hawgenvy

Keitech Swing Impact FAT 4.8" soft swim bait in Bluegill Flash, rigged with a 4-0 belly-weighted Gamakatsu Superline Spring Lock swimbait hook (1/16-1/8 oz), fished on 20 lb Seaguar Tatsu fluro on a MH to H rod. Or on 50 lb braid in pads or heavy green stuff. This bait has been sooo totally ridiculous since mid October. I've gone through a couple of hundred dollars worth of these babies since then. So my wife's not happy. But I am. You swim it fast or slow, pause it or not, steady or jerky, whatever. It wiggles and they inhale it. Anywhere there are active, good sized fish. On Lake Okeechobee, in the glades, canals, and local ponds I do get some bites on jigs, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, squarebills, senkos, flukes, worms, frogs, lizards, and creatures -- but currently I catch more bass on this Keitech swimbait than on all the others put together. Also, it casts quite far and you can cover a lot of water pretty fast. I put one under my pillow at night. Because I am in love with my Keitech Swing Impact FAT. (Wife doesn't like that part either.)

Lots of 2-3 pounders, nothing over 4 (except that one I missed), but no dinks (maybe one or two).

Good fishing with you Saturday evening, Mike! We slayed 'em!

It is often suggested that when fishing topwater in the evening or early morning it is best to use dark colored frogs or other lures, as light colored lures do not sillouette well against the pale twilight sky. Even in daytime, the surface still outshines everything else. Given that, I would imagine that fishing line that is on or just below the surface is least visible when clear or, in the case of braid, white. Braided line is manufactured from clear fibers and is white when the strands are first woven together. Coloring dyes are added later and do not adhere well to the strands. That's why braided line gradually loses some color with use. The natural white braid is not as often sold as it is believed to be too visible to fish. That may be the case with braid that is fished below the surface. However, I believe that white, undyed braid may be the ideal color for topwater applications. Any comments?

My latest TW purchase arrived at my door just this afternoon: A Champion 735c. I straddled her with a new Lew's Team Pro reel tightly spooled with Stren Superline Braid 50 lb in clear/blue -- which looks white or undyed. This will be my primary frog rod. My reasons for the white line color are threefold: 1) It was on sale for only $9.99 for 150 yards., charmingly inexpensive. 2) Braided line always starts out white anyway, so it's more natural. 3) Since I will be using it for top water frogs, toads, maybe buzz baits, the line's going to be on or near the surface, where it will not contrast against the bright sky. White should, theoretically, be the LEAST visible braided line when fished top water, but I want to hear some other opinions on that, if there are any that are backed up by evidence. If I'm right, everyone fishing top water with braid should use clear/white/undyed line! Anyway, I went out for an hour at sunset and landed several LMB. Largest was 3-10. Sure was fun catching on my no-longer-innocent brand new rod! It handled the beasts beautifully. Cast like a dream for such a strong stick. This is one nicely balanced, light, sensitive and powerful rod, this Champ 735c. Later, holding up that rod against the pull of braided line, my wife could feel my fingerprint ridges gently slid on taut line 10 feet past the rod. She could feel the vibrations clear down to the handle. That's sensitivity. I'd take my new champ into bed with me tonight -- if it weren't for my wife, dog, two cats, two computers, and me crammed in here. Anyway, it might smell like bass. But seriously, why isn't white line the best color braid for top water applications? Might have to start a new thread for that question.

I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but I really love my Swiss Gear shoulder bag when I'm roaming the banks for a couple of hours with just one or two rods, because it's comfortable, light weight, has a bunch of pockets and zippered compartments, holds a hundred things including a couple of small plano boxes, and I can reach into it so easily because it hangs over my hip within very easy reach.

Me neither. At least they're fun to catch. Even out in the middle of the Everglades the fish are considered tainted and there are warnings about eating bass. Maybe snakeheads from some local waters are safe enough from chemicals to eat, but I don't know how you could be sure.

This short video is from a street market in Saigon showing live snakeheads in a pan without water. There are also live eel, other live fish, live chickens, live ducks, and live frogs. I couldn't say whether the water they came from was unpolluted, but everything is guaranteed a lot fresher than we buy in the US! For some reason the video came out sideways, which I cant seem to fix easily, but you can see it well enough.

