MIbassyaker

We've been slow to warm up to the west of you, and I haven't see any water over 50 degrees. -- the last place I was on, Friday last week, was 48 in the shallows around noon, with a number of 1-2 pound bass willing to gobble a chatterbait. A couple days before, on a bigger lake, the pike were going nuts; bass activity much less. Things should be really heating up (literally and figuratively) right now and through the weekend. I'd stay off the rivers though! I'm headed to a little natural lake tomorrow that the timing should be good for....we'll see. Oh? @Mbirdsley & @12poundbass, should we crash it?

Yikes! Still a little rusty after winter?

The middle size (55) is a pretty typical size for frogs.

I have been using the Razor Shads, Zako, and Blade minnow more or less interchangeably for the last year. The problem with the Razor Shad is the elaztech makes it difficult to thread on a standard keeper, as mentioned above. It' works best on a wire keeper like the jackhammer has...although most people using the Jackhammer prefer the Zako, and Brett Hite designed them both, so presumably they work especially well together. I haven't otherwise noticed a difference in effectiveness...I expect going forward I'll probably just be buying whichever one is on sale at the moment...

Now that you have made this investigation public, there's going to be a run on medium-heavy spinning rods...

The author, Josh Alwine, is also a member here! (@jpurdue) I liked this book too, although I wanted an appendix with the methdological details of the analyses...

Yes, but to be clear, I'm not saying physical reflectance in other wavelengths is the only factor that matters, just that there is reason to expect it should make a difference given what we do know about the biological mechanisms of bass vision (e.g., that they are dichromats with cone sensitivity at "medium" and "long" ranges, and no "short" cone), as well as basic mechanisms generally common to vertebrate visual systems (e.g. opponency, adaptation, and color constancy). With no short cone response, we should expect a bass perceives your blue crankbait about the same it would as a grayish one that has the same intensity of reflectance in the medium and long ranges.

I bought a Vision 110 to try this spring. It is still sitting in the box because I'm afraid to throw it around pike, who are going crazy here right now. On Wednesday, I lost a Smithwick Rogue to one of them, thus reinforcing my fears.

Big Game.

That's how you know it's working!

This is the most straightforward possibility. The upshot would be that "black and blue" should register as something like "black and gray", or with darker and lighter shades of black. The greater intensity of blue, the brighter the "grey". Very light, translucent blue ought the be about equivalent to "smoke". Bass apparently don't have a cone analogous to the one we use to detect short wavelengths. They have two cones, roughly analogous to our "medium" and "long". But colored pigments like those you'd find in baits do not necessarily reflect just one wavelength of light, so we may see something as "blue" mostly because it reflects short waves at greater intensity than other wavelengths, not that the other wavelengths aren't there. All else equal, you see something as "blue" when the short cone responds a lot more than the other cones...even if the other cones are being stimulated a little as well -- color perception is based on the relative, not absolute, levels of response from your cones, and also based on adjustments your brain makes to compensate for the lighting environment (We can, in fact see color even when the literal light input is gray-scale, just based on the brain's compensation mechanism -- see color constancy) Imagine you could "turn off" your short wavelength cone -- You wouldn't see blue anymore. But any remaining weaker wavelengths reflected by something you previously saw as blue would still stimulate your other cones, and you might see it as dark, perhaps a shade of dark gray or black, but faintly green or red. So exactly what color bass see when you show them something "blue" ought to depend on exactly what range of wavelengths are being reflected and in which intensity. We can't really know this just by looking at the bait; you'd need to actually analyze reflectance of the color with a spectrometer.

I don't think color matters much on the WP, but I like the Perch because it looks cool.

Ned jigheads should be really light -- like 1/15. The original shroomz head have a problem with the hook breaking and the keeper coming off. They're light-wire hooks for a reason, though, so you don't want a really heavy hook. lots of options, although I actually can't think of specific companies off the top of my head other the Morel Jigheads from Siebert Outdoors I got not long ago that I like.

For both hard and soft baits, 6th Sense is has really been on a roll over the last few years. Berkley also has some new lines of hardbaits at good prices -- jerkbaits, crankbaits, topwaters. They also have the new Powerbait Maxcent plastics, as well as new designs in the regular powerbait line of plastics. The ned rig has never been more popular, and lots of companies have new ned-specific stuff. For towaters, you're going to want get on the Whopper plopper train if you haven't yet -- get a couple in sizes 110 and 75. Pick up some classic buzzbaits too if you don't have any -- check out the Megastrike Caviton. And everyone should have a bunch of different frogs and poppers.

The Havoc baits had a lot of interesting, unique designs and were good value at budget prices. I'm happy some of the designs have been made available as powerbait, but in doing so they do seem to have lost some durability and budget-ness. I like powerbait a lot, but the havoc line did fill a particular niche. One havoc item I like but haven't seen redone as powerbait is The Jerk. it was a fluke-style bait with a really nice shimmy on the fall. I'm also a long-time fan of the Mister Twister Thunderworm -- a meaty, 6" gatortail-style ribbontail worm. They have brought it back a few times temporarily, and I stocked up on closeouts a few years ago (the last time they discontinued it....again)

There are some old threads here with lots of excellent reading recommendations -- I actually first found the BassResource forums while search for bass fishing book lists: Some books are easy to find used for cheap on Amazon or Ebay sellers. For instance, the In-fisherman Largemouth and Smallmouth guides --which are still in print in their original text after 30+ years -- can be often had used in an earlier printing for $2-3 plus shipping. These are excellent overviews on the fundamentals, and still hold up well. Others like Keith Jones' Knowing Bass you're going to have a hard time finding for a reasonable price, but you might get lucky. Looks like the Murphy book, In Pursuit of Giant Bass is starting to get hard to find for a good price too! By the way, the tnf video posted above is created by none other than our own @Paul Roberts! His series is a must-see. Start with the documentary on the spawn!

Small order from former BR sponsor Bizz Baits just arrived: They have a very good stickworm (the Sassy Stick), and excellent laminate colors, very cleanly-done. Some of their bait designs:

Only fished 4 times this year; I've caught bass on a senko and a rage swimmer, but that's it for plastics. We're still early pre-spawn -- i've been throwing mostly hardbaits.

Did something happen to the pumpkinseed color in plastics? Perhaps it's not as popular as it once was, but I use pumpkinseed fairly often, and haven't had any particular trouble finding it most of the time from both big and small companies.

Boom! there you go. Still no beds here, water still in the 40s.

Favorite Phenom worm colors......Go! -Junebug -Red/black core bloodline -Grape/Blue flake, pearl tail -Motor Oil/Red flake, chartreuse tail -Perch -Pumpkin/Green Pepper (currently unavailable, but they still have pumpkin pepper)

They have experimented with scents off and on, but the newer ones don't have any scent. I also have a few that must be 30 years old, and they're scentless too as far as I can tell. So the banana scent must have been just for a period of time.

Mister Twister Phenom Worms have been around for a long while and have caught bass everywhere. They are an old-school style worm: no scent, no salt, a bit sturdier plastic than many other worms on the market today, which makes them fairly durable. They are also fairly light weight. And $3 for a 20 pack is great value. I use them as finesse worms and fish them on spinning tackle, either as as jig worm, or on a split-shot/mojo rig. The curly tail makes them fall slower than a straight-tailed worm, and gives good action when you drag them.

WOWZA!!

No. I think moon phases are little more than superstition fuel, at least for freshwater fishing.