OmegaDPW

I rarely do anything "right". Sometimes I get lucky. I've caught a few big bass- and oddly enough, some catfish- with a trick worm on a large jighead attached to the spinner of a Beetle Spin. I fish it with a slow retrieve like you'd do with the typical Beetle Spin grub, almost never touching the bottom at all. You won't know what works until you try, right?

That's where mine went. 😉

Where I'm at (1 hour North of the Florida line in GA) it normally doesn't get freezing cold, but the last week was an exception. I was off of work last Monday so tried my luck in 20 something degrees with a steady wind. I made it about an hour before giving up and going home with no bites whatsoever. I fished what I normally fish in this pond year round- stickbaits rigged weedless and weightless and finesse worms wacky rigged. Both of these presentations usually work in this pond with good results. Nothing at all. Yesterday was even colder and I decided against leaving the house. I think my limit is about 40 degrees. These fish just don't want to bite in anything colder than that.

Thank you guys for the great replies and the generosity of some of our forum members! I'll have some new stuff to try out soon. 👍

Extremely nice of you Rocket. Sent ya a PM.

Thanks for this. Never seen them locally. I'll have to look around for them. Just checked them out, too. The prices are too good to pass up. Ordered the 4.5. Even the shipping was cheap. I hadn't seen that website before, either. It'll be bookmarked.

@Big Swimbait Thanks for this. Never heard of any of these companies and had never seen this website. Looks like everything I've been looking for!

I'm always thinking of new ways (for me) to catch fish. I have a lot of #4 to #8 hooks for panfish. I'd like to find some extremely thin 4 or 5 inch worms that I could wacky rig to catch bluegill or whatever would bite. The Zoom Finesse and Trick Worms are just a touch too thick for the smallest hooks and there wouldn't be much room for a good hook-set. I used to be able to find "trout" worms that would fit the bill, but most of the ones I see on-line now aren't very long (2+ inches) or look too thick for what I need. I've found some 3 inch worms made by Bearking but would prefer not having to wait a month to ship from China and would like something a bit longer. Does anyone have any recommendations? I looked at a Roboworm yesterday at Bass Pro, but they looked very similar in width to the Finesse/Trick worms so I didn't buy any. Thanks in advance!

My all time favorite. I prefer the black body with a little bit of yellow and red. The pond that I'm fishing the most right now is a Beetle Spin killer. Every other cast gets hung up on something so I had to change course. Need to find a better pond to get back to what I'm used to. 😉

Stuck on Confidence I'm horrible on sticking with a confidence bait for way too long. This winter has been the stickbait set up weedless and weightless. I almost never change lures. Definitely never change colors just for the heck of it. I keep the same stickbait on the hook until I lose it or it gets beaten up so badly that I have to change it. I bring two poles with me when beating the banks. One with the stickbait and another with a finesse/trout worm wacky rigged with a #8 hook incase the panfish are biting the large stickbait and I'm not catching bass. I gotta say, it works for me. I've been skunked only once on the coldest day of the year and have fished every week since the beginning of October. I'm just as happy catching a large redear or crappie as I am a bass, so this simple set-up covers the farm ponds I fish pretty well.

Sounds like a great day- other than a 3 hour drive. 😉 I've fished a tube twice in my life (excluding the few times I used crappie tubes). The first time was in the dead of winter a few years ago and I caught 2 or 3 large bass on it while my family wasn't catching a thing. The second time was in the heat of summer and nothing bit so I shoved them to the back of the tackle closet. I had forgotten all about them until this thread. I may need to try one again this winter and see what happens.

I've caught everything over the years with inline spinners. I just posted in the Bait Monkey thread about picking up a couple of the Mepp's Comet Minos for my wife. That's her favorite lure of all time. They work for her. Don't be afraid to try the "value" pack sold at Wal Mart of 5 or 6 spinners for about $6. Those are the ones I keep in my tacklebox when the mood arises and I've caught the gamut on them from bluegill to very large bass. My biggest headache with them was listed above- they snag on everything. I rarely fish them now because of that. I've just gotten spoiled with soft plastics rigged weedless.

6.6 Ugly Stik, 6lb mono, Pfleuger reel of some sort. Did a lot of Wacky Rigging with Trick Worms, Finesse Worms and stickbaits. Caught a lot of fish on a Creme stickbait in Green Pumpkin set up weightless and weedless with a 3/0 hook. Those Creme stickbaits are always on sale at my local Wal Mart for $1.24 a pack of 5. Every time I had a few bucks to blow, I'd grab another couple of packs. Probably got 100 baits now of various colors but will only get the GP ones from here on out. My fish like them the best.

🤣 I know the feeling. I'm gonna tell my wife she needs to run these under a bobber to keep it off the weeds, stumps and rocks in the ponds we fish. I mighta got 'em confused with some other inline spinners. I have never fished these things. I was always a "Beetle Spin for a buck" kind of guy. Caught a lot of fish for that dollar, too. 😉

A few years ago, my wife wanted a kayak. She got one and then my kids got one and then I had to find a cheap used one on Facebook to keep up. I really don't like it and wish I had bought a small jon boat or something else- so the majority of my fishing is done on the bank. Like others here, I like to get up and move around, it's easier to set the hook for me, etc. My daughter still likes hers, my son has gotten into my mindset and usually fishes the bank, too. Here was his big catch a few weeks ago.

