MIbassyaker

I saw the title of this thread and immediately winced. Then I read that you hadn't tried it yet. Don't.

This homemade guy has been pretty heroic for me so far:

sounds like you want the brush or the dock rocker...or some of both. The brush is my favorite too. The dredge hook is killer (I thread trailers too...not that hard, and I also think trailers stay on a little better)...but if I'm going to buy a bunch, I just get the supreme version, which is most certainly no slouch itself.

This belongs more on the regional board, but no, and i would be surprised if they are any different than millennium. It's not like there aren't good-sized fish for our area (say, 4lb and over) lurking in the millennium pits, I just hear more 3rd and 4th hand rumors about them than I see evidence. The best chance in town of encountering larger fish with some frequency is probably at Reeds (not exactly a secret), which anyway is too crowded and nasty for my tastes. So I prefer to escape to....nameless elsewheres.

hey, neighbor I haven't fished this place for awhile, but I've had the impression that the pits on the right are a bit more productive from shore than the one on the left and the one cut off below at the park. I've never seen any contour information about these lakes so they are a bit of a "black box" underneath the water; I don't know how deep they go, although most of the area of the left one, if I can remember correctly, can't be more than 10-15 feet (I think the connected section by the park cut off on the bottom left gets deeper in spots). You can paddle into the lake on the left if you rent a kayak or paddleboat from the boathouse at the park (but the prices are steep and I don't think it's open for the season yet), but I don't know if you can navigate to the ones on the right. When I fished it I did all right pitching senkos to shady areas, especially under the bridges and culverts, or running spinnerbaits along shoreline brush, wherever you see any. If you want to fan cast the points and coves, use something weedless like a soft swimbait...there's more vegetation in there out away from shore than it looks like there is. Honestly, if you're catching 16" with regularity and you "hook up with a 20" or better on rare occasions ", you're already doing pretty well here. There's no silver bullet.

Although I find black and blue and junebug mostly interchangeable, I prefer junebug given the choice for two reasons, both of which are just local considerations. First, for some reason, bass in most of the waters I fish seem to have preference for green flake over other flake colors, including popular flake colors like blue and red. A junebug with green flake therefore often serves as my "low light/visibility" counterpart to the other colors I use a lot of, green pumpkin and watermelon candy, and amber/pumpkin with green flake. Second, a number of places I fish have varieties of submerged grass that seems to take on a very-slightly purplish hue in the water. It's possible this is just an illusion, but I'm a big believer in choosing bait colors that "fit" somewhat with the colors I see in the water and along the shoreline, under the assumption that craws and baitfish will tend to take on tints and hues similar to their surroundings.

Even when it's bright and sunny midday, I keep a popper or a torpedo ready to throw just inside the edges of any shady areas I see.

Check the link I posted above -- I believe that's actually the rod smalljaw is taking about: 6'6" ML-M Fenwick Aetos caster, $75. Looks like there are 7 left.

I definitely believe I feel strikes better when the line is free to pull through the weight compared to a split shot, or a pegged weight. Also, although I can't prove it, it also seems to cut down how often fish get gut-hooked. I use it to drag small plastics around submerged weeds in the summer.

None. Gimme the standard colors. Sorry. Green pumpkin or watermelon. Chartreuse tip if I'm feeling really exotic.

If you're into aesthetics, the patriarch fits the color scheme of a Fenwick Aetos.

"Boom goes the dynamite!"

I do both a roll cast and a side-arm pitch, which takes some practice to get the aim and distance right, but definitely doable. I'm also practicing a "loop pitch", which I found in Denny Brauer's book "Jig Fishing Secrets". I can't find a good online depiction, but scroll down two pages in the book preview linked below, and there is a figure that appears to be reproduced from the Brauer book: https://books.google.com/books?id=vzh6liejRJIC&pg=PT69&dq=loop+pitch+denny+brauer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCm5uK-8_MAhVoxoMKHXYpC58Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=loop%20pitch%20denny%20brauer&f=false

Awesome. Match the hatch, yo.

Only one way to find out. You should get it, try it, then report back on how well it works. I have caught both largemouth and smallmouth on bubble-gum colored worms, and I would wager 9 times out of 10, all else equal color matters more for a worm than for a topwater.

First time out this year on friday morning for a few hours, then a few more this morning today. Water was 52 friday, 54 today. Mostly i was itching to try some new setups, new lures, and make a renewed effort at some lower-confidence presentations (jerkbaits, jigs, dropshot) after a winter of reading up on them. I caught 5 total; not many, but some very satisfying firsts: -- first bass of the year, on a duo spinbait 80 (also first ever spybait fish) -- first bass I have ever caught on a drop shot -- forced myself to make it happen, finally! -- first time catching a bass on a baitcaster. I resolved to learn baitcasting this year, so I have 4 new rods and reels to break in...2 are now officially broken in with successful catches. --first time catching a bass on a jig with a skirt of my own making -- a 3/8 siebert brush head with a green pumpkin/watermelon/purple skirt --first time catching a bass on a bladed jig I assembled myself -- I put together a barlows head, split ring, blade, snap, and tied my own skirt...sort of a "baby bass color", black, whisky-green on back, and translucent white underneath. The biggest fish (3.1) took this one. Botched the only pic I had, sorry. Next time...

I use 3/0 ewg hooks usually, either 8lb copoly or 20lb braid, on medium-fast spinning. I haven't noticed more missed hookups than any other texas rigged plastic....hookset is basically the same as described above although I don't really slam it as hard as I do for a jig, just a quick, firm pull, straight up.

We're open all year for catch and release now, but this weekend may as well have been an opener for me too, since my schedule keeps me mostly grounded until May. I finally got out friday morning and earlier today for a few hours each; 5 bass total, including my first ever on a drop shot and my first ever on a spybait! Two others on a homemade (also a first!) bladed jig.

You read my mind this morning -- I have almost no experience with jerkbaits but was trying to fish one from a sitting position in the kayak earlier today and friday morning. The best I could manage was a shortened side motion as mentioned above, similar but harder (and less rhythmic) than what I do for walking a spook.

Got a flyer in the mail from BPS with a code for free shipping on $25 or above. Sure, why not:

A seemingly-random, yet frequent unexplained event that has baffled scientists and wives for decades.

It turned out actually to be a white bass bait first time I tried it about a year ago on a lunch break excursion... For green and brown bass, I haven't caught anything over a couple pounds on it, but that's typical of most baits most of the time, in most places I fish. It definitely catches numbers. But It's not like I switch to something else and all of a sudden the weight starts going up. Nice article from in-fisherman by Ned himself about how it's catching on among some more pros; I'm sure many more of them use it than let on: http://www.in-fisherman.com/bass/jeff-gustafsons-introduction-to-midwest-finesse/

I'm not exaclty a crappiemaster, but I do all right with a president 6925 on a 6' ml berkley lightning rod, which I think was $40 or $50. It does a fine job with small tubes, grubs, inline-spinners, and crankbaits, and doubles as my ned rig setup for bass.

Figured as long as I was taking a mid-day trip to the bank, may as well stop for few minutes at the closest tackle spot, which in this case was DSG:

"I imagined the mindset of a baitfish: cold, lonely and fearful that it was about to be eaten . . . " Love it. Presentation Mindset.