Hyrule Bass

i agree with this. i fish for fun and enjoyment, and a little music adds to that sometimes. it doesnt have to be music blaring and blasting, just loud enough to hear it and be able to talk over it if youre with a fishing partner. to me saying music distracts your fishing is like saying you cant walk and chew gum at the same time. its one thing if you just prefer to hear nature and your surroundings, thats cool too. but i dont see how music can be so distracting that you cant feel a bite or set a hook or even, god forbid...think?

i have to believe its a small lake thing for the most part. ive always heard crappie will take over a small body of water. they compete with the bass for the same food, i think thats more of a problem than them being nest raiders. think about it, if they didnt raid the nests in smaller bodies of water then you would just have that much more undersized bass. in larger bodies of water there is more food and more room for the bass and crappie to spread out, i dont think crappie affect the bass near as much in larger bodies of water...

Has to do with my native american tribe, Haliwa-Saponi. Haliwa is the general location where the tribe is located now, HALIfax and WArren counties in NC. Saponi means Red Earth people. We have the largest and oldest pow-wow in North Carolina. Anyone close by Halifax or Warren counties in NC should check it out sometime. its coming up soon in April, actually theres a smaller winter pow-wow this weekend i believe...

post pictures of the plantlife in your lake and im sure someone can ID them

here are a couple threads from last year started by Catt with some good info and theories in them...

i dont keep alot in inventory, stuff like soft plastics i will pick up as needed for the most part. now if i make a special trip to BPS or Gander Mtn i am libel to buy a lot of stuff i didnt have or stock up on a couple things i really like that are hard to find locally...

i have no problem with people keeping fish as long as theyre doing so in a legal fashion within the law. what ticks me off is people that constantly complain about others keeping legal fish. that person has a right to keep that fish whether its a 2lber or a 10lber. as long as the law wasnt broken you have no right to complain, ok maybe you have the right to complain, but you still have no ground to stand on if youre mad someone legally kept a 10lber. maybe its not the best thing for the fishery, but that fish wasnt going to live forever anyways, now was it?

seriously though. SML is a high traffic lake. sometimes there are so many boats, jet skis, etc out on the lake and the water looks like its boiling when the wakes from all different directions meet each other. and many boaters ride around blasting music all day. it can get pretty rough at times though. overall though, i think it would be different on different lakes. i imagine fish on some lakes get conditioned to things fish on other lakes may not have to deal with too often if ever at all...

im not sure if music affects the bite while fishing or not. never listened to music while fishing on a boat. but fishing from a dock i have seen times where the bite changed when the type of music changed. i like to fish with live bait at night off the dock at my uncles house on smith mountain lake, play music, and get drunk lol. listening to classic rock the bite is good to great, when i turn to rap/rnb the bite seems to die, switch back to classic rock and it picks back up. my favorite thing is saturday nights 10-12 when Dee Sniders House Of Hair comes on the radio, love that 80s hair metal, and it seems like i always catch a nice fish when HOH is on the radio. the music isnt usually too loud unless its an awesome song ill crank it up for that.

because we didnt do the research for one, atleast not me. and i wasnt trying to discourage you, sorry if it seemed that way. when i travel i like to take more money than i actually think i need, and usually i end up needing it. something may come up that you didnt budget for...

some people dont purposely limit themselves. it could be a situation where ordering online isnt an option, and there arent many places with a great tackle selection nearby

unfortunately im at work when it comes on

7" powerbait shaky worm in red shad is killer for me, 5" is good too...

it will last a whole season and more without the line conditioner...

do you mind if i ask what part of the lake were you on? not specific spots, just the general area? whether it be creek name or launch ramp or something along those lines...

i agree with this. $1500 wont go far in a week if you include airfare, transportation, a place to stay, food and drink, fishing expenses, etc... And the thing is, if he stays in the Northern U.S., dont a lot of those states have seasons for bass where you can only fish for them certain times of the year? I would suggest saving up some more money between now and April...

i only said throught the gills method because all you mentioned was gut hooked. i didnt see anything about tongue hooked or already dead fish so my response wasnt geared towards those, obviously i wouldnt suggest through the gills method for a dead fish or even tongue hooked fish

i would use the through the gills method and release the fish. of course i dont even eat fish, just love to catch them. that said, even if its not an "error", i have no problem if someone wants to eat a few bass, there are plenty of them swimming around. i dont get why some people view bass as if theyre sacred lol...

LOL sounds rough, take a taser with you and put it to them LOL...

i believe Falls is a blueback herring lake, dont know if there are shad too

i would just say buy a cheap combo while youre there, fish with it, and give it to a local kid that might be hanging around when youre done with it. thats what my uncle does when he goes trout fishing in montana and such. but obviously that doesnt seem like its ideal for you as youre pretty insistent on using a baitcaster and an expensive combo at that, and traveling with it...

my only baitcasters are round reels. i have a 5601 BCX Ambassadeur that i bass fish with, its also a fun catfish reel. then for Christmas i just got a 6601 C4 Ambassadeur that i havent used yet, havent even spooled it with line yet, but im dying to actually fish with it. i imagine it will be more for catfish than bass though. soon i will be spooling it up and practice casting it. both are left hand models =]

awesome, i cant wait to get back to Smith Mountain Lake again this year...

WOW!!! that is unreal looking. what is the forage for bass over there?

theyre probably all stacked up in a few locations around the pond. take note of where youve casted and where you havent casted. once you find one, youll probably find several more in the same location. i find them like this even in the summer sometimes. cast out 4 rods in different locations, but only one rod will be consistently getting bit. like last 4th of july for me at smith mountain lake. i found one spot that i casted to 15 yards off the dock and caught a bunch of channel cats in the 3lb range with an occasional bullhead mixed in. if i casted 5 yards too far or too short or too far to the left or right, i wouldnt get a bite. atleast when i threw too far i could pull my bait back in the zone. same thing happened to me in september, only one spot i could find that produced decent cats that were fun to catch. seemed like the other spots produced nothing in the way of catfish. other times i can catch them from most any spot. i think your biggest problem is the time of year. ponds really seem to shut down in the winter, fishing them can be tough. im willing to bet you will have more success once warmer weather comes back around...