MIbassyaker

Chartreuse in algae-stained (greenish) water, red in tannic (brownish) and muddy water. But not necessary; only to add a little "pop" of visibility. If I'm not mistaken, Ned himself uses pretty much any color, anywhere.

I remember The Black Bass being occasionally kind-of fun for a little while at a time, but it rarely sustained my interest. Surely, there's a market for something more realistic and better-informed by actual bass behavior! I would think the big challenge would be to get the balance of "signal" and "noise" right -- you could implement all sorts of rules for the bass to follow....and they would just be too easy to figure out. Too much randomness, however, and no skill is needed. One thing I wouldn't do is just rely on message board opinions for what the bass behavior should look like. Go to sources that are based on systematic observation and analysis of bass behavior. Some good books to track down that may be worth using as reference: -Lunker by Bob Underwood -Knowing Bass by Keith Jones -The Scientific Angler by Paul Johnson -In-Fisherman Largemouth Bass Guide, or the 3-volume Critical Concepts series -High-Percentage Fishing by Josh Alwine Also: the documentaries Bigmouth (1974) and Bigmouth Forever by Glen Lau. EDIT: Ha! The Black Bass Secrets revealed:

Bycatch is pretty normal, but depends entirely on which waters I fish. Some places I can virtually guarantee catching pike, bowfin, crappie, rock bass, or other sunfish on any trip. At others, I've never caught anything but bass.

I don't know that you need an MF baitcaster, but they are super-versatile and useful. I use MF spinning and MF casting for many of the same things, but each one is better suited for some things than others. Even if they both say "medium-fast", a baitcaster is probably going to be rated for a lure range that runs heavier than the spinning rod. A caster will also be a bit stouter, and better for getting good hooksets on baits with bigger single-hooks, like spinnerbaits. Also, spinning accumulates line twist the more it is retrieved, so a baitcaster can be better suited for baits where you are constantly cranking and winding. So I tend to use my MF casting for moving baits that are on the light side for an MH, or t-rigged plastics (or a t-rigged jig, like a Title-Shot) that benefit from a little more stoutness than my MF spinning options have, but not with weights so heavy that an MH caster comes into play. When I look over at my rod rack, I see my MF baitcaster currently has tied on a 1/4oz underspin with a 4" paddletait swimbait on it. I also see two MF spinning rods, one with a 3.5" tube and one with a 3/16oz hair jig.

My experience as well. I have yet to encounter a convincing argument for why spinning should be inherently less accurate than baitcasting. I understand why some people may find accuracy easier to come by with baitcasting than spinning, especially if they have less practice making controlled target casts with spinning than with baitcasting. Feathering the spool and finger control of the line to make precise placement with spinning (even avoiding a big splash!) may take a little getting used to, but isn't really any more complicated than thumb control on a baitcaster.

I use the ball-heads with bristle-type guard for grubs and little paddle-tail swimbaits. The ones I like the best are the Owner Brush head. I thin the guard by about half because I don't typically use ball-heads on plastics around heavy cover (I use a t-rigged option instead). But for most plastics, most of the time I use the heads that permit t-rigging mentioned above, like a slider, Title-Shot, VMC rugby head, or Owner finesse ultraheads.

Many of us northerners love tubes for both species, when the situation calls for it. Check out these two episodes of Zona Live with KVD and Davy Hite, both times going after mostly Largemouth in Michigan natural lakes (yes, hes holding a smallie in the second one, but they catch mostly largemouth). Zona spends much of the time both episodes fishing a tube by popping it erratically along the bottom through early weedgrowth:

Easy: Pumpkinseed Berkley Power Worm.

The ol' 3" and 4" mister twister curly tail grub on a 1/8oz ball jighead was the first artificial lure I learned how to use successfully. We didn't have much of a black bass population in the river I fished where I grew up, but we caught rock bass, crappie, walleye, sauger, and sometimes pike on them. In 2006, Field and Stream Magazine named the curly tail grub the #1 greatest lure of all time. I don't use them much these days, but always have some with me, especially for river smallies. Kalins, Yamamoto, and Zoom all make great curly tails, and the Mister Twister is still worth using as well.

I always lose a lot of 4" t-rigged senkos to dink river smallmouth -- they hammer them like little freight trains, and rip 'em in half because they can't completely get them in thier mouths. The bigger fish just slurp them up, get caught, and the worm usually lasts a few fish. Also, as usual, I lost a few shakyheads (of all things) to both pike and bowfin. And a couple of 1.5 crankbaits to what must have been logs.

Didn't get to fish as much in 2019 as in the last few years. My biggest of confirmed size was 20", 3.96# on a LC Slender Pointer 97 in "ghost sunfish"....on my first outing of the year, back in April: This one might have beaten it slightly, but didn't get a measure or weight. Caught on a Green pumpkin-Purple Siebert Fogy bladed jig:

$20 is about my limit.

