Hellbenderman

It is truly unfortunate that the Elite and Classic programming will remain in the hands of those who could care less. ESPN coverage is short on....well...coverage...but what the hell, I can watch a bunch of guys who are ghostly pale from lack of sunlight play poker any time night or day. It was a sad day when ESPN stepped in, and it has only gotten worse.

Great video, especially the explanation about the bowed belly on the frog and keeping the frog upright. It helps. That said, I found it far too easy to flip the frog or have it spiral and roll over and over. Even with the heaviest EWG 5/0 hook I could find the problem still persisted. I solved that problem by using a Gamakatsu 5/0 EWG 58415 shank weighted 1/8 or 1/4 ounce hook. The extra weight keeps the frog upright at the highest retrieve rate, it casts farther, and can be used very successfully under the water. It's very nice to work over a weed bed that may be in 8-10 feet with the weeds about 4 feet down. Just stop reeling and let it it fall into the weeds. Then work it back up...a slow yo-yo, or just yo-yo it across the tops of the weeds. I will never fish a frog again without a shank weighted hook. It really expands its surface performance and its capability beyond just being a top water gurgler.

It is a well know fact that bass like cheese. For some the debate still rages, but as for me, I have seen cheese make the difference in too many situations to discount its effect on sluggish bass, especially after reading the research by well know ichthyologist and part time transvestite, Dr. Slim Notion. It's a well known secret that Kevin Van Dam orders his Edam from an exotic cheese house in Amsterdam. I should argue with KVD? Brian is being modest, having long ago made the connection between bass and cheese, he delights in playing coy. His secret is using aged cheese wiz...stuff was 10 years old. You can pretty much fill your hollow baits with any number of cheeses, though soft cheeses work best. Below, in five easy steps, I show you everything you need to know about tube cheesing. My cheese of choice tonight is Olancho Brand Queso Fresco. Let me know how this works out for you.

Hello cBooms. I share your pain. However, 16 is not far away and then, your parents willing, you can drive! The day after I got my license, I drove to Thurmont and went trout fishing...all by myself! There is a lake I have fished for a long time, but almost every time I go out, I find something new. I am sure there are things you have missed or passed over at your local spots? Until you can get up and go, really learn what is right in your back yard, try some new techniques, new lures. Explore...map a shore line by counting down a weighted worm, i.e., it took 15 seconds to reach the bottom in front of the tree, but fifty feet to the right, only 7 seconds, so there is a hump or a drop off right there. You can chart a whole shoreline and get a better idea what it looks like under water. This way you can eliminate a lot of featureless shore and spend more time fishing more productive structure. Sheeeesh....blah, blah, blah. Anyway, nice to meet you, and I only wish I was 14 again!

This is ridiculous. Where is everyone? Brian and I got out last week and he got a bunch off a point that I was sure was going to hold some big fish, but sorta didn't. That said, Brian caught a bunch of 2lbs off that point, six or seven anyway. I'm pretty sure he was using Cheese-Wiz stuffed into small tubes. I was using some old Brie and didn't fare as well. I should have realized these were American fish and put that Frenchy cheese in the trash. We live and learn. Wed. I was supposed to meet the wife after work and do a little conjugal fishing, but at the last moment she sprayed herself with "Wife Away" and couldn't make it. Darn. So, I just wandered off by myself and had a great evening, finding some big ones, up to 5 lbs, in areas I thought might be too shallow. Following Brian's lead last week, I switched to Cheese-Wiz, and it proved to be the difference; probably the soy content? Hope to get Sean out this Wed. for late night at BH. He has promised to bring some nice aromatic Roquefort, long recognized as the "after dark" cheese, so I am just a giggle with anticipation! So what is going on with the rest of you cheese heads?

....ooooops...mind fart

Yesterday: temp 91, muggy in MD, partly cloudy, 6-10 mph wind. Only one other boat in the parking lot...sheeeesh. Lake is crystal clear and heavily weeded and lumbered. Got to the lake about 3:00. Just too hot to cast. Slow trolled a hellbender, (secret weapon), across points and over submerged trees and picked up a couple 2s. About 5:00 I went up to an area where there is standing timber in 20-25 feet that gradually, about 200 yds., slopes up to a large flat about 12 feet deep. Starting with the standing trees, I used a jig to drop down beside the trees and work around them, very slowly...nada. I was surprised I didn't pick up a couple on the jig. Backed off the trees a little and cast a Rapala DT10 close to the trees, but in open water and worked the top of the weed beds. After a few casts, got a nice 4lb. Drifted up on the flat away from the standing lumber. The flat has a couple old ponds and a gully or two and a lot of submerged bushes and fallen trees. The wind made for nice drift. I threw a 12 inch Culprit Tequila Shad Worm on a 1/8 ounce shank weighted hook, great for slithering in the weeds which are now about 3 feet high. Just let the wind move me and my worm along very slowly. I repeat, very slowly. Picked up one about 8 inches and wondered just what the hell he was thinking? Picked up a 2lb a few minutes later. Around 6:00, I got to a long ditch/slough/old channel? The surrounding flat is 6-8 deep, and in the ditch it was 10-15 deep. Some places the ditch is only ten feet wide and in others 30 feet. It is about 75 yards long before it starts to peter out. There is submerged timber and bushes along and in the ditch. I started to work the trees and bushes with that 12 inch Culprit and over the next two hours took eight fish out of the ditch including a 5lb, 4lb and a couple 3lbs, except one on a jig, they were all caught on the Culprit. About eight I went to fish two old ponds on the flat. From one I got a nice 4 and a 3. From the other, a nice 3 and a 2. I quit at 8:45. I got 16 I think, and some nice size to them. It was a very good afternoon. I was pleased with myself. It is a great little lake, and though highly pressured, has a lot of nice fish. I used the big Culprit because I'm pretty sure, I'm the only one out there doing so...until next week...hehehe. Below is a nice one from the ditch. As for age, 63.

