MIbassyaker

I keep thinking I'll get into fly fishing someday, but everything about it seems so fussy and I'm not sure I have the patience. A quick search shows there are actually quite a few articles on Fly fishing for bass here on BR, but I'm not sure I've ever run across them, either in the home page or referenced in the forums. I've caught (small) bass on popper flies with a light spinning rod and casting bubble, but it's awkward, and not very effective. I've also tried a trailing a woolly bugger ~18 inches behind a Rapala floating minnow (used mostly for casting weight, with front hook removed), which I read about somewhere, but haven't been successful with it yet. Maybe one of these days I'll just bite the bullet and try the real thing....

I caught exactly one bass over 4lb this year in 105 hours of fishing. Last year I caught two. August 2021 was the last time I caught a bass over 5. Granted, I'm not consistently fishing the best waters for larger bass, but 2 and 3lbers are the foundation of a successful outing for largemouth in most places up here, most of the time. Whether I catch anything larger than that depends almost entirely on location and timing...and I don't always get much choice over when I'm free to go fishing, how long I have, and how far away I can go.

I'll have to get back to you. I may not learn anything this Winter.

I would submit that people who fish in bass tournaments do it because they like catching bass. It's not that they fish for bass because they like tournaments.

Bass are the Goldilocks Fish -- "just right". Among other things: -Size: They're not too big to handle, but large enough to provide some excitement. -Challenge level: They're easy to catch occasionally, but difficult to catch consistently. -Diversity: They inhabit a huge variety of environments, which require different approaches and yield different angling experiences. -Convenient access: They're everywhere; I'm always close to a body of water with bass in it -Resilience: They tolerate being caught and handled well, and survive release at a high rate; the perfect catch-and-release quarry.

Yep, that's what I'm shooting for. Got a ways to go yet. Just have to stay healthy enough to make it possible.

I'm definitely not the physical specimen I was in my 20s (such as it was), but i've never fished better, mainly because I'm much more knowledgeable and dedicated now. As long as I can stay reasonably healthy, I gotta believe my Peak Bassing years are still ahead of me.

I lose a few lures every season to pike bite-offs, but I land more than I lose. It depends on whether they get their teeth on the line, which they can slice through instantly. A hard hit, followed by an immediate breakoff on the hookset was usualy a pike. Always need to check the line closely after every pike encounter. They'll also mangle plastics, spinnerbait/buzzbait wires, skirts, balsa bodies, etc Smaller pike ("Snot Rockets", "Hammer Handles") are annoying because they're slimy, thrash around like crazy, but larger ones can be pretty exciting -- helpful to have a net in the kayak, but I try to leave them in the water for unhooking if I can. They strike mostly anything you'd use for bass -- spinnerbaits, topwaters, crankbaits, jerkbaits, jigs, any plastics, even ned rigs and drop shots. They like slightly colder water than largemouths, so in many of the lakes where I fish, they tend to stay deeper than the bass in the summer. I don't target them, or even really enjoy dealing with them most of the time, but they're part of the adventure up here and they spice things up.

Turns out 56 is exactly the number of bass I caught over my last 9 trips, going back to the beginning of August. And of those, I can count the number over 18" on 1 hand. I had a slow year, but even at best I don't ever have mornings like this!

I don't think you have to be "super-analytical" to just follow the rod rating -- the rod-maker did the analysis for you! The problem is, you have to notice that different rods have different ratings, which a lot of people never do. I won't forget the look my wife gave me the first time she was with me looking at rods, and I said I was looking for a "Medium-heavy, fast" model. "Uhh...fast?" she says, giving me the side-eye. "It....moves?"

Well I can't compete with any of you -- I think my PB smallie is 3.5 lb, and most of the ones I catch are river fish -- lean and mean torpedos, rather than chunky footballs. My best five on the year are a total of about 9-10lb. Year's best from Labor Day, probably ~3: If I had time and somebody to help me do the put-in/take-out car shuffle, I'd be hitting the Grand River right now. Probably my best chance for a smallmouth over 4lb, short of big water or going north. The dams are elbow-to-elbow right now with steelhead/salmon waders, but the stretches between are often empty, except for the occasional walleye troller.

