Bankbeater

Spro frog for something like $10. Haven't lost it yet.

One of the reasons I like to fish in the rain, and in colder weather.

I like to fish with a 1/8 oz. pop-r. Last spring the crappie were tearing it up.

I start new excel spreadsheets each year. I'll have one for the weekend trips to the local ponds and small lakes, and I'll have one for overnight trips down to the large reservoirs. At the end of the year, I copy them both into a master spreadsheet which goes back years.

Wow, that's a bass!

I have a Daiwa procaster casting rod that’s probably around 30 years old that has EVA grips on it.

I like a 6’6” for walking baits. It’s easier for me to make the bait walk with the shorter rod.

Nice smallies, good job!

For sub division lakes I google the information from the home owners association. That usually says if fishing is allowed and who can fish there. Other than that it’s google maps.

That's a nice smallie!

I’ve caught a few bass this year on jigs, but nothing on plastics yet. Most of my bass have been caught on crankbaits and paddle tail swimbaits this spring. Maybe the vegetation hasn’t grown enough yet, but it seems the bass are closer to structure.

Crankbaits: gray and fire tiger. Soft plastics: purple, black, green pumpkin, black/blue. Spinnerbaits: white Jigs: black, black/blue, watermelon, orange/black. Topwater: bone, black, chrome. Lipless cranks: orange, gold/black back, chrome/blue back.

For a green pumpkin chatterbait I like a green pumpkin, watermelon, or green pumpkin/blue fat albert or super chunk jr.

This time of year I like some kind of orange. The rest of the year I like gold or chrome depending on water clarity.

I probably slow roll chatterbaits more than anything else.

Weather.

I’m slowing down right now. Most of the water I am fishing is still cold. I’m noticing that the slower retrieve is working better with swimbaits and crankbaits even later in the day after the air warms up.

Lipless crankbaits, sassy shads, shallow running crankbaits, and jigs.

Fishing in the wind one time I tied the anchor line to the 15 lb anchor and lowered it over the side without tying off the other end of the line to the boat. Luckily I was only in about 10 ft of water and I saw the anchor line floating on the surface as the boat floated away from it.

It’s not the cost of your equipment, but how you use it that counts.

The older I get the more I think I could by with 2 seasons.

I fish when I can get out on the water. I don’t like it when a front moves through the day before, but l’m not going to stay home because of it.

Saturday I headed out to catch crappie because I heard they were tearing things up. The lake I was fishing has a creekbed running the length of it. I ended up only catching one crappie, but I caught all of the bass along the flats in, or next to, that creekbed. The largest was a little over a pound, but I had a blast on that light tackle.

I'd be using a weightless finesse worm or a weightless Senko.

I go fishing when I can. I worry about the wind when I get on the water.