hawgenvy

How about Jika rig for Senko? Anyone try that? I havent yet, but plan to.

Weedless. Where I fish in S FL the submerged weeds and green muck are so dense I'm lucky to get the weedless Senkos through, and T-rig bullet weights with worms have to be reeled in above the bottom or they're drooping with gobs of algae. Top water weedless toads make life a lot easier.

Here in Palm Beach County, FL, I've been catching just a few, much less than I did in mid June, from the bank in nearby ponds and canals. I don't even try until 6:30 pm. The areas I fish are shallow bank to bank, as is most all the fresh water in S Florida. So, where do the bass go in the summer? Are they there and not eating, or have they gone elsewhere? Do they fill their bellies at 2 am so they're not hungry the rest of the time? Are they more discriminating? Does anyone really know?

Thanks for the tips, Mumbles!

Has been slow (well, not dead slow - but almost) at my favorite ponds in Boca -- fish are sleeping all day and even past dusk, it seems. I usually stick to soft plastics, but recently I had an urge to toss some fat golden shiners towards my uncooperative quarry -- but no tackle store nearby seems to have them. One guy -- at Jonas's Tackle in Deerfield -- said he cant get goldies because animal rights people think it's very cruel to cage them so they got a law passed. It's hard to believe. Maybe they're mixing them up with bottle nose dolphins or something. Or perhaps he was merely BS-ing me. Anyway, any of you guys know where in PB county or Broward County one can purchace (or cast net) golden shiners?

Bluegill are illegal for live bait in Florida. As are LMB, of course. We can use Mayan cichlid, though. People apparently use them for tarpon.

Will be visiting my brother-in-law in Greensboro late August. Would like to catch some LMB in the area, maybe Lake Brandt or Randleman. Anyone know any good guides in the area I could hire to take my brother-in-law and me out for bass for a day or two? Actually, he lives on Lake Jeanette but I don't know if that's a good option.

I've been bank fishing local residential and golf course ponds around Boca Raton, but things are winding down, it seems, as we're getting into July. I don't know where the LMB go in the summer -- all the places I fish are just a few feet deep anyway, so unless they migrate somewhere else they are in that shallow, murky water somewhere. Last week I go over to the most local of local ponds, a half mile from home, a featureless pond between two nursing homes, and adjacent to a small road. But there is submerged weed along the shore that hold 2 to 4 lb bass at the outer edge that I can usually entice with Zoom toads, EZ swimmers or Senkos. Anyway, I'm the only one I've ever seen fishing there, which is in my favor. This may have something to do with the No Trespassing sign over by the nursing home. So, I'm fishing the bank around 8pm and so far only land one fish, no bigger than my EZ Swimmer. A guard pulls up on a golf cart and informs me the entire lake is private property and I absolutely cannot fish there. I am very bummed. After asking politely, he allows me to fish the bank on the way back to my car. Two casts later my phone rings and it's my wife, who I better answer right away. So I let the EZ sink just beyond the weeds while I explain I'll be home in five minutes. When I then go to reel in there is something huge pulling on the line which turns out to be, after a crazy struggle through the weeds and lots of adrenaline, one of the biggest bass I have ever landed, weighing 7.01 lbs on my digital scale, the screen on it probably reflecting my ****-eating grin. So what if I can never fish there again? I've already caught the biggest lunker in that pond. I get home late and my wife doesnt care that I caught a great fish. The next day just for the hell of it I look up the property lines on a government web site. It turns out the entire shoreline is "recreational parkland" and not owned by the nursing homes after all. I can fish there whenever I want. Maybe I'll catch that big girl again some day, when she is even bigger.

Why fish with bass? They are abundant and may be a great bait fish. Okay, it sounds funny, like roasting your poodle or something. But if you are going to use live fish, you dont want something endangered. You want something common and abundant. Like little bass. To catch tarpon. For huge bass. Big snakehead. Snook. Big catfish. Otters (just kidding). Who knows? I'd like to try some day.

Love Zoom Hornys, and rig the frog with a 4/0 so that the hook is just visible on the back of Mr Frog but the tip is just under the "skin." I do hook up a lot using 50 lb braid. I force myself to wait 5 seconds after a topwater blast before setting the hook. Unfortunately my precious toads eventually get torn up by bass chomps. The nose gets macerated and the body gets partially split lengthwise. Then I cut the nose off, finish splitting the toad in two lengthwise, and later use each hemitoad as a chatterbait swimtail.

In Florida LMB have bag limit of 5 and all must be over 14". But there is a new proposal by the fish scientists that may pass: Still bag limit of 5, and only one can be over 16" (but the rest can be any size less than 16"). This preserves the lunkers. And the billions of little bassies found in any rain puddle all over the state can be kept, up to 4 or 5. So maybe if the law goes through we can use as bait the little bass. Seems a bit creepy but maybe I'll give it a try once Im sure its legal. Maybe get a lunker cannibal bass or a brackish water snook. Or a big ugly snakehead.