MIbassyaker

Yet here you are, moderating a forum!

I know it's not Winter yet, but I can't resist giving this old thread another bump, as I think about how I'm going to occupy myself for the next few months... A few recent acquisitions: I don't know if these are any good, but they all looked interesting. The Grand River book (my home river system) is written from a fly-fishing perspective, but includes bass and has a lot of detail on the food chain and habitat in different river sections and major tributaries.

There are a number of adjustments you could make if they will follow but not commit. This sort of thing can mean their activity level is right, but something about your presentation turns them off upon closer inspection. Changes to bait size, color, or retrieve speed can sometimes help. But it may also be visibility: if you can see them, they can see you. It might be more useful to just be stealthier. Try to stay low, avoid casting a looming shadow from above. Avoid sudden movements, and try to walk quietly and carefully on the bank.

As resident King of the Two-Pounders, I welcome you to our land.

I always forget about this thread -- a few odds and ends from my season this year:

Interesting. By that rule, all but one body of water I regularly fish would be a pond. People here think of "ponds" as manmade bodies of water, usually small, but not always; usually behind a dam, but not always. Two of the larger bodies of water near me, impoundments of the Muskegon River, are known as "Croton Dam Pond" (1230 Acres) and "Hardy Dam Pond" (2775 acres). Whereas most natural standing bodies of water of glacial origin here are "Lakes", regardless of size, and can be anywhere from a dozen acres to, well, millions of acres.

Interesting -- I found this: https://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/download/fishing/fish-warm-water/Tiger-Muskies-Brochure-2014.pdf Apparently, stocking Tigers in a couple lakes has improved the trout fisheries there as well, because the muskies control invasive suckers and goldfish that were causing the trout to decline.

That's why you buy more than one.

that's what I use too -- they're dirt cheap, as accurate as anything else (or better), and fit nicely in a zippered pocket on my pfd. May as well buy 3 or 4 for that price.

I've visited all 50 states (and 6 Canadian provinces), but only fished MI, MN, WI, ND, SD, MT, CA, NJ and PA, mostly places where I have lived or had family in the area. And about half of those only once or twice, with limited success.

...and in addition to ice fishing, a number of Great Lakes rivers get a big run of Steelhead that continues all winter where the water isn't still enough to freeze.... So the fishing doesn't necessarily end, just the open water bassing (or most of it, anyway)

Single colorados have at least three potential presentation advantages over a double-willow or tandem style that can be useful in colder or darker conditions: 1. They can be fished more slowly 2. The blade puts out a higher-amplitude vibration 3. They can be "helicoptered" vertically by letting them fall through the water column

Eh. You don't "need" anything. Unless you're a pro, fishing is recreation. If you're not feeling it right now, then take a break and do something else. I mean, I like live music but don't always feel like going out. So I don't. Sometimes I'd rather do something else. So I do that instead.

#1, Back to Basics: "When you first started bass fishing, it may have been with simple lures like a spinnerbait or Texas-rigged plastic worm. " Hey, spinnerbaits and plastic worms are not as simple as they seem -- easy to learn, but a lifetime to master!

...and the hits keep comin'

I recommend reading up on Patternicity. Anglers are notoriously vulnerable to this.

Yeah, if I can get away from the crowds, which isn't easy.

I will not be physically on the water anywhere until April at the earliest, although I may not be done fishing. I'll probably do a brief shore excursion here and there, as conditions and my schedule permit. Not always for bass, though.

Last trip of the season for me today too. Went to my favorite lake, the closest thing I have to a "Crickety Bog". It's the quietest, least-pressured place I know how access. You paddle in from a creek: The creek opens to an irregularly-shaped lake basin of about 3 dozen acres: I haven't been here in October before, and didn't know what I would find, but I was expecting some tough, slow fishing. Our daytime temps have just dropped 10 degrees after three days of rain. Air temp was 46 degrees when I launched at noon. Surface water temps in the lake were 52', though there was still a lot of green vegetation, both shallow and deep. In 3 1/2 hours I caught three -- one 12" on my second cast at the creek mouth with a chatterbait. Two more fishing more vertically in the central basin, about 10' down along the drop from a 3' to 20' -- a 16.5" on a t-rigged space monkey, and another 12" on a 4" power worm: Not exactly lights out fishing, but could have been worse! Probably my last bass of 2023.

The river back home where I learned to fish as a kid had a lot of catfish, some pike, walleye, & rock bass, misc. other species like goldeye, carp, redhorse suckers, and drum. So that's what we fished for, using live bait, inline spinners, curly-tail grubs, and rapala minnows. There were no black bass in the river that we knew of (I would eventually catch a smallmouth there on a live nightcrawler, my first bass, but only once). But on my TV at home, there were a lot of bass on the fishing shows. I would see Bill Dance fishing for bass with plastic worms. And I would see Al Lindner do it sometimes too. I would open a bass-pro catalog and see pages of big long squirming worms, and, even though I had never fished with one, dreamed of one day owning every color. I didn't know anything about bass fishing, but I was sort of mesmerized by the worms themselves. I thought, well maybe I can catch a bass like these guys on TV did. I watched closely how they explained worm rigging, read about it at some point In-fisherman, and I got some bullet weights, hooks and worms (culprits, maybe?) to try it out. Well, my first attempt fishing texas rigged worms in the river was a total bust, and I quickly switched back to a live nightcrawler or whatever it was I had. I realized I would need to use it where bass lived. I got my chance at a church lake retreat. I had brought my rod and some fishing stuff, and there was a fishing dock. My brother and some friends and I went out to try our luck, and ended up catching a few bluegills and crappie. I thought, I wonder if there's a bass in there. I rigged up my plastic worm, and tossed it into the nearby reeds...and got an immediate hit -- a 12 inch largemouth. "Oh, is that all there is to it?" I thought. And, really, it was.

Most lakes I fish have no shad, and spinnerbaits are easily my most successful early fall lure in places with 2-3 feet of visibility. But this changes later in the fall, and it's less about the lure and more about the depth: My bass are mostly bluegill and sunfish eaters, and those species usually stick around the remaining green vegetation. As weeds die back in the fall shallow first, both the forage -- and the bass-- begin to move deeper where green vegetation like coontail still remains. When I fish a double-willow spinnerbait, I'm typically looking for shallow bass, but if there is no more green shallow vegetation, then they'll often be deeper than I can fish very effectively with a spinnerbait. You could try going heavier, or fishing more vertically (a single colorado would be better for that).

The roadrunner "horsehead" seems like a good, classic design that has stood up over the years. these days I've been using the coolbaits in open water and owner flashy swimmers for snaggy stuff.

I, for one, look forward to mocking whatever iteration of Conformity Police you guys cook up next...

A Spoonplug sighting!