MIbassyaker

Walters Benton Hackney Menendez Crews

There are quite a few lakes in the 30-200 acre range around here, and the vast majority do not have motor restrictions but probably should. And unless the lake is entirely on public land, there are private homes, even on the smallest ones.

I like the barbwire and dalmation tabs a lot I kind of feel like you can just get a few versions of brown, green pumpkin, watermelon, amber/pumpkin in any version you like, along with plain black. I like to get some addtional chartreuse, blue, purple, and orange for highlights. brown-black-pumpkin is a good all-around craw color. Green pumpkin with a little purple, orange and chartreuse makes a good bluegill. Here is one of my favorite to make for the lakes in my area, which get algae-tinged in the summer. It doesn't mimic anything directly, but possibly everything; I just landed on it after some experimentation with a bunch of different patterns from fishingskirts -- just a brown/green with some lightly-muted chartreuse: Brown Black BW (SKU: 120) - 1 tab Money Maker Watermelon Dalmation (SKU: 224) - 1 tab Bananaseed Dalmation (SKU: 007) - 1/2 tab

Ah yes -- the spectacle of grown adults pretending they can't do elementary school math... Never change, BR!

Yeah, but I expect your temperatures get some coastal moderation.

I'm limited by free time as much as a ice. I'll get my first opportunity in two weeks, but the lakes will probably still be locked up (mid-late march seems more likely for ice-out this year). I may be able to find some open spots on the river bank. Catching one will be a low-probability event, though. After that, I'm probably looking at weekend of April 19-20 at the earliest for actually getting on the water.

Mark Davis. The old guy has still got it.

Depends on the kind of water you're fishing. I really like side scan for seeing the deep weedline in natural lakes, and most places I'm fishing are in that size range.

First time in months that I've watched any fishing. The jones is creeping up...

Mmmm. Midwinter Tackle Porn...

Only when they let me

To be fair, a lot of things are working against a higher percentage of larger fish in that chart. For one, it includes catches from 30-some lakes and rivers, most of which I only fish once or twice per year, and only a few of produce larger fish regularly, but I keep going back because I enjoy the location. In other words, I'm not selecting the 3-4 best waters and hitting them repeatedly. If I did, that would improve things a lot. Also, a lot of the smaller fish come from the same handful of places where you simply have to wade through dozens of dinks before you hook anything of size. I also don't get to fish much during the best times of year for big bass, pre-spawn and fall.

"Big" for me seems like 4lb or larger. I catch about 1 or 2 in that class pear year, which ends up being around 1%. I posted this at some point, a year ago or so, looking back at my records of bass caught over the last several years -- less than 5% of the bass I catch are even 3lb, which would be around the 18-inch mark.

Yep, I fell for the original too (In my defense, I was about 15). Still got it:

The ones that sting for me are when I make some stupid mistake, where I knew better but got lazy or careless. Like failing to check the line for abrasions and retie.