BillinDurham

I use an Albright. For flipping and pitching I make the length just short enough so that the knot doesn't reach the tip guide when I'm holding the bait for the flip. In other words, only braid in the guides. I've never had an Albright fail on a fish or a fish in a snag but it is the weak link. If I get solidly snagged and pull to failure, the Albright fails - not the Trilene I use at the hook. That is if the braid doesn't slice a finger off.

...many, many nights. Catching bait was just as much a part of fishing as fixing tackle or buying lures. Learned how to win the tug of war (they pull in pulses so you just do the opposite). Tinting or dimming the flashlight made it so they wouldn't react to the light. Keep them in the refrigerator with everything from newspaper to store bought worm bedding. Up north (Pgh) night crawlers were everywhere. Down here in NC it just seems to be lttle 'wrigglers'. Perhaps the only creature that is smaller down here than up north. Now I just play around with them in the mulch pile before going out to bang the bass in the head with artificials.

A solid 8 pounder caught on my first cast with an unweighted Yamamoto Flapping Hog. It was a test cast to 'open' water to see if I could cast the thing without any weight but instead I put it right on top of a previously undiscovered submerged stump and this beast came out and ate it. Caught him on a spinning rig setup for finesse fishing; 20lb braid with 10lb flouro leader. Glad I finally learned to tie a good albright between the two. He was too big for my net which went overboard and sank. Sorry for the bad framing but it was a maximum effort selfie. As you can imagine, I've been back to this stump...

Thanks Slonezp! I've had that problem with the remote for quite some time. At first very occasionally and I thought it just needed a new battery. Recently it became unworkable. I'll try the dime but am sure it will work. I have my TerraNova mounted on a Jon Boat and it's worked well for me. No room for cable steer, better than a tiller and it can be operated from anywhere. The anchor function wanders a bit too much but the compass steering is what makes it all work for me. As I sometimes fly fish for spooky carp I can tell you that they can hear everything... but they don't necessarily react to everything. The motor generally doesn't spook them as long as the prop doesn't hit anything. The steering motor doesn't spook them unless it's 'blipped'. Extending or retracting the motor spooks them every time just as a sliding foot on the deck will.

I was completely new to baitcasting this year. After catching a few fish flipping I was determined to learn to pitch. I set up targets and practiced in the yard, from an elevated position, various kinds of targets, etc. After a couple of 30 min sessions I decided to stop because the wife took some candid pics and posted them on Facebook. Then I took it to the lake.... the practice sessions let me sort things out just enough that now I could practice on the boat, on the lake, pitching to real cover. Things got a lot better pretty fast. At least I think so. All that just to say, if you can, just go out on the lake and practice there if you can. Ditto on the reel setup. In fact the practice sessions were mainly about learning how to setup the reel - X pattern brakes and little tension. Of course I never change it off of that so I've learned to cast with that setup too. Thumb is getting smarter and I'm starting to hate my spinning rods with the flouro on them.

You should try it out next spring. It's the only water I'm fishing but the first year has been fun. I'm not even fishing the 'good' part of the lake - this fish was caught NW of the I85 bridge where it's more flats and rivers than lake. Where are you fishing BennyB?

This year I finally put a boat on Falls of the Neuse Lake in Durham NC to chase carp on the fly. The carp were plentiful and hard but there were plenty of willing bass so I ended up chasing them instead. My first day this spring included a 6 pounder, the biggest bass I had ever seen. Nothing else over 4 except for.... https://www.dropbox.com/s/f7stg9595p2a9wq/2013-10-04%2011.06.34.jpg On Oct 4 I got a 22", 7 pounder on a Flappin' Hog. He was released and I am hooked.

Some waters just don't have many bigger ones. Try different waters.

A Hellbender on the Allegheny River. A Hellbender is the largest North American salamander and is one weird, mean looking creature. Lives underwater and will eat bait.

I've been using an iPhone app called FishTales. It logs catches including a pic of the fish and any/all possible information. If cell phone reception is decent, it puts a pin in a satellite map (really cool) or you can put it in manually. It has a tacklebox file to maintain your tacklebox including pics of your lures. So when I catch a fish, I perform CPR (Catch/Photo/Release). I may assign the lure or photograph the rig I'm using. Main thing for me was working out a way keep my iPhone from going overboard. Anyway, I like it a lot. Costs $2 I think. If you have an iPhone or iPad, it's worth it just to take a look.

Agreed on all counts. I've been using them T-rigged weightless, 5 to 7 inches Today I used the Senkos drop shot rigged with #2 light wire hooks in the nose (rather than 3/0 offset hooks). Caught my largest 2 bass of the week on them but it really requires a net with the little, light hooks. I'm not sure why that seemed to work so well. The tough thing now is finding worms that actually float. Everyone is advertising 'salt', 'super salt', 'salt and coffee' and whatever they can other than 'senko'. Testing them shows that they all sink. No one seems to advertise floating worms. What's up with that?

I'm still very new to the LMB game. Fishing the very upper end of a lake (Falls of the Neuse, Durham NC) where there really isn't any water over 15' or so, I'm finding hot weather fishing doesn't necessarily mean deep, but rather close to horizontal cover and unwilling to move far. Finding success with all forms of slow plastics in 90F-95F surface temp waters. Generally in 3' to 8' water with cover or shade. Midday, morning or evening. Clearly I may be missing the 'deep' fish but there isn't a lot of deep water in the uppers third of this lake. Stay tuned.

I can walk to Falls Lake Hickory Hills boat ramp in 10 mins. It's a 4 mile roundtrip from 'garage' to ramp. It's taken me 15 years to finally get a boat and fish it.

I just started fishing again. After some cranking and spinner baiting I started playing with some T-rigged worms. Kept hearing about this Senko stuff, studied up, bought a bag and started fishing one in an area where I've been unable to raise a single bass on anything else. On a 2nd or 3rd cast I got the spinning reel equivalent of a bad backlash (flourocarbon on spinning reel can be a challenge). I decided to handline in the worm so I could cut out the knot and re-rig. Hmmm, something seems to be on the end of it. Once I realize it was a fish, I went back to the reel, and ended up with a perfectly lipped hooked chunky 3 pounder. Whoa! I don't know how that happened, but I'll be working with these tasty sinking salty worms a lot more. Great thread for us novice worm people. Thanks.

I've been living next to Falls of the Neuse Lake for 15 years but only recently decided to fish it for Bass and Carp. Growing up in Pittsburgh, we fished the Allegheny for Smallmouth and anything else that would bite. Living in NY/NJ/CT back in the 80s and 90s, I picked up the flying fishing habit, mainly for trout. I finally decided to check out fishing opportunities on Falls Lake. Hearing about the fun of catching Carp on the fly and realizing that the upper reaches of Falls Lake looks like a series of perfect Carp flats, I outfitted a Jon Boat for some fishing exploration. The Carp thing is going to be great but Falls is also full of LMBs, especially larger ones. So while I wait for the water to go down for the flats, I've been throwing some crankbaits, spinnerbaits and worms around and having a blast. I almost forgot how much love to fish! Spinning rods are great but just picked up my first bait caster and working on education of my thumb. Look out Bass, I'm comin' to get you! Hang in there Carp, I'll be coming for you soon too. In the mean time, bless you Falls Lake catfish for hitting anything that moves when the fishing otherwise slows. Bill "all catch and release, artificials-only, fly rod when it works" in Durham