Bluebasser86

Less than 10' is the only place I can catch fish on a dropshot ?

No eyes on either side of this guy, hasn't been for over a year now, still my best fish producing rattle bait. Supposedly bass eat craw type baits with small or no claws better because they're defenseless. What's more defenseless than a blind baitfish?

This, which is the same way I fish a plopper (minus the trailer hook). The water here is just getting warm enough for topwater to start being effective, so they're probably just not fully committed to it yet. I had a couple hits on a toadrunner jr last week but neither got the bait good enough to even swing on them. I like to give my buzzer little "pops" or twitches during the retrieve, especially when it gets near or just past likely holding areas, seems to trigger strikes at times.

Almost too pretty to fish with. If you're not using Duo jerkbaits you're missing out.

You need a jig with a wire trailer keeper.

Those hooks aren't overly thick. I wouldn't want anything smaller for an A-rig. A couple things that kind of bother me; 1. why run a leader to your braid? To make it easier to break off if you snag? They're eating a rig with wires, snaps, swivels, stuff sticking out everywhere, running a leader is really unnecessary imo if you're doing it for visibility reasons. I'd highly suggest going to straight 20lb mono unless you're dealing with really heavy cover, then go to 50 or 65 pound straight braid. Plus you'll have no leader knot to potentially fail that way. 2. Keep the fish's head down. That's a lot of weight (and a lot of leverage), if you allow the fish to get it's head above the water. With not getting a great hookset, although I think you got a good enough hookset on short line, the hook might not have even been driven into the barb making it even easier to toss. 3. You barely used the reel at all during the fight and applied very minimal pressure to the fish. Heavy baits that they can get a lot of leverage with a good baits to guide the fish around the boat and maintain pressure with. Reel until you have a couple feet of line out and just lead the fish around the boat with your rod tip near the surface of the water, ready to push the rod under the water if the fish tries to jump. Just being very nitpicky. You were close to landing that fish and with time more of those type surprises will make it into the boat.

As long as it isn't flash flood type rains, yes I've done really well right after heavy rains. It's usually very fun fishing. I'll fish a spinnerbait, buzzbait, and jig in all the newly flooding vegetation and wood. Fish move up into that stuff looking for an easy meal of something that isn't supposed to be in the water (bugs, terrestrial animals that don't typically spend much time in the water).

Welcome!

Welcome! A lot of people don't add their location. You might check out the local fishing forums and see if you find anyone close to you.

I either look for prespawn or postspawn fish. Fish on beds are a pain to target if everyone can see them. If i can't see them, I'll drag plastics around likely spawning areas.

My dad introduced me to fishing initially, mainly catfishing. I taught myself most everything I know about bass fishing from reading magazines and watching TV shows and learning through trial and error on the water.

Shouldn't need to. They were biting good at Hillsdale this morning.

The Mega Dawg walks really nice and it's a pretty big bait at 6" and 2oz. It's been doing a good job at filling the big walking bait spot in my lineup and they're readily available which is a plus too.

From the Bass Blaster Newsletter thingy; Clayton W in KS won the big BOOYAH giveaway -- congrats man! We run the giveaways on social, so make sure you're there. FB: JayKumarsBassblaster Insta: @bassblaster

We're learning to tie shoes right now, I feel this in my soul.

Had to stop and see if there were any crappie still biting where I found them a couple weeks ago. Still there, still biting.

I have a 6' MH/F Lightning Rod I use in my kayak. There's some 6' MH/F Lightning Rod Shocks on FFO for $30 right now.

Slow, steady retrieve 100% of the time for me.

Great looking bait, I'll be interested to hear how it produces. I've been using a Mega Sexy Dawg as my poor man's Punker. The 6" Punker walks terrible and I don't want to give a kidney for a used wooden 8" Punker.

I keep my jar inside a bigger jar packed with paper towels to catch my mistakes, it's worked great so far. If it's hot out, and you open it too fast, it will jump up and bite you for sure. I was fishing with my wife this day, she really appreciated getting to smell it the whole way home from the lake.

Tossed the anchor in from my 2 man once without looking where the rest of the rope was. Quickly became obvious it was wrapped around the 3 rods I had in the boat with me as they when whistling over the side with the anchor rope. 2 of them stayed tangled in the rope when I pulled it back up, had to go swimming to get the 3rd back. One of them broke as it was slamming out of the boat. Also tossed an anchor out once before I'd clipped it to the rope. Anchor did exactly what it was supposed to do, would have worked a lot better if it had been attached to the rope though I think.

Have you tried a fluke? They're very similar to a jerkbait and handle the snot pretty well. I fished a pond full of the stuff this morning. Jerkbait worked well where I could fish it. I went old school and ran a #2 Mepp's Agila over and around the stuff elsewhere and caught more and my biggest of the morning doing that.

They don't replace them, at least they never have for me. I had the lip appear to just fall out of a 110 magnum fishing for suspending fish out over nothing at Table Rock when my bait popped to the surface, no more bill. It never hit anything, just caught several fish. All I got was a "Huh, that's weird, at least it caught you some fish before it broke though!", when I called. I don't fish enough tournaments and catch plenty of fish on cheaper and much more durable baits to buy them. I own one that I found that I'll fish until it falls apart. Great baits, but that lack of durability makes it impossible for me to justify buying them. If I was in tournaments paying good money, I'd be buying them though.

Welcome!

I really enjoyed fishing Wyco when I lived right by it. Sometimes I still get the inclination to buy the permit but it's almost a hour drive and almost $100, that calms my urge down pretty quick. I know some guys that really know the lake that say it's as good the last couple years as it's been in a long, long time, especially for better quality fish. It's a sleeper lake for the next state record smallmouth if nothing else. It has some gigantic wipers too.