Bluebasser86

Shad rap, hands down and it's not even close. Not sure why, but I can't catch fish to save my life with the Bad Shad. Another shad style bait that I do like, that I don't think gets much attention, is the Berkley Flicker Shad Shallow. Not a big fan of the regular Flicker Shad for casting for bass, but that shallow version has been a sneaky good bait for me since I found out it was even a thing. I'm fond of the #7 (and so are the bass).

RIP Forrest.

I don't like them. Too much of a hassle to bait and set, waste too much bait, and more of a small fish technique. People here love to set them and then never remove them from the water so they're left to rot with fish on them at times, plus they're hook magnets and a nightmare for swimmers and boat props. I prefer limb lines if I'm going to set lines. I can target a prime area with a prime bait for a big fish easier that way.

How about a junebug jig with a blue trailer?

The old girl has been slowing down a lot lately, makes me sad to see, but the puppy sure comes out of her again when there's snow on the ground. She's an absolute fool when I toss shovels full of snow at her.

Agreed. I floated around some other bass fishing forums before I found Bassresource (some that don't even exist anymore). Between the ease of use, the layout, and the members, it wasn't even close.

Great news!

Well, I almost got to love my Frittside bait. Had the shallow running one in Special Red Craw. Caught 3 nice ones, 2 white bass, then got smacked, set the hook and missed the fish but apparently jerked it into a rock or something, because I was minus a bill when it got back to the boat ? RIP Frittsider, it was fun while it lasted.

And Savage Gear just came out with a couple baits to challenge those little weedless baits. I loved the weedless shads, but the price and how fragile they are finally overtook my love for them. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/catpage-SVGBTS.html?from=basres

I like both but I'd drop junebug if I had to chose one or the other. Junebug seems to work well in waters with tannic stain, so if you fish lakes with lots of vegetation it might be an option for you.

Zoom shakyhead worm in green pumpkin was head and shoulders above everything else for me as a drop shot bait. I'm not the best with a dropshot either but I had a ton of confidence with that bait on it. A Zoom Meathead in green weenie would be a distant second.

I have 130lb braid on one rod, I would not want to try to fish it for bass. You have to fish deep in winter.

Forceps will help a lot, curved ones probably are best since you don't have room to really turn them inside the fish's mouth. Pinch the barbs down too like was mentioned.

Finally got some good (relatively), weather this week on my day off. It was above freezing (barely), all day, so my guides were never icing up and the wind wasn't howling so I wasn't limited where I could fish. There's been a decent number of big fish turning up lately, so I was hopeful. I got a few pretty early on that were solid, but not big. I tried to get a big bite on a Chad Shad, and I got it when a fish blasted my bait as it sat on the surface while I was trying to finesse my line over a small limb, but she completely missed the hooks. Looked to be a 5-7 pound class fish. I also broke off a heavy fish on a Ned rig that I never saw. By the last hour of the day I'd pretty much reserved myself to not catching any big ones. Then I hooked a fish on a jerkbait I thought was a snag at first until I realized it was moving. Had it for a second or two and then it was just gone. I think and hope that I'd snagged a carp but what happened shortly after has me second guessing. 5 minutes later I hooked another heavy fish, this time it stayed hooked and I netted a 5.69. Less than 10 minutes later I got a train wreck of a slack line bite on my jerkbait and boated another hard pulling fish, this one went 5.20. I was hoping to get one more to put me over the 20lb mark, but what a way to wrap up the day!

Red is one of the main colors I've been throwing them in too.

The Jelly Worm is still a solid big fish catcher.

Baby Bull Shad is pretty simple to fish. Cast and retrieve slowly or stop and go.

Missouri recognizes them as a different fish and has a state record for them. There's some awesome screenshots from Table Rock out there of the giant schools of bass terrorizing shad in deep, open water.

Don't use power bait. They'll swallow it well over 50% of the time it seems. Even if I use really sensitive rods and braid they'll still manage to swallow it all the time. I don't eat them either, so I just use spoons, jigs, and other lures instead so they can't swallow the bait. It's more fun catching them that way anyways.

I've never fished it, but I've fished a lot of "quirky" lakes. Table Rock, Bull Shoals, and Beaver Lake all come to mind. Table Rock for sure had 4 species of black bass as well; largemouth, smallmouth, spots, and meanmouth. If you figure them out on those lakes, you can catch obscene numbers of bass, but if you don't, it can seem like there isn't a bass living in them anywhere. Figured them out good yesterday? Doesn't matter today because they're not there and not biting that anymore. They're huge lakes too that you can fish anything from a couple feet of muddy water flipping targets, to fish suspending over deep trees 50' down in 100' of water.

My "Home Lake", as in the one I live closest to is less than 5 miles from me. My favorites are mostly in the 1-1.5 hour drive range which is as far as I'll drive for a day trip.

Savage Gear 4D Pulse Tail trout is almost as good, way cheaper, and much easier to get. I won't bother with the Hudd run around anymore.

It's the freedom of movement with 2 rings that is the main benefit. I wouldn't worry about a bait like a 5xd or 6xd. I think the additional fish landed would be marginal, but the added snags would probably be pretty noticeable.

You can absolutely get into one. I (was), 240lbs and took my 70lb golden retriever in my kayak with me, plus my gear, and felt I could have taken quite a bit more. I've got an Ocean Kayak Big Game Prowler II. It is not a kayak that I'd recommend for standing and fishing though. It can be done, but it's not one of the more stable yaks for standing.