Hyrule Bass

i wasnt trying to take a shot at you or demean you or your post in anyway. but if you read the original post the guy has found fish, so you can pretty much eliminate the unproductive waters, he seems to know where the fish are there and is looking for tips on worm fishing. the questions you asked were more geared toward helping him locate fish not his actual problem of presenting a worm to fish he has already found

awesome fish. do you ever get a weight on all those monsters you catch?

interesting question. im headed to smith mountain lake in VA this weekend coming up and i know the water has been real low there. looking forward to hearing more answers as my thread in the southeast section has been largely ignored

if it really concerns you, you could always remove the rear treble hook from the lure

i dont think the where, color, depth and water temp really matter in this situation. i didnt care about none of that stuff when i learned to worm fish, his question seems more related to technique as opposed to locating fish. you could be right that he is fishing too fast though.

between the bite and the hookset the hook is going to exit the worm and stick the bass in the mouth. its soft plastic, its not strong enough to prevent the hook from exiting the worm to set in the basses mouth....

thanks for the info, and the lake level report link, that could come in real handy for me. and i always read the virginia outdoorsman report, its the best one i ever found for SML thats updated weekly. has there been a lack of rain down that way? or are they just pumping out more into leesville than normally? its a little more easing on me to know that its not just me and my friends who have had trouble with the striper bite either. hopefully ill figure something out when i get down there cause i did pretty good with the stripers down there last year trolling green/chartruese sassy shads on jig heads. hell i even caught one while catfishing with chicken livers lol... and i know what you mean about the holiday boat traffic, its horrendous down there even without it being a holiday lol. things should be a little quieter now that labor day is past and people are back in school. were the bass on any sort of generic pattern youre willing to share? also, any information on any type of fishing at SML from anyone willing to share would be much appreciated...

i like to look at turtles, as far as handling them, thats another story. i dont care what bait im using im going to cut my loses when i hook a turtle. fishing with my brother in law one night for catfish and kept getting terrorized by a turtle. we must of caught him 7-8 times and never got a single hook out of it. the thing was huge, i did feel kinda sorry for the guy having all those hooks stuck in him, but i wasnt putting my hands anywhere near it. we would be like "i got a nice one here" and pull up that turtle, after the first couple times we were like "i think i got that turtle again". atleast he fought hard, cause nothing else was biting that night with him around...

ive never caught a yellow perch. ive caught plenty of white ones to the point where theyre a nuisance if theyre a school of small ones. but last summer i was fishing a super fluke off a dock and had what i estimate to be atleast a 15 inch yellow perch follow my fluke in, it was huge and fat...

I'm planning to take another trip to Smith Mountain Lake in a couple weeks. I saw some recent pictures my aunt took and the water is really low. My uncle could barely get his pontoon boat back in the dock to lift it up after picking it up from a marina that installed his depth finder. I havent seen the water that low in years at SML, though maybe i just havent been at the right times, but im usually there several times a year. Why is the water so low right now? Also whats going on with the striper fishing there this year? i know a guy who normally slays them and takes home a freezer full caught in the craddock creek area and over by the dam and elmos cove, this year he hasnt caught a single striper using various techniques. he did say he caught a nice 7lb smallmouth bass on an alewive. Are the stripers all the way down the river arms? Any help where the stripers might be would be appreciated. of course if we cant get my uncles boat out then i wont even get to go for stripers, though ive had my most luck for stripers in september at SML a short ways up in black water... Also, are the panfish still holding around the docks or have they moved out? im hoping to get some cutbait for catfishing all night. catfishing is something that i usually have good success at when the lake level is down a little. i can usually find a good school of catfish in the 3lb avg range fishing off my uncles dock, like there is most always that sweet spot from the dock, you just gotta find it...i figure cut bait(i use bluegill and white perch) will help keep some of the smaller ones away. last time i was using cutbait there and had my rod in a holder watching it. most fish hooked themselves but one just pulled my rod more than half way over and dissappeared, plus i lost another nice one that i got to the dock but not up to the surface and never saw him, just came unbuttoned. i love catfishing as much as bass fishing, and the cats are probably gonna be my main focus this trip. though im sure ill throw some cranks, plastics, and jigs around too... but really, i just mainly wanted to know why the water was so low, and where might the stripers be at....

