MIbassyaker

Unjustly neglected!

Must have been somewhere else...here's the current list of MI records from the DNR, as of July, 2015: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/state_records_433983_7.pdf Smallmouth record is still the one from 1906. Big Pine Island Lake, the site of the 1934 LMB record for Michigan is 40 min from my house.

I guess I'm a little confused -- you seem to already know the answers to the questions you're asking. A beetlespin is a sinking, weighted bait that tends to rise on the retrieve because of the spinning blade. So....do you want it to rise a bit more, or a bit less? Fluoro = less, Mono = more. If you already know what # test you want to "end up" with, why not just use that? Clear or green line? Now we're really splitting hairs. I can barely get my head around why using one or the other would matter enough to have a strong preference. Most importantly, though: If you're catching a lot of fish, why change anything?

I use lizards most often on a mojo rig, Zoom, Zman, Berkley, others....honestly don't see much need to split hairs over brands, or even hook size (2/0 or 3/0 are fine for 6"). I tend toward lighter tackle, so I often use light-wire hooks, but I've also bent LW hooks on braid, even on smaller fish with a medium spinning rod.

I do not expect ever to catch a state record bass. The Michigan record LMB dates to 1934, and was tied in 1959. SMB dates to 1906. I do fish the lake that produced the 1934 record sometimes, although it doesn't have a reputation as a frequent big fish producer now, if it ever did. But supposing i did catch one? Well, I fish alone almost always, with no livewell, or any other way to keep a fish alive long enough to release successfully after getting it witnessed and/or certified. And I won't keep one, even a trophy. So I'd take pictures of the fish and measurements...and beyond that, I guess I'd just have a fish story.

Trying my hand at tying some jigs. Made few orders over the last several weeks, which got me: -A jig skirt-making kit and a few Arky heads from Barlow's -Some Brush and Grass Heads from Siebert Outdoors in a few different colors -Some more skirt material from TW. Never done this before, but I was inspired by my little collection of Siebert jigs (the handiwork of which I've been examining closely) to give it a shot. After a little trial-and-error on the first several attempts, here's the first bunch I really like, all made from the stuff I ordered above: (All Siebert Brush and Grass heads, except for a Barlow Arky head left middle) I think I'm getting the hang of it! Still have some more heads from those orders yet to use: I'll probably order a bunch more heads next month...

Cavitron by Megastrike. no clacker, trailer, or trailer hook needed.

I would stick with the minnow, if you've had success with that there. Instead of a buzzbait for the second, I would rig up the a weightless texas-rigged plastic, like a fluke, beaver, stick worm, or something like that. You could run it along the tops of weeds, twitch and jerk it through more open water, let fall through cover, or a hundred other presentations. That gives you multiple natural presentations, vertical and horizontal, that you can try right off the bat and will all work in clear water.

In-line spinners? check curly tail grubs? check spoons? check Those are always the first ones that come to mind for me. Buzzbaits don't really, unless you include pike and muskie in the multi-species pool. You might consider a floating minnow, like a rapala original floater.

The BigBill Tackle Museum!

I really dig 15, 20 & 30 power pro for weightless plastics.

If you don't need it to be weedless, you can rig it as a line-through -- thread the line in through the mouth, and out the belly, with a treble on the end.

I have not entered a Walmart in over 10 years, and have no intention of doing so for exactly the reasons mentioned by Dogbone and WRB above. The closest two BPS are two hours away; I will stop and browse if I'm in the area, but I don't stock up on anything there. I have DSG, Cablea's and Gander in town, and will occasionally visit them for deals. But it's my local independent store that always gets my in-person business first; been around for 50 years, and the tackle guys there know every local species and body of water like the backs of their hands. If they don't have what i want, they can order it, or I'll order it online from TW, or get it direct from the company; online storefronts of regional tacklemakers will always get a look.

I usually use mono and braid, but I picked up a 300 yard spool of Vicious Co-Polymer super-cheap a couple months ago ....even the cheap stuff has noticeably better abrasion resistance, less memory, and less stretch than a standard mono like Trilene. I haven't decided if I'll move over from mono to a co-polymer completely, but I'm definitely impressed enough to sample a few more brands and use it more regularly.

