MIbassyaker

Getting some snow today but haven't seen any ice yet. In recent years, we've sometimes gone until January before the still water ices up, and a few times it's been here by the end of Nov. Roll the dice.

The major obstacle is time. The second obstacle is Steelhead Season: Dams are constantly crowded, thus defeating the purpose as far as I'm concerned. The struggle is real, isnt it!

*sigh* If I weren't über-busy, and if I were confident I could gear safely for 30s-40s water and air temps in a kayak, I'd still be out there too. No ice yet, at least.

My winter bass lures are split ring pliers, some reel oil, the internet, a TW gift card, and maybe a book or two.

I started using InivisX for t-rigs recently after after avoiding fluoro for a number of years due to a bad initial experience with breakoffs (i don't remember what the brand was, but it was probably the cheapest I could find). I haven't had any problems with InvisX that weren't obvious user error. It's not "low stretch", but most of the time my rod and the kayak I fish in have more give than the line does. Because it sinks, there is less bow in the line - i can get a sure hookset in a kayak with just a firm, quick, pull-back and reel. And the abrasion resistance is quite a bit better than the mono I was using previously.

au contraire! Anything effective ---expecially sneaky effective-- is quite sexy indeed.

I'm right-handed and learned cast-right/crank-left/no switch on spinning gear years ago as a kid. That's what my hands know how to do, and my left hand especially does not enjoy learning new tricks. So when I picked up baitcasting later in life, it took about 20 seconds of handling a right-handed reel to know that I would need a lefty.

The water just downstream of obstructions --like a rock, log, or bridge piling-- especially on a seam where slack- or slower-water areas immediately border faster current, is well-known to most river anglers and gets a lot of attention. But also do not ignore the water right in front of an obstruction. There will be a small area -- a "cushion" of slack water on the upstream side that is a prime lie for fish to intercept food flowing with the current. Even a small log or rock can create an upstream cushion large enough to hold a good-sized fish, and very often a big fish will claim this spot. ^^^Yes.

I do believe I know this place as well, and yup, they got the worms.

What on earth? This guy does not sound stable.

Can confirm -- absolutely terrible color. Bass see it, they turn around immediately and swim the other direction. Might even be toxic, so better off not having it at all.

Found another "hidden" one: While Zoom makes a number of baits in "rootbeer pepper green", they do not appear to have it available for worms.....However! Zoom does offer some worms in a color called "Gourd Green" which, if anything, to my eye looks closer to the Yamamoto "rootbeer green". The 6.5" trick worm, 4.5" finesse worm, 6" lizard, as well as a few other baits are available in Gourd Green. Strike king also has two similar colors I know about, although I don't see it offered for any of the worms: The Rage Craw comes in an "Amber green", and the KVD perfect plastics Game Hawg is available in "Amistad Special".

If you find out, let me know. This is the color I wish every lure company offered in every plastic bait. I would buy this over even green pumpkin and junebug. Sometimes companies offer something similar as "pumpkin green" or Pumpkin green pepper". Check out the Big Bite Baits Squirrel-Tail Worm -- there is a 4.5" and a 6" in "Pumpkin Green pepper."

I have a whole bunch of Mepps, Panther Martin, Rooster Tail & Blue Fox spinners, quite a few of which I have had for many years. I don't use them very often these days because they're not as suitable for a lot of the places I fish where i live now, but they still come out for exercise when I hit rivers and streams, for both bass and trout. Only problem is, with open trebles and light line, they get lost easily, so you have to always buy more to keep your stock up!

The open hook jigworm is still used a lot in northern natural lakes to probe the edges of deep weedlines. Especially where the main deep vegetation is a clasping-leaf pondweed (often called "cabbage"), which creates these underwater "forests" on flats and along drop offs. The stalks can reach up 10 feet or more through the water column with bass at any depth, and the leaves and stems are brittle enough that an open hook will rip free pretty easily. Strikes often occur as the worm begins to fall right after a "rip." The usual presentation is to work vertically around the edge of a cabbage bed with a lift-drop motion, without letting it stay still very long, to find more active bass. Then you move into the bed itself where the veg. is thicker with a more weedless presentation like a t-rig rig, for less active fish. Anything from a 4" to 7" worm on a 1/16 to 3/16 oz head is good. I like an old-school 6" mister Twister phenom worm on 1/8oz head.

In-line spinner fans represent! 👊

I think you generally want them to be about the same, but I tend to err on the side of more $$ into the reel for baitcasting, and more into the rod for spinning.

I was thinking about how I'd answer this, and realized I agreed with the original post and all the replies. So I guess I have a boring answer: It depends. I bring 5-6 rods in the kayak and 2 rods on foot, rigging carefully chosen ahead of time for presentations I expect to be successful based on place, time of season, and conditions. Often those setups are chosen specifically for double-duty, expecting to change lures. For instance, If I think a topwater bite is likely to slow down once the sun is up, I'll expect to change lures on that rod to something else if and when that happens, and plan accordingly. Sometimes those carefully-chosen plans work out, and sometimes I get to the water and discover I was completely wrong, and I have to make some changes. I don't carry that much tackle anywhere I go -- In the kayak I have a small zippered bag of plastics, and 4 or 5 3500-sized plano boxes of tackle in a crate behind me. On foot, about the same in a backpack. And that's it. On some trips I never open any of it, except to replace torn-up plastics, and never change lures. On other trips I'm digging in there periodically to, say, switch weights if I decide to move deeper or shallower, fish different kinds of cover, or otherwise change to a different presentation if something isn't producing, or to take advantage of a change in conditions. I also have to replace lost lures or hooks that have been bitten or broken off with some frequency. I fish a variety of environments that pose different hazards for lures, including heavy vegetation, rock and rip-rap, trees, bushes and submerged wood, docks and other man-made structures. And most of these places also have toothy beasts swimming around that could be encountered on any cast. So while I would often prefer to not switch lures (and sometimes I never have to) there are a lot of things that simply end up making me dig into my tackle at least a few times during a trip, and sometimes pretty frequently.

It's tough out there. It's been 2 years since I caught a 5lber (pike, bowfins, & catfish excluded).

What if the water is...in the woods??

I don't weigh every fish, but I can estimate a 5-best weight based on a conversion formula from length. Keeper size minimum for bass in MI is 14". This year, out of 31 trips, 8 times I caught five keepers, and 12 times I caught no keepers. Six times I had a bag of 10lb or more, and my biggest bag is estimated to have been 14.2lb. My average bag of all trips would have been 4.6lb. Average bag of just the 8 trips where I caught 5 keepers is 10.6lb

Relax, guys. Nobody is going to make you read a book.