Bankbeater

I had my first run in with a muskie at Hazel Creek, and they will hit anything a bass will.

Either a jig, or a t-rigged craw.

I’ve had to go to the ER twice to get hooks out. Both times I told them not to damage the bait.

Sometimes you can see the angle of the line change. When I see that I keep pressure on and as the bass is coming out of the water I swing and reset the hook. Small bass come flying at you, and large bass usually fall over on their sides. Most of the time it works, but some still get away.

Some good points were covered.

This time of year once the bait is out of the cover I'll go ahead and reel it back in. While it's in the cover I will hop it, drag it with sweeps of the rod, drag it on the bottom with the reel, or dead stick it. I'll let the bass tell me what they want.

I work in a cube farm during the work week. I’ve been at the same job for going on 33 years. What I’m seeing is a lot of entitlement with these young people coming straight out of college. It’s all about parking places, windows, and keurig coffee machines. When I was hired I thought I was lucky to be getting a job.

I put a piece of tape on the line when the spool is about 1/2 full of mono. Anything below the tape is used for backing. If I can see the tape after a cast, or if the line starts breaking when I retie then I know it’s time to respool.

I will stick to poppers and jitterbugs thank you.

I’ve had pretty good luck fishing shallow running crankbaits around submerged vegetation after the sun comes up. The water is around 5 or 6 feet deep. I soak my neck protector in the lake and then wear it under my wide brim hat.

For me very clear water and heavy fishing pressure equal long casts. When the water is murky I can get away with moving in close and making short casts, but usually I have to make a long cast so the bass don’t get spooked.

I stopped going to Cabela’s for fishing gear a few years ago. About the only thing I still buy there are the clothes.

I mostly use 2/0 or 3/0 EWG hooks.

Dang that’s a nice bass.

Good job!

This is the first time I’ve heard of them.

Zoom Fat Albert or a Zoom Super Chunk.

The only difference is when I need more tension I add more books.

When I was growing up we almost always fished with crankbaits so when I got back into fishing about 15 years ago I started out with crankbaits. Then for about 7 years I fished almost exclusively with plastics. I’ve gotten to the point now where I have realized that one is not better than the other, but it’s about what the bass are hitting.

I’ve never had very good luck with red plastics, but red or orange lipless baits seem to work great in murky or muddy water.

I did that about a month ago. Little voice in my head said to pick the bass up with the grips. I didn’t listen.

2017 Camry with about 33500 miles on it. About half of those miles are from fishing trips.

After a long work week I prefer to fish alone.

When I was a little kid my dad would tie a small hook on the end of mono that was about 3 feet long. That would keep me busy with sunfish for an hour or two.

Fishing with four rods, I’m going to say about 10 baits if I can put a pattern together. If I can’t pick up a pattern and the bites are hit or miss then I may keep changing all day.