Hyrule Bass

first, throw the almanac out, moon phases and all that stuff out. i was down there a couple weeks ago at Smith Mountain Lake. while checking the weather before i went, i also checked weather.coms fishing forecast moon phase chart thingy. best fishing is almost always 6-9 morning and evening. but all my best fishing came when it was supposed to be bad fishing. granted i wasnt bass fishing, i was fishing with bait off a dock for whatever wanted to bite. best fishing was from 11:30pm to 1am in which i caught 6 20+ inch channel cats and a nice striper.

they could be on the beds, it will be tougher to get them to bite. also fish that follow but dont take, sometimes a simple color change will get them to commit to your bait. or perhaps a variance in your technique like a pause in your retrieve...

you been spending too much time at walmart

could be low oxygen, or perhaps an algae bloom. just a couple things to look into

for me, its not even just about fishing for bass. i like to catch any species, i still have a blast catching bluegills. and i love catfishing. i guess its just fishing itself. i love the peacefulness i get while fishing. my mind clears and i dont have a worry in the world, its like a temporary escape. i call fishing my therapy. it just recharges my batteries to spend a weekend at the lake. lemme stand around awhile just talking and whatnot and my back starts hurting, lemme stand around a body of water while fishing and i never notice any back pain. theres just something about fishing itself, doesnt matter what im fishing for...

lololol

im a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe from North Carolina. myself, i dont find it offensive at all. in fact many of my fellow natives are fans of the team. and i never actually heard another native american call the name racist in my presence. DC city council needs to worry about DC, they have enough problems in the city they should be focusing on. Theyre probably bitter that the Redskins are no longer part of DC other than in name, and maybe a few charity efforts...i could go on and on about this, but really i dont want to, i hate when this topic comes up honestly, but usually cant help but chime in with something. fact is, i would be more offended if they were forced to change the name... also, just to point out, it was native americans who helped the redskins design their logo

good luck finding the musky in smith mountain lake. they have a tournament every year and no one catches a thing...

oh man, i was at Smith Mountain Lake a couple weekends ago. it was sunday morning and i was just out on the deck of my uncles house smoking a cigarette and watching a boat fish my uncles dock and the one next to it. i finished my smoke and went in the house and was staring out of the big window still watching them fish. next thing i know the guy on the back of the boat is messing with his pants and starts taking a leak and the same time my aunt walks in the living room and asks what im doing. i said that guy down there is peeing right out in the open off the boat. she went out on the deck and yelled to him and embarrassed him and he jumped/flinched midstream. he was probably cleaning the boat at the end of the day LOL...

eggs?

whatevers biting, i really dont care. size, numbers, etc..ill take them all...

truth hurts, huh? for the most part, he is a good running back WHEN he is healthy....

abu rods are constantly breaking. i love their reels, but would not even consider their rods with all the people that have said they have broken them...

my leader length is 0 because i dont use one typically. only when carolina rigging, and even then i use the same as my mainline and a swivel. and also when trolling for striper with lead core line, i will use a leader then.

gotta love BPS no questions asked return policy.

tyler wilson may not see the field this year at all. and darren mcfadden, well, he is liable to get hurt just coming out of the tunnel for the game...

ive caught a couple stripers while catfishing. one was on a chicken liver and the other was just this past weekend on white perch cut bait.

id chuck a white spinner bait with a little red on the head all over the place

ive head them stuck to my head hidden under my hair and everywhere else before. never gotten sick from them or anything. even been through a bed of them seed ticks, i was wearing shorts. had them all in my shoes and socks and a bunch on my legs. my mom got bit by one and got lyme disease. had to go through a bunch of treatments. it really affected her joints and walking. she had a tube inserted in her arm that she had to hook a bottle of medicine up to everyday for like two weeks i think.

Is not, i have two similar set-ups to the OP and i often dropshot using a 1oz weight...

you should probably use bigger line in the rocks. your pfluegers and ugly stiks will handle the fish just fine. ive got two different pflueger/ugly stik combos i paired up myself. ive caught a lot of fish on them. over those rocks, you should try fishing a plastic craw like a rage tail, summer craw color works great for me. i fish the baby rage craws weightless on a small 1/0 ewg hook, sometimes i fish them on the bottom and slowly drag them, sometimes i just give it a jerk and let it rise of the bottom and slowly fall back down, sometimes i swim them at any depth in the water column, and theyre also killer fished as top water baits too. i throw this on my 5'6 Light ugly stik lite-pro rod with pflueger trion 4730GX spinning reel, i was using trilene XT 8lb for fishing in a rocky part of a river, but now i have 6lb sufix siege on it. i never tried them on a drop shot, but you should probably work to expand your arsenal and learn some more techniques. perhaps you could wacky rig your drop shot worms instead of just nose hooking them. also, you might be surprised how good those small octopus hooks work sometimes...

doesnt bother me at all. i never once actually thought right before a picture that im going to hold this fish out from my body to make it look bigger. i think some people just naturally do it. when youre showing someone your catch in person, do you hold it close to your body? i would think most people hold it out so the person can get a good look at it, you can see more detail in the fish. i think the same thing happens with/applies to photos, you want people too see the fish better and hold it out naturally. if its a worthy fish im more interested in the weight and length before a photo

if the fish are guarding beds then they may not even be biting your bait. just bumping it. i saw fishing a live bluegill off a dock once, a fish was guarding a bed under the dock, he came out every now and then and just bumped this bluegill but never opened his mouth as if he were gonna eat it, just gave it a warning bump, this happened several times...

apparently they havent affected the bass fishing in the potomac river. them in a lake might be an entirely different thing though, i have no idea the effect in that case...

obviously some of you have never dropshotted with an ugly stik. i have great success doing so. i'd love for people to tell me why they think they cant or why they just wont drop shot with an ugly stik. and dont give me that sensitivity bullcrap because i dont buy it. give me experience/skill over equipment anyday. i can fish for bass just fine with an ugly stik, then turn around that night using the same ugly stik and pull in nice catfish all night long. and it wont break on a hookset. personally, id rather not have to deal with returns and customer service reps and all that like many of you do when your high dollar rod snaps in two less than week after you got it. sounds like a waste of time and money, especially when i can buy an ugly stik and do the same things that $150 rod will do, and do them just as good without worrying about it breaking. yep, ill take skill ive previously made it known here im not a fan of high dollar rods, i asked advice for a rod in the $100 range here once, all i got were suggestions that didnt match the criteria i listed or suit the reel i was putting on it, i ended up just buying another ugly stik and was totally satisfied, and glad i didnt spend a $100 on a rod. but what i will spend on is reels, but there is a limit there too. do i need to spend a lot on reels? no. ive had great days using a push button shakespeare reel i paid 20 bucks for the combo at walmart. most all my PBs come on that rod and reel too. ive caught and landed stripers on it as well and the gears didnt get torn all out. why am i sharing this? i know it sounds like a rambling rant/rave, but its to prove my point and show why i would take skill and experience over equipment any day. theres nothing wrong with owning nice things or high end things, and maybe the owner can justify it, but there are just certain things i cannot justify spending on whether i have the money or not...