes.

I've had it happen several times. I try to pull the bait away from them when that happens but a lot of times they won't let go. I used to fish for frogs all the time when I was a kid in the little ponds that didn't have any fish.

Fish in ponds are very sensitive to their surroundings. If you're dressed in bright clothing or make a lot of noise you can shut them off pretty easily. Lots of pressure on a pond can make it very difficult also, sometimes even moderate pressure can do it. Most of the ponds I fish have certian baits that just catch them so you may have to fish lots of different baits until you find "the" bait in that pond.

When I bought my boat I practiced backing it in an empty parking lot to get comfortable doing it. I wasn't an expert by any means but it didn't take me 20 minutes to get the boat down the ramp either. My biggest pet peeve is waiting until you're on the ramp to prep your boat. Do that before backing down and things go much faster.

They were one of the first lures I can remember using along with a road runner and beetle spin and original rapala. I rarely bass fish with them anymore and if I do it's normally a Mepp's spinner. They seem to attract larger bass for me. Mainly I use them in one creek for wipers when the water is high because they aren't effected much by the moving water like some other baits are.

My great grandma died about a month ago at 97 years old. She was a really good lady and was always smiling. The main thing she stressed to everyone towards the end was not to let her passing interfere with our lives in a negative way but to remember the good times with her. My condolences to your family but remember the good times and know that he's in a better place now.

I like the BPS stick-o for 99% of my stick bait fishing. The only time I go with a Senko instead is if money is on the line. They're too expensive for me to use fun fishing and I catch almost as many fish on the BPS baits but you get 12 in a pack instead of 10 and if you get them on sale they're usually 3 bags for $10. I like the 4" ones on a shakeyhead a lot too.

I've never seen any non-boaters hoping for a ride at the ramp. You can fish it by yourself though if you'd like, I won it by myself once last year. My wife was with me so I wasn't really by myself I guess but she was there more for moral support than anything. They do a weigh in in the parking lot and usually stand around and BS a little after it's over. it's a good group of guys for the most part and other than the fishing being pretty tough a lot of the time it's usually pretty fun.

I tired fishing around the docks once and was run off almost immediately. I don't know how they can decide to make part of a public lake off limits like that but when I tried to email KDWP about it I never got a response. I love Melvern, as long as the wind isn't blowing too hard. You can really catch fish about any way you want to fish out there. Lots of gravel and rocks, some coves with weeds, and a couple with lots of standing timber. I mainly stick to fishing the rocky/sandy areas for smallmouth because I can catch more and better largemouth in a lot of other lakes that are closer. I've personally caught smallmouth up to 5lbs and largemouth over 4lbs and a friend of mine caught a 5lb 9oz largemouth out of the back of my boat out there. I've caught fish on almost every technique but finesse plastics and cranks catch a majority of my fish. On cloudy days spinnerbaits and spooks can really be hot. I don't fish jigs often out there but I know they work well for some. My wife usually does pretty well swimming a grub.

Better just go ahead and buy them. If she's willing to trade a trip like that for some diamonds I'd say it's a good trade. Whatever keeps her happy and lets you go fishing is a good thing. I bought mine a rod and reel combo that was more expensive than most of mine because she liked it and it keeps her happy while we're fishing. If she's happy while we're fishing then I can be happy while we're fishing and that equals more fishing time for me!

I have a couple Abus that I like very well and a couple Pfluegar spinning reels, all the rest are Shimano.

Yeah I use the Decoy's quite a bit. I got a bunch of them for $5 each from the Cabela's bargin cave a few years back. They have a very subtle action and sink pretty slowly. They aren't Hudds but the 5" bait has a much smaller profile than the 6" Hudd, which is nice here where the fish don't react to the larger bait very often. It's nothing for a 12" bass to completely inhale the decoy baits. They've been pretty tough baits for me too, this one put almost 30 fish in the boat for me and was still going pretty strong. I just rig them with a #4 treble on the belly and it seems to work pretty well. Fishing it on a 7' heavy, abu 5600, and 25lb P-line xtra strong crystal clear.

Buzzbait and popper are my topwater baits of choice. Buzzbait for covering water/heavy cover, popper for fishing smaller areas or fish that won't chase the buzzbait down.

Good job on the first jig bass! My favorite bait to fish without a doubt. A jig and full sized brushhog can be a really good big fish bait. Craw style baits like Rage craws or Havoc Rocket craws make good trailers and so do twin tail grubs.

I think it was $25-$30 a team last year, seems like it was 25. 20 for the heavy bag then 5 a boat for big bass. It starts at 6pm and runs to 10 or 9 depending on the weather/time of year. My buddy has won it 2 weeks in a row with 2 fish each time. I won it 3 weeks in a row last week, once with 2 fish then twice with 3 fish. It's almost always won with 2 fish but sometimes it takes 3. Someone had like 8.86lbs with the only 5lber weighed in last year and that was the heaviest bag I saw.

It's a trap! She wants something man.

Play with your retrieves a little. Sometimes short hops work, sometimes you want to drag it. Trailers can make a difference. Sometimes they seem to like lots of action like a Rage Craw or twintail grub, sometimes something with less action like a salt craw or craw papi works better.

That would work fine. Since we only have 2 boaters/nonboaters that aren't already paired I'll probably just have Retro/kanasbassfisher08 paired and Watachi/me. Kanasbassfisher08 (Chris) and I have fished Melvern together a few times so he knows the lake a little bit and can help Retro with where to fish and what to use. To my knowledge Watachi has never fished Melvern so I can try to teach him a couple things about it and it's plentiful smallmouth . If any of you guys that have never fished Melvern has any questions about it feel free to PM me or if they're questions that you think everyone should know the answer too just post them on here and I'll be glad to answer them. I'm by no means an expert on the lake but I have fished it a bunch of times.

I love fishing bluffs. A good bluff will almost always have some fish on it. If it has good cover up shallow it's a good place for a fish because they can move laterally in the water colum quickly if they feel threatened and it's a great place for them to push baitfish towards to make them easier to catch.