MIbassyaker

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It doesn't help that most places I fish are small and typically warm early. I tend to get a 1-3 week prespawn window once work obligations ease at the end of April. Sometimes I can prolong it if I choose carefully where to fish and when...the lakes over in @12poundbass's territory are usually a few degrees behind the ones closest to me, and around the lower Grand River. But just as often the spawn is imminent almost everywhere after my first couple outings.

We're bouncing around between 30s and 50s, periodic rain, lots of wind. We got about 4 inches of snow Friday, but it's already gone. But no re-icing. Still open water everywhere. In theory, there are days coming up on the forecast I could get out on the kayak, but I'm still a few weeks out from having any free time. Third week of April maybe. More likely the 4th. I'm just hoping the volatility continues, and we don't get too warm too quickly. Some years, they are nearly spawning by the time I can get out. Hoping that doesn't happen, but fearing it might this year.

First pass. Will revisit when we get closer I didn't think my first three events went particularly great, but somehow i'm sitting at 4th in the group, 93.5% overall. Probably because I've managed to avoid some of the high-profile bombs...

Put me in the anything goes bucket. 3 weeks ago, my first bass of the year -- top two were below a low-head dam. Bottom two were in the slack water just downstream of a bridge piling. Water was 38 degrees, and I was swimming a grub.

I accept commercials as a fact of life. If a service is free, you are the product. I have perhaps an unpopular view of Bass Live: It is not a TV show, and it shouldn't attempt to be a TV show. I don't care if it's boring -- I just want to see what the anglers are doing, and maybe hear them talk a little. I would rather watch the downtime than listen to all the desk chatter.

Yeah, I like the effort and I think it's always worthwhile to systematically compile data. I just think the choice of lures depends too much on context -- particular lakes, with particular environments, in particular seasons, with particular prey species, even particular tournament strategies....change the context, and all bets are off.

Nice fish -- I have found in the kayak I need to pay extra attention how my I'm holding the rod, and how my body is turned, in order to have enough room to swing. And It always takes me a couple outings in the Spring before the hookset is fully dialed back in.

When I was a kid, there were no bass in the river back home (that we knew of), but Bill Dance and Al Lindner were on my TV catching bass, so I would get the Bass Pro catalog. I spent hours flipping through it looking at all the lures, dreaming of one day having a tackle box with every color of worm and every Rapala. The Goldilocks Fish: "Just Right"

Around here, Trout, salmon, walleye, and panfish are all more popular than bass. But bass have some inherent advantages that make their appeal much broader and more widespread: --They are adaptable, and can thrive in many different environments; so in most parts of the country you're not far from good bass waters. --They are frequently found shallow and shoreline oriented so they're among the easiest fish to access no matter your means. --They strike virtually every kind of natural bait and artificial lure, so you have a good chance of catching one no matter what you're using. --They are hardy and robust, tolerant of human development and activity, and not particularly fragile compared to other gamefish. -They are big enough and athletic enough to provide excitement, but not so big they are hard to handle. -They are easy to catch occasionally, but challenging to catch consistently, so they appeal to both novices and experts. All together, these factors have conspired to make bass among the most widely familiar fish in the country to casual anglers, and an absolute marketing dream for the broader fishing industry, which has taken advantage.

I'm always impressed by your ability to haul in such nice northern largemouth in nasty conditions.

Interesting contrast of opinions in those interviews. This recent study from 2019 verifies dichromacy in Largemouth Bass from direct measurements of photoreceptor sensitivity, which is something prior studies didn't do -- they find two cones, and not more than two: https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/65/1/43/4924236 Even the older Kawamura and Kishimoto (2002) study that is cited in the second interview at the link above, as evidence of more than two cones doesn't really show that. Fortunately, that paper is also available: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/fishsci1994/68/5/68_5_1041/_pdf/-char/ja What that second study actually found was that bass vision is strongly "red" heavy. I don't know where second guy in the interview is getting the notion that this study definitely shows bass have 3 cones, but it doesn't do anything of the sort. The measurement of color sensitivity in this study comes from "C-Responses", which are electrical recordings of nerve cells in the retina that react to color stimulation, it's not a measure of the receptors themselves. And the main finding is that long wavelengths in the "red" range yield a much bigger response than anything else. Unfortunately, the claims by the other interviewees about studies showing that bass respond selectively to UV lures do not seem to be accompanied by any peer-reviewed sources we can look at and evaluate. Behavioral evidence is notoriously easily corrupted by poor controls, so without knowing more details of their methods, I can't have much confidence in their conclusions.

My understanding of bass sensitivity to UV and IR is that the evidence is very mixed. In any case, the reflectance ranges of these color patterns look to be right in line with the response of the two bass cone cells, which have been found to have average peak responses at 535nm and 614nm.

I picked up one of these as well a number of years ago and it is still my favorite rod for spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, and buzzbaits.

I recommend the Fashion and Haircut Police find a more appropriate jurisdiction, such as Senior proms or Celebrity journalism.

You can remove the hooks from a crankbait, like a rapala minnow, and use it as a casting weight above a fly in order to fly-fish with a spinning rod. This makes it legally possible in some places to fish a "flies-only" section of a trout stream without a fly rod.

It has been scientifically proven that waving around a cereal box badge increases your ridiculousness by 168%.

This is an interesting project, and it's worthwhile to see the results, but I can't imagine trying to rely on it as a guide. None of these anglers are fishing the waters I fish, or waters that are even very similiar to where I fish, during the times of year that I fish them. Take a bunch of tournament pros and drop them onto my favorite anonymous 100-acre lake, hidden out in the fields 20 min from my house, some time between mid-june and august...would they really use the same lures as on this spreadsheet? The first thing they would probably want to know is what I'm using...

I am constitutionally incapable of turning down a chance to start Jason Christie in a Classic so close to home.

That does look like a smallmouth to me.

I don't know what the best way to improve is. But I have always felt that if you can learn to fish a texas rig effectively, you can catch them on anything. That's because it's more important to learn the fish than to learn the lure, and a texas rig arguably teaches more about bass than any other lure. It allows you to throw into any cover without fear. It teaches precision of location and depth, and how to choose casting targets. It trains your concentration, your bite-detection, and your hooksetting. Other presentations are easier to pick up once you have the fundamentals in place, and I can't think of a better presentation than a t-rig for learning the fundamentals.

It's relative, not ablsolute. Ask yourself, what choices do bass have in this body of water? What are they most likely eating, and where does it live? What cover or shelter options are provided? In the places I fish, most of the bass (largemouth at least) are sunfish eaters and tend to avoid both the hardest- and softest-bottomed areas because preferred vegetation, that supports most of the food chain and provides concealment opportunity, cannot get a foothold in these areas.

It's like a parody of a fishing show: "Hey, there's a 6. And here's an 8. And here's another 8..."

Well, this is just getting ridiculous.