hmmmmmm...as I remember, my brother took me fishing when I was eight, and the first fish I ever caught was promptly purloined by a stegosaurus!

I concur with Dock Master. If you live in VA and haven't been to Smith Mountain Lake, that's where you should go first! I lived in Alabama, (sigh), and the fishing was great, (sigh). I now live in MD, (sigh). A few years ago, we scrapped our usual spring trip to Santee-Cooper and went to SML on a lark. We have been back ten times since then in the spring and fall...never go between Memorial Day and Labor Day...you will be eaten alive by ski-dumbs and wake morons. That said, SML is one of a very few lakes that I have just showed up at, used the skills I already had and caught a bunch of nice fish. It was text book...here's a point...here's a fish...here's a creek channel...here's a fish. We stay at the Westlake Waterfront Inn, park your boat. http://www.westlake-waterfront-inn.com/ There are numerous places to stay around the lake. We picked this place randomly. If you don't have a boat, you can arrange a rental. In the past couple years, within a mile of the motel, we have caught two 7lbs several 6s and a host of 4s and 5s, including smallies to 6lbs. One thing...go a week before or after the Elite Tournament. If you go during the tournament it's a zoo!

....the key question here is...on the dock above...where would you cast first...say pre-spawn...hahaha

It is amazing how rude people are. If you were fishing there, they shouldn't have come anywhere near you. If I pull up to a situation, I always give the other boater at least a hundred yards of shore line or space to let them have plenty of space to fish. However, docks are fair game every place I've ever fished. I would never get out and get on someone's dock, but I will cast to it til I'm blue in the face. Once I was fishing a submerged rock jetty and these two guys come up and start fishing a couple hundred feet away. They were not catching anything and I was. Within five minutes, they pulled up to about fifty feet away and literally started casting on top of my casts. I moved away a hundred feet, and caught fish. They followed me, and did it again. This time I pulled away and waited, and when they left, I followed them and for the next hour, everywhere they went, I was fifty feet away....and noisy. Can you imagine, they didn't like me casting within a foot of their boat!!! I said, "Then you won't do it to me anymore, will you?" I got no answer and left. The same general level of rudeness that has permeated our society will show up on our waters just as it has on our highways. What are you going to do? Shoot them....hehehehe.

What kind of bottom are we talking about at this lake? Is it...weedy...a lot of rocks...mud bottom...standing timber...fallen timber...lily pads? For instance, I can use a T-rig or a C-rig up to a certain time in my home lake, but when the weeds get up to a couple feet they become a hindrance and get caught a lot. So, with the T-rig I can pin the weight and fish slightly more vertically, but the C-rig, I just put away. Also, if the bottom on this lake is covered with rocks, stumps, and fallen lumber, do yourself a favor, and don't use a C-rig. A lot of people think they can just go out and put on C-rig and it's an idiot's rig and anyone can do it. Not true. It takes a lot of time and lost and hung up rigs before you know how to work a given bottom with a C-rig. If this is important to you, don't use a C-rig. You will waste a great deal of time tying on new ones and eventually give it up. Use what you know. Assess the situation as you find it and use the skills you have and adapt to the situation. You are going to be frazzled as it is. You don't need to deal with a bunch of hung up rigs and re-rigging. You want your lure in the water as much as possible and that means using whatever lure you have that you can put on the fish and won't be a constant pain in the ***. Use what you have confidence in. Experimentation in a tournament is a desperate last resort...hahahaha. Tell us more about the lake?

I think a lot has to do with the size of the body of water. I have seen Smith Mountain Lake rise and fall as much as four feet a day with little impact on fishing, but on a smaller body, it may at first be a blessing because the fish become more concentrated, less water less space for fish. If the water level continues to fall, however, it will put stress on the fish as they are forced to deal with more fish and possibly have to move out of their "home" and retreat. Don't forget that if the water drops 2 feet, any structure is now two feet higher in water column. Two feet is a lot to a bass, and I find quite often that a little rock pile produces fish when it sits in 17 feet, but not in 15 feet.

