BASS fisherman

Has anyone tried one of these jigs or spinnerbaits yet? If so. what do you think? Or is it just a gimmick?

I agree with Glenn. Probably not illegal, but definatley not ethical. As my pop would say, "You sold your soul for $50 bucks".

I have had bad experiences with the Vanish as well. I doubt it was the old formula though. Earlier this year in preperation for a tournament up in Erie, I went out and bought 8lb and 10lb Vanish. I also spooled a few reels with some Yozuri hybrid 8 and 10lb test. I broke more fish off on the vanish than I caught. The Yozuri was fragile too, but not nearly as bad as the Vanish. Who knows though, the Vanish could have been old line when I bought it. The 10lb vanish seemed to hold up much better than the 8lb, but they both were still very delicate. Just as a side note, I am a huge bargin hunter, old line or not. I bought 13 spools ranging from 10lb up to 20lb sensation. I'll have to test it out myself and see if I like it. I got over $100 worth of line for a mere $13.00!! You just can't beat that! Thanks for all the imput.

What are some of the negatives that make it a bad line? I agree with you about Trilene. Most of there lines are horrible!

Last Saturday I hit Keystone State park for a couple hours. The DNR lowered the lake to work on a bridge that goes over part of the lake so the bottom of the dam is level with the water. I found a bunch of baitfish in that area so I tied on a black 1/4 oz bucktail jig and cast to a small dropoff where I knew the bass would be waiting for those unsuspecting morsels to slip up. After a bit I caught a chunky 10 inch LM that was as cold as an ice cube. I walked down the dam making casts parellel to the shore, but about 10 feet out. I ended up catching another fat pig, who probably went 1lb 12-14 ozs, maybe even 2lbs. I got them both on a black bucktail jig with a steady, but slow swimming retrieve. Fun day!! Anyone else catching any cold fish?

I stopped in Gander Mt today and found a bunch of spools of Trilene sensation selling for $1.00 per 330yrd spool. The only thing the box says in reference to what type of line it is, is that it is a "complex polymer alloy". What is that? Is that just a fancy way of saying the line is a co-polymer? And also please refresh my memory, what is a co-polymer? Isn't a co-polymer a mono line coated with flourocarbon? Please HELP!!!!

First try and find some baitfish. Chances are the bass will be around them. If you can't find any baitfish, try fishing the deepest areas with a c-rig, jig-n-pig, a jigging spoon, and 1/8-3/8 oz bucktail hair jigs. If your fishing from a boat, you could also try any finesse techniques you can think of such as a shakey head or drop shot. Winter fishing can be tough to say the least so let the odds play in your favor. Unlike sping, summer, and fall, the fish in winter don't actively feed until later in the day. I've had better catches between 1pm and 4pm during the cold water period. Try to fish on sunny days where you might have some fish move up shallower to warm up. Also look for rip-rap areas since supposedly rocks hold heat better than other structure in the lake. The key is to find a ledge where the fish can easily move shallower or deeper with the most minimum of effort. Remember the fish are a product of their habitat....being cold blooded, when the water temp is below 50F, their metabolism slows down too. Alot of times the cold water bite is extremely lite, so get yourself some flourocarbon line and keep your finger on it to feel the light bites. Concentrating on your line in the water helps alot too. And when you think your fishing slow enough, fish even slower! Good luck and tight lines!

Am I experiencing deja-vu? Here it is again: First try and find some baitfish. Chances are the bass will be around them. If you can't find any baitfish, try fishing the deepest areas with a c-rig, jig-n-pig, a jigging spo-on, and 1/8-3/8 oz bucktail hair jigs. If your fishing from a boat, you could also try any finesse techniques you can think of such as a shakey head or drop shot. Winter fishing can be tough to say the least so let the odds play in your favor. Unlike sping, summer, and fall, the fish in winter don't actively feed until later in the day. I've had better catches between 1pm and 4pm during the cold water period. Try to fish on sunny days where you might have some fish move up shallower to warm up. Also look for rip-rap areas since supposedly rocks hold heat better than other structure in the lake. The key is to find a ledge where the fish can easily move shallower or deeper with the most minimum of effort. Remember the fish are a product of their habitat....being cold blooded, when the water temp is below 50F, their metabolism slows down too. Alot of times the cold water bite is extremely lite, so get yourself some flourocarbon line and keep your finger on it to feel the light bites. Concentrating on your line in the water helps alot too. And when you think your fishing slow enough, fish even slower! Good luck and tight lines!

Ish is definatley a great person as well as one heck of an angler. I have talked to him a few times threw his site and he always responds. To me that speaks volumes. You know he is extremely busy, but when he can find some time he makes sure to get back to his fans.