I see alligators all the time and they don't seem to be the least bit interested in me. If one is in the water where I'm fishing I just keep an eye on it. If there is one on the bank and I am fishing from the bank I walk a wide arc to get around it. If that fellow sees me he'll usually jump in the water. Alligators will occasionally chase a hooked bass. Not a pleasant thought if you're out there with 80 lb braid. Once, pan fishing behind our house with my little daughter using night crawlers, a small (3 1/2 foot) gator was nosing my bobber. The next thing I knew he was firmly on the hook. I fought the little guy like a fish and had to get him to the shore before I had the leverage to snap the 6 lb line. My daughter thought he might try to eat her, so she climbed half way up a nearby tree and stayed till I convinced her it was safe to descend. Unlike crocodiles, alligators do not seem to see people as something to eat. Back in the drought of 1989 the water was very low in the Everglades, and that forced all the gators to migrate to the rim canal. In the Loxahatchee Reserve at the Palm Beach/Broward County line, the gators were so thick in the rim canal that going down the canal in a boat was literally traversing an obstacle course. Just glancing ahead of the boat you could see several hundred alligators at a time, like dark logs in a river where they float lumber. It was spectacular, a sight I'll never forget. Unfortunately, the reptilian infestation resulted in the closing of the concession there, were you had until then been able to rent a little skiff with a 15 hp outboard and so easily head out into that wilderness without having to drag down your own boat. Sometimes I would rent a little skiff for an hour in the evening just to take in the beauty of the glades, without fishing. I'd go a little ways in, then turn off the motor and drift silently over the clear black water and through the lush green, and watch the many wading birds hunt and watch the mysterious alligators cruise along so slowly and quietly and gracefully, never making the slightest wake. I want to mention also that years ago friends and I were canoeing along a swampy river in central Florida where the gators were so thick we had to push them out of the way with our oars. I wasn't scared then, but it's a little creepy thinking back on it now.

If the water was safe, I'd eat them all! I've eaten snakehead numerous times in Vietnam. They are WONDERFUL, especially grilled. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I agree that the bullet weight in front of a snelled hook results in the hook being not exactly in line with the bait, but the advantage of the snelled hook is that when setting the hook the point kicks out into the fish's jaw improving the hook-up ratio. I believe a good deal of that advantageous kicking out has to do with the pressure of the weight against the hook eye during the set, and you lose that benefit when the weight is not next to the eye. Of course, you might argue that you'll get less bites when whatever godforsaken creature your punched gizmo is supposed to look like looks instead like some other more crooked fluttering contraption -- but in my opinion the improved hook set outweighs the aesthetic flaw.

Sounds great up in NH. Will definitely PM you when I'm up there to find some spots to fish -- if it's not freezing.

I cast netted some big golden shiners about twenty years ago in Boca, but haven't seen them anywhere around in years. Bluegills and other panfish, shad, and little minnows seem to be the predominant forage for LMB around here, though I'm pretty sure they eat a lot of crawfish, frogs, and maybe golden shiners that I haven't personally seen. They seem to like hard and soft plastic, too! This place in east Boca carries silvery live shiners about 2 1/2" long, they get them from Arkansas or somewhere, but they're not much more attractive to the bass than artificials, and a lot more hassle to fish with: 7 Seas Bait & Tackle 1308 NW Boca Raton Blvd Boca Raton, FL 33432 Nice folks in there, though. I've used their shiners successfully for snook in far inshore areas. I've been not too far from your fishing spots in NH. My daughter's fiancé is from out in the woods near Canterbury. Beautiful area, but we got snowed in and lost power for three days there last Thanksgiving!

Every freshwater body of water in Florida except bathtubs and swimming pools has a population of bass, and almost every square mile of Florida has multiple freshwater bodies of water. Caught a fat bass this morning in a little canal behind my house that was only one foot deep not including the mud. It was also teeming with bream, minnows, cichlids and a cadre of fat old gar. Florida's just a lucky place to be, fishingwise.

Hey, we messaged each other before the last time you came down to Boca, in March. Same stuff holds. Fishing's been good here last couple of weeks. Enjoy.

I live in Boca, and do a lot of bank fishing locally, usually in the evening after work, sometimes successfully (four LMB 3 to 4 lbs around sunset today -- on Keitech swim baits). There are miles of places to bank fish in Boca. Unfortunately, some of the best places are private. Message me a couple of days before you get in, or when you get in, and I'll give you my two cents. But if you want to hire a guide for the glades or Okeechobee (or for nearby Lakes Osborne or Ida), let me know soon because you'll need to reserve and I can give you some names. A guide is great if you can and are willing to spend a few hundred dollars.

