MIbassyaker

Highly-recommended reading for the scientifically-curious (if you can find them):

Just a casual "couple dozen" brownies with a 6.48lb kicker. Another day at Menderchuck...

Goby says "No"

All I know is, if I actually field a team for every event, I'll improve upon last year when I missed like half of them. 😬

What happened is they are no longer a sponsor. I've used them a few times. My problem with the swammer --- the 4" at least -- is the tail doesn't kick well at slow speeds on belly-weighted hook. It does better on the back of a swimjig. However, a Keitech --less durable though it may be-- has no such problem.

My experience here as well. I suspect that the warmwater inland lakes and rivers I fish are much, much lower priority for them than the trout/steelhead streams and Great Lakes.

Man, what a downer. Any chance of warranty replacements for any of it? Great fish though.

Yes. The Texas rig is maybe the only presentation you could limit me to, and I would still have confidence I could catch bass anywhere. The right word to describe it is not so much "old-school", as "foundational". Fishing a texas rig requires (and teaches you) a variety of skills that every other presentation benefits from: patience, concentration, precision of presentation, attention to depth and fall speed, bottom contact, strike detection, proper hooksetting, among others. I'm not sure why you would be having trouble with accuracy and stealth, but experimenting with different weights and some practice should resolve that. If you can fish a jig effectively, a texas rig should be very straightforward.

Ya, but have you seen a map of ND? The Sheyenne is not exactly the Tennessee River.

So the formula is: (1) Troll Keitech underspin. (2) Enter, then exit cove. (3) Drop phone in water. Got it! #patternfishing

Better look out -- me and my phalanx of 2lbers should be on the march after this week...

Boom! I might agree with @LrgmouthShad here -- if 22", that bass looks easily over 6, very possibly 7.

A. Chris Johnston B. Mueller C. Cook D. Schmitt E. Crews

First Haircut Police, and now Beard Wars! Don't tell anyone, but that's a good color on the Grand River up here too.

It seems odd to think that in Minnesota, of all places, bass would be so pressured by topwater they would just stop striking. You have more fishable water, your topwater season is shorter, and you have a smaller percentage of anglers actually targeting bass than most other places. Does the average MN bass really see more topwater lures per year than the average bass in other states?

I have wondered the same thing for some time. When I re-read spoonplugging last summer, I noticed Perry did not at any point in that book argue for the kind of distinction between structure and cover people split hairs over today, but frequently used the term "structure" to refer to things like the fence row that we'd call cover elements.

There are a lot of things other people are much better at than me, but some don't matter because I'm not necessarily "doing it wrong" based on where and when I'm fishing. But two that probably fit the bill are (1) leaving easy bites to find better quality fish, and (2) fine-tuning a specific pattern. I'm sure my failure to do either of these consistently has cost me a PB multiple times.

Eyeing Sunday/Monday for my first proper largemouth excursion of the year on the kayak. Fingers crossed that it will happen...

I have you all beat -- 569 points. 4/5 of my team in the bottom 20.

A fortunate delay, it turns out, because I forgot to set my DTL last night... Still going with my original choices for the main team, though:

I see @gimruis is auditioning to be a judge on Project Runway again...

I would very happily have traded my afternoon at work for that.

Was at work. A bunch of us went out and watched it. We were outside the range of totality and it never got darker than, say, cloud cover. We did notice a temperature drop of a few degrees at peak, though. Don't know if that was a real effect or a coincidence. Doesn't sound like I missed anything really special fishing-wise, besides an otherwise warm and pleasant spring day.