Great thread GMAN! This past week I just recieved 4 molds to start making my own lead head lures. I got a tapered tube mold, the discontinued gitzit tube mold, a bullet head spinnerbait mold and a bullet weight mold. I also got a bunch of blades, spinner and buzzbait wires, paint, and a bunch of hardware for the spinnerbaits and buzzbaits. I decided to come on here to see what I could find about pouring lead and BAM!- here it is. Thanks alot. Now I want the weedless football jig mold, a round ball head mold, and a few others. I do have some questions though- Where do you get your lead? Why be careful of alloys? How about ingots? Do you have an inexpensive way to make them?

I don't stop till the water's hard either, then I try my luck at different spots on the rivers. Ususally I dont catch anything, but I equate it to an ex-smoker who just quit needing to chew gum or hold a pen in their fingers. I just have to get out and cast for a few hours to alleviate my fix. ichapicanemo, Where you located in SW PA?

Im not the best story teller, but I'll relate a couple of my experiences. I used to live in Gettysburg, PA which has been called by some "The most haunted place in the US". One night on my way home from work, it was about 11pm, and Gettysburg being a tourist town, shuts down at around 9pm, so everything was quiet. As I pulled out of a side street I noticed 2 people standing on the sidewalk and pointing up to a window in the attic of the Farnsworth house, and gasping. I yelled over asking what they are looking at and they told me to come over. I parked and walked over and they instructed me to look up into the window and tell them what I saw. It looked like a soldier, you could see it's kepi and a gun in it's right hand. The thing was transparent though. As I watched I could see it mouthing words that I took to say "look out" or "watch out" as it was pointing towards the direction of town where the Union sharpshooters took up position and fired upon the Confederates located in the Farnsworth house attic, and other houses along the same road. I stayed and watched it for a good forty minutes as the "thing" faded in and out and at one point even "swirled" away as though I was on a psycadelic acid trip. We even asked others who were walking by to look up and see what they seen and everyone said it looked like a soldier pointing and saying something. All the times I drove, and waked past the place at night I would always look up into that window and never again did I see the image. I figured since the Farnsworth house did ghost tours around town, maybe they had set up some sort of movie magic type of thing in the attic, but again, I never seen the image after that night. One of the folks I met that night on the street was named Beatrice who worked for the Farnsworth house as a ghost tour guide. We became good friends which led to other ghostly happenings. Later in the summer I was again on my way home from work and noticed Beatrice talking with two gentlemen reenactors in a small grove across the street from the Farnsworth house. I stopped by to say hello, and one of the guys was beat red and tears were streaming down his face. Apparently on a tour of the basement of the house he was touched by something that literally burned his skin. He even showed us the mark and sure enough it looked like a hand print that looked like a bad sunburn on his chest. Upon further investigation, I found the basement to have been the final resting place for several Confederate soldiers who were shot in the attic of the house and in the surrounding area. The reenactor was wearing a Union soldiers uniform, and it is my belief that some of the Confederates who didn't know they were dead, felt threatened by the reenactor and forcefully tried to remove him from "their" space. The man was so rattled by the experience he was questioning his faith, and questioning his previous beliefs about life after death. On several occasions I used to do battlefield walks into the evening. On several occasions I had odd feelings. While walking across the field of Pickett's charge, I would be surrounded by hot and cold spots that moved with me across the field for a short time. I have also had feelings of dread, or feelings that I was unwelcomed and had to leave the area ASAP. On another night, I met up with some ghost hunters from Florida. They were not familiar with some of the towns lesser known spots so I gave them a tour. One of our stops was an old covered bridge on the western side of town. We took some pictures and moved on down the road where they wanted to stop and take a few pictures facing down stream and at the bridge. Just then we all felt a cold spot that was COLD. I could see my breath in the air on an 80 degree night. As quickly as we felt it, it was gone. We tried to locate it again with no success. At the shelter I lived at for a short time, lots of people had odd experiences. Supposedly their was a mill on the site that had used kids as cheap labor. The mill burned down one day long ago, and all the kids died in the fire. I had heard of a few young children who had been afraid to sleep on the floor because of "scary" kids under the beds. Another child related stories of a kid with a "melted" face who wouldn't let him sleep at night. A girl talking trash out one night had a childs toy car race across the yard in front of her scaring her half to death. On another occasion in the winter of 2003, a couple shelter employees were shoveling the walkway leading up to the door. Since the snow was deep and coming down fast, they decided to take a smoke break. As they stood there smoking, they claimed to see small footprints forming in the snow as if someone wass walking up the ramp towrds them. Only problem, there was no one to be seen. At one point in time a restaurant in town had burned down and became the site of a gruesome murder rape. A man had seduced a woman and taken her to the remnants of the builing to rape her. After he did he supposedly bashed her head in with a rock, leaving her to rot in the rubble. Around the year anniversary of the womans death, a shelter emplotee and a tenant had seen a woman walking down the train tracks outside the shelter just as a train was coming. The train rolled right threw the women as the employee ran inside to call the police. No body was ever found, and the employee after relating the story to another worker, found the day to be the one year anniversary of the womans brutal death. On another day a shelter employee was outside smoking when all of the sudden several police cars came screeching up, sirens blarring as though a robbery was being commited. They were called because a few locals had heard a women screeching for her life. The shelter worker never heard anything, and no one was ever found. This incident happened on the 2 year anniversary of the brutal death of the women in the building remnants. One time while walking through an area of huge boulders seeming scattered and stacked in an odd fashion, called "Devil's Den" I was walking past a family- Grandma her son and her two teenage grand kids. All of the sudden the women started gaging and asked her kids if they smelled "it". She said it smelled like dried blood and rotten meat. As she described it the others said they smelled it too. I was right next to them and couldn't smell anything. I have had several experiences while driving the battlefield were oddly shaped columns of fog would slowely drift across the fields. Seeming in the shape of men. Same height, same basic structure of a column of men marching off to war. On a trip with the BSA our troop was visiting Gettysburg. One night I took a small group on a ghost tour/hunt of the battlefield. At an area called Spangler's spring, we posed in front of the spring's monument for a group photo. Being we were on a ghost hunt, I decided to point to the adjacent field with a look of frieght on my face as though I was looking at a ghost. After the pictures were developed, our group was surrounded by orbs. In all there were probably 10-15 in each photo that was taken. In the picture that I pointed off into the field, there was an orb on the end of my finger. You could actually tell it was on my finger do to the lighting behing the orb, and near my finger. It was odd to say the least. Here are a couple orb photos I had taken one winter night in Gettysburg near an old bridge that is no longer open. I have a ton more photos, but not on the puter Im working on right now.

