Snakehead Whisperer

I love night fishing in the spring. In my experience night fishing in the summer, the bite will usually slow down to a crawl right after sundown and pick up again a couple of hours later. In the spring it seems that the bite is just warming up at sundown, and I usually find them shallow like A-Jay mentioned in his post. Right now the night bite is decent here in DC, and the water temp is high 40's or so.

x2. Use a spinnerbait with a Colorado Blade (as opposed to a willow leaf.) It will produce a much more pronounced thump/vibration that the fish can sense with their lateral line. I would also try fishing slack water flooded areas, perhaps near flooded timber/vegetation. Try slow fishing a rattling crankbait in firetiger, chartreuse or black. If the water is 4 feet deep, use a crankbait that dives 6' and slowly bump the bottom on your retrieve. Fishing in low visibility is hard enough, but throw cold water into the mix and it makes for pretty unpredictable results. If you catch anything you should feel pretty great. I still try when it's safe to.

The rod will work, but you will not have that much sensitivity. It should have plenty of backbone for hook sets though. The biggest concern I would have with using and UglyStick would be the weight and holding a heavy rod for extended periods of time. If you're on a tight budget then that rod will work fine. Just do some serious research before you go out and buy your next rod. For $50-100 you can buy a good rod that you will never outgrow if you make an informed purchase. For a budget rod the BassPro Graphite Series rods are pretty decent. $40 and they're built pretty tough. I use them whenever I'm fishing someplace where I'm afraid to take my nice gear.

Last year I was fishing with a friend and his kids. We were catching rock bass left and right on night crawlers. After about the 90th fish in an hour I started to get hungry and slightly bored (kids were having a blast, btw.) My friend offered some Chex Party Mix and a lightbulb went off in my head... I decided to put the Chex mix on a 1/16oz. jig head and try to catch some rock bass on it. They hit the Chex with reckless abandon and I started having fun again. As far as bass being conditioned to lures, etc.... I believe that most folks underestimate the intelligence of animals in general. Life for a fish is no walk in the park. I admit that it's possible that a full grown bass may have just been fortunate to survive through all of it's vulnerable stages in life and beat the odds, but my belief is that larger fish are cunning predators who are smarter than average. They grow to large sizes by being cautious and suspicious of their surroundings and the forage that they feed on. This is not to say that they are conscious of anglers, but I do believe that they can sense when something is not right and make a judgement call on whether it's worth the risk to eat a bait. Obviously they fall for artificial baits quite often, but I bet they pass on them just as often. Not saying that I have any evidence to back this up, but it's what I choose to believe for now.

Beaver ponds provide excellent habitat for bass too. They attract all kinds of wildlife (food.) Here in the DC area we have beaver ponds that fish migrate into during flood events, this includes bass, pickerel and snakehead. I'd say go for it.

Jeff Little is the truth when it comes to river smallmouth fishing. I also like to use Slider's for that type of presentation. One of my favorite river smallie techniques is fishing a buzzbait cross current in riffles during the heat of summer, especially on an overcast day. Jeff's YouTube page is really good, you should check out his videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/SmallmouthBassFish/

I don't think anybody is going to admit it if they do have a photo like that

Ha ha... I can sum this up with 3 words. "One more cast."

Sound advice. I would like to point out that most of the cheap Asian knock-offs are initially ripped off by somebody here in the US, who then source manufacturing in China. Sorry, but I'm always driving China's ambulance when this comes up. There are some seriously superior products coming out of China (especially metals, but they're not cheap.) It's the Americans who want to build stuff on the cheap who typically outsource manufacturing there... hence they don't want to pay for quality control and all of the other aspects that go into running a tight ship, leading to an inferior product. It's not the Chinese factories fault that we settle for garbage. They would happily make high quality stuff if we were willing to raise our prices here. BTW, I love HawgTech and you guys set a good example of how to do it right. Also there is a thread on TU about this very thing, though it delves more into the legal aspects of being legit with taxes and the like. http://www.tackleunderground.com/community/index.php?/topic/24473-how-do-i-sell-my-baits-in-a-tackle-shop/

I've never tried this tool, but it's always looked intriguing. http://lurepartsonline.com/Online-Store/Fishing-Accessories/Jig-Eye-Buster.html I usually use an old hook and just jab at it (kind of dangerous.)

Off the shelf my favorite crankbait is a Mann's Baby 1-Minus in Ghost Bluegill, although I employ an arsenal of cranks throughout the year. When the shallow cranking bite is on, it's one of my favorite techniques. The BPS "The Egg" is also deadly and dives even shallower than a 1-Minus (1-3"... just swap out the hooks for something quality and you're good to go.)

I always know Spring is here when my wife comes running out of the shower because there is a stink bug in there. For some reason they really like to lounge in my bath tub.

I'd say it is. Dead-sticking really tries an anglers patience and if one can overcome it builds patience. This technique excels for me on lethargic fish in the heat of summer, especially river smallmouth. Not many folks can truly dead stick an artificial bait.

Really like the purple gill and the pink and lime colored ones in the first pic. Nice work.

One of my most productive finesse techniques is to use either a walleye style ringworm, or a 7" ribbontail worm t-rigged weightless on a 3/O or 4/O EWG hook with a small worm rattle inserted into the plastic. I fish laydowns, weed edges and docks with this presentation. It's sometimes painful to wait on this bait to sink, but it just flat out produces. This bait also skips nicely into hard to reach places, and with a delicate entry to the water.

PM sent.

I'm pretty much over the BPS apps, and I've yet to have tried one. BPS has had "Coming Soon For Android!!" posted for all of their apps for well over a year now Not holding my breath in anticipation or buying an iPhone/iPad.

One of my favorite baits of all time.

Like Dwight says, some muskie baits are heavy. A lot of non-bass anglers wonder the same thing about fishing 30-60lb. braid for frogging/punching. Muskie anglers have some pretty far out techniques.

First off I'd recommend fishing slow and offering smaller baits. Finesse fishing would be the first thing I'd try. Find out what everybody else is using, and throw something different. All I can say is throw everything you have at them until you find something that works. Just remember that there's a science to junk-fishing... you have to throw a bait for a while before you know if it works or not (e.g. more than just a few casts.) And if there's no bass in the area where you're fishing, then it doesn't matter what bait you're using. Hard to go wrong with the bucktail, ds, c-rig or a spoon. I am partial to a Slider jig with a 4" senko. http://sliderfishing.com/Spider-Classic-Pro-Head-SPCH-U-4-per-pack-SPCH-U-4-per-pack.htm

As long as the water levels are safe I'd go for it. Fishing in the rain is just like any other time except the sky is usually overcast, which is good. The fish are wet already, the rain don't bother them.

Sounds kind of like trophy bass hunting throwing big baits (or cold water fishing for that matter.) You might fish for 5+ hours, taking 400-500 casts without a bite to catch that one 10+lb. bass I think their dedication to making the video is cool, though I would never do it.

I haven't heard anything credible about it since it happened. Maybe I'll try to read up on it today. I'll post here if I find anything.

Can't blame you on the A-Rig, but I think you'll come around on the deep crankin'

If that's the case then maybe you should just buy them from the tackle shop. The whole reason I choose to make my own baits is so I can customize them to my liking. Trial and error is part of the fun (at least for me.) A spook type bait will probably work in some capacity as long as it floats (not more dense than water.) Making one that works as good or better than store bought will require some serious R&D, but is well worth it in the end when you catch a fish on a hand crafted lure. Post pics if you build some.