iceintheveins

Harassing an angler is illegal in most all states. Call the game and fish.

The water temp probably didn't drop by more than a couple degrees, it's more the sudden change and the pressure changes that I was worried about. But since this is a shallow lake with the deepest water being 20 feet at most I doubt it will affect it that much. I have decided to go on thursday.

That should work joe. Only thing is I have little gas money for the rest of the month and might not be able to make two trips and I could go later in the week when it's been steady and warm for a few more days.

I'm curious to try them. How do you think the hound would be rigged best? BIG EWG?

Black, frog, chartreuse, and gold.

I do well on them. So you guys think working a jitterbug with a stop and go retrieve doesn't work as well as a steady one? I know at night a steady works better but I don't fish pitch black usually.

Clear to slightly stained. Good imitation of crayfish and darker forage like sunfish, bullheads act.

I heard before that coffee scents could be a turn off to fish. So you guys who fish the coffee plastics do really well then? Seems like it from the posts.

Gitzits, power tubes, Yum tubes, BPS tender tubes, and Strike Kings. Best colors are white, white with silver flake, watermelon seed, pumpkin, green pumpkin, motor oil, black with blue flake, and other various shades of brown and green.

This large of temperature drop is very unusual for September in Western Colorado. The water temp of my lake was 79 degrees last week. Our first freeze usually doesn't happen till mid to late October, and ice up on our lakes isn't usually till Mid December.

We just had our first BIG cold front of the fall pass last night and temps are much cooler today, only in the mid 60s with lows around 40. Temperatures are supposed to steadily warm back up each day starting today, and will reach the 80 degree mark again on Saturday. When do you guys think the fishing will pick back up? Wednesday is my next opportunity, do you think that's too early?

I use old plastics to help keep pork trailers in place on my jigs.

I fish the 5" Super Fluke with a 3/0 EWG gammy and 6 - 12 pound test line. It sinks deeper with the lighter line but you need heavier line around cover or if you want the bait to stay shallower. It is truly a deadly bass lure.

Topwater is still my favorite, but I am with bass akwards in that I love seeing my line shoot away when a fat bass inhales my soft plastic. Any bass strike rocks though.

All I know is that the smallmouth on the Yampa are reproducing VERY WELL, and that the killings aren't working to reduce numbers. In fact, numbers of the suckers and chubs they want to save HAVE NOT increased one bit since they started killing as many bass, pike, and catfish as they can in Western Colorado's rivers. >

Colorado's Yampa River is my home stream. It's filled with 2 - 4 pound smallies and is one of the West's best smallie rivers. Unfortunately the US Fish and Wildlife and the Colorado Division Of Wildlife have now removed and killed over 50,000 smallmouth from the river. It's still great fishing, but these government jerks just kill these fish and throw them up on the banks to rot because the river used to be home to suckers and chubs that they are now trying to save just because "they are native". They blame the introduction of smallmouth for reductions the sucker and chub population, even though they were decimated BEFORE smallmouth ever arrived. Now something must be up with the water that is likely causing the suckers and chubs to be incapable of reproduction and causing abnormalities in the smallmouth population. We anglers always knew it was something else, not our gamefish, that caused these suckers and chubs to vanish.

I do like to try and match the forage. In clearer water frog colors almost always work, and black is great in both clear and murky water. I probably get more on black skirted buzzbaits than anything else. Clear is great when conditions are brighter. I think action has more to do with color when it comes to topwaters, but the general rule of picking natural forage colors in clear water and highly visible colors like black or chartreuse in murky water does hold true.

Pro Qualifier or the Citica from Shimano.

The 7" is big enough, but you will still catch 13" bass on them from time to time.

The ultra points are great hooks, as are the triple grips.

My favorite all around worm is probably the 6" zoom u tale in black. I also love 4" power worms and ringworms with a curltail. I pair the 6" worm with a 2/0 or 3/0 EWG gammy and the 4" with a 1/0 EWG gammy.

Real worms are lethal on bass for sure. The only problem is the perch and panfish get to them first usually.

I would use a 1/0 EWG that has a 1/16 ounce weight on it.

There are some waters where bass are conditioned to certain batis and they don't work nearly as well. That being said, I find retrieving a buzzbait as slowly as possible while keeping it on the surface is the best overall presentation, and that buzzbaits work best in shallow expanses with weed or wood cover, and during lower light conditions.

What's the water clarity like? Jigs and spinnerbaits work in just about any clarity so those are two presentations to take anywhere.