scaleface

Im waiting for the answers too. I have rarely fished those depths in my region. I would have to try a Rocket Shad or bladebait simply because that is what I have.

I dont have any favorite fall colors. That being said this year I caught a lot of fish on a yellow, not chartreuse ,crankbait. I have a gold foil Fat Rap and smallmouth bass pattern Model A that have produced good in years past. Top waters I use black the most. Worms the same as summer. Browns, greens, purple work well. I dont think these colors are better than others, they are just the ones I have had success with so I continue to throw them.

What Bankbbeater says.

I have never had a spinnerbait that stood out above the rest. I have had some that were not very good. I like my spinnerbaits compact. A lot of them have wire arms that are too long , like the 3 packs at WalMart. A local Store sells some good baits with ball bearing swivels, quality skirt, good paint jobs on the head for a dollar fifty.They work real well. The Strike King Spin Dance is a good lure.

I have one but have never used it.

I do it when I walk down to the pond. Sometimes I will have an extra lure in a pocket.

A picture of my Spalding spinner. It has a baseball logo on it. Brass, I think its from 1885. Its rare .I dont know its value because I cant find one like it on the web.

Another question. Did you fish up in the channel with no luck or just fished the mouth?

What were you throwing?

A few years back , I did a lot of bass fishing below a dam in the winter. This place is heavily fished by all sorts of anglers. It was slow fishing but usually managed to catch some. When the fishing is slow like that one does a lot of experimenting. My most successful lure was a smoke grub on a black jig head, with white eye and black pupil. Other jig heads did not get near the bites. My uncle, who fishes the same water , talked with me and he said the exact same thing. The jig heads had to have a prominent eye to get bit. Now I try to have an eye on most my lures. I even go as far as adding them to bullet weights with nail polish. I don't paint the entire sinker just add eyes. Do you gentlemen think eyes are a very important attractor or not?

One more thing. If catching heavily pressured bass was easy, Id be a Pro fisherman. Bass are ridiculously easy to catch,fishing pressure is a game changer. Try to be creative, think outside the box. Learn to enjoy the sport even if you are not catching fish. The bites will come.

Personally ,I try to keep my baits natural looking on a heavily fished reservoir. No loud colors, or rattles. By September the fish have lockjaw . Spinnerbaits , for instance. I dont necessarily go light weight, because I still want them to drop but I will go with dull , or clear skirts with flake and a small blade. No braids. Braids are easy for fish to detect. I stick with mono. Green line camouflages well in my water. Im not convinced that floro is invisible. I can see it just as plain as mono in an aquarium. Long cast help. If you dont need it, turn off the sonar. Try to be stealthy.Fish still have to eat.

I had them and use to stock native fish in it. Bass, Bluegill, Sturgeon, Drum, Crappie ,Channel Cats, bullheads,Crawdads all shared the aquarium and most of the time were not good mates. The bluegills actually sucked the eyeballs out of the sturgeons . Every time Id introduce a new fish Id also introduce a new parasite. Then I stocked it with different minnows. Darters , Top minnows , and others. It was fun but a pain to keep clean. Now it has a plant growing in it.

Complete bicep tear. Fishings done for the year.

Whatever works for worms.I like Electric Blue a lot.

I can see a big rack reflecting the sun rays. Looks massive to me.

I bought a rapala digital scale when they first came out. It was off by about a lb. A four lb fish would weigh five.

^ Man, those are the fattest smallmouths.!! ^

I dont know what the water temp was , but about 30 years ago, late in the fall ,a during a snow storm, bass were in the back of a cove gorging on shad. I caught them on a buzz bait. Havent repeated that day since.

I Texas and Carolina rig them . Lizards are great. In the late 80s I pocketed about five thousand dollars in small time, local tournaments, using texas rigged lizards deep on points. I always felt they caught quanity and quality of fish.

Reelfoot is on the other side of the state. Once you get settled plan on fishing it just once. That is one weird lake.

My smallmouth fishing has been in streams. My top five would be Jig and craw Plastic craw Half a Wave Tiki Stick on a jighead Buzzbait Popper

Well, butt boogers! I wont be adding more pics to this thread. Bowling last night, something snapped in my right bicep. The muscle looks to be torn in half.I wont be fishing for a long time.

I fish a river that floods quite often. Its below a flood control reservoir and the Corp floods it unannounced. It gets high with a lot of current.The best places I have found is any creek or ditch intersection.These fish are use to flooding though, your fish may behave differently.

This is just my experience. I find the later the season the more I have to stray away from power baits. The fish become lure shy. I use small spinnerbaits , neutral colored skirts or even clear with flake and a single small willowleaf. Rattleless cranks. Worms and jigs of course. Sometimes I will retrieve the spinnerbaits very fast so the fish dont have time to study it. They often just hammer it. Dont be afraid to think out of the box. If you want a lure to do a certain thing , figure out a way to do it. Dont copy other anglers or pay attention to fishing reports, just go fishing.