Man I thought my ears were burning earlier today! ;D

I was fishing Keystone state park lake last Sunday and caught over 30 LM in just about 2 hours. I caught them all throwing small Storm swimbaits. I went back this past Wednesday and the baitfish were ganged up in the same spot. I started throwing a small Rapala countdown and caught a few before I lost it. Then I tied on the Storm swimbait and continued to hammed them for the next hour. I ended up loosing count, but I caught a bunch. Try throwing small tight wobble cranks like the OG Rapala or countdown, along with any swimbaits you may have. The fish are ganging up on baitfish in preparation for winter.

This is a really cool thread LBH!! I have been fishing my whole life, but I do remember the moment I was hooked to bass. It was early in the summer of 2005, the year they fished the classic in Pittsburgh. Let me set the scene: I was living in a shelter in Gettysburg. One evening a new guy moved in and had a ton of fishing gear with him. Of course the conversation turned to fishing almost immediatley. I told him I am more of a trout fisherman and he basically laughed at me and told me he goes for bass, and that he'd have to take me out to a local pond soon. I didn't have any "bass" gear, and only one med action spinning rod with an equally horrid spinning reel. A few days later he takes me to the towns Walmart and showed me some good stuff to get. I picked up some FLW finesse worms, some 2/0 and 5/0 hooks, a few lures and a med action Abu Garcia spinning rod. Then we drove way out in the boonies to this little pond. He gave me some old plastics to try out one of which was a pack of watermelon senkos. He explained the best way to fish them and I was off. I believe it was my first cast next to some weeds and BAM!! fish on! That was the moment I was hooked. Another moment that sticks out in my mind is fishing the same pond on another occasion. He was throwing a fluke and I had a small Storm sub-wort crank tied on. I caught a couple fish with the crank and he made a big deal of how I discoved the pattern that day. That got my curiosity peaked and started me into learning everything I possibly could about the habits of LM bass. I also remember out fishing him one time that made me even happier since he was a huge bass fisherman that absolutley knew what he was doing. That boosted my confidence tremendously and made me want to get into tournament fishing. His name was Jeff Jones and unfortunatley we have lost contact. I want to take this oppurtunity to urge anyone in the South Central area of Pa that knows a Jeff Jones to contact me with a number or address so we can get back in touch. I think he'd be quite impressed on how far I have come since the summer of 2005. I have tried to find him so we could go fishing, but my searches have been fruitless.