I actually prefer black over white for clear water, but I don't have much white forage around here where I fish. Although I bet if I put it to a systematic test, I wouldn't find a color difference.

I was managing to catch fish with a 1/4oz buzzbait fine for awhile this summer on a 7' ML spinning combo with 10lb trilene XL. And I was able to handle a 3/8 size well with a 6' medium. As is often the case, there is a wide distance between "optimal" and "sufficient".

Be persistent with them, bill, and you are in for a treat. 5lb cavitron fish from two weeks ago, exactly the size/color/set-up bluebasser mentioned above, except I used 12lb mono:

Best thing I ever learned. If anything, now I fish too slowly, too often, and don't catch many fish per hour. Still better than getting skunked, though. And I may do the opposite of you: I might buy my first baitcaster next year and spend the summer learning it.

Something I'm trying to understand better: Rod action, drag, and line stretch -- most advice i see about recommendations for particular lures or techniques (especially crankbaits and other treble lures) seem to treat these three factors as compensating for each other. That is, while they are not the same thing (they originate from properties of the rod, reel and line, respectively) they are treated as having similar practical effects on hooking and fighting fish. So i hear: "braid is fine for crankbaits if I loosen the drag and use a moderate action rod." Or, "a faster action rods is fine for cranking as long as there's some stretch in the line and looser drag." I hear this sort of compensatory argument a lot -- is it really the case that these three factors are as interchangeable as they are made out to be? I'm skeptical of that, although I do treat them that way -- for crankbaits I most often use braid on a mod-fast rod with the drag pretty loose, and the rest of the time mono on a fast action rod with the drag a little tighter but still somewhat loose. Many people seem to express a preference for softer action in the rod, rather than looser drag or using stretchier line, but I can't tell if that's a true preference based on Reasons, or if it's the downstream effect of a very effective marketing campaign to get me to buy a shiny new moderate action cranking rod.

Sounds like somebody did catch a hungry little bass before then -- you said somebody caught one years ago. Largemouth populations do not tend to go away easily once present, and it sounds like this lake has always had a small population hanging around, probably spending most of the time tight to cover, nearer shallower water than the walleye, pike, and smallmouth, possibly in places most anglers of those other species aren't hitting. Whatever watershed the lake is in, I bet you can find largemouth here and there throughout it depending on whether there is enough habitat to sustain them -- connecting waters and/or occasional flooding would be how they got there. And a small population can still have some big ones growing in it provided there is enough forage. One of the best lakes near me for good sizes of largemouth is a fairly bad lake for numbers; it's easy to get skunked, but when you tie into one, the chances it's 4lb or more are pretty good.

Nicely done.

In the original Klingon, it's pronounced "Michigan Bass Kayaker", although I've removed some unnecessary syllables and compounded it. Like in Esperanto. Only cleverer. As for lure color, I can only say with certainty it is a problem i have not solved, not that I know what kind of problem it is.

Just type "wrench" into the search bar...

It is quite possible, of course, for a "problem" to occasionally be illusory and self-serving...

As natural lakes age, they accumulate sediment and nutrients, and become increasingly more shallow and more fertile, going from oligotrophic to mesotrophic to eutrophic. Largemouth tend to be found in late mesotrophic and eutrophic lakes, while smallmouth tend to be found in late oligotrophic to mesotrophic lakes. Here in michigan, especially the northern half of the lower peninsula, we have a lot of lakes in the mesotrophic range with some zones that support more smallmouth and some that support more largemouth. But human development can make the transition speed up a lot, due to agriculture, fertilizer, erosion, shoreline changes, pollution, etc., and some zones of the lake may transition faster than others. You may well have a lake in which human development and use has caused some eutrophication, thus increasing the amount of suitable largemouth habitat a lot in a relatively short amount of time. EDIT: I should add, the In-Fisherman books on Largemouth and Smallmouth have excellent, detailed discussions of this.