mjseverson24

I usually use two different size jigs depending on the cover. If I am on a hard bottom I am trying to look more like a crayfish, so a 3/8 oz jig or a 1/2 oz jig usually works for water shallower than 10 ft. if I am on a soft bottom targeting weed edges and other shallow cover i almost always use a 1/4 oz jig or maybe even a little lighter. on a soft bottom I am trying to look more like a bluegill or other kind of bait fish and 90% of my strikes come on the initial fall. by using the lighter jigs I increase the amount of time the bait is falling thus increasing the time in the strike zone per flip/pitch. Also the kind and size of trailer helps increase/decrease the fall rate as needed. Mitch

many people say practice makes perfect... well in actuality perfect practice makes perfect performance. so in my opinion if you want to get better at bass fishing in a hurry there are a few easy things you can do. the first is watch all of the FLW and bassmaster elite series tournaments that you can. Then watch as many technique specific videos that you can. learn as much as you can from videos, but also reading articles. once you have the knowledge of how and when to use certain techniques you are ready to really grow your bass fishing skills very quickly. if you now hit the water with this wealth of fishing knowledge you will greatly increase your productivity and will better be able to create your own fishing philosophy. if you do these things and are very dedicated you can become a very good bass fisherman in just a few years. Now to accomplish this most effectively you should fish many different bodies of water, clear/dirty, grass/wood/rock, river/lake/reservoir. try and get out as often as you can and at different times of the day, and in all of the seasons. do these things and you might accomplish what you want. Mitch

I almost always use floro when pitching jigs(usually 20-25lb for heavy jigs and 15lb for light jigs). for very heavy cover I use 50 lb braid direct tied. I love the abrasion resistance of floro, the relative invisibility, and also the little bit of stretch in it. I have broke not only line but rods in a hard hookset with braid, with 25 lb floro i have no choice but to ease off on the hooksets which usually results in a better strike to land ratio. Mitch

well if you are just wanting to know about balance it depends on what kind of presentation you are using the combo for. typically i set them up in one of two ways. the first is a little bit rear heavy or tip up type presentation or a very close to balanced approach or even partly tip heavy approach. for finesse presentations and jigs/ t-rigs a tip up seems to work well, and for most horizontal baits i use the tip heavy approach or perfectly balanced. the way to tell if it is balanced is to put the real and line on the rod then find where you can balance the rod on one finger. if it is at the reel or behind then it is tip up balanced, it it is ahead of the real by a little bit then it is a tip heavy balanced. they both are good setups just for different presentations. Mitch

I like the strike king spinnerbaits, they have a great selection of sizes colors and blades. for clear water situations I like the 3/8 to 1/2 oz baits with either a white/ shad color or a bluegill color. typicaly the blades i use in clear water are silver, but i do use gold every now and then. in dark or stained water I like the chartruse, bluegill, or a black. most of the time in dark water i use a combination of gold big blade and a silver little blade, but sometimes all gold. 14 lb floro should work just fine as long as there are no muskie or northern pike in the waters you fish. if there are I would use 30 lb braid with a 30 lb floro leader. One tip i can give you is if you want numbers dont use a soft plastic trailer but if you want to target the bigs put a decent size soft plastic trailer on and you will increase your average size considerably. Mitch

If you dont get a chance to get out to a lake to prefish, generaly the best way to approach the day would be a run and gun approach. have atleast 15-20 spots picked out maybe many more. then do what some of the other guys have said and just go fishing in the moment. Make the most out of the day by using search baits. once you find active fish slow down and try and find the quality size you need to finish well in the tourney. Main idea is to cover water. if you dont feel like flying all ove the lake there is another approach. pick three point/ humps/ weedbeds etc... pick up the dropshot and have it. If you dont catch a decent limit on the dropshot it would probabily be a tough touney for most. Mitch

Nice I like the lure selection, the only observation I see that might be a problem is the worm hooks are quite small in my opinion. I throw the havvoc pit boss on atleast a 3/0 EWG or most commonly a 4/0 EWG. with the 2/0 and the 1/0 you probabily wont have the hookup ratio you would want. also I see that you have some form of an A-rig. I like the thought, but be careful those lures require pretty long and heavy action rods with some pretty beefy line as well. after going to BP it looks like you will be good to go. Mitch

For the lake that is clear and full of sand, I would suggest using the spinnerbaits and crankbaits to help locate active fish. Usually the more natural colors work best in these situations use bluegill and shad patterns. Once you find active fish slow down and use either the weightless senko for water less than 8 ft and learn to use a dropshot for depths over 8 ft. a dropshot is one of the most reliable presentations out there especially in clean water. the colors for the dropshot that are best are again natural colors and translucent. The KVD dream shot is good also the robo worm makes a good dropshot bait, but to catch the numbers of fish try a berkley gulp leech or minnow. for the stained water lake the spinnerbaits would work very well up in the wood and bushes. the more bright colors (chartreuse or Black) will probabily work well. also if you have stump fields and brush a square bill crankbait is hard to beat. there are lots of brands out there find a price range that works for you a couple colors that should work is the chartreuse and black, bluegill, maybe a black or blue back with silver sides as well. For the lake with all the weeds the spinerbait should work well also the storm swimbaits work great ripping through the weeds. weeds are your friend, find good weeds and a drop off near by you should be in business, use that dropshot on the outside weed edge. there are many other techniques that would work for these lakes that you are fishing, but these few should help you catch some good fish, and should give you the confidence to explore new techniques. good luck. Mitch

