Brian_Reeves

The baits I would use last minute at the end of a day are actually the first baits I use to start defining the water when I start fishing. Jigs, carolina rigs, weightless flukes, and topwaters are generally my go-to's and will always catch something. I build the rest of the day depending on how I do on those. Crankbaits and spinnerbaits also have a welcome place on the end of my line. I really don't worry about getting skunked anymore unless I'm confined to a bank. Then I'm not expecting much anyway and will stick to flukes and topwaters most of the time. If I'm in a boat, I stay 100% confident that I will catch a fish. It might suck, but I'll catch at least one

Usually, the day before a cold front hits is more productive than the day or two after. Bass can be easy to catch during both conditions though. Before the front hits, you should be able to get away with generating reaction strikes and covering a lot of water. After the front, work on saturating sheltered targets, inside and out, until you figure out where most of the fish are. If it is a mild front, little may change. if it dumps a lot of rain, wind, or the temp drops significantly, then fish will be buried inside of dense cover or in deeper water, like Catt said. More subtle presentations are usually required after a front hits

Misery is right. Thank god I'm done with the 'working for the government' after this tour. Next August, I'm OUT!!! DONE!!! WOOO!!!!! November is the last month I will actually have to work in the military lol. From December to next August is fish, fish, fish, FISH, FISH!!

In an area like that, I'm instantly thinking powerfishing at its finest. Jigs and lipless cranks would be first and foremost, closely followed by spinnerbaits and crankbaits. Senkos and whatnot would be low, low, low on my list of stuff to throw.

screw that, I got shotgun on the couch. Texas would be easier for me, but I can probably swing anything all the way out to bama or flordia, depending on if my nazi chain of command will give me a 4 day and a pass. I'm sure it won't be a problem. Just let me know so I can start making plans. Hopefully I'll have a boat by then. It won't be new, but it will have room for a person or two...hopefully

Generally, if you find shade, you found fish. Docks, overhanging trees, laydowns, lilly pads, vegetation...anything like that works. Current is another overlooked factor. Current cools water down and bass can be found near it waiting for easy meals to float by. The other thing you want to look for is depth. When there is no shade, bass will go deep and you'll have to adjust your tactics to target them.

Naw guys, I'm good. Thanks for the replies though. I didn't mean to spin up all that stuff, but it's appreciated. I just wanted to complain what a bad day was really like lol. At least he was at the lake. I fly off the handle back in the states at people who flip out over really little things. Granted, launching your boat on the concrete is not a little thing, but it sure beats riding down a street that can explode at any given moment. Thank god this is my last tour. After this is done...GAME WARDEN FOR ME!!!! ;D

I think I'm having a bad day. I'm in Iraq and have been for over 10 months. Still have 4 to go. It's in the 120s every day with a stiff western wind that kicks up dust storms. My missions are anywhere from 2 hours long to 20 days long. Most averaging about 12 hours a day. I wear 60lbs of gear and walk through villages with IEDs in the streets and booby trapped houses. AND I CANT FISH!!! I have a lot of bad days recently :'(

Rising water is always tricky. Sometimes the bass go shallow, other times they go deep. The best time to find out is early in the morning or later in the afternoon. I'd start out with topwaters like a Pop-R, buzzbait, and original rapala floater. If that failed to produce, I'd keep working my way deeper. Flukes to spinnerbaits, spinnerbaits to crankbaits, crankbaits to jigs, jigs to T-rigs. I'd expect there to be a good topwater bite in the shallows, especially around lights. i'd also look hard for a jig bite in cover or around any drop offs. Hope this helps.

I'm game for anything from anything in Texas to anything in Flordia. Let me know. I'll be home and should have a boat by then. Maybe I can spare someone from renting

I like to run and gun once I establish a pattern. To establish a pattern, I try to go somewhere in the lake that has a little bit of everything. Once I find out the what kind of structure they are around and why, I'll start hitting similiar areas throughout the lake with fast lures, if possible.

