Bluebasser86

I'm not saying that big blades always equal bigger fish, but sometimes they do. This bait is a 3/4oz head, 6/0 hook, #6 and #7 or #8 hammered, copper Colorado blades. Just what the big girls want around here in the early spring time.

Looks like it needs a pair of gold blades, either Colorado or willowleaf.

Rock Crawlers are popular around here, but I can count on one hand the fish I've caught on them. In fact, I'm positive I've owned more of them than I've caught fish with them.

Welcome!

It might just not have the biomass necessary to support anything bigger than what you're catching.

A GOOD swivel will reduce line twist. Cheap ones will often not do much for it.

Bigger fish are looking for bigger bites in the fall. A 1/2oz spinnerbait with a 4.8" Fat Impact style trailer is one of my best big fish baits in the fall when the water temps drop into the 50's.

Yep, I park my boat right next to the bank and parallel the riprap and rocky shorelines and crank mine as fast as needed to keep them banging into the rocks. Hang up a lot because of all the cracks in the big rocks, lose a few that get wedged in the rocks too.

I assume you're fairly new to the sport. Fishing is a sport that requires a lot of trial and error, and it can get very frustrating. Going with a knowledgeable angler and observing what they do and asking questions can help speed the learning curve a lot. I joined a bass club when I was 16 and fished club tournaments. I learned a lot fishing from the back of the boat with other anglers. Got to see a lot of different styles and approaches and hear the reasoning as to why they went about it. It's basically hiring a guide for less than half price, except most of them don't care if you catch fish or not.

Hmm, riprap is a majority of what I crank and it seems like I rarely break a bill unless I bounce them off a rock on the cast. The only ones I've had break recently are Berkley Frittside, Rapala OG Slims, and 6th Sense Flat 75X.

Stretching before and after helps a lot. I have a foam roller and stretches I do. Even still, my duty belt makes sure that my back never feels quite right.

I'd also vote for a ML rod for Neds. I use a St. Croix 6' 10" ML/XF LTB for mine.

Are they breaking from being fished through the rocks or being casted onto the rocks?

Not many bass eating big bullfrogs it doesn't seem like. I tried a lot when I was a kid and never did catch a bass (or even many catfish), with them. They seemed to much prefer leopard frogs.

Welcome back!

Welcome!

What kind of winter league?

No shortage of wildlife around here. Fell asleep listening to coyotes howling every night we were camping last weekend. Deer were everywhere walking around the campgrounds. Saw a fox bolt by the side of the road a couple days ago. The waterfowl have been everywhere with the cold weather. There was a really nice buck by the side of the road on my drive home from work one morning last week.

Weeds have been very sparse in many lakes that I fish where they normally are healthy. Some are due to the state spraying them. Others I have no idea. Water willows are the biggest concern as they provide great shoreline habitat and prevent erosion but they've been absent from many lakes that they're usually plentiful.

Thanks for the heads up, just ordered a couple hundred. Trying not to hoard so if someone else on here needs some I don't think I bought them out but it did say limited quantity, just didn't say how many they had.

Sometimes wind is good, sometimes it's not. In my experience, bass in colder water and during the spawn will avoid the windier areas. Wind stirs sediment that will settle on eggs and kill them, so they don't want to be in windy areas on their nest. Wind creates current that they have to fight, which they don't want to do when they're cold and trying to expend the least amount of energy. My biggest 5 fish limit in Kansas (and one of my best days of bass fishing ever), was on a slick calm, cold day in February many years ago. Bass in clear water environments seem to avoid windblown areas that are prone to becoming muddied quickly because they're more adapted to being visual feeders than their muddy water cousins. Now during the heat of the summer, or in the fall when the bass are chasing around all the new baitfish and the water is stale and hot from baking in the sun all day, yeah I want some wind to be blowing where I'm fishing. I wish it made them stupid, but usually it just makes them a little more catchable.

My average speed in my kayak is 2-4 mph. Kayaks are perfect for SI units because you're almost always traveling at the perfect speed to be scanning.

4 of their top 5 salaries are on defense, Mahomes is #7 on the team this year. They're paying $30 million to 2 pass rushers with a combined 2 sacks on the season, $15 million to of PFF worse rated starting linebackers in the league (one of their other starting LB's is at the bottom of the list also but at least isn't paid like a star), and then Mathieu is in the top 5 salaries on the team as well. Tyreek Hill is the only offensive player in the top 5 of their salary cap. Somehow with all the money invested in their defense, it consistently remains ranked at the bottom of the NFL. To me, that screams coaching, which shouldn't be a surprise since Spagnolo has a track record of having bad defenses, but he beat Brady twice so they hired him. He did enough to pull them together for their Super Bowl run in 2019, but even then, they weren't good, just good enough. On the offensive side, I don't understand why Reid won't get them to run some quick slants and screens when everyone is daring them to make the short passes. With guys like Hill and Hardman, short passes don't always equal short gains. If they get the ball in the open, 7 yard slants potentially turn into 70 yard TDs and are much less likely to be picked than a forced 15-20 yard crossing pattern that runs right into the waiting d-backs. It's been frustrating to watch a team with this much talent play so poorly, but it kind of felt like it was coming as soon as that stupid "20-0", talk started. They're pretty lucky to have won 3 of their 7 games so far and the next several aren't any easier. Missing the playoffs looks more likely than making it at this point.

The "New Items", section of TW is a regular browsing section of mine when I'm wasting time on the interwebs. I haven't found anywhere with better selection and prices in one place.

Trying to get @HaydenS out on my boat to see if we can replicate something like this trip from around this time last year.