Bluebasser86

I haven't caught one for a minute while fishing for bass, so I'm probably due.

If the creek is an outflow from the lake, there's likely bass all throughout the creek. I love going way up creeks in search of less pressured fish. There's always going to be way less of them, but it's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

I've been ordering from China with no problems other than even slower delivery times. My last delivery was like a surprise gift to myself it had been so long since I ordered that I forgot I'd ordered it. Just don't buy unless they take Paypal.

Yeah, rats tend to knock more and float higher though.

Took my kayak out this morning to try and get a little feel for fishing in standing timber to prepare for an upcoming tournament Saturday. It was good practice, at least the kayak handling part. I had a bite on a spinnerbait and a small fish pull down a buzzbait but no hookups. Found a Berkley Bullet Pop, took my buzzbait off and tied it on. About 5-6 cast later I hooked a good puller but my 6' MH/F wasn't exactly the best rod for fighting a fish on a treble hooked bait and she pulled off when it dove under the kayak. I finally caught a dink on my flipping bait, lost the bait and switched colors. Next 3 cast flips in a row were a 19 incher, walleye, and another dink. Not sure if I hit the right spot or the color change did the deal. Left shortly after and only caught 1 more small walleye.

He was throwing it the last day looking for a megabag. His weights also dropped the last day, so I'm guessing not many fish were weighed on it.

I did a quick run this morning to a local reservoir with quite a few trees to get an idea of how I was going to handle it Saturday. It was a good call because I got a bit of a feel for it a game plan for how I want to go about it now. In the process, I saw the biggest freaking fishing spider I've ever seen on the base of one tree. I thought it was a small bird running around the tree to hide from me at first, then realized it a just a chipmunk sized spider ? That sucker could have easily handled a 6-7 inch bass I'd bet.

The multiple tugs screams bluegill or sunfish to me. They'll grab the end of a wacky rig and run off with it, and they'll pull the bait off the hook in the process pretty frequently. Turtles don't do multiple tugs, at least snappers don't. It's one big "thump", followed by another if you wait long enough as they're swallowing your bait. They also rarely miss on a slow moving bait and get the whole hook and everything, you'd have likely caught it if it was a turtle doing it. Carp don't tug at a bait either, they pick stuff up and run off in a hurry.

I posted a picture of myself holding a snapper like this once and got jumped on by someone because it wasn't the proper way to hold them and apparently I could injure or kill the turtle because it's part of their spine ? I told them next time I'll call him so he can lip it while I take the hook out ? The guy down from us wanted it to eat, I don't think a spine injury was going to be an issue for that turtle for long anyways.

I fish them frequently, but not around grass. They're great around all kinds of hard bottom, but not so good in grass or wood.

I'll fish marginal areas instead of the prime spots to try and get away from the crowds or fish the harder to get to areas. I have a kayak tournament this weekend where we can fish 2 lakes. One is the better lake and much easier to fish. The other is a maze of trees and doesn't have as many bigger fish, but I'm going to the lesser lake in hopes that the other lake will get pounded hard enough by tournament guys and weekend warriors that they'll not have enough fish left for 1 person to put a solid 5 together. It's worked for me in a couple other tournaments this year, hopefully it works again.

Black Dog Shellcracker I've seen them a lot in pictures but it's always just been "another wakebait", in my mind. I finally gave in to the hype and bought one. The thing flat out gets bit and works so slow, has a little ticking noise, is a nice size, and now I have 2 of them ?

Smash the barbs down on the trebles. That's what I do on guide trips (or just replace the stock hooks with barbless hooks), to make hooks easier to remove from fish or a person in case of an accident. It really doesn't result in many lost fish and the hooks are far easier to remove.

Top is a warmouth, bottom is a green sunfish. Top fish has the "war paint", stripes from the eye (3-5 dark stripes), bottom fish does not.

Had one for a couple months before the thumb bar stopped engaging after the cast without me manually pushing it back up. Couldn't exchange it for another because they had none in stock anywhere. Ended up with a Royal Legend Elite as a replacement (bought mine on the original release for $70 so it was a pretty close to even swap). It was a pretty finicky reel, had to set the tension much higher than most reels to avoid a backlash. It was blazing fast though.

I use an Okuma EVX 7' 5" H/F paired with an Okuma Helios SX for baits in that range. I've got 17lb Seaguar InvisX on it. Works well for smaller soft swimbaits and wakes. I also use it to burn a 5" Bull Shad for smallmouth.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I wish I could cut it down to 2 rods, but although it's small, this lake goes from 50' deep and very clear on the east end, to shallow and about a foot of visibility on the west end. There's also grass on the west end and not much on the east end. I put some rods in my kayak this morning and I think I've got a plan worked out. I can keep a few in the bottom next to my pedals, 1 in the rod holder that is the rod I'm currently using, and 2 in the backwards angling flush mount holders that I'll just have to keep an eye on while I'm out there. I'm going to look into some of the suggestions for horizontal rod mounts so I'll be prepared for future trips on timbered lakes.

Bobber stops or rubber pegs with fluorocarbon. I'll use toothpicks with braid though when I'm not as worried about damaging the line.

I use the "swim/shake/glide" retrieve almost all the time. My bait rarely stops moving and rarely touches the bottom.

Ned rig or wacky rig for numbers most of the time. When the bite is really going on it though, I can put more fish in the boat with a jerkbait than anything else. They just seem to catch any fish and fish of all sizes and it can be almost every cast when conditions are right.

It works well. I also put a small piece of heat shrink tubing over the eye of the screw lock and shrink it down to help hold it on the hook. I have zero patience for fishing a fluke, but if I do, this is how I usually fish them.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

George Cochran once said that there's always bass shallow. I live and die by that quote, at least on our local lakes. I'll go deep if I'm on Table Rock or one of the other Ozark lakes or some other lake with clear water, but even then I'm looking shallow first. Our lakes don't have huge bass populations, so a lot of them can scatter throughout the shallow cover and never go deep. I've caught big bass from the shallowest, cruddiest looking mats of grass that look like they'd never hold a fish. I know I've got a video fishing one of our weeknight tournaments during a hot night when my buddy fired a frog into no water behind some shallow grass. I'd barely got something to the effect of "No way there's a fish back there", out of my mouth when a good fish ate his frog.