I'd go with colorado bladed spinnerbaits, firetiger crankbaits, and noisy jigs with rattles

I had problems fishing deep water off the start too. What I did was gradually go deeper and let my baits get heavier and more specialized. Senkos are probably not the best bet for water deeper than 10 or 15ft because they take awhile to get to the bottem. Often, bass will get really close to the structure or cover on the bottem and something weightless is just too hard to control at greater depths. This is where your bigger jigs, spinnerbaits, and carolina rigs pay off big time. Don't discount deep diving crankbaits. Though I really, really don't like this tactic, I've seen it pay off more than once. Find a good point in a lake and start working it into deeper water. Cast to deep water and keep moving with the point then go around it and back up to shallow. If you do this a few times with a C-Rig, then you should be able to pick up a few.

Snag Proof's new jig looks interesting to say the least. Anyone know anything about it and where are they on sale at? Thanks

Good job young grasshopper ;D I'm glad it paid off for ya. Seeing good jig fish makes me want to get home that much more. Can't wait til next spring!! Keep it up

I foul hooked a cow once.... Long story..... :-?

I've been asked a lot recently the whats, whens, and hows about jig fishing again, so I'll put it up. Since I've been in Iraq, I've refined my techniques through studying, reading, and then experimenting while on leave. They worked well enough to put me in first place on an open tournament and get me 600 bucks. I can't wait to try them in some bigger money events. Anyway...here we go. I classify jigs into two categories. Skirted jigs (like the ones that earthworm77 sells on www.micromunchtackle.com) and non skirted jigs- soft plastics on a jighead. keep that in mind while reading further. The first step in becomming a successful jig fisherman is to reduce the amount of factors you have to consider. With the different styles, weights, skirts, colors, and trailers, there are probably hundreds of millions of possibilities. no other bait offers this kind of flexibility...or challenge. Not knowing where to start can make these lures really intimidating. Not to mention they are tough to use in practice because strikes are often barely detectable and generally you're in heavy cover. Jighead styles- I'll keep this brief and basic. There are hundreds of types of jigheads, but all you really need are 3. Standup, grass (arrowhead), and football. Standups are good for non-skirted jigs and used in practice like a shakey head or when deadsticking soft plastics. Grass jigs...I'll let you figure that one out. And football jigs are best suited for rocky areas. All three can be either skirted or non skirted, depending on what you buy. When to use skirted jigs- I like skirted jigs when the added bulk is not a problem. When fish are really active, when I'm swimming a a jig, or when I'm around heavy timber, I'll usually reach for a skirted jig. Non-Skirted jigs- I like these when there is a lot of grass or when bass are turned off to larger baits due to weather, pressure, or whatever. Jig weight- 5ft or less, 1/4oz 12ft or less, 3/8oz 17ft or less, 1/2 oz 25ft or less 3/4oz deeper than 25ft, 1oz Colors- When in really, really clear water I reach for colors like brown, green, or smoke. usually I'll go with double tailed skirted grubs (aka hula grubs) on a fin-tech lures title shot jighead. In less clear to muddy water, the first color I reach for is black. Black will work in any water condition during any time of the year unless the fish hate it that day. It's really a good place to start with and what I reccomend for anyone new to jig fishing. Trailers- I break the trailers down to three categories to help limit the amount of crap I purchase. To me, there are only straight tailed worms (trick worms, senkos, etc), action trailers (grubs, hula grubs, etc) and craws (beavers, craws, chunks, etc.) I never use pork, but thats only because I don't like to fool with it...not because it doesn't work. It works just fine. I generally use straight tailed worms on non-skirted jig rigs for shakey heads, punching through heavy grass, or for days when bass are turned off to larger baits. I like Action trailers 90% of the time because of how I fish jigs (we'll get to that next) I move my jigs around a lot more than most and I like the added action. Craws find a lot of action with me in the spring on both skirted and non skirted jigs. This is because bass are really keyed in on the little critters and I feel I can get the most out of their profile during spring time. Technique- Now that you have your jig picked out (or if you just decided to read this far)...here's how I get down with the jig. I don't like casting jigs because more line=less fell of the lure. I keep them relatively close to the boat...as close as I can given the water clarity and brightness of the day. Usually this is between 15ft and 10meters. I'll pitch it to whatever cover I'm around (trees, grasslines, docks, lilly pads, the list goes on and on) and let the jig fall to the bottem. Once its there, I let it sit between 10-30seconds and then barely hop it. Once it hits bottem again, I shake it gently for a bit, then hop it again. After about the third hop, I swim it a few inches off the bottem and try to hit anything between it and the boat. Occasionally during the swim, I'll stop it and let it settle. Sometimes this alone generates strikes. To simplify it.... cast, sink, stop, shake, swim, stop, repeat. Hope this helps.