In my opinion braid/floro/mono all have a time and a place. I use straight braid only in three situations: hollow body frogs(othertopwater slop presentations), punching matts, and big jigs. I use braid with a floro leader in a few circumstances: dropshot(15-20 ft), deep spinnerbaits(3 ft), and some other reaction type baits especially if the water is kind of muddy. The florocarbon leader for me does help with a more stealth presentation, but mostly it serves as more abrasion resistance especially with big toothy fish in the waters here in the north( i use 30 lb for leader material). I use all florocarbon for C-rigs, medium to light jigs, football jigs, T-rigs, shallow cranks, shallow spinnerbaits, and swim jig/baits). The rest of the presentations I use mono(topwater, medium/deep cranks, jerkbaits etc...). I love the invisibility of floro, I love the abrasion resistance, I dont like the managability and memory of the line, I also dont like the price. But to me I think florocarbon is the best choice for the fishing that I do, but I also know guys who fish with exclusively braid. These guys all catch fish, the only time I notice a big difference is when we are on highly pressured systems with little to no wind and bluebird skies. Fish what you have confidence in, the above is just what i do. Mitch

These are My goals in order: 1) have fun. 2) win tournaments/TOY 3) improve on techniques I do not have much confidence in ( jerkbaits/big swimbaits) 4) get new personal bests in large mouth/Small mouth bass (7.3lbs/6.1lbs) walleye(11.2 lbs) northern pike( 27.5 lbs) and muskie (4.0 lbs what a tiny muskie i know) 5) share my passion for fishing with others. Mitch

1) A double willow spinnerbait (color and size depends on conditions) 2) T-rig havvoc craw fatty 1/8 oz ( black/red or GP/ red flk) Mitch

hmm... maybe we should keep the whole paca c-rig thing a little more hush hush... It definately catches when all else fails. not just small fish either. Mitch

I would probabily say that Rojas is just mad that he did not end up winning the event, but he probabily also does have a valid point that Jones did encroach on his spot. I dont think rojas needs to talk to Jones, if jones took his spot when he was in the lead that is a big no-no and deserves to get blasted publicly. I think rivalry and conflict is good in any sport and fishing is no exception. Mitch

keeper = reaction bait (spinner/ crankbait) ( I find that when i am in trouble the slower techniques like t-rig and jigs are hard to fish properly because i go way too fast. this is usually not a problem for cranks and spinnerbaits. ) Kicker = hollow body frog in the slop or pensil reeds. (This technique for me has the largest average size fish.) Mitch

The second question was basicaly to find out what kind of water clarity, and cover you are fishing in. weather it is grass, wood, rock, or really heavy vegitation like lillypads hydrilla and milfoil. but just knowing largemouth bass is a good start. In my opinion a new bassfisherman should probabily start out using reaction style baits. I would pick up a few different spinnerbaits a white with silver blades a yellow with both silver and gold, and a brown or dark with all gold blades. either in a 3/8 oz or 1/2 oz size. The other bait I would recomend is the rapala dt series baits. pick up one or two in each of the dt-4 dt-6 and then either a 10 or 14 depending on the lake you fish. the last bait I would recomend for a beginner is the storm wildeye swimbaits. pick up some in different sizes and different colors they are very easy to fish and they do work quite well. also they wont break the bank for like 4 dollars for a three pack. all of these I would recomend throwing on your baitcasting setup, and like someone else said before for the spining set up a weightless senko is tough to beat. I hope this helps you out some. Mitch

I guess to answer your question we need to know what kind of bass you are fishing for, and what typs of lakes/ rivers you are fishing in. Also what types of rod/reel combos you own. this will better allow the guys on here to help you out. Mitch

I use all three. to me they all have their advantages, but more often than not fishing in the north I am in the weeds and this is where the pencil style works better. The round style and the bell shaped both work well in weed free environment, but if there is wood involved i use the round more often.

it would depend on your boat number. if you are one of the first to take off. I would run to that spot try and pick up a couple good fish and maybe that kicker fish then once the crowd comes just hit your number two spot. if you are not in the first couple boats out your spot will probably be taken just find some other spots that others wont think of and give it a good shot. if you need to make milk runs to that spot multiple times throughout the day hopefully the fish will not be too spooked by all the traffic.

If I enter a tournament I am fishing to win it. So the first few hours of the event I will focus on getting the kicker fish needed to win. If the big ones don't want to play during a tournament. I will bust out the "panic box" mostly reaction baits, covering a lot of water fishing for whatever bites. I need to get some confidence back, and sometimes just junk fishing you can pull one heck of a limit. I feel that the best chance at getting a hog is the early morning and i will not waist my best chance at a big chasing the limit fish.

I use both quite often. I think the best answer to this question is to let the bass tell you which presentation they want. I always have both jigs and t-rigs on rods ready to go if I make a few pitches with no success in an area that looks good with one and it doesn't produce a bite, I will switch to the other. If you have to choose one I choose a T-rig and i always peg the weight. On the t-rig I can flip a 3 in craw bait one min and a 6 in creature bait the next. the versatility is better with the t-rig but like I said earlier i will use what the fish want to bite. Mitch