MainelyBASS

Last week, Mousam had quite a few areas that were post spawn as well. I must have caught 30 fish that were half a pound to two pounds. Ive never gone through so many plastics in one outing. That told me two things--big girls moved out and males were in full blown protection mode destroying anything that got near the bed. Also fished Square on Sunday with the Hoopers and it was a crap show, every fish in the lake was on a bed which is no fun for the guy in the back of the boat. Spent all day watching my partner position the boat so he could fish beds and I was just an after thought. This is just a small part of the suckiness of not having your own boat which I wont this season, or maybe ever again.

I know they have the live shows days 2,3,4 now. I got rid of my cable, but am hesitating because I will miss elite series shows. The only content I see on their website for full elite series shows is from 2014. Does anyone watch them online somewhere? I already missed the Delta show and I am starting to get the shakes.

The most important question has yet to be asked...What are you throwing the topwater on? Braid, Mono, Fluoro? What gear ratio reel? What action rod?

I have to ask why you asked this question? The strange thing is, it seems like the oil has been at the same level for a while and I havent needed to add any. Are they known to do that?

The last 3 estimates that I got for a new powerhead have all been between $6-$7K

The battery actually died on me because I left the recirc's on after a tournament and didnt realize until I was on the water 5 days later that they were still running. Fortunately a nice person on the lake let me plug into their outlet and charge the boat for 20 minutes. In the run back to the boat launch the motor just stopped dead at 50MPH. I almost went through the windshield. The motor is seized but nothing blew out. I removed all the plugs and tried to move the flywheel but its still locked up tight. Im not very mechanically inclined so its tough to provide other details.

Im not sure exactly what happened. The dealer just told me it was a blown powerhead. Nothing blew, no holes anywhere. It's a 2004 Mercury XR6 150. I am in Southern Maine.

Engine is toast. Needs a new powerhead. I have a loan on the boat thats just 1 year old. I owe $9,000 and its worth $9200 according to NADA. I do not have the financial means to buy another used motor, roughly 5k for a decent 150-200HP. I also do not have the means to rebuild the motor, getting estimates of $3500-$4500. Anyone else go through this? What did you do? Possibly try to take out a small loan somewhere for $3500 to fix the boat? Im stuck and depressed. Any thoughts?

Estes Lake in Sanford has many fishing opportunities from shore, or a canoe/small boat. Ive been fishing their because my boat motor died, last 2 trips i've caught 8 fish at 3lbs or over. Not amazing, but not horrible either.

Nice fish again Mainebass! Well done.

A bass fisherman's worst nightmare happened last week. I blew the powerhead in my Mercury. I think my season is done after only 6 trips out. Im getting quotes from $3-$5K to repair with a new powerhead. Used O/B's arent that much more expensive. I have no clue what I am going to do. With my wife being pregnant with twins due in August I can't afford to repair the motor, even if I had the money to do so. Aside from losing a family member, this is the worst i've felt in my 31 years on earth. She was my baby.

Fished our first Trail Tournament this past weekend in Maine on Lake Arrowhead. After giving up a 10 fish bag of 31lbs the week before, Arrowhead was a little less forgiving in the big fish department. 25 boats fished the event with only 2 fish coming in over 4lbs. Lunker was 6.2lbs and a first time tournament fisherman brought in a 4.1lb largemouth to the scale. 1st place was 14 and change, 2nd place was 12 and change, and 3rd place was 10lbs even I believe. Although we caught 9.1lbs it was only good enough for 6th place. Sadly enough we culled 5 times to get 9.1lbs. Most boats struggled to put a limit together and 3rd place only had 4 fish, but a 4lb anchor. My routine for pre-fishing is to never fish the day before the event, so naturally I fished the lake Weds and Thurs before and caught 5 fish over 4lbs, but nothing over 5.2. As usual, those fish were not there come game time so we struggled to find a big bite, or even an above average bite as a 3lb fish would have put us just about in 2nd place. We thought for sure that we were gonna get blown out by the rest of the field, but with only a handful of anglers left to weigh in we were in 4th place with 9.1lbs and that shocked me. Not shocking was the team that weighed in last with 14lbs, seems as though every person that weighs in last has the biggest bag. No shocker considering the lake, square bills in the grass and jigs around wood caught all of our fish. Better luck next time for us.

Small and white gets the bite. White Baby Rage Craw on a darter head is my go to. I keep it small and low pro because they are only picking it up to move it off the bed. If you use a bigger bait often times you will set the hook and come back with half a lizard or half a worm because the intention was never to eat it, only to pick it up.

I love the Strike King Monsta's for really cheap glasses $24.99, or the S11's. I always have 2 pair in stock. Can't stress the significance of polarized glasses. Of the many things I can see with polarized glasses, probably the most important is being able to see followers or short strikes on my bait. Seeing the structure tells you where the fish might be, seeing the fish react to your bait tells you what mode they are in and without polarized glasses you miss out on both of those key clues to figuring them out.

The pond is in Sanford, water temp is 41 today.

Got my first half dozen fish of the season yesterday with this 3.4 being the biggest. All fish were caught on Manns Baby 1 minus. Lost the biggest fish of the day because of course I did.

Im with you on this one. The price point is pretty good also. I use the Rage Craws a lot because of their hyper movements when swimming through the water. These will act the same way, im excited to try them. A few of my friends are on the Gambler Pro Staff and they have been fishing them since January down in Florida with great success. It was also the winning bait on Okeechobee during this years first FLW event.

The Naked Blade is a louder version of a Scrounger jig head. I use smaller baits with it in the colder water, and upgrade as the water warms up. Swimming Senkos and Super Fluke Jr.'s are my favorite early season baits to put on the bladed jigs.

The Chunk is 2.5 inches and the Baby Rage Craw is 3 inches.

Everyone has already hit on the good baits, so ill touch on the locations. Use the places you fish later in the season as reference points for finding fish this time of year. If you normally catch fish near trees on shore, go back to the trees and move out to a deeper spot in line with the tree and start fishing there. If it's too deep for a jerkbait throw a jig or a silver buddy type blade bait. If you don't have success fishing deep, begin to move closer to the trees. The bass will winter deep and move shallower getting ready to spawn as the water temps rise. Good luck!

Few spots open as of now. No big lakes, been out in my jon boat 2 times and took 2 skunks.

The Drop Shot in a boat with a decent sonar on the front is nearly cheating. I have won more money in tournaments watching fish eat my bait on screen than I have using any other technique.

see "Casey Ashley"

I drove all around Arrowhead Saturday and the only spot that didn't have open water was the boat launch on New Dam Rd. But it wont take long for it to open up by the boat launch with all of the current over there.

One thing to keep in mind is that you want to be able to fish all 5 lures on the same setup I would imagine? Unless your uncle plans on using a few different types of rod and reel combos. I imagine its a 6'-7' medium action setup so for that I would say that everyone has already hit on the good baits for that rod and reel. Square bills, Chatterbaits, Drop Shot, Spinnerbaits, Senkos, Jigs, Lipless Cranks.