Randall

My guess would be upper sixtys for water temps. It can vary a lot though depending on the weather. In that part of north GA the air temps are up and down until you get into May.

Huddleston Deluxe ROF 5 in the 6 inch and eight inch is what I fish there. Mattlures makes a small trout bait that is good there also. Mattlures also has a new larger trout bait but I haven't fished it yet.

I would have a big slow sinking 8 inch trout swimbait as well. That's what the big ones there eat. Lots of big largemouth in the lake as well. Should be a good time to sight fish for bedding fish.

Ben, go with George Welcome. I would never ever consider going with the guy you asked about myself. Some of my clients have fished with both and I often hear the good and the bad about most guides. I have heard nothing but good about George. Can't say that about some others.

I will throw them anytime the water is over 48 degrees. My favorite time and conditions would be midday , bright sun, with 80 degree water with a slight breeze blowing. Under these conditions I usually fish it fast and cover a lot of water.

X2 I have also glued and removed the lead and steel balls and used other quieter things to add weight.

I use a low power unit (Eagle Cuda) most of the year for this reason. I think it makes a difference at times. When I fish deeper water I go to a more powerful unit Eagle 480 since I don't think it matters as much in deep water. If I don't need them to catch the fish I turn them off.

My favorite for bass, hybrids pickerel and stripers is called a crease fly. You can fish it like a pop-r type bait and skip it along the surface at faster speeds. A lot of fun on schooling fish feeding on shad.

I was disapointed in the bait. Little action, dull hooks and I could think of other baits to throw in the same situations that were better.

Other than a swimbait like a Mattlures Bluegill when bass are chasing away Bluegills or other swimbait that looks and swims like a fish I have rarely seen the type of bait matter much as far as getting a strike because of the way the bait looks or what it imitates. It's all about the angle that the bait is fished and the fall rate of the bait and retreive matching the mood of the fish. Alll bass aren't the same or in the same stage of the spawn so no one thing works for all fish.

My best tactic for big bass in clear lakes with hydrilla is to fish a hard swimbait like a Triple Trout, Mattlures Hard Bass or bluegill or sebile over the grass that is growing near the surface. Just choose the swimbait that best matches your forage. The swimbait casts farther than almost anything you can throw keeping you well away from the bass and it can be fished fast to cover more water than any other bait. It doesn't catch many giant bass over eight pounds for me fished this way but the number of four to eight pound fish I catch is way up there. There is no other bite more fun than this bite since the fish will hit the bait burned on the surface hard. For either flipping/pitching or fishing the swimbait target any areas with holes or scattered patches of grass. The fish rarely use the thickest grass unless it is a thick mat with space for the fish to live underneath.

For swimbaits the six inch Storm Kickin' Minnow is way underrated. It catches big bass for me on almost every lake I fish but most who use swimbaits overlook it.

Get in touch with Warren Barnes. He is a friend of mine that guides on Weiss. Whether he is the guide you are using or not he can tell you when the fishing is generally good. www.warrenbarnes.net

Looking forward to the new shows. I will be watching in HDLunkervision.

I agree. Here are two fish from that school that I posted the photo of. We also had one larger than these that broke off at the boat as well. All caught on the spoon.

You can take the larger sizes and drill a hole in the lip right in the center of the most forward part. Add a split ring to the hole and it wakes right on the surface with better action.

If you want a bait that small I suggest a sebile. It's the only small swimbait that's held up for me. It will also wake at faster speeds much better than the TT. The figure eight wires that hold the joints in the TT get lose after a few good fish and the bait want's to roll and come out of the water when it's waked since the joint's aren't lined up properly. The 95 size Sebile is deadly waked on the surface and you can't make it roll or blow out of the water.

In summer, fall and winter when the fish are stacked up often I don't use a bait or lure so much to cover deeper water but just use my electronics to scan deep water spots. I can ride over a spot in a few minutes and tell if its worth fishing. I covered a few miles of a Lake Horton yesterday under trolling motor power just riding over deep water areas yesterday and found only two spots of probably thirty I went over to hold active fish. When I found them I already knew I would get bites and could fish a slow moving lure on more specific spots since the depthfinder looked like this. Most of the fish in this school were crappie but we hooked two big bass and a few small bass out of it as well. If the fish are more scattered in deep water a heavy jig, big spinnerbait, swimbait or a crankbait are my favorites.