I have the identical experience with a stubborn snap-swiveling slightly older friend of mine with whom often I fish for LMB, usually from the bank on the numerous shallow ponds throughout his residential golf course community here in So Florida. Now, listen to this: even in his very own backyard I always out fish him, typically around 3:1. Often more than that! Alright, I have to admit, there are other technical differences, like he doesn't wash his hands after applying bug spray, and tends to plunk his lure in the same spot too many times -- whereas I am constantly exploring. But we often use the same baits (swim baits, senkos, shaky heads, frogs, flukes, drop shots, etc.) in the same area, with the same basic setup (casting/fluro/M-MH/fast). One evening a few weeks ago I got ten fish to his one -- and they were bigger, too. He says some guy at the tackle store told him it makes no difference to not use snap swivels. But gosh, if the tables were turned, and some guy fishing right next to ME got ten times more fish than I did, I'd copy his every move -- I might even switch to his brand of underwear! I would copy everything I could to lower every variable, every difference. And if he still out fished me, well then it's just some subtlety of technique I'd get by studying him even closer. But making my terminal set up the same? That'd be about the first thing I'd do! Okay, then, LB is stubborn and uses snap swivels. But he's a good guy, his wife lets him out to fish, he lets me fish in his community, and he BBQs the best darn ribs east of Route 441. So I'll try not to rib him too much about his stupid snap swivels. Maybe I'll even try them once? Hmm... Uh, no I wont!

There are wonderful native fish species that anglers can catch throughout the world. And when non-native species are introduced, there may be unforeseen and disastrous consequences for native species and for other aspects of the victimized aquatic ecosystem. Florida strain largemouth bass have been introduced all over the globe for sport. If and when they become top predators in those areas there is the potential for extinction of entire native species. This, apparently, is happening now in areas of Africa. What man does selfishly and shortsightedly, over and over, that ends up screwing over natural ecosystems is unconscionable. It seems we don't learn from our mistakes. And we sometimes respond emotionally rather than intellectually to sometimes prudent laws that are put in place to try to correct the damage. I know next to nothing about the aspect of this proposal that would prohibit anglers from returning non-native species into the waters of the Delta. But it's worth hearing the argument in some detail, and the science behind it, before reaching a rational and well thought out decision on whether that provision has merit. We humans, and especially bass anglers, must be responsible stewards of our freshwater habitats, and that means acting selflessly when it's the right thing to do; and it means listening to the opinions of the biologists who spend their careers studying these habitats. The scientists might not always be right, but they know a lot more than I do. And I probably don't know as much about this stuff as some of the other anglers on this site, but it is clear that many posts here are generated through emotion rather than through a deeper intellectual understanding. And that is a shame.

Well, that makes perfect sense. Sure is nice when you know what they want.

Be a surgeon! 27 years of school, $500,000 debt, 60 hour work week, fish 3 hours every other Saturday (half of that time on the phone), and be really, really good at getting the hook out of a bass (or a finger).

I like the photo from Mike Iaconelli with a little duck in the bass's throat: https://www.facebook.com/MikeIaconelliFishing/photos/a.167654703280170.34195.111115605600747/478295718882732/ But the weirdest things bass eat are the inanimate objects with which we entice them so effectively.

Interesting. If they didn't try to eat just about anything that moves, we'd never catch them with plastic gadgets.

Was doin' a little bank fishing with my friend Larry yesterday evening under overcast skies, cooled by a pleasant breeze, tossin' a black and red hollow body froggy down along side a long wooden wall. And BAM!, I nailed a nice fat three pounder, and flipped her over the wall onto the soft green grass. There she promptly puked out a cute little 2" bluegill that was still, somehow, alive, but barely. I defrogged the still feisty bass, holding her by the lower jaw, and called Larry over to see. "Look here Larry, let's see if she'll eat what she ate before". I placed the little bluegill head in her throat right up against her big gut hole, and she relaxed open her hole and caused the little fish to slide all the way down till ya couldn't see even the tail no more. "Muster been a reflex," said Larry, "a helluva swallerin' reflex!" I then put the chunky girl in the water and she darted right off. Wonder if she later decided to puke out that little bluegill a second time. I sure hope she kept it down.

Hey Eric. Enjoying your big fish photos and stories! You sure know how to find and entice those big girls! As far as photos, you can easily upload any size photos to an album in your gallery on your profile page of this site, and from there you can add them to your posts without re-sizing by simply clicking the "My Media" icon in the toolbar when you're posting. It'll add a link to your photo and the picture will show up on your post. And if you choose to, tell us a story about one (or more) of your biggest bass, how you spotted her, how you enticed her, how you picked which bait to use, how you fought her and brought her in. Thanks!

Have any of you guys tried the Magnum version?