MIbassyaker

At a new place, with no scouting, adapatability and versatility rules. 5 setups to cover the bases, all capable of double duty: 1. MHF casting rod for T-Rigs and Jigs, bottom contact and target pitching to cover. Could double as a frog rod in a pinch, if needed. Rigged to start with a t-rigged creature, worm or lizard. 2. Another MHF or MH-MF casting rod for horizontal moving baits, especially lipless, spinnerbaits, bladed jigs, buzzbaits, whopper plopper, spooks, or other heavier topwaters. Could do 3/8oz and up crankbaits in a pinch. Rigged to start with a buzzbait. 3. Short MF or MXF casting rod for jerkbaits and topwaters up to 1/2oz. Could handle light bottom contact or a senko/fluke if needed. Rigged to start with a walking popper. 4. MF or MXF spinning rod for senkos, flukes, tubes, grubs, or jerkbaits/ small topwaters in the wind. could do a shakyhead if needed. Rigged to start with a weightless, t-rigged or wacky senko. 5. MLF or MLXF spinning rod for shakyhead, ned rig, slider heads, mojo rig, drop shot, or other small open-hook plastics, e.g. small keitechs, underspins, grubs. Rigged to start with a finesse worm on a shakyhead.

Unless it was a non-native exotic or invasive species for the area, I would never presume to know with certainty that a fish I saw "doesn't belong" there.

Well, to be clear, there are a few dozen entries 24" or longer, and most with reported weights are in the 6-8lb range, and more 6s than anything. The longest entry (28.75") is listed as 6.5lb. So weights of bass with these lengths are highly variable (depends on girth, of course) -- we can say a 24"-26" could reach 9-10lb, but that's the high end of the range. Maybe that 10lber ate a muskrat right before it got caught....

Yeah, they're not spawners, for sure. Beginning of July in Ka'zoo would correspond to about what the in-fisherman calendar calls the "summer peak".

Actually, scratch that -- the catch and keep master angler records have weights, and there are some 9s...and a DD (although it was 20 years ago): Catch and Keep LARGEMOUTH BASS Houghton Lake On Three 7/11/2004 8:00:00 PM 2004 9.06 24.00 CLINT JOYNER LAPEER Spincasting BERKLY POWER TUBE Catch and Keep LARGEMOUTH BASS Kalamazoo Limekiln Lake 7/3/1999 7:40:00 AM 1999 10.00 25.50 MICHAEL JAY DOWNEY PORTAGE Baitcasting BROWN LIZARD Catch and Keep LARGEMOUTH BASS Kalamazoo Limekiln Lake 7/8/1995 7:40:00 AM 1995 9.12 26.00 Michael J. Downey Kalamazoo Baitcasting 7" Power Lizard Catch and Keep LARGEMOUTH BASS Kalamazoo Mill Pond 7/5/1997 9:45:00 PM 1997 9.25 24.25 MICHAEL JAY DOWNEY PORTAGE Baitcasting Live Bull Frog https://www2.dnr.state.mi.us/masterangler/MasterAngler.asp So there you go: Go to Kalamazoo County in July with a plastic lizard and you may get a DD Largemouth. Actually, look at the 10 and the 9.12 below: same guy, same lake, same bait, 4 years apart. Catch and keep , so it can't be the same fish... Also, the lengths here are are 24-26 inches, so those 26+ inch bass on the Catch&Release list look more promising than I thought.