This only works if the wind is blowing out or better yet, parallel and out. Blow up a balloon. Run a piece of thread through one of the eyes on your lure, either the nose ring or a hook ring, and also through the hole of a cherry Lifesaver and tie a knot so the thread has tied the Lifesaver and your lure together. Tie another thread to the balloon and also to the Lifesaver. Now you have the lure attached to the Lifesaver and the ballon attached to the lifesaver. Let the wind take the whole mess out into the lake. When you have reached your "spot", just hold on until the lifesaver melts, the balloon floats away, and "voila", your lure is now 100 feet out! There are a million ways to do this. I prefer sending two lines out, one very light 4lb and the other my fishing line, with a slip knot, so I can release the lure and reel the balloon back in. I first started doing this off piers at Cape Hatteras to get my bait a couple hundred yards off shore to sand bar occasioned by Tarpon. Before I got a boat, I did this at my local lake, and would float a shiner out 50 yds to fish some tree tops twenty feet down. Home made potato cannons are useful for rocketing your lures, but that's another story.

I face the same problem on my home lake. Many times, if there are a number of fish schooled up in one area and I catch a fish, others will get excited and follow it in, or go darting around looking for the "forage" my fish ate. When they do this, it seems to take a while for them to get set back up again on the structure. I find this to be especially true in heavily pressured water. After you catch the first fish, go away, fish another spot, and come back in 15 minutes and see if they have settled back down and are a little more catchable. Works for me.

I always polish my rod before I go fishing.

....under fished or not...you still need to become a stalker...a sniper...imagine you need to be as stealthy as if you were hunting that big 12 point buck...because you do...and definitely pull back from the shore and look at deeper climes...smoochies

50 acres sounds like a nice pond...if it's your private pond, but if that pond get's any real pressure, your task is even more difficult because your quarry didn't get to be 10 lbs by being dumb. Somewhere along the way, Mrs. Big *** Bass, learned about your kind and discovered you were the "Anti-food!" She has seen everything in the catalog, and for whatever reason, it's not food. You have to become a stalker...a bassassassin. Be very quiet. Stop announcing yourself. You know the lake...turn off your finder...stop dropping crap and banging stuff. Be quiet. Use the wind to set your boat up in a given wind situation so the wind can move you down a bank instead of your trolling motor. Be invisible. Bigger baits worked very slowly...big jigs, big swimbaits...a ten inch worm instead of a seven inch worm...all of the above mentioned baits and suggestions. One of the nice things about braid is it has no stretch. Try making as long a cast as you can and then letting another 20 yds strip off while your bait just sits. Put as much distance between your boat and your lure as you can. Braid makes that easy. However, if there is any cover between your lure and your boat, and you hook a monster, she will find that tree limb and make things testy...hahaha. You have to become a green beret of bass fishermen. Use something no one else is using, and make it big....and slow...really slow. You're a sniper. Each little twitch is a controlled thoughtful gesture. Bigger. Explore the pond again...go back over those places lightly fished, and re-examine them. Are you fishing the deepest water in the pond? Be stealthy, be different, be bigger, really know the pond. A ten pound bass is easily capable of swallowing a 10" swimbait...a meal. Which would you want...the ten inch meal or a Rapala Shad Rap? Hahaha. Go to http://www.mattlures.com/ and look at the size of the fish and the lures they are using. I don't work for Mattlures though I do use his lures...just look at the pictures. There are lots of these things out there. Look at the pictures and believe. If you don't believe what you are doing is going to work, it probably won't. Be quiet. Let us know how you and what you are doing.

Had a good catch at BH on Tuesday and Saturday. None caught in less than 15 feet and all offshore.

I suppose you should know about Black Hills in Germantown, which is a ways from you, but is a VERY good lake.

....or....we could get on board with flattening hook barbs, and less likely, use circle hooks which almost always hook in the front side of the mouth...

Brian and I did the BH night fish and did very well thank you, arriving at 3 and leaving at 11:45, finding fish during the day primarily at 10-15 feet and dusk/dark at 2-8. Top water bite, senkos, craws.

I suggest you go up the river a short way and fish in Smith Mountain Lake, a great lake and not as big and bad as you might want to believe. SML is a great lake with readily available fish!

You might want to call before you go, as you never know if they are there or not....especially on Sunday. As Boett43 noted, it's a family operation, and very friendly, a Frederick attraction for...hmmmm...well, since...dirt was rocks.

Hello Big Dog. There used to be / may still be, a store near the corner of RT28 and Seneca Road RT112 that sold minnows, but it has been sometime since I have been there. Other than that, the only other place I know is in Frederick, named Fox's, right on the main drag 5 minutes off 270.