I'm in. 10 members so far. And welcome back Palaniuk and Swindle!

There is even a Heddon Museum in Dowagiac, which I have never been to, but might check out some time.

In addition to a few familiar pro names provided above by @ajay , MI was also home to one James Heddon, inventor of modern artificial lures and founder of Heddon Lure Company in 1902. Legend has it, Heddon was whittling a stick by the mill pond near his home in Dowagiac MI. He threw the stick in the water and watched a bass blow up on it, thereby getting the idea to create and sell artifical plugs made out of wood.

"Perch"!

Patterns do not necessarily have straightforward explanations. Simple explanations you can put into words for why one thing works, and something else doesn't, are probably the exception rather than the rule. Anglers' ability to understand the "why" of a pattern is always going to be limited by what they can observe, and many (most?) of the factors that influence a bass' willingness to strike are simply invisible to us. There is no substitute for some trial-and-error.

I prefer short rods with F or XF actions for popping/twitching/walking/jerking presentations. I use two rods for jerkbaits & plug-style topwaters around 1/2oz, more or less interchangeably: A 6'4" M-XF Fenwick Aetos (older model) or 6'6" M-F St. Croix Premier. I suppose something softer may be more optimal for the WP 75, but I find it fishes just fine on both of those rods.

Roboworm Reins Bubbling Shaker KVD Dream Shot Didn't drop shot much this year, though...come to think of it, I might not have used used anything but the first two this year. In any case, those are the 3 I have been reaching for "recently".

Yes, I do it all the time; My go-to is a 4" Berkley power worm on an owner bullet-head: A real "don't-leave-home-without-it" rig! Dink magnet? Yes, but only because its a bass magnet, generally. Put it on a big one's nose, and they won't turn it down.

I don't really think its worth splitting hairs to pinpoint an "ideal" length of rod within that 4" range. I would say, choose a company and line of rods based on other features first (power, action, reel seat, handle length, grip, guides, finish, price, warranty etc.), and then pick whatever model they have that falls somewhere in that range.

I like 'em. Good pitching bait. Can also be fished as a topwater, like a toad.

If anyone remembers former BR sponsor Bizz Baits, they are having their "biggest sale ever" on their site starting Wednesday, according to an email announcement I got today. Small company, with some nice plastics: https://www.bizzbaits.com/ I'm not sure what "biggest ever" means in concrete terms, but I plan to check it out -- I've ordered from them a number of times, starting back when they were a sponsor, and always been satisfied.

I'm right-handed. I grew up using a spinning reel for everything, hold right, crank left. When I started looking into baitcasters for the first time a number of years ago, I was surprised to discover "right handed" did not mean the handle was on the left. It took about 10 minutes of handling in the store to realize I had no interest in using a baitcaster if it meant I would have to fish with right-handed reel. So I spent some time researching whether there was anything inherently advantageous about using a right-handed caster. I found nothing remotely convincing. So I bought a left-handed reel as my first caster, and never looked back. When you ask for testimonials about this, you will hear every possible combination of preferences for left vs. right-handed anglers, using left vs. right-handled reels, for spinning vs. casting.... that should clue us in to an understanding that nobody can tell you exactly what you're going to be most comfortable with, or what you're going to prefer, before you try it yourself. BTW, Chris Zaldain and David Walker are right-handed pros who use left-handed casting reels. Denny Brauer is a left-hander who uses right-handed reels.

If you catch one, you'll know it, the signs are pretty clear -- it will look deformed in a particular way: big head, no girth, caved-in belly. It is not always that the bass have plastics coming out of their mouths...it is that they are starving from plastics in their stomachs blocking food. Ironically, they don't look full...in fact, they may have already, before you caught them, thrown up the last few baitfish or craws they tried to eat because their stomachs were blocked. Here's a smallmouth that should have been well over 3lbs, and was more like 1-2. Caught at a moderately-popular riverside park. Notice how the belly is caved-in slightly: . This fish's belly was so skinny it looked knife-edged. I can't confirm it, but I bet if I cut it open, I would have found a plastic bait or two in its gut. Now look at this one, almost literally the next cast: shorter but heavier, and the belly while not stuffed, at least bulges a bit: Of course, any skinny fish you catch may be skinny for many reasons -- it just spawned, or it's old and worn out, or hasn't eaten much recently...you don't know for sure that it's caused by plastics until you actually gut the fish, open the stomach, and check. But enough people have examined the stomachs of bass with characteristics like the first one that we can expect that's often what's going on. EDIT: good article on-site about this: https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/skinny-fish.html