The smallmouth record in MI may be one of the most vulnerable state records in the country right now, while the largemouth record may be one of the least. Not that I've been exhaustive or anything, but I haven't come across any actual report of a confirmed largemouth exceeding 9lb in MI (other than the current record fish) in any of the records I've looked through -- Master Angler Entries, survey reports, MTIFS -- and that would still be 3 lb short of the record. 7s and 8s are rare enough. Maybe that 26inch MA entry from Fletchers got close, but we'll never know (and length-to-weight conversion tables I've seen tend to overestimate weight for most of the bass I catch here, at least) The Tournament Data from the MTIFS system is worth looking at to get a sense of big-fish expectations statewide. Reports for the last 3 years are available. 2016 2017 2018 If we look just for fish over 7lbs weighed in tournaments, there were only 9 reported: 1 in 2016, 3 in 2017, and 5 in 2018. Of these, four have been over 8lbs (1 in 2017, 3 in 2018). It doesn't say which species, but about 3/4 of all bass weighed across the three reports are largemouth, and we might be able to guess a few based on the body of water. (I don't believe Jordan Lake in Barry County has smallmouth, so the 7lb entries in 2017 and 2018 are probably largemouth, possibly even the same fish). I think the stars would really have to align just right for a largemouth to survive enough seasons to reach DD level. The growing seasons are short, and there is always some risk of winterkill in many shallow, eutrophic largemouth haunts. It also doesn't help that the most of prime largemouth waters in the state are where most of the people live, as this means largemouth are probably more subject to harvest pressure from casual anglers than smallmouth are. Largemouth are probably also easier to catch year-round, as they tend to inhabit smaller, easier-to access (and easier to fish) waters. And a bass doesn't need to be harvested to have it's life shortened by being caught, if it is gut- or gill-hooked, handled roughly, kept out of the water too long, or otherwise mistreated in some way.

I would have cried too. Is the Rage an MF also? I would have suggested an MF premier, but if you think the tip on the rage is too slow, the premier is probably more so. The best choice for similar action may just be one of the newer fenwicks, ETB or Aetos lines, if you don't mind the longer handle.

Mojo/finesse carolina rig.

The first I heard of it was from @12poundbass! This sounds like an urban (rural?) legend to me. Like Campfire Stories of the Michigan DNR. The question I have is where would this fish be reported? In what report would that fish be included? Surely, there ought to be a report somewhere indicating a fish matching that description was shocked up, no?

They are all under an hour's drive from the center of GR. Kalamazoo is less than an hour south of GR. If you are three hours south of Croton, you live in Indiana.

Ah, cool. I haven't been following, but I see stories about them occasionally. Bassrankings has GVSU at 2-year standing of 6th among colleges right now: http://bassrankings.com/college-rankings.php?collection=ranks_colleges_12mos&level=&name=College+Rankings

Not as much shad forage up here, but there are bluegill (and other sunfish) and crayfish everywhere, and lots of lakes have yellow perch. My tackle boxes are dominated by greens and browns, commonly with highlights of orange and chartreuse. I especially like green flake in plastics. But generally, whatever you have, if you catch bass on in it PA, you can catch bass on it in MI too. I would not get too hung up on "Michigan" recommendations as a generalization. This is because, throughout much of the state, multiple nearby bodies of water --even within a small area -- may be wildly different. A deep, clear, sandy smallmouth-dominated lake may be 5 miles down the road one way from a shallow, marshy, murky largemouth bowl with acres of slop, and 5 miles the other way from a stretch of river that might be predominantly smallmouth, or largemouth, or trout. The water itself may be gin-clear, muddy, tannin-stained (brownish), or algae-stained (greenish), may have visibility of a few inches or 20+ feet, or anywhere in between. The only true generalization for the state is variety. That said, if you want to see some baits and approaches for "typical" Lower Michigan inland lakes, check out these older episodes of Zona Live with KVD and Davy Hite:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Jerkbait: LC Slender Pointer (Ghost Sunfish) and KVD 200 (Bream) Bladed Jig: Jackhammer (bluegill) and Siebert Fogy (Green Pumpkin/Purple) with GYCB Zako and SK Blade minnow trailers Spinnerbait: 3/8oz Pepper double willow (gold/Bluegill) and 1/4oz War eagle Double Indiana (Copper/chartreuse) Paddletail Swimbait: 4" Keitech Swing impact (silver flash) + 1/8oz owner brush head, and 4" SK rage swimmer (Green Pumpkin)+ 1/8oz Mustad power lock hook Worms: Zoom Trick worm (Green Pumpkin/Green flake) + 1/8oz owner finesse ball head, and Strike King Ocho (Candy Craw) + owner weedless wacky #1 hook.

