Peter E.

Oh and after you have slowed down as much as LBH told you slow down more! And if there is an area in your pond where the water will warm in the shallows try a straight back Rapala. Works like a charm, but you have to be extremely quite!

Another pluss with those old weedless hooks is that the bait stays in place on the hook and does not move! Also ook sets are a breeze! Looks about like this: /) _ _ // ) o//________/ You get what I mean, I'm too lazy to hunt up a pict.

You could use it on a swim jig but due to its size you will end up with a ton of short strikes. I would just use a fat albert twintail on my jiggs. Now other than top water they make an amazing weightless presentation in heavy cover. A frog will spend a large amount of time under water so fish are almost more used to seeing them under water than on top!

One thing you might want to consider would be to use a weedless hook with the weed guard. What you do is to take the weed guard through the plastic of the frog so that it makes a more solid weed guard that is less likely to get hung up. Another good thing about that is that one lure lasts all day like that!

YOu really can't depend on a patern for to large of an area very often. Notice I say, very often. There are always going to be the stray random day when you can throw a crawfish pattern or what ever and it seems like every fish in the lake will nail it. But for the most part in any good sized resevior the fish will tend to move and adapt to their surroundings so the thing to do is to pattern types of cover in a lake this way you can say have an over arching pattern that is spot specific. It is easiest to apply the FLP pattern to single areas or types of cover. And then after that you can know how toapproach each part of the lake or water system. By adding a journal you can change te info and have constant tabs on the lake and recognize what will happen next year.

I have a mutt i took with me when I fish on my family property. He would sit fine as long as need be and will get out to do his business, then wait on a cypress base for me to pull up and let him in. Last year he was hit by a car, and I paid $500 to get him fixed. The rocking of the boat now hurts his back legs where he got hit, so now he will follow me up and down the creek. He knows not to go in the water when I'm fishing, and does not let me out of his sight. Best 500 dollars I ever spent!

Yes as a matter of fact it works wonderfully! I use a quil float, and light jiggs like that for crappie. As long as your jig is not to heavy it works great! You can roll cast that quil float and jig into all kinds of places. That quil float is extremely sensative. I normally use this for crappie like I said but if you can increase the size of your jig without increasing the weight then your fine. It is like making salt water and bass flies, you want the size with out the weight. Also if you can find the way cut down the wind resistance, then go for it. I have caught a few bass doing this for crappie.

George Welcome is spot on, bass will move with the food source and when they deem that areas theirs they wii defend it adamantly. But their territorry is subject to change by the movements of food and also their seasonal movements. In general if food sources remain regular and in a stable point in the year their territory will remain constant and if the fish is released it will return to where i was caught, If I remember correctly small mouth will swim farther than large mouth. The most territorial that a bass will be is during the prespawn, spawn, and post spawn. Durring that time they will strike out at nearly anything, but they can be a real tough bite after the eggs have hatched. But with enough determination even these fish will bite. Mostly these fish will just move objects out of the bedding area. I once heard that the territory of a double digit fish can be up to 200 cubeic feet. Not sure on the validit of that, might be interesting to see what our hawg hunters say. Their territorrail nature is dictated by the biological calendar, competition, and character of each fish and its size. I used to keep a 40 gallon aquarium and kept bass and bream and crappie, and I truly beleive that each fish has its own character, that said they are still primarily instinctual creatures. I hope all that is clear. Peter

I am an adament fl fisherman for spotted and large mouth bass bud, but if you would please xplain the float and fly set up to us and I am sure we could answer your question much easier and with more accuratcy. You say you use a seven weight huh, I like a 9 myself. Anyway lets us know something and we'll see what we can do.

Beware the FLP Formula! F (fish)- First with temperatures dropping like that in the evenings they will have moved to the drop offs and creek channels that will provide warmth and active food sorces. Also they will take up positions close to sheltered shallow feeding flats. Though they are not likely to frequent these areas often they will still do so on warm sunny days. Staying away from brown and dying vegetationin the majority of all shallow areas that are not protected from the elements. These Weeds till release CO2 instead of oxygen. With temps in the evenings plummeting and the days keeping a little warmth, it might be what would send the bass on their fall feeding binge, and the transition periods. L (location)-I think the best bet is on the mid drop offs and weed lines on the sheltered side of points and other lake contures and structures. Since the area lacks the shore cover then consentrate on remaining weedlines and contour and bottom structure. Large resiviors would most likely provide a myriad of simular stucture types. Keep in mind shad and craws are still active and so are smaller pan fish like bream and crappie. This will playinto the fishes feeding, so it ties into the F. P (presentation)- Little is know on the actual pattern of the lake at this point due to the lack of info on forage. Try mid to deep diving cranks on the drop offs and rattle traps. A suspending jerk bait for the structure breaks o the lake floor i water under 8'. Keep a hand full of tubes and small jigs. Try dead sticking. Keep you presentations down sides until the fish tells you vertical or horizontal, then fine tune the presentation and size. Keep on the move hitting the prescribed structure and lake contours. Move from the South end Northward. Oh and good luck! Peter (FLP is an In-Fisherman, idea and I use it religiously)

Carolina rig with big trick worms, trust me.

