Bluebasser86

That's a good one. Yeah we caught way more fish than what was in my video. I have a secret white bass spot we probably caught 30 off of in 20 minutes before I got tired of unhooking them ? It was a great time.

The boys last day of school was yesterday. Mom had a girls night with the other teachers so we went to the pond and had a boys night. First time I've brought a frog rod out there. Caught a couple bass but there's about eleventy billion bullfrogs that chased it every cast. I finally let one eat it after constant begging from the boys to catch one. Then neither of them wanted to hold or touch it. With them out of school, I don't have the duty to get them ready in the morning, so I've got more fishing time before work. I took advantage of that right away and caught a nice one on a big crawler this morning. She looked to be recovering from the spawn nicely.

There's ways to deal with that, just like there is with a broke down, decrepit vehicle. HOAs, apartment management, and citys all usually have ordinances or some kind of rules about maintaining the condition of the vehicle. I kept mine with the cover on, parked in my driveway, not blocking the sidewalk, and the city wanted it moved or I was going to be fined. It didn't fit in the garage and there was no storage units within 15 minutes at the time. It's also highly unlikely someone who can afford a 75k boat is living in an apartment, but a 15k Tracker? Sure and that's much nicer to look at than a lot of cars parked in the apartment complexes I've lived in.

IMO, a neighborhood should be proud it's residents have the extra income to own extra vehicles just for recreation. Provided they're well maintained and not taking up extra spots, and if required, paying for the spot, I see no issue. It's a subject that I was one of the main targets of many years ago in my city. I went to city hall over it and got the rules changed from no boats in the driveway, to now you can have 2 ?

For a work shortened weekend, I got quite a bit of fishing in. Had training from 0600-1400 Saturday, but as soon as I got home, I took the kayaks and my oldest son to the local lakes for 1.5 hours to practice some dock skipping, not me but him. I went and forgot my drive, so I got to paddle around, boy I didn't miss doing that. Water was super clear and warm, sun was high, so I figured they'd be way under the docks and they were. He gave it a good effort but mostly caught weeds and docks. He did finally fool one dink right next to a dock that his Ned rig had just clanged into. I took over for him then, skipping his bait way under the floats and handing the rod over. We made several cast at one of my favorite docks before what I initially thought was a snag, yanked his rod towards the dock and jumped in between the dock and weedline. Not a monster bass for me, but for my 9 year old on his little spinning rod under a dock, it was quite the tussle. Glad I brought the net because the hook fell out as soon as she touched the bottom of it. Only fish the "guide" caught worth mentioning was a super dark warmouth. Sunday was really nice, finally a chance to get the whole family out. My oldest had the hot hand from the very start. He caught fish his first 2 cast, lost a walleye his 3rd, then caught another his 4th. He really didn't slow down much all day either except when he'd take breaks for snacks or to play in the livewell with his younger brother. His first fish was a drum and Finn's face accurately depicts how I felt about taking a picture with a drum. It got better after that. Finn had just eaten a half melted Swiss Roll right before he caught this walleye, so he was feeling it when we took this picture. I don't know how many fish we caught, but it was a lot. We caught smallmouth, largemouth, walleye, white bass, crappie, drum, channel cat, and green sunfish, so it was pretty non-stop action. Not wanting the weekend to end, I spent 20 minutes before work this morning at the lake with 2 rods, 1 big topwater crawler and 1 small homemade bladed jig. About 10 minutes into my morning, I had a decent fish just blast the crawler. Always nice when I get to come to work smelling like a fish.

Almost always. I do a lot of skipping and there's nothing much more frustrating than making what would have been a good cast just have the bait and sinker separate and ruin the cast.

Gold is a great lipless color. Seems to work really well around weeds for me, especially when it's cloudy or in tannic water.

I use the Strike King Ocho mainly. Has a very good wobble on the fall and I'll get several fish out of most baits when they're wacky rigged even though I don't use an O ring or collar on them.

Flatheads and bullheads don't have forked tails, blues and channels do. It's the anal fins and rays in that fin that are the main ways to tell the difference between channels and blues, except in small fish where channels typically have spots and blues do not.

I have lots of accidental catches while bass fishing. Drum being one of the more common and my least favorite. As long as the bass I'm catching with the bonus fish appear healthy, that's all I'm worried about. I've fished lakes with lots of species of fish and little forage where the bass and other predator fish were all very skinny, obviously not a well balanced ecosystem.

I use to catch quite a few here in the winter months but they've disappeared the last few years in the powerplant lakes. I caught my PB over 11 pounds on a jerkbait right before they disappeared at least. They're way more fun than a largemouth to catch.

Especially with any kind of surface disturbance/current.

I tie the skirt on mine and use straight shank flipping hooks. Hookups don't seem to be an issue.

Booyahs are my favorite frog and if I could only have 2 colors it would be Cricket Frog and Sunburn. Don't know what it is about those 2, but they're fish catching machines for me.

I make some big swingheads with 7/0 hooks that I fish 7" stick worms, 11" YUM Mighty worms, Zman Giant TRDs, and a few others on. Any of those should work well on that shakyhead.

90's catch plenty of numbers along with size without being as finicky as the 60 is.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Definitely a blue. The straight anal fin is a dead giveaway.

Had 20 minutes before work to make a few cast and got one on the homemade mini bladed jig.

There's a big difference in some of them. Like I said, casting distance typically isn't an issue I'm concerned about so I stick to my tested favorites, but they're not the furthest casting and I'm aware of that. I know guys that fish clear water for spooky fish or maybe bank anglers wanting to reach further targets might have tested different types though, so I'm looking for their advice.

I've used Gliss, it cast great when new but when it starts to "fluff", it loses a ton of that advantage.

I've got a big pile of baits I've found in the last month that I've slacked on sharing. Don't think I've found any ploppers but tons of shallow cranks.

I've gone to mostly straight shank for my soft plastic hooks except for tubes and really think plastics that need the wide gap. I use mostly the Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Finesse Worm Hook or Flipping Hook depending on what I'm doing. For flukes I use the Eagle Claw Round Bend Worm Hook Platinum Black. I make my own Ned heads with the Eagle Claw Pro V bend jig hooks (formerly the Lil' Nasty hooks). Dropshotting I use the Owner Cover Shot.