RoLo

The next time I hear my braid snaking through the spinning guides, will be my first time. When I'm busy fishing, it takes more noise than that to break my concentration. For instance, I have a Stradic spinning reel that my wife and I dubbed the "radio reel". Whenever you crank the reel handle, it sounds like a Mike Rowe narration ;D Roger

Outkast RT Jig In Florida's salad and Canada's cabbage, you won't last long with a 60-degree hook and an upturned line-eye > Embedded Eyelet (line-eye on nose of jig offers the best weed penetration) > 135-Degree Angle between weedguard & jig forehead (Square corners are weed traps). > 5/0 Mustad Extra-Strong Round-Bend Hook (ample for 50-lb musky) > 54-Strand Silicone Skirt > Double-Barb Trailer Keeper > Double Rattlebox (which I remove) CAVEAT> The bristleguard is very soft; do not remove any bristles or shorten the length (flare as usual) Roger

As much as we hate it, small lures do catch large bass, and large lures do catch small bass. Similar to yourself, the vast majority of my stick-worm bass would fall into the small bass category. I have no idea what my heaviest stick worm bass might've weighed...Probably 1.5 lbs...maybe 2 : Roger

I prefer finesse fishing to all else, but even for me, fishing the stick worm is just TOO boring Of course, there's also the option of fishing a stick-worm on a jig, but as Big-O pointed out. there are many superior slow-falling plastics to use in conjunction with jigs and belly-weighted sinkers. Roger

I own several Symetres and several Stradics. I wouldn't know them apart without looking down at the reel. Roger

Bandit 100 (wide-wobble, fast rising) Roger

When I owned a small open boat with "bench seats", I had to do everything from a seated position. Today, I always fish from a standing position, and about the only time I sit is to re-rig or relocate. Roger

Many would argue that it's vital to "Match-The-Hatch" (an ole fly-fishing phrase). In my view at least, once the fish has seen your lure, the job of color is done. I seriously doubt that any color can cause a hungry fish to lose its appetite or spark the appetite of a non-feeding fish. Furthermore, bass are opportunistic predators that target the prey of the moment, which is in constant transition from moment-to-moment. Any reference to "natural colors" is a tad presumptuous, because no color is unnatural. As it happens, Mother Nature often combines vibrant gaudy colors to serve as a warning flag to predators that they're dealing with a toxic host. Examples would include the monarch butterfly, coral snake, black-widow spider, ad infinitum. "Neutral colors" on the other hand are very useful, subtle colors consisting of shades of gray ranging from white to black. Lure visibility can be achieved using neutral colors like black, white, yellow, brown, smoke, khaki and the like. Generally speaking, color choice should hinge on Underwater Visibility. If underwater visibility is excellent, the angler should strive to "downgrade" lure visibility by matching lure color to the ambient background. Conversely, where underwater visibility is poor, the angler should strive to "upgrade" lure contrast: Excellent Visibility COLOR: (pale colors such as White, Yellow, Pink, Smoke, etc) TRANSPARENCY: (translucent & transparent) Poor Visibility (Best to ignore hue and strive to maximize contrast with colors that absorb light) COLOR: (dark colors such as black, brown, dark-green, dark-gray, etc.) TRANSPARENCY (opaque) Anglers speak of "water clarity" as though it's the only determinant of underwater visibility, but it's only 1 out of 6 determinants of underwater visibility: Sun Angle..........0 to 90 deg above the horizon Water Clarity......crystal clear to muddy Sky Clarity..........cloudless to heavy overcast Wave Action.......flat calm to sharp chop Lure Depth.........surface to 20-ft (deeper for smallmouth bass) Cover Shade......open water to dense cover After all is said and done, all anglers are predisposed to certain pet colors. In a self-fulfilling prophesy, the color that spends the most time on end of our line is bound to be your most successful color. Roger

Audible Feeding Regardless of the time-of-year and regardless of the current water conditions, the most promising time-of-day for topwater fishing is when there is audible surface feeding. The sound of bass feeding on the surface is unmistakable, and can range from a strident slurp to the sound of a piano dropped from a low plane. The topwater bite generally reaches an annual peak during the post-spawn period, but irrespective to time-of-year, the instant I hear any audible feedback from surface-feeding bass, the topwater combo is in my hand. A bass actively feeding on the surface, is the easiest bass in the lake to catch. Underwater Visibility We all know that topwater fishing pegs the needle on the Fun-Meter, but after the post-spawn period and in the absence of audible surface feeding, it's usually best to wait for favorable topwater conditions. Conditions that favor topwater fishing are those that degrade underwater visibility. All fish are more likely to strike a topwater lure during periods of reduced visibility. Two natural factors that degrade underwater visibility are "low-light" (low luminosity) and "surface turbulence" (high refraction). Low-Light Favorable periods for topwater fishing based strictly on low-light levels include nighttime, dawn, dusk & midday overcast. Surface Turbulence The flat, ripple-free surface that often accompanies dawn, dusk and nighttime is merely a byproduct of those low-light periods, but by no means a necessity. On the contrary, the more turbulent the water surface the more reduced is lure visibility. As the day wears on, increasing winds cause increased water refraction that tends to compensate for increasing light levels. For this reason, the middle of a sunny day will often provide excellent topwater fishing. This is especially true in a choppy surface beside heavy cover. Bass are not intimidated by water turbulence, but the greater the disturbance, the more reduced their vision. When water turbulence exceeds lure disturbance, the bass's ability to home in on the lure is sharply compromised (but now of course, we're getting into lure selection). Roger

