scaleface

I use a lot of different colors . Besides shad/baitfish , crawfish and sunfish patterns I like the Rapala perch , Rapala foil both gold and silver , the Bomber's with the mirror flash insert and, fire tiger . just to name a few .

I use to attempt that with the Bass Buster Scorpion . I had a hard time keeping it bubbling for any distance . It worked , fish would hit it but a buzzbait was easier .

I cant even carry groceries in those bags without them splitting . A bass thrashing with sharp fins , seems like one would have to triple bag it .I bet those large ice bags would work .

I used that a lot and black and yellow buzzbaits .

I use a lot of chartreuse but thats not yellow . Dont use it much anymore . The old yellow lures I threw were Pico Perch , Beetle spins , grubs , spinnerbaits and buzzbaits . I still have a yellow Pico Perch with black dots .

The Blakemore CC spinnerbait that I used a lot were not short armed but they did have the large hammered copper Colorado blade . Did they make two versions ? I liked using short arm spinnerbaits with weed guard and pork frog trailer . I'd cast them at shallow wood, retrieve right to the middle , then kill it . Had a lot of luck on pre-spawn bass that way . For some odd reason , I havent picked one up in years .

Ice out and the first spring like weather I like to target steep , sunny banks with crankbaits and jigs. Starting around 11 o'clock till later in the afternoon . I dont expect a lot of bites but its a good time to catch a hawg . I parallel cast med. diving cranks along the bank and retrieve agonizingly slow . My favorite has been crawdad colored Arbogast Mudbugs but they are no longer available . The Ozark anglers use Wiggle Warts the same way .

Afternoons .

I have an old Pico Pop and old Rebel chugger [ a big Pop R] and I work them as aggressively as I can . Short sharp jerks that spit water over six foot . I like to use them in standing timber during the hottest part of the day during summer. I also have Bomber Prop A's which is a Long A Minnow with rear prop . I twitch them as fast as I can and still create a top water disturbance .

It was Riverside Top Gun then the company became Yum and they renamed it Swurm .

I dont think they make the 6 inch anymore and I'm about out of them . Had a hundred pack of Tequila sunrise stolen along with other tackle last year .

I must have really bad eyesight . I spend a lot of time in the woods and have never seen a venomous snake there . Seen lots of copperheads on roads warming themselves in the sun . Never a rattlesnake and cottonmouths are not suppose to be this far north .

I like snakes .

PSHAW! Look like new lures to me . No teeth marks .?

Bomber use to make a suspending Long A . I have a KVD signature one .

Musky Jitterbug . I've all but given up on that lure . Its suppose to be this great night big bass catcher .

I've caught several big bass on that lure . I think its a very underrated lure .

I pick up things occasionally . Then I'll be out on the water and it comes back . I like fishing on long extended points and usually start either deep or shallow and work my way the other direction . As I was heading to a point one day , I noticed a lot of fish at a particular depth , it was a lot shallower than the thermocline . I then remembered a post by WRB about the life zone in a lake . As I approached the point the fish showed up more frequently at that depth . I started there and wore them out . So that is something I look for every time I go fishing , the life zone .

My grandpa was a carp and catfish angler . Dad liked catfish and crappie . I like em all . Dont know if my gggggg...grandpa King Louie the XVI liked fishing .{ not really my GGGGGGG grandpa but related according to 23 and Me.] My neanderthal cousins probably ate all the fish whenever available .[I have more Neanderthal variants than 97 percent of the population according to 23andMe] . My Great grandpa x7 crossed the Delaware with George Washington and he was probably thinking about fish in the river . { I have his revolutionary war pension records. ] I'm into genealogy and family history.

I am not a jerkbait master by any means . My best jerkbait day came in the summer when bass were just slashing at crankbaits . I tied on a Rapala X-Rap and the bass engulfed it .

I joined a bass club at nineteen . First thing I noticed was my equipment and my casting ability were not up to par . I corrected that quickly .Then hit a wall . The guys in my club , every single one I fished with were bank beating , junk fisherman . Never did one of them employ a worm or jig or move offshore . I started fishing solo , putting time on the water and exploring deeper. I had a lot of unproductive days but I was learning . I fished outside the box , trying anything that came to mind . Slow rolling spinnerbaits on deep stumps . Wrapping lead solder around crankbait hooks to get them to run deeper...But the big change in success came on that first bass caught on a Texas rig . After that quantity and quality skyrocketed . Even when fishing other lures , I had a better understanding on where bass were because of the success brought on by the worm/jig.

Virgil Ward for me . I thought Curt Gowdy would sometimes have a fishing segment on Wide World of Sports.

When fishing from shore , the terrain from deep to shallow is uphill . I like to use sinking lipless baits , that way I can follow the contour the entire retrieve . It gets expensive snagging and losing baits however. Good inexpensive alternative to cranks are 1/4 ounce Beetle spins , Road runners ,and prerigged swimbaits . Anything that sinks and moves water . Pause every once in awhile and allow the bait to settle back to the bottom . This is a great way to fish riprap dams .

A big single copper Colorado use to be my favorite spinnerbait . I rarely throw copper anymore but still carry a couple .

Spinnerbaits have come to the forefront of my arsenal the past two years because of a Chara Algae outbreak in a local lake . Maybe the top lure I've thrown . Spring , summer and fall the bass have hammered it. Been using a hand poured 1/2 ounce model mostly .