CountBassula

Oh yea! Well wish I knew that a month ago

German WW2 motorcycle with its lights still on! Fisherman 1: "I caught this huge bass, it was 50" long and weighed 65 pounds!" Fisherman 2: "Oh yea, I got snagged the other day, and I pull out an German WW2 motorcycle!" Fisherman 1: "Oh yea?! Well the bass I caught was actually 60" and pushing 75 pounds!" Fisherman 2: "No way! The motorcycle I pulled was still in working condition and it's lights were still on!" Fisherman 1: "OK OK, I'll trim 15 pounds off my bass, but you have to turn the light off!" Old Polish fishing joke

This is my Jig. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without my jig I am nothing. Without me my jig is nothing. Am I doing something wrong here?!?!?! I've been trying to learn the jig for bass fishing here in S. FL. (I know, I picked the worse time of they year to build up confidence in a lure I've never used before; LOL while CRYING). I've only caught 3 fish so far, 2 small ones and one that was 18" inches and around 3-4lbs. I've tried a variety of craw fish trailers in black, brown, green, blue, and red colors with somewhat matching skirt colors, and some not matching at all. I only got one bass and one snakehead on a light brown jig with same colored craw fish trailer. So I figured I'll change things up and use worms and swim baits on my jigs (see pics attached). When I work my jig I drop it at the canal's edge right on the weed line if there is one, let it drop and wait 5-10 seconds, then I twitch it, pause, roll it slowly, twitch it, pause, etc, etc. I've tried anything and everything I can, and I just can't seem to catch a lick on those darn things!!! Agrrr super frustrated now. I fished for 2 hours today and not even a bite (I used the black/blue worm as jig trailer today, see the pic below, and last week I got a bass on a swim senko trailer LOL). Also, I did get that classical thump bite once, but lost her. Other times when I caught bass on a jig I just sort of felt some resistance on the line so I set the hook and there she was. I also noticed that when I slowly drag the jig on the bottom it will sometimes get hanged up on something, and I have no idea if it's a fish or what, so I just keep some tension on the line and wait... sometimes it will get slack on it's own and sometimes I have to yank it. No idea if I caught a stick fish or a bass fish Oh, and sometimes I suddenly feel like my jig hit a power drill, there's this sudden and very fast kind of vibration on the line and rod that I can feel, kind of like touching a blender with your rod or something, and then it stops a second later; is that a fish or my jig sliding down a rocky bottom?!?!?!?!? /Rant Off/ Any suggestion(s) highly appreciated!

BURN THE WITCH!!! LOL J/K!!! Use whatever feels best to you and gives you most confidence!

before you do anything, clean out your bearing first. i did that on my shimano curado and it almost doubled my casting distance when using 50# braid and a hollow body frog...

I've only been bass fishing for a year or so, and when switching to baitcasters I picked up 3 shimano rods (2 compre and 1 crucial) and 3 shimano reels (citica, curado, and chronarch). i love them all. i used to fish with hurricane rods and shimano spinning reels before, and also loved the hurricane rods. now i'm thinking about another chronarch/crucial setup, so my brand loyalty comes from good experience with the other 3 i have...

i ordered 4 earlier this week, can't wait to get them

hmmm, with properly adjusted breaks and spool tension i don't touch the spool until AFTER it hits the water, but withing 1/2 second or so. if i need extra distance i release all spool tension and then i have to watch the spool, depending on the lure and how i cast i may need to thumb it a bit.

Oh there is something I can throw... DYNAMITE!!!!!!!

the gators or the hoodlums when i pull my .45 out? LOL JK

wish i didn't have to in fact, but world being what it is, it already saved my behind twice in last 7 years since moving to FL...

in fact, i pack heat almost everywhere i go sooooo it's a lifestyle choice

i actually like the smell of fish, just as i like the smell of gun cleaning products on my hands, but for my wife's sake i wash my hands with soap and it takes care of most of it...

Let's just say that when I die I hope my wife does not sell all my fishing gear for what I told her I paid for it I'm well into 4 digit territory so far this year and there's no end in site...

it depends on how i'm fishing. if i'm throwing my confidence lures and I don't get a bite i know it ain't me. but being who i am, i get bored of using the same lure / technique all the time so i try to learn new ways to catch fish. when i started top water frogging i would go out for 8 hours with LgMouthGambler and i would watch him in frustration catch fish after fish while i got totally skunked or hooked ONE in 8 hours while he hooked 30. now given it's the hardest time in FL to catch bass, or so i'm told, i also decided to learn the jig. 3 days ago i landed a 19" bass on it and was very satisfied even though I only got 2 fish in 3 hours. last night i went out again with a jig, got 1 small bass after over an hour, and then hooked a nice 5.2lbs snakehead (see the FL tournament thread) and i actually got really mad that i got this stupid snakehead! see when i used to target snakeheads this would have made my day, but now i want to go after bass again, and literally seeing the fish hit my jig with a craw trailer right as i was about to pull it out of the water was the crappiest feeling in a long time! i now i shouldn't be complaining, i landed a nice fish, but I was REALLY trying HARD to catch bass and it felt like catching trash fish instead. so bommer i think as i progress in the hobby and get better at different techniques it will bother me less when i get skunked. but trying to learn a new technique for few weeks now (jigs) and so far catching total of 3 bass on it, i feel extremely frustrated

yea i had a feeling i may need to try a senko again i used to fish a lot of flukes in the past, perhaps i need to give this a try as well...

I've only see gators twice I think. One time I believe i saw a baby gator pop it's head up about 30 feet from me in the middle of a canal. the other time i think there was one in the turnpike retention pond, but i may be wrong. never had a problem with them, but i do pack heat when i fish, just in case

it's rough! and on top of everything else i'm learning the jig, and looks like i picked the worst time possible to learn a new lure... because I don't know if it's me that sucks, or just the conditions in general. i'm fishing the same spots that produced 10+ 5lbs fish in any given outing 6 months ago...

I've given it all I've got. Frogs, lizards/swim baits, and now jigs, and I just can't catch the same amount and size fish I was catching 3-6 months ago Am I this bad, or is this really the hardest time to catch bass in S. FL.??? I can only go fishing in the evenings, around 5-8pm, and it's been soooooo slow lately. Today I was jigging and got 1 bass and 1 snakehead in 3 hours of fishing. Not even any missed bites, just those two flukes... HELP!!!!

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/122812-florida-bass-club-august-tournament-aka-old-fl-bragging-rights/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VopC0g5UViM

i'm known to think about it for days before i go again

well since i started the last two, i might as well start a 3rd one i think the rules will be the same, top 5 lengths win. i have no problem with ninjas jumping half way through with 5 fish that make us all roll into fetal position and suck thumbs LOL maybe a newcomer will keep us on our toes! the more people the better! sharing time of day, general location, lure is all fine with me, but not a necessity of course; some keep their cards closer to their chest and that's fine with me in 3 days i'll fire up the August tournament... until then, i have 3 days left to show AK-NJ1986 who boss is

tell me about it!!! i went out saturday and sunday evenings and i'm covered in hug bite marks! its itches sooooo bad!!!!

so you fished about a mile form my house that spot at the end of Royal Palm sucks! it gets a bit better when the canal turns north but still sucks