Choporoz

This is my first year with a baitcaster in over 40 years. I can sling a side-arm spinning rig onto a frisbee from 25 yards. I can't get a side-arm baitcast within a quarter mile of my target yet. By the way, nearly every cast that isn't finessing a side-arm or a gentle pitch is two-handed for me; spinning or baitcasting. I just like the control moreso than the distance.

I've had similar experiences. Somewhere on this site I recently read to drag spinnerbaits through shad bait balls. Tried it for the first time last weekend and it was awesome! Best strikes and fights of the weekend were on spinnerbaits in middle of shad schools at dusk.

Sorry for jacking this swim jig thread...if anyone has a link to a more basic jig primer, please pass it on....

What's the difference between a swim jig and other jigs? I, too, am among those committed to upping my jig-confidence, which is extremely low at the moment. I've acquired a number of jigs over the years, but looking at them now, I can't tell what each might have been called when designed -- football, casting, swim, grassy, finesse, flip, matta, dredge....honestly, when I open my tackle box, I see green jigs and brown jigs and some hair jigs...I'm more than a little confused

Well done. Nothing puts me off my game faster than wind. I don't deal well....at all. Once I spend more time boat-handling than fishing I'm done for -- first the frustration and then sloppy fishing. I'm a bit anal, but a fairly relaxed fisherman most of the time....except in the wind. Nice to hear you were able to overcome -- I never fished from a kayak, but I imagine the wind challenges are nearly as bad

My wife outfished me for a few hours last weekend using nothing but a mostly white-ish single hook storm like the one in HeavyFisher's post above. Casted to cover and reeled steadily to the boat. She didn't get any bragging size fish, but when I couldn't get a bite on a jig, chatter, crank, spinner, worms, etc, she was reeling them in pretty steadily.

Funny....seems the older I get, the less selective I've become

Anyone fish on Fort AP Hill? My wife just talked to an old trout fisherman who says there's citation LMB in some of the ponds/lakes. According to dgif, there's 9 lakes from three to ninety acres.

+1 I'd never had much confidence in flukes, but I watched videos on them last week. Coincidently, I was on a lake last Saturday that was weeded over pretty much shore to shore. In the past, I'd have given up and gone elsewhere, but I tossed the fluke out there and had bass crashing the surface for them all morning. I just twiched them across the surface and they dog-walked like nobody's business. Lot of fun!!

After reading about Speed Clips in these forums, I got some and tried them last week for the first time. The jury is still out, but is leaning heavily towards 'no'. There were a couple of baits where they hung between tie-down-eye and bill -- no worse than using wrong size split ring, but annoying. I sensed action was limited, but not dramatically or measurably. Mostly, I didn't see them saving me enough time to compensate for the annoyances. I have the least dextrous fingers of anyone I know -- tying can be a challenge. But those d**n clips weren't any better -- maybe with a pliers and/or more experience, but it seems a retied palomar is about as fast. Besides, re-tying forces me to check the knot and last foot or two of line more frequently than I might otherwise.

Wow. Sounds like a totally different body of water than the one I was on Saturday. 3 bass in nearly 7 hours and none over 3lb. Huge bass airborn all over the place at 7am, but couldn't get a bite on anything. Maybe the Friday night front that came through was part to blame. 59-60 degrees at the surface -- visibility to about 6 inches. I admit that the chop took me way out of my game most of the day....I didn't deal well with the wind - at all.

First trip out last spring was on a trolling-motor-only lake. Worked the far end of the lake all day. Wind started to pick up around 2PM and I was at least a mile down-wind from launch. Swapped out batteries for last hour or two and the ride back, and nothing. Somehow, I'd only charged one of the two. I got blown up on shore and not enough juice to even get off the sand. Was lucky a couple of kind strangers happened by who had a full spare battery on board, loaned it to me, and I followed them in and thanked them profusely. Not the first time I ran out of juice, but the first time that rowing/paddling wasn't going to be an option and I was sure I'd be hiking through the woods.

If I'm listening to music, it isn't mine and I'm none too happy about it. Actually I'm quite amazed at how many here do listen to music while fishing. I have never once thought about listening to music while fishing. But, I'm even more amazed (and dismayed) by those that think its perfectly ok to inflict their music on others. On a lake....or anywhere else.....wow.

Unfortunately, it is going to be very easy to get overwhelmed by the info quite quickly. To address just the Walmart question, I'll tell you that a couple of weeks ago I was out of state for a week without any of my gear, but lots of opportunity for shore bass fishing. I went to Walmart and spent about $90 on a decent enough Mitchell spinning combo, line, plastics kit, jig, hooks, weights, jig heads, spinnerbait, $8 backback, nail clippers and the only other thing I needed was a $10 temp non-resident license. I caught bass all week and the combo should hold up fine for a couple/few seasons in regular rotation.

Nice fish!! I imagine if I'd caught that, she'd be a solid 8 when I described her.

Great video. Thank you. Educational. And entertaining. I learned something valuable. The ducks and spitting were a bonus! still lol

Ok....been nearly a month now and I still have no idea what folks are talking about much of the time. Am I missing a sticky-post with acronyms or translations somewhere? Or do I just hope it will come with time?

I've only been on the forum for a couple of weeks, but from all the info I've been drowning in, I'd say you're missing about 60 categories/sub-categories

I like the above answers. Spoons and/or inline spinners. Daredevils are great. Johnson silver minnow with pork trailer. Nice heavy inline with some bright bucktail. Consider using a wire leader.

For about three weeks last summer (June/July, I think), along the banks/beaches/piers of Gunston Cove, the bass were slamming big swim baits when little else was working.

Planning to hit it on Saturday. Excited. First time out since November....been going nuts!

What would that be? Someone 'preparing' for a tournament?

I spent last week in Havelock, NC for work. I hit the ponds on the base every day. Far and away the best presentation, no matter the time of day or the depth or anything else, was a green finesse/shaky worm with no weight at all. Tough to cast very far, but that slow fall killed 'em. I also did OK with 4 in. Senkos (no weight), but mostly went to those when I felt I needed the casting distance more than the perfect drop. (For no apparent reason, purple was hot one afternoon, but watermelon the rest of the time.)

fieldsupply.com has Colemans on sale today at good prices. I haven't tried them yet, but ordered a pair for $17 shipped - just based on reviews I've found.

I'm super cheap myself and REALLY wanted to love Stick-O's and Cabela's. I don't. Maybe just a mental/confidence thing, but I will swear that I get better than twice the action on Senkos than on either of the two mentioned. I hate that...but can't deny it.