My advice is keep the rod you have and change to a single larger 2x Owner (4X is a little over kill and doesn't penatrate as well for me) on just the front treble. Just leave the rear treble off. EWG's miss way more fish but hold better. Round bend hook more fish but lose a few more in the smaller sizes. Upsizing to a size 1 or 2 hook on the front takes care of this problem. Since you have what many people use for a swimbait hook on the trap you can reel the fish in like a swimbait fish with a swimbait rod. As for my feelings on long and short shanks short shanks have an advantage in the way I see them. The longer shanks on long shanks can be used as a longer lever with more power to pry lose in some situations where a fish turns away, rolls, etc. Just think of your line and hook eye just out side the mouth of the fish with a point of the hook set into the jaw bone area as you pull your line behind the fish as it pulls away. The longer hook acts as a lever to free the point that is in the fish when pulled in this direction. I always use the shortest shank possible for this reason.

Take the zoom ultravibe and attach a fat albert grub tail by melting with a candle or by using mend it glue.

I hate to hear that. > :'( I grew up fishing Fontana and still do from time to time. I am afraid it's over soon for the smallmouth. I saw them take over Chatuge and Chatuge was a much better lake when the spots weren't there. On the bright side it wasn't long until someone put bluebacks in Chatuge and I am sure they will eventualy find there way to Fontana when everyone gets tired of catching ten inch spots. If it helps any the last place you could catch any Smallmouths in Chatuge was a steep rock wall offshore that droped into eighty feet of water which Fontana has way more of than Chatuge . For some reason they lasted longer there than other parts of the lake. For the most part Smallmouth and Spots like the same areas and depths. Biggest difference to me between the two is that smallmouths seem to bite better when the sun is out where spots feed better early and late. Any of the other lakes in the area have spots yet?

Stick with the magic swimmers.

Here is my very opinionated opinion on drag. Weights and scales are useless to me to set a drag. All rods have different bends and amounts of flex and different guides on rods are different depending on type and placement. The friction on the guides changes changing the drag needed depending on how far the rod is bent and angle of the line changes. No scale or weight can measure this other factor and duplicate the force of a fish ripping drag at close range. So, the best and simplest way I have found is to make a way to tie your line to an object and set your drag where there is no way you can break your line but you still bend the rod to near max as the line starts slipping. Don't just use a steady pull but do whatever you can to break it. If you can't break it ripping line out at close range at the worst angle you would fight the fish then no fish will either. If you are bending the rod close to the max that you will during the fight then the hooks are being set with close to the max force possible on that line. Since you usually have stretch with more line out on most hooksets you can put your thumb on the spool to keep the drag from slipping to make the most of the stretch in the line since you need more drag pressure when more line is out. Also if need be a fish can be stopped from taking drag to turn it by using your thumb or fingers to slow the fish if needed. Lastly don't get impatient with big fish wanting them in the boat quicker than they should be reeled in. I once had a guy fish with me and lose over forty pounds of fish for five fish in a couple hours by trying to tighten his drag to get the fish closer to the boat to net it. He lost five fish over eight pounds in one day because he tightened his drag. I set his drag with the method above but he thought it was too lose because he couldn't stop the fish. As soon as he tightened the drag five times in a row he lost all the fish within five seconds of tightening the drag. As far as the soft fleshy mouth and no hookset needed. I have seen a big bass take a crankbait bend the rod over get reeled in about twenty feet and just open it's mouth up and let the crankbait go. The hooks never set because of the amount of force, and lack of space in side the mouth a big bass has when it clamps down on a bait with a closed mouth. It's not even about the hooks getting penetration it's about moving the crankbait inside the closed mouth of a bass. On smaller bass the hooks usually catch more often on the way out. But with larger bass the hooks miss most of the time as the fish opens it's mouth because of the larger open areas created by a big open mouth of a large bass.

Do you have a Depthfinder? Can you see the grass on your depthfinder? Are you good with a depthfinder?

I worked for five years in a freezer warehouse. I found the biggest problems there and fishing was my hands getting wet more than the cold and I needed to be able to have more feel and dexterity where the thick gloves didn't work out. So I found a type of cheap gardening glove dipped in rubber on the palm side of the glove all the way up and over the finger tips. Keeps my hands dry where they make contact with wet items and just warm enough where the dexterity gained is worth the cold.