scaleface

You're lucky to be alive . I was fishing 1/4 ounce tubes at Bull Shoals , there was a thunder storm approaching and I was trying to get one last cast in . As the tube was sinking , there was a big arc in my line heading skyward . I got off the water immidiately .

I was trailering my boat to a tournament . It was dark and a deer ran out in front of me . I hit the brakes and a second deer jumped in my boat . I came to a complete stop and saw it flop to the highway through my rear view mirror . I put the van in park and got out , the deer was gone . There was blood and hair all in my boat and the upholstery had several rips and holes from the deer's hooves . side note , I limited out and placed 2nd .

Clitty creek and Beaver creek look pretty good . Dry fork not so much .

A bomber Speed shad ?

Like others have said I seek out steep sunny banks . I fish slow. Jig n pig , short arm spinnerbait , even cranks but everything is slowed down to a crawl .

I thought you had a Redfish at first glance .

I dont replace the hooks on any of my new crankbaits unless they become damaged .When I do replace them I use inexpensive round bend VMC or Mustad . Most old lures had terrible hooks , sometimes even equipped with aluminium. Some lures , like the Rebel Deep Wee R or Rogers Big Jims had the hook eyes to close to each other and regular hooks become tangled . I switch to short shanks on those . I sharpen trebels too . Maybe one day i'll make a video. I use the diamond file on a leatherman . Put the file inside the bends , place the index and middle fingers on the outside of the two points touching the file and gently press down .I then use a back and forth motion . Then keep rotating the points until they are all sharpened . They can be done on the other side too ,sharpening the outside with your fingers on the inside ..

It floods often , usually at least once a year and when it floods it gets muddy .Sometimes the water stays high for more than a month , sometimes all spring and summer . If theres a hump that tops out at 15 foot , then it raises 25 foot, thats 40 foot of muddy water ,much too deep for bass in this lake . When the water goes back down the bass have no way to follow it out . There are two humps in particular that I have never caught a single bass on . The other species roam open water in schools more that bass and they will find and occupy the spots .

This is very true on my home lake , a flood control reservoir . Structure like a hump that has no route to the shallows , will rarely have bass . The bass just dont have time to find it and habituate it before the next muddy water flood hits . These places will still hold crappie , white bass and channel cats . Bass can be caught deep but there has to be that route for then to relate too . Now on another smaller lake I fish often , there doesnt have to be that route . The water "never" fluctuates more than a couple of feet and if there is good structure or cover bass will find it without a path to the shallows .

In-fisherman is a good magazine . I need to resubscribe to it . I subscribed to Bassmaster for years then they changed the format to short , mostly useless points instead of longer informative articles .

I use trailer hooks on buzzbaits about 50 percent of the time . Rarely on spinnerbaits . I use soft plastic trailers only when I need to change the characteristics of the bait . Half a stick worm will add casting weight .

Get real good at fishing the bottom and deep in cover . Soft plastics Texas rigged and jigs will prepare you to fish anywhere at any depth .

It wasnt a bass but it was my first of the year . 1-1-17 at 12 oclock .An Asian carp caught on a Roadrunner . It was snagged .

Report your first fish of 2017 , pictures are nice . I'm heading below a dam on a small river today . I give myself about a 50/50 chance of catching something .

Strike King Silent Red Eye Shad for me . Caught the fish about 20 foot deep on a point , hopping the lure like a worm . I dont know the weight . It had the length of an 8 lber and the girth of a 5 .

I understand your definition of breaks and breaklines . I just dont call a fence row a break . I refer to it as cover .

You're complicating it . Cover would be a brushpile , standing timber , weeds ... Structure would be a point , hump channel ... A brush pile on a point would be cover on structure . I consider rip rap and rock that provides sanctuary for fish or shade as cover , maybe others dont .

My definition , no . Thats where a lot of confusion comes to play . Even some of the pros use to make that claim . Now days its widely considered that the bottom contours are structure and weeds , wood , brush ... is cover.

Are you confusing cover for structure ?

Smallmouth Buffalo are so difficult to catch because they mainly feed on algae and other vegetation . I catch quite a few in a creek that dumps into a river during cold , flooded conditions on worms . I guess there is not much green stuff to eat so they settle for worms .

Spinnerbait conditions to me but I will try a chugger and make it spit water as far as I can .

You cant jump logs with most topwaters . A buzzbait excels at it. I had a bass jump clear over a log one time , followed my Lunker Lure over . That was a hit .

I never heard of stumps, rocks, weeds, logs, and bushes referred to as breaks . Its always been cover to me . Makes no difference what its called as long as one does not confuse it with structure , which is often the case . Its understandable , a lot of the old pros used the two terms interchangeably creating the problem .

I never paid much attention to head design . I'll make some for heavy cover .

Buzz-baits are the funnest when the bite is on .