Imagine this... Your wife is 8.5 months pregnent and your phone is in your pocket. It starts ringing just as your rod bows over. What to do.....???

One bait for all water, all seasons... no contest... black 1/2 oz jig with a black hula grub as a trailer

Woah...you're talking about several different rigs with several different pros/cons each, so it's hard to really compare. I'll give it a go though. Starting with the carolina rig...it gives a weightless presentation on the bottem. It allows baits to move freely, where a t-rig or jig does not. It's prone to hanging up....very very prone but is faster than jigs or t-rigs in deep water. Jigs are great at flipping and pitching into cover. They are extremely useful in all types of cover with a multitude of presentations that are really hard to narrow down. Fish will almost always hit a jig if it is presented the right way. T-Rigs (creature/craw baits)- are great at penetrating heavy cover, such as laydowns or submerged grass. If the weight is pegged to the bait, you might as well call it a jig (works the same way). If not, then it is a blend between c-rig and a jig under water. As far as waht to use and when...I call it personal preference until the fish tell you what they want.

Sweet. I'll have to try it on stillhouse. most guys there use the weedlines as their fishing areas, and it's hard to claim a spot without getting a jig thrown at you. I'll have to give it a go. Thanks man

What do you do differeing in 10-15ft of water?? In Stillhouse (my usual stomping grounds) we're often forced to fish hydrilla beds in 10-20ft. The only thing that has ever worked for me was working the grasslines, but I'm definitely curious to what other options lie out there. You got me curious, Catt.

I put this under the tackle section because it does have something to do with tackle...more physics but a lure is involved... This is the pendulum(spelling is wrong) method of fishing jigs. Any object that is attached to a string (or just the right amount of gravity) will continue along a circle-like path until it's travel is interrupted by something. So any lure will travel in a circle until it hits something or runs out of momentum. With that said, here we go... The object of this experiment is to keep the lure at 15ft depth. Cast distance-45ft Target Depth-15ft Equipment 1/2 oz jig, 7ft rod Assuming that the rod was put at the -45deg. angle after the cast, raising it up 45deg. would cause a 9.8 (call it 10ft) difference. I got this by a2+b2=c2. (7x7)+(7x7)=98, (call it 100). Square root of that is 10ft difference in line. So by raising the rod 45deg, there is 10ft less string for the lure to work with, leaving 35ft out there. 35-20=15, our target depth, so I have to reel in 20ft of line during the duration of the retrieve to maintain a constant depth of 15ft. Assuming that the lure falls at 1ft per second, it would take 20seconds for the lure to fall to the boat without any assistance from the angler. So divide 15 by 20 is .75...which translates into 9inches need to be reeled in per second to maintain a 15ft depth. Is this right?

I'm with the other guys. Check with whatever organization you're fishing with and they should have a list of rules and safety equipment.

When targeting hydrilla (my honest to god archrival in the fishing world) I like to first hit the grasslines. I agree FULLY with what Catt says. Short casts (IE Pitching) is a must when fishing like this. Long casts make it much harder to feel and interpret what the bait is doing...anyway. I like working the edges by pitching or making a short cast ahead of me parallel to the weedline. I don't strip off any line...in fact, I let it fall on as tight of a line as I can. My jig will usually be about 1/2-3/4 with some sort of action trailer (grub, hula grub). I let the bait pendulum back to me, working the reel only enough to keep it in my guesstimated strike zone. Works pretty good when fish are on the edges. For fishing IN the mat, practice what Catt says. It's frusterating at first, but can be really, really rewarding.