I like to use grubs on a plain ball head jig when fishing a clean bottom with few rocks. If I am fishing a rip rap area, I like to use a football head jig. When fishing weedy areas, I like a spot remover jighead. You can use any plastic on a jighead. Your only limited by your imagination.

I like UMF alot, but I was surprised they didnt show the final weights, or the fish at the weigh in.

I am truely C&R. ;) From what I understand, it is better to keep the smaller fish from an over populated lake, and let the larger fish go due to their genetics. A great example of this is the Texas Sharelunker program. If you catch a fish over a certian length, you call the program and they collect the fish to use for spawning, and then release it. Guaranteeing a higher population of genetically superior fish. But most fishery agencies are run by government and lawyers and they don't yet understand the importance of properly restricting certain length limits to allow for genetically superior fish. Muddy, too funny man, too funny! ;D Plus I couldn't bring myself to cut open a little fishy, scoop it's guts out and fry it up. I'd rather go to the grocery store to buy fish. I fish for the sport of it, not because Im starving.

What do you guys use to open up those little "O" rings? They are called split ring pliers. Rapala makes some quality split ring pliers for $15.00 bucks.

I appreciate the responses and kind words. Last year I kept my mouth shut when I seen someone taking undersized fish. This year I have educated myself so that when the situation arrises, I can handle it reasonably well. As an angler I believe that when the situation of people illegally taking undersized fish arrises, you need to remind the people what the laws are, as well as why the laws are in place. It isn't just right, it's your duty as an angler. I have had people go over my head trying to resolve something rather than coming to me, and that bugs me tremendously. I would rather go to the source and lay some education down and let them make the next move. Like RW said, if that doesn't work the next step are the police or in PA the waterways conservation officers.

Last weekend I was beating the bank at a local lake and I catch a close, but not keepable Lm bass. A guy is walking past and does the usual "nice fish you got there" line and asks if I am going to keep it. Now I am stricktly a C&R guy, even if I would catch a new state record I would release it. So I tell the guy no I don't want it, and the guy about jumps out of his boots and holds out a bucket and says"then I'll take it"! I immediatley throw the fish in the water and inform him that the legal length is 15 inches and that fish wasn't. Plus they are too much fun to only catch once. He does this fake laugh and walks away. Yesterday I was fishing the same lake and this guy and his wife are fishing just down from me. All of the sudden the guy runs towards his wife who is out of my line of sight. I thought maybe something was wrong so I start walking over to help if needed. Well she caught a 10"-11" LM bass and was obviosly afraid to touch it, let alone take the hook out. Her husband walks over with a pair of pliers and a stringer, now I have an idea of this guys plans but didn't want to jump the gun. He removes the hook, and then reaches for the stringer and starts to untangle it. I inform him the minimum legal length on this lake is 15" and that fish doesn't come close. He hesitates and askes if he should throw it back, to which I say "yes". I promptly move to the other side of his wife explaining to them the reason for this requirment. During which he continually glares at me with either an embarassed look or a P.O.'d look. After explaining to them the reason for the length requirment I walk away to fish another area of the lake. Now my question....... Would you say something to folks who either don't know the law or are to ignorant to care? I don't like confrontation too much, but these people are ruining the lake!! The laws are there for a reason! What do you think?

5 as in 5 fish limit, or as in 5 lb'r? The Pa Erie limit w/ our club rules was only 3 fish. As for a 5lb'r, one of the smallies in the first pic is 5 even. I think the farthest one on the right. The second pics lunker was 2 ounces short at 4lb 14 ounces. Total weights were 1st pic: 12lb 15 oz 2nd pic: 12lbs even

Nice pigs! No pun intended! Check these hogs out from our clubs tournament last month. These guys got 1st and 2nd place. Did you guys launch from Ohio?

Limiting your choices in bass fishing will limit your success in the long run. Monofilament is great for crankbaits, jerkbaits, and spinnerbaits due to the line stretch that gives the lures a little extra bite when you set the hook. It helps to delay your reaction so you don't pull the lure away from the fish before it can fully engulf the lure. Flourocarbon has very little stretch and a much better amout of sensitivity than monofilament. It is best suited for finesse presentations. Worms, jigs, tubes etc.... Braid is a tough line with no stretch and more sensativity than flourocarbon. It is best used for fishing heavy cover such as thick pads, or weeds with jigs and most popularly, frogs.

I like a quality custom made wooden crank over mass produced wooden cranks any day. Whittler on this site makes some of the best cranks I have ever used. My personal favorite is the model 11 which isn't listed on his site. I call it the "peanut" crank because it resembles the shape of a crooked peanut. I have caught more fish on the model 11 than probably all my other cranks combined. http://jm-woodcraft.cabanova.com/