Nothing special compared to the majority of posts here, but I was at a conference today in a town that had a BP, so snuck out there on the lunch break. The Mepp's are my wife's favorite lures, so I knocked out her Valentine's Day gift a little early. The Tri Color worms were on sale and look to be pretty good for all the finesse fishing I normally do. It seems like the Mepp's were a whole lot cheaper the last time I bought any. These things were like $7 each. Oh well. Happy Wife...Happy Life.

I grew up as a kid on the beach. Was never allowed to have long hair so most of my childhood was buzz cuts or flat tops. At 33 I started having bumps taken off the top of my head. Whatever lasers they used back then caused the hair to not grow back, so I had two round patches the size of a half dollar that were bald and looked awful. Started shaving my head at that point. Now, I work outside about half of the day and use sunscreen and an outback style hat religiously. Thanks for the post. If it helps one person take the sun more seriously, it's a winner. 👍

I'd be in the same boat as you, Greg. I'd have no idea what to spend that much on at a BP. $400 in baits, hooks and other little things (even the expensive stuff) would come out to numerous tackleboxes and more space taken up that I already don't have. My suggestion would be to hang onto that card. Wait until the need arises for a larger purchase. 😉

What applications of the free rig would make it better than a TX rig with a sliding weight? I tried the free rig last weekend using an old tear drop weight that I had hidden in one of my tackle boxes for years. I had picked up some tiny 3 inch finesse worms and rigged them weedless with a #4 offset round bend hook- looking for panfish or whatever would bite. I eventually noticed that the the hook eye was occasionally hanging up on the ring of the weight just carrying everything down in a big mess. I may try it again with a bead to stop it from hanging up, but I'm curious as to what advantages this has compared to the TX.

I'm also in the camp of a Senko style stickbait. I rig mine weedless with a 3/0 EWG and no weight. Light line (one rod is 6lb mono and the other is 10). The 6lb set-up can cast a long way since the baits are so heavy. I've also used a a small #4 hook, wacky rigged with a finesse worm. That catches more than bass, though, if the bluegill are large enough and hungry. My ponds are full of stumps and weeds, though. If it was a bit cleaner, I'd throw Beetle Spins extremely slow. Those are my favorite lures for just "catching fish" but I'm tired of losing them where I'm fishing right now. Good luck in finding out what works!

Kudos for what he did in college. I'll remember him the most for another reason, though. I grew up in Miami and watched him turn his back on his Dolphin's HC job after the team imploded because of him. His famous statement of "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach" and then becoming the Alabama coach about TWO WEEKS later still ticks me off. That and signing Duante Culpepper with a serious injury instead of Drew Brees hurt the franchise for many many years.

About 10 years ago I was fishing a friend's farm pond. It was stocked with crappie, which was my main passion at the time, but also had bass and bluegill. There were actually two ponds separated by a dam and a drop off of about 5 feet from the dam to the pond. You literally had to move cows and one stubborn bull out of the way to fish either pond. Their neighbors had collected donkeys and an alpaca and they had free reign over the ponds as well. My wife and kids were fishing with me that day and I was alone on the dam fishing one side of the pond. I had just cast out an in-line spinner of some sort and heard a bunch of noise behind me. I turned around and one of the dumb donkeys was in full gallop charging me on the dam! I have no idea if it heard the spinning sound from the reel or what, but something triggered it. Until that time, I had literally no idea how fast a donkey could run until it was bearing down on me. I was in disbelief for like two seconds watching this unfold before my brain kicked in and realized it was going to attack me. The only way was down and I threw the rod and jumped. Luckily, I wasn't in 12 feet of water- there was a shelf before you got into the deep part. During that two second pause, the landowner's chocolate lab also noticed what was happening and took off after the donkey and chased it away from me. I have no doubt the donkey would have jumped on top of me- or fell on top of me because it couldn't stop in time- if it wasn't for that dog. I climbed back up on the dam after the donkey and dog had ran off. My wife and kids were howling with laughter on the other side of the pond while I was still shaking. I picked up my rod and started a fast retrieve of the lure to re-cast and bagged this on the retrieve. To this day, my family thinks this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to us. I beg to differ. I also let that chocolate lab hang around me every other time we went.

Thank you. I will. Tried my luck today with zero results. I used a free rig weight instead of the split shot and every single cast came back with weeds and grass on the weight. The split shot wouldn't have been any better, though. Gotta figure something else out there.

How about WalMart Black Friday, even when you know that the fishing stuff isn't on sale?

That's the same where I hunt down South. All pine trees. I rotated between a scoped Marlin and an iron sight Winchester. I've also hunted with a handgun down there but never shot anything.