Handful of odds and ends from TW I didn't really need, but why not:

I was hearing the Benny Hill theme in my head while reading this...

Pre-rig. Why? -I'm a compulsive planner -Small waters; I know ahead of time I will be fishing a narrow range of presentations -limited time; I always want to maximize the amount of time my line is in the water -I paddle a kayak; riding around is for motors or even pedal drives, neither of which I have.

Well, I've managed the three outings I'd hoped for this month before hanging things up for the year. First trip I got skunked. Second trip was to a lake I have never fished before; I caught one small pike and one tiny largemouth. Third trip was better, with 12 in 3 hours --a pretty good rate for me-- but this pair of 17"s were the only ones of any size: BFFs Lizard and Spinnerbait, enjoying the fall colors: And that's probably going to be a wrap for me on the year. I might find a spare hour here or there to walk the riverbank and make a few casts, but the chances of actually catching any more bass before Spring are pretty low.

"Pumpkin green flake" (Berkley) "Grape Blue Flake - white" (Mr. Twister) "Crawdaddy" (Strike King)

I have commented on this topic before, as it is something actually know a little about (as opposed to every other topic, where I just flail around aimlessly). I have a post-graduate academic and research background neuroscience and psychology, with emphasis in cognition and perception, and I teach about psychological and neural mechanisms of color perception at the college level. There are many comments on this thread I would like to respond to, but unfortunately, I don't have time at the moment. Nor do I have time to craft a detailed explanation of color vision, how it works, and what we can reasonably know vs. not know about bass vision from controlled experiments. Suffice to say, there are quite a few misunderstandings in this thread. I am also long-winded and not very good at getting to the point. The shortest, most direct answer to the OP's question is intensity. Even colors that are similar in hue may differ in intensity of reflectance -- how strongly light is reflected from the surface of the lure. Most versions of chartreuse that you find in lures are very highly-reflective -- more so than most versions of white. So even if bass do not distinguish between chartreuse and white, a chartreuse lure may have greater reflectance than a white lure, and therefore may penetrate better than than a typical white in murky water. I say "may" because you don't know until you actually measure reflectance. You also don't actually know if chartreuse-black is better than white-black for attracting strikes on the water in the first place until you control for other factors, like angler confidence and expectations, which is impossible outside of a controlled experiment. Anyway, here are some things I've said about this stuff before:

PBs are the best. Congrats!

I assume you ordered direct from Fenwick? I returned a broken Aetos several years ago. I looked through my records to see how I got a hold of them -- turns out I just I emailed fenwick@purefishing.com about it, and then they emailed me back, told me to send it back with the original receipt for inspection, and gave me a reference number. I did this and then a few weeks went by during which I heard nothing. Then a new intact rod simply appeared at my door one day. I paid to ship the broken rod back, but that was it. In this case the rod was in my possession and the return was handled by their warranty processes. I don't know how they would handle non-acceptance of delivery, but it's disturbing to hear you can't get a hold of them. Their systems may have changed post-covid.

Been a fan of Bizz Baits since they were a site sponsor here a number of years ago. I haven't bought much tackle this year, but I saw they had some good looking stuff in their custom shop, including some limited-run plastic colors and "Fall Fry" triple willow spinnerbait:

How about a triple willow? Just arrived: The "Fall Fry" from Bizz Baits.

Any variation of "little worm on a jighead" is worth fishing -- no accident that these account for 3 of the spots on the list.

I've been doing well throwing these the last couple years, clockwise starting top right: -Pepper Custom double willow "bleeding bluegill" -Siebert Outdoors Compact Cosmic double willow, "Pumpkinseed" -War eagle colorado-indiana, "Copper/Chartreuse" -Revenge double willow, "Bluegill" -Booyah Covert double Colorado, "Chartreuse/White/Silver" I like gold and copper blades around bluegill/sunfish forage.