Will Wetline

Wow X 5!

Perfect execution of the right game plan. I congratulate you, Maine bassmaster.

Simple is fine. The jig in your second photo will certainly work. Of course you understand the importance of locating smallies (duh . . . ) and figuring out the presentation to them. You may find some helpful info in the article below: http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/135465-bucktail-jigs-for-smallmouth-bass/ Here are a couple of pics from my early 2015 season: The tying you're doing now is more than adequate. Now concentrate on location and presentation.

I'll be fishing the Salmon River next week and will post, but reports I've been reading the past several weeks have not been enthusiastic about what's going on. A few pods have come up the river but no great quantity.

That is a monster smallmouth for sure, but checking with the IGFA online the 11lb. 15 oz. smallmouth caught by David Hayes from Dale Hollow in TN in 1955 still stands.

Thank you, OFG. A professional tier once told me that "Glo Bugs get easy to tie after the first 500 or so." Having resisted throwing my vise out a closed window in a moment of frustration and researching different methods/techniques for Bug tying, I no longer find them problematic. (I've probably tied 200 by now.) Here are links to tutorials by two masters: http://loren.teamfreestone.com/tutorials/egg-patterns/glo-bug As Mr. Williams, I use two full thickness of yarn for the body and 1/4 thickness for the yolk. Hook: Daiichi 1520, size 10 Thread: UTC GSP 100 denier Do not use Kevlar! It's too thick and it will dull your scissors in no time. The best scissors I've found for the final cut of yarn is a small, titanium coated scissors. Both Fiskars and Westcott make them. And remember, even if your eggs are imperfect, the fish will still eat them if presented properly to them. As you continue to tie, the details, the finer points, will come to you and you will enjoy the experience more.

Nice, neat ties, OntarioFishingGuy. I'm a week away from this year's steelhead trip to New York's Salmon River. Here's what I'm going to offer them:

That jig illustrates master craftsmanship, Mr. Roberts.

Two fine fish.

My understanding is that an angler's Dedicated Tackle Room is always evolving. New gear comes in; old gear goes out. Made some progress with outflow last winter by attending a flea market/swap meet for fishermen. Back in the Tackle Room I note the walls closing in because of all the stuff (mostly packs of soft plastics) on the floor. This winter those will be sorted into labelled containers found at dollar stores and big box stores. Recently at a tag sale, I bought a medium sized (30" wide X 15" deep X 66" tall) steel locker. This will be the perfect storage unit for the Lee Production Pot, ingots and molds as well as stacks of old magazines, line, tackle boxes - whatever other articles that don't fit into one of those nifty, stackable plastic cabinets used for components. Once I've cleared shelf space on existing shelf units I'll have room for more small plastic cabinets . . . So it goes. You will feel, once you've organized all your spread-out gear, that you're ready for great, creative deeds in the most important room in your residence! Now . . . where did I leave the vacuum cleaner for the other rooms?

Well written report, Bob. Thanks.

Watch this video: At 5:57 you will see how little action or "flair" bucktail has. This is what's wanted by chilled-out smallies swimming in water that's in the 40ºs to low 50ºs. Slow and subtle is your effective presentation.

Fishing buddy Eric found out that the CL8 Vole worked for this smallie:

I am both house and boat trained so I'll be visiting soon to help you with your overabundance of big, hungry smallies.

Congrats on those hawgs! Sounds like you made the most out of your trip. Thanks for the good pics too.

Quabbin Reservoir as well as Wachusett Reservoir has landlocked salmon.

A 4.7 lb. smallie picked up the Strike King Silent Red Eye Shad retrieved the way I described in my post above before I had gotten any blade baits, so I'm confident they'll eat lipless cranks as well. You do want to consider the price difference between metal blades and a paint job on plastic, however. A few years back so many other smallie guys that fish the same water as I said "You've gotta try blades when the water's cold," I bought a 25 pack of bodies, VMC double hooks, 3-D eyes and #2 Duo-Lock snaps and started catching fish. Simple, inexpensive and productive (once you find a school of cold water smallmouth, of course).

Thank you for the detailed report. Wish I lived in your neighborhood. May I ask how you were retrieving the T-rigged Menace? Swimming? Dragging? Hopping? Stroking/ripping?

Caught April 30. Water temp 48º. The jig head is from Do-It's Tapered Tube Skirt Jig mold. Bucktail w/Krystal Flash dress it and it wears a very slinky Z-man Elaztec split tail trailer. CPR without weighing it.

A fine array of hawgs!

I've watched that video several times and it taught me the basics. As A-Jay said, you don't want to overwork it. Matter of fact, you simply pull - not rip! - it off the bottom with just enough oomph to feel it vibrate. And the distance is 2' or less. Let it fall back and sit on the bottom for a couple of seconds. Repeat. On one of your lifts you may find a smallmouth attached. I've been fishing blades assembled from Barlow's components: http://www.barlowstackle.com/Vibrating-Blade-Lure-P2631.aspx tholmes posted a couple of years ago that he preferred the double hook arrangement which I thought was a great idea . . . but found that I'm still capable of hanging them. But hey, don't let that deter you. This is a bait you want to be showing to smallies in the cold water period.

You took this photo from shore, right?

Last winter I came across Tim Galati's video, the same one that smalljaw67 posted in reply #3 to the OP. It seemed that foam rubber could be the solution to keeping all my hair in place so I took a trip to The Textile, a fabric store in my town that was well established long before Nick Creme poured his first worm. There I found a cardboard carton stuffed with foam rubber which I think may have been intended for use under upholstery fabric. It is 1" thick and 24" wide. I bought a length that would fill two Plano 3700s. I cut the material slightly oversized with a single edge razor blade and then cut slits spaced 1/2" apart to the depth of the blade. On the water this spring it worked pretty well but I found that the jigs did move a bit but did not come out of the foam. Of course, everything in the 14' aluminum rental boat that provides my ride on Quabbin's big waters get bounced around on days like this: To keep the jigs tucked in snugly, this winter I'll cut a piece of thinner foam and tape it to the section of the lid that corresponds to the jigs beneath. Double sided tape will work; neither epoxy nor cyanoacrylate (crazy glue) will work on a 3700. To my knowledge, no adhesive adheres to polyethylene. So next year it'll be the smallmouth rather than a toss-'em-in-a-box storage system thats gonna ruffle the hair on my jigs!

No, you're a generous man who would benefit from better judgment. It's disappointing that there are any number of people out there who will break confidence and think nothing of it.

It's unfortunate that you mentioned this spot to someone who didn't have the sense, the courtesy, the understanding that you were giving him a gift and he was not to overwork it and certainly not tell anyone else about it.