Bluebasser86

The ones that really confuse me is the number of doctors and nurses I see smoking. I work with a lot of them, and I swear 75% of them smoke. It just makes me shake my head. That and the people I know who are always broke, but yet they always have money for cigarettes. OP, sorry about your parents, glad to hear your mom is doing okay for now. It's unfortunate to have to be put in that situation.

Hasn't been on since April.

It's an interesting bait that recently caught my eye. I'm sure I'll be trying one in the near future. I'll try to remember to report back when I get a chance.

Do you mean straight braid not getting more distance than straight flouro on a casting reel? I'd add sink rate and visual bite detection to that list as well. Braid floats so it will slow the fall of a bait. It's also more visible so line movement is easier to see, allowing to detect bites before even feeling them at times. This really only applies to me with spinning gear as I never use braid to a leader with casting gear under any circumstances.

They make great flathead bait at that size. I've even caught walleye on them bottom fishing them live for flathead.

Winter time is probably when location is the biggest factor. The saying "90% of the fish are in 10% of the water", is no truer than it is now. The nice part is, once you find them and find what they'll eat, you can really just sit in one spot and catch a ton of them.

Winter bass fishing as in fishing for bass through the ice?

Welcome!

? I didn't even notice. No internet at the house so I do it all on the phone and have apparently autocorrect doesn't recognize the term "frogging".

Canine officers Finn and Lake at the pancakes with Santa party for my work.

Great looking fish. Haven't caught one in several years and the itch is getting pretty bad.

I do mine matte black as well. If you get it just the right temperature it doesn't seem to effect the thickness of the blade or the action at all.

Welcome!

I use to have all my fishing gear in a run down bait shop on a semi-private lake that I basically grew up on. There was a huge concrete minnow tank that we kept filled up with water that I'd "stock" with green sunfish and bluegills. They doubled as flathead bait but were also easy entertainment on slow days and during the winter.

Hmm, a baby brush hog catches a ton of fish for me each year. Unless you're fishing it weightless and it is maybe more dense and getting a different fall rate? The 4" version is almost exactly the same price per bait as a pack of 5" senkos on TW, $.75 a bait.

Last year was a drawn out winter that ran most of the way through April for us, and summer immediately followed. Had a lot of thaws and refreezing and more snow in April than the entire winter. I'm hoping for a much more normal winter and ice out around March 15th. Until then I'll be chasing my power plant lake fish around to keep myself busy.

Online mostly, but I like to check out the local Academy's for clearance deals. BPS and Cabela's rarely get any money from me anymore, their prices are just too high.

Looks like an expensive baby brush hog?

I have some Natural Ikes, can't remember if they're bluegill or crappie colored. They're deeper runners than that one I believe though. Rapala still makes the X rap shad though. Hadn't heard of it but it looks similar to the Duo, I like that.

A smaller shad profile bait, lighter than a standard crankbait, probably going to fish them on a spinning rod and 8lb test.

Are these ponds or lakes? I've had very limited success with big baits in ponds. Big pond bass are just so in tune with everything that they seem to be able to tell a fake from the reel thing easier. The exception being large topwaters like big walkers or wake baits like a Slammer or rat. Big pond bass eat lots of terrestrial animals so topwaters are a great way temp them. Tubes, brush hogs, 10" worms, senkos, and big straight tail worms like a YUM mighty worm or Strike King Bull worm are good baits for big pond fish. A spinnerbait or bladed jig probably catches me more big ones from ponds than anything else though.

So with it being the cold weather months again, what's everyone's favorite shad style crankbaits? The #5 Shad Rap and Glass Rap, #6 Storm Smash Shad, and the impossible to find Duo Shad 62DR are my favorites but with 2 of those 4 getting hard to find I'm looking for other options.

Winter isn't about numbers for me, it's when I catch some of my biggest bass of the year though. I believe our winters in Kansas are a little more harsh than what you're dealing with and as long as there is open water, there are fish to be caught.

@Delaware Valley Tackle is the man for this question.

I use a 7.3 for WTD baits, 6.2 for poppers and prop baits, 9.3 for buzzbaits, and 9.3 for frogs.