Lots of action friday on a trip to a little out-of-the-way 40-acre lake. A Siebert Fogy bladed jig was effective when cast right up to the shoreline, and when worked through scattered emerging lily pads. Where vegetation was thicker and the fogy started hooking up on pad stems too often, I would switch to a Rage Swimmer rigged weedless on a mustad powerlock hook. This "1-2 punch" accounted for about 2 dozen largemouth in 3 and a half hours, most around 2-3lb, plus a couple of little pike. Here's the best one, caught on the Fogy; wriggled away before I could get a measure, but probably in the high 3s/low 4s: A substantially bigger one came off on a surfacing head-shake about 10 minutes later.

Yeah, backreeling will take twist out, because it's just a reverse of the process by which the line was put on...but, of course, the twist comes back as the fish is reeled in! (unless the fish is also rotating with the bail) And for a regular cast, as loops come off the spool they will only untwist to the extent that the bait is rotating as the line is let out. It all has to do with what are the sources of rotation, and at what point do they occur, and the movement of the bail is the principal source of rotation. If a bait is rotating in the water (say, an in-line spinner) it could, in principle, be adding to the twist or removing it, depending on what direction it rotates. What's the deal with swivels? My experience is similar to yours: they don't do much of anything to reduce line twist. It must be that the force required to rotate the swivel is more than the force needed to twist the line. So the line just twists more before the swivel starts going around.

There is no way to prevent line twist on spinning reels -- with the lure stationary (not rotating), one additional full twist will be put into the line every time the bail goes around as you reel. The more reeling you do, the more twist there will be. You can do some things to make twist more manageable, however: --Lower diameter line accommodates twist better than high-diameter line. For mono/copoly/Fluoro don't go above 8#. In most cases, 6# is better. --Always close the bail by hand and give the line a pull to remove any loops before reeling. --Line can be untwisted by letting out a length of it (with a free end -- nothing tied on) behind the boat/craft and dragging it through the water for a little while, then reeling it back up. --Braid remains easy-going while twisted, so switching to braid eliminates most twist problems, at least for a while (but you do have to watch out for wind-knots) I am actually not convinced that direction you spool line onto the reel has much effect on line twist. Probably some. But even if you spool it correctly, after making several casts and reeling back in, you will already have put more twist in the line just by reeling than you would have by spooling the "wrong way".

I didn't say that, though, did I.

It would be easier to list the worms I don't have confidence in.... ...and the list would consist entirely of the ones i've never fished. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad worm.

The answer to every left vs. right "dilemma" is the same: It doesn't matter, and you should use whatever you're comfortable with.

Yes. When I fish the 90 I do it with rips and pauses most of the time. I think it's easier to fish the 90 this way than a straight retrieve, given it has a smaller prop than either the 75 or the larger versions. There's also a time and a place. Slow topwaters worked with pauses and rips are also a famously-effective post-spawn presentation. And the ability to move the bait a precise distance at a time, pause to let the fish find it, and change directions and angles to avoid snags, can make it more feasible at times than a straight retrieve for working a trebled bait through scattered emergent vegetation, or following an irregular line of cover. The fish below was caught by finessing a WP 90 carefully through the pads in the background, but getting as close as possible to the denser spots, using a retrieve with short rips, frequent pauses, and changes of direction:

Yup. Yup. Yup. ?

Blaylock Menendez Cherry Jaye Kennedy

I have one: There were a couple different sizes; i'm pretty sure this is the smaller one -- it's 5" bill to tail. I must have been in middle school when I got it. I think I saw Bill hawking it on TV or something and decided i needed to to have one. Never caught anything on it, but probably only tried fishing it about 5 times. It still lives in the same old tackle box I had as a kid.

Boom! Back in the saddle, I see...