Megastrike

The major role of color is to enhance 'visibility, but a buzzbait is like a loud boombox. Colors like black, brown, dark-green and red are all good choices, because dark colors are most visible in muddy water and in low-light conditions. In clear water and in good lighting, bass do not need any help from color. Roger

T-Rig, you da man! 8-) She looks like a double-digit girl from here...great job buddy (spiffy-looking rod). Roger

A+ Buck Perry proved that point with his "spoonplug". Although the spoonplug vies for world's ugliest lure, it's a stable tool that provides control over 'depth' and 'speed', the two most critical factors of presentation. Roger

Excellent bass fishing, but an urban environment. Roger

An 8-lb trout is HUGE, you've got me beat by a pound. My best seatrout was 7-lbs even, taken in Mosquito Lagoon (Cape Canaveral) on a jumbo shrimp. Just as you said though, in May and June we'd fish the shoreline in 2-feet of water using Johnson spoons and MirrOlure Top Dogs. Our main quarry however was always red drum, and in Mosquito Lagoon the reds are essentially landlocked, but still reach weights approaching their seagoing counterparts. We boated countless redfish between 20 and 28 lbs, but unless you broke the inlet, red drum over 30 were very few and very far between. Roger

It must be quite an emotional toll to be a good Blues singer. My goosebumps didn't settle down until their song ended. Roger

I lived in Edgewater, Florida for several years, between Oak Hill & New Smyrna Bch. When the new ramp in Oak Hill opened up (about 10 yrs ago), I spent more time in fabled Mosquito Lagoon than I spent bass fishing. We mostly targeted red drum (reds), spotted seatrout and gag grouper. Roger

Nice read Bob I know you're the limnologist, and your reply triggers several questions for me: 1) Is it true that blue-green algae is technically not an alge, but a bacterium known as "Cyanophyta"? 2) If so, is Cyanophyta a plankton-eating bacteria that's generally the result of excess phytoplankton? 3) Finally, although most Cyanophyta is harmless, when a fishkill occurs, is it generally due to a neurotoxin or oxygen-deprivation? Thank You, Roger

I'm now using 30-lb Fireline Tracer Braid for all my bass and pike fishing. I used to use 20-lb braid, but prefer the 30-lb because wind knots and burrowing are virtually non-existent. In addition, slightly heavier line can only enhance abrasion-resistance. Incidentally, we're only talking here about 2/1000 of an inch between 20-lb and 30-lb braid. Roger

That's what you get for fishing at night Actually, aside from that concave gut, she's kind of svelte. Roger

Good Luck with your new craft By all means, stick with the same lures that built your confidence level. But now you have the added advantages of Accessibility and Attack Angle. With regard to accessibility, you know more about the accessibility advantage than I do. As for the attack angle, now instead of dragging your lure through "all" those weeds (and spirogyra), you'll be casting parallel to the weed-line, a HUGE advantage 8-) Roger

Since fish are cold-blooded creatures, water temperature has an undeniable bearing on their disposition. However, it's my believe that fish lack the sensitivity to react to minor temperature change, which is nature's way of protecting them from reactionary whipsaws caused by every thermal fluctuation. In my view at least, the TREND of water temperature is far more important than the STATIC numeric value. When someone informs you of the current water temperature, you haven't learned very much. Provided you have your own water temperature gauge, if someone informed you instead of the water temperature two-days ago, you would then know the current trend of water temperature. In brief, an UPTREND in water temperature is positive, while a DOWNTREND in water temperature is negative. Dean Rojas set the B.A.S.S. all-time one-day stringer record on Lake Toho, Florida (45 lb, 2 oz). Dean is an excellent angler, but his stringer-weight got a little help from Mother Nature. In the days prior to that January tournament, a bitter cold-front sent temperatures tumbling sharply downward. During that major downtrend in water temperatures, most pro anglers could not buy a bass during practice, but then the day before the tournament began there was a sudden trend-reversal. On the heels of the bitter cold-front when bass were fasting, water temperatures suddenly skyrocketed for the next couple of days. Dean was wise in selecting Shingle Creek where bass were aggregating in current, but his record-shattering stringer got the mightiest boost from Big Mama (water temperature uptrend). Roger

I'll have to give peas a try, Tilapia are almost as delicious as Bass

Curly-Tail Grub I believe the Curly-Tail Grub is grossly under-exploited as a Big-Bass lure (available to 6" long). All fish luv'em to death: smallmouth, largemouth, pike, pickerel & panfish Johnson Spoon Another overlooked lure is the Johnson Spoon. The J-spoon goes where buzzbaits & spinnerbaits bog-down. This year for us, the J-spoon produced a higher average weight than swimbaits. Roger

a GREAT TOOL IN INTERVIEWING YOUNG MEN WHO WANTED TO DATE MY DAUGHTER Exactly, Muddy I was lucky though...I never actually used it more than 2 or 3 times