Here goes my lake tactics: Rattle trap along the drop offs. Spinner bait in the sheltered areas of the lake that still have green vegetation. And jigs and Paca Craws in the creek channels. Meduim diver with rattles for the change up with the rattle trap. Fishing all of it slower and with lighter weight on the jigs and soft plastics when wind allows. Creeks and small rivers: TUBES! Man I cannot even say how effective they have been in the past two or three weeks! I use a larger tube about three inches or so, and I buy them in bulk at the local Academy Sports. One of the things I love is that these tubes have red eyes and I think that has made a big difference. I pitch it into slack water areas and kind of shake it, and then just hold on! Seems like every spotted bass in Central Al, is ready to attack! Great fall fishing! Oh and the heaviest I use is only 3/16oz.

I agree with Roger on that one, Personally bug and bigger is all fine and dandy, i simply love to fish, I will go for the biggest fish in the system but I have noticed that there are times that the days without any fish are more productive than the days with many large fish. If I had have been hauling them out hand over fist I would have missed something that perhaps I needed more than fish, if you catch my drift.

Now that is one h#%% of a cat fish!

In all honesty those are some of the most amazing animals!

That is an ugly critter! Eww.

Sounds delicious send me some!

That is some awsome coloration. They must be amazing predators!

Well I am going to go through this in reverse order. First will these inline baits keep their action in a heavy current? Yes and as a matter of fact they were some of the first lires found to be as such in fast currents. You may not be able to just reel it in pell mell but with the right weight you'll do fine. But due to the width of your river stick with spinner baits (R shaped) in the heavier variety. This is because they are less likely to snag up. Second in heavy current those senkos are a waste of time. Their action is severly impaired if used weightless. But in areas of moderate current they can be an effective lure. And yes the twister tail will still twist. But just a personal thought, rule out weightless rigs. Your jigs will do fine and so will soft plastics. I use 2 1/2inch tubes religiously with a 3/16 once bullet weight. And it is a matter of drifting at the right time and swimming at the right time, and jigging when able. If the current already has you off the bottom make the best of it and really swim that jig in. If you can combine the jig and drift theory. Here is a great rule of thumb, the most fish are in the areas of the least current! So you can use those light baits. I would tell you to use a deep diver to do most of your horizontal retrieves. This lure will track well with the current and against it. Rapalas seem to do well as do Bagleys, some fellows love Bombers, just do whats best for you. Key bait minnow, and crawfish. Anything else let me know.

How, kimosabe!

OOHh much have we to learn, hum, life is a matter of perspectives, yes. Spme see the glass as half full some as half empty. When in truth it just depends on if your pouring it or having it poured.

Fist off try to walk up stream, this will eliminate spooked fish and when you quarter your bait back to you it will flow more naturally by the structure. What is the depth of water? Also pick areas behind and in front of obstructions i the flow, like a boulder or fallen tree. Pick areas where the current eddies. lso pick baits that are not easily affected by the curren in the water. If you fish jiggs go as lite as possible this will make it appear more natural to the fish.

I ussually shoot for quantity of quality!

I think he is.... Oh well it is better than reading those two agruing. Oh well Idated three chicks that worked at the grocery store whan I was younger, worked good in high school, they always had cuties running the cash registers.

Let me see, I hate to think someone else may have said this, but bass are oppurtunistic feeders and they do not discriminate between free meals, they are much like in-laws! Bass by their nature will attack the odd man out first. That is as a rule. If I recall correctly Lauri Rapala said that he would watch minnows in a pond and the one that didn't behave like all the rest was first to be eaten. I think that qoute may have been on this site. Catt is 100% correct when he says that the action of the bait is much more important than the look, and tests agree that action triggers better than appearance. All men know this, if she walks good, she well.... anyway! Areas that have extremely high populations of craws perhaps might make it so that the one claw or no claw works better. The real trick is that that fish is looking for A crawfish to enter his strike zone. Let me tell you what that is all it takes, rather it has claws or not, ask the craw fish.