Bluebasser86

Jerkbaits. Not only do they come in all kinds of cool colors and styles, but they are killer fish catchers.

I was thinking as I was driving to the lake Saturday "It's been awhile since I caught anything even over 4 pounds". 30 minutes into the morning, I'd caught 1 over 4 and 1 over 5 ?‍♂️I try to get too wrapped up in it and it just seems to happen when I put enough time in on the right bodies of water.

What size hook, rod, and line were you using? One of those items, or a combination of them, were likely a contributing factor to why you lost those fish.

Boat wakes typically bother us a lot more than the fish IMO. An exemption from that would be when they're stirring up mud in shallow water and it kills either a sight fishing bite or fish that were visually feeding shut down because of the reduced visibility.

Welcome!

My favorite thing to throw is the towel and go to a different lake. Not a fan of fishing where everyone else is.

Depends on the circumstances. To work, I'm on time. Fishing, I'm usually early, sometimes way early. I don't like waiting on anyone when I go fishing, probably a big part of why I've become so fond of fishing by myself the last few years, no worries about having to wait around for someone else.

There was a big air show in town this weekend, so we surprised the boys with tickets to the show. Lots of different things to see, but the Blue Angels AND the Thunderbirds were both there and performing stunts. It was really an amazing show. The boys got their pictures with a couple of the Blue Angel pilots that were walking around before it was their turn to fly, and we got to see a lot of different kind of aircraft up close.

I'd much rather mine over easy than scrambled, but my kids and wife like theirs scrambled so that's how I always make them. I make a breakfast scramble for dinner fairly often because it's one of the only meals I can make that whole family will eat. 1 roll of bacon sausage, 10 eggs scrambled, mix them together and top with cheese.

Nope, that's part of catfishing. Only way you can avoid it is to start removing the turtles when you catch them (check your regulations on moving/harvesting them). Even that might not do it if there's enough of them around.

I use a 6', 6' 2", 6' 8", and 6' 10". All of them work for different baits and situations.

My PB swimbait fish came from a tiny pond on a 7" Slammer.

I fish them year round. In the summer I fish them fast and either go with a smaller bait or a bigger bait, don't seem to have as much luck with the standard sized ones.

Made a long drive Saturday to a lake I've only been to once in my life and it was about a decade ago. Got a tournament coming up though and wanted to at least have some kind of idea what I was getting into. I was less than 10 cast into the morning when I had a big boil under a buzzbait. Couple cast with a wacky rig didn't produce the results I expected (first time in quite awhile I caught nothing on a wacky rig despite trying it quite a bit). Picked up the Popping Pad Crasher, sort of whipped it out there, had to clean a bunch of cotton off my line from the previous trip so the cast wasn't exactly accurate. I was actually past where I thought the bite would come when I got a pop and toilet bowl flush. Starting out the morning with a 20.75" frog fish always feels good. I knew this lake had a few smallmouth in it, but didn't really expect to catch any, so I was pretty surprised when after missing another buzzbait bite, my follow up cast with a Ned found a scrappy brown fish. Back up the spot I was on, switch to a different bait and made 2 or 3 cast, hard "tick", not far from my kayak. Wasn't really sure what to think at this point, maybe 20 minutes into the morning and my second fish over 20". 5 minutes later, I finally caught a "normal", sized largemouth that was about 15" on a beaver. Had a lot of the same looking stuff around, really thought I was going to wear some fish out. So about 2 hours later I was looking for my next bite. Got to the back of a small pocket and found a little mix of grass and some stumps. Put the Popping Pad Crasher in a gap and barely move it when it got rocked. Missed the hookset but I learned from the first couple missed topwater fish to just throw the same bait back and they'd come back. This fish was no different and it sure didn't miss this time. I fished so much good looking cover, but bites were coming about a hour apart and they were small compared to my other fish, 1 15" largemouth was the biggest of them. No idea why I picked up my Ned rig, maybe I just wanted to make a couple cast where I could zone out, but I really didn't get the chance. I was zoned out enough that I was fishing the bait with my line wrapped around the rod at about the 3rd guide down. When the fish hit my Ned, it was a solid enough thump, that I felt something wasn't right about where it pulled on my rod and I was able to quickly fix the issue before setting the hook. The fish stayed down and stayed down, pulled drag all over (I would have been backreeling if I'd known what I had but I was sure it was a catfish or drum and didn't care if I lost it), it made hard charges for laydown, grass, the kayak, I never did manage to see it until it may a fast dart across the surface and I saw a bronze colored back but it registered as a big drum in my head. It wasn't until the dang thing was finally jumping probably close to a full minute into the fight that I realized it was actually a very solid smallmouth, which was in the net seconds after I discovered what it was. That left my small fish as a 15" largemouth, and I'm pretty sure I caught one bigger in the morning that I didn't measure, for a total of 94.5" which is my new PB 5 fish bag from the kayak. Needed that 1 more big bite and it could have really been a special day. I wish I could say I learned something for the tournament day, but I really figured out was if I made enough cast, eventually I ran into a fish.

The best pieces of cover/structure are going to hold the most fish. A lot of times, there will be one or multiple directly on or in it, with more close by. So if you a fish leaves the prime part of that area, a new one could very likely move in and take it's place quickly.

Welcome!

I went fishing on the 3rd and everyone actually acted like sane human beings, that was pretty crazy.

Depending on how uneven it is, it might not be an issue. Seems a lot of spinning reels tend to be a bit top heavy on where they like to lay line, but still function fine. Obviously, there's a limit to where it's no longer fine though. You might try using it a little and see if it seems to be a problem or not.

I was flipping thick water willows and felt a hard bite, I hammered him with that 7' 3" heavy rod, 50lb braid, and 5/0 flipping hook. Couldn't believe it when that's what I yanked out of the grass.

Well that's a first.

I mean the fish comes with it's own handle. A flathead's lower jaw is basically just a handle to grab them by. I've got a huge net in my boat, might have been able to fit that thing in there and it does have a lift assist on it for picking up big fish, but I just grabbed it by the jaw instead of risking breaking my net. https://www.frabill.com/nets/by-series/trophy/trophy-haul-power-extend

I've only had to go through Okuma's CS once despite owning many of their products, but the experience was excellent.

I've got about 4 1,000 packs of hooks to go along with a couple 3,700's full of jig hooks. It still never seems like I have the ones I need.

I like it around spawning bluegill and docks. Gives them something a little different to look at than a popper.

Yes, you can, but make sure you lob cast instead of whipping or snapping the rod so you don't add any additional strain to it.