wow, when did people become so sensitive about fish? if youre that worried about injuring or killing a bass then dont fish for them, plain and simple. also, i dont see why people get mad at others for keeping fish so long as its done within the laws and regulations of your state and the particular fishery youre on. there are more bass than you can imagine in most waters, plenty to go around. its not gonna hurt the fishery unless its like a tiny small pond. if i were to catch a 10lb bass and someone came rushing over to see and then started pressuring me to release it, id most likely keep it just to tick them off and i dont even eat fish. now if someone just wanted to see it, id let it go. but if i catch i fish(legally) and want to keep it(legally) then i feel NO ONE has a right to come try and convince me to release it, sounds like unwelcomed harassment. i say just mind your business and dont worry about what others do as long as its legal. because really, its none of your business what i catch and keep. and i take this point of view knowing i dont keep any fish myself. just worry about what you can do about the fish you catch. i cant believe the nerve of some people approaching others asking them to release a fish that was legally obtained. it may be your belief and think its in the best moral interests to release the fish you catch, but it doesnt mean you should try and enforce your way of thinking on anyone else that thinks differently than you do...

it appears the price has been corrected to 7.95

18 inches is a huge crappie, i got one over 20 inches a few years back at smith mountain lake

sounds like carp to me

i get all the games locally on tv, so i dont need sunday ticket to watch my team play. but i also get stuck watching a lot of boring ravens games, that team just really bores me. it would be nice to be able to watch other better games after or before the redskins come on. and if i lived out of area, i would definately have sunday ticket. as a diehard lifelong skins fan, i havent missed watching a game in years, and when i was forced to i had it on the radio. being a lifelong fan, ive watched the skins win 2 superbowls and then one another i was too young to even know what football was at the time haha. the last several years have been nothing like when i was growing up, but im standing by my team in the bad just like when they were great...

yeah i tried but they only wanted to knock 70 bucks off. i didnt threaten to cancel, but apparently thats how you get a ton of free stuff from directv. just threaten to cancel. people do this every year, theres always a thread on a redskins message board i visit bout how to obtain free nfl packages...

so....exactly what kind of music/genre(s) are you playing?

excellent fish. now please post a pic of you with some normal 2-4lbers so we know that youre mortal lol

my uncle bought one of those in the spring. we used bread in it the couple times we used it. the problem with bread is it floats to the top and all the fish hang around the top of it plucking at the bread. we caught a total of 3 small bluegill, wouldve been 4 but we left one in there and he got out eventually. never heard about the onion thing, sounds interesting. so does the can of catfood. i imagine hard dogfood would float too.

ive hooked a 40+(estimated) pound catfish one night using a single live night crawler on small hook, it ended up snapping my 8lb line when it surfaced a few feet from the dock and started rolling on top of the water. because of this it always kills me when someone says they use a 'wad' of nightcrawlers.

i use shakespeare rods almost religiously and have never had a problem out of one

sounds like bluegill biting the tails off your lizards, its a common thing with soft plastics like curly-tailed worms and lizards...

the through the gills method for gut-hooked bass is great. it really works though sometimes it can be tricky. it should be a sticky on this site, so many people in these threads say they just cut the line without knowing there is a safe way to remove the hook. you should definately try it. there are also step by step pictures of the through the gills method on infishermans website and theyve also been posted on this forum in a past thread...

instead of a bucket, why not get one of those fold up chairs that come with a bag you can store them in that has a shoulder strap, you could just throw that over your shoulder. and even if stringers did cause fish problems, whats it matter if youre keeping the fish anyways? well said. while everyone is entitled to their opinions on it, they also shouldnt act so repulsed and give someone a hardtime about them keeping fish so long as its kept legally...

you should download Irfanview, it is a free picture program Irfanview is about as simple and easy to use pic editing program as you can use. the resize function is simple, preserves the aspect ratio of the pictures, and you can have nice sized pics that arent huge in file size either.