MIbassyaker

I'll have to start watching this. I've never seen it, but I do get the outdoor channel in my cable package.

I prefer junebug in plastics for the simple reason that green flake seems to outperform blue flake (or any other kind) where I fish. For jigs, I prefer browns and greens over both.

Final bass of 2018 was an 11-inch smallie on Oct. 19. The year sort of went out with a whimper.

Crankbait Starter set: --Rapala Floating minnow --Rapala Husky Jerk --Smithwick Suspending Rogue --Manns Baby 1- --Rebel crawfish --KVD 1.5 squarebill --Bandit 100 & 200 --Bomber 4A

The last few years, Michigan DNR has tracked tournament results state-wide, and published summary results. The reports from 2016 and 2017 indicate the total number of bass entered in all registered tournaments, average weights, the largest bass caught, and so on, including the number of bass over 6lb. 2016 2017 While the system obviously doesn't get every bass caught in the state, it does give an approximate estimate of how often an experienced angler might expect to catch bass over 6lb in some of our more-pressured public waters. The summary reports for 2016 and 2017 give the following: 23 out of 80,000+ Michigan tournament bass in 2016 were 6lb or more 43 out of 90,000+ Michigan tournament bass in 2017 were 6lb or more SO, we're talking only 66 over 6lb, out of more than 170,000, or a rate of about 1 in more than 2576. And I believe that only includes weighed bass, so the rate would be much lower if you included every culled or undersized bass that was caught. So, yeah, people catch 'em sometimes, in some places, but they don't exactly grow on trees.

My biggest of 2018 was the smallest year-best I've recorded since 2013 -- just a 3.8, on a wacky-rigged senko: On the bright side, plenty of room for improvement in 2019!

A lot of people find that, all else equal, making accurate casts to target spots is much easier with a short rod than a long rod. As that's what I'm doing most of the time, most of my rods are under 7'. People also like short rods for jerkbaits and topwaters as it is easier to work the bait with the short rod pointed down than a long rod. Tubes may benefit from a longer rod rod if you're going to have a lot of line out, making long casts or fishing deep deep (or both). But if you want versatility, something between 6'6" and 7' may be a better option. A medium fast would be good for all the techniques you mention.

Read.

I'm sure it will catch bass. My question is: will it outfish a wrench???

I still use the phenom as a jigworm. Watermelon, pumpkin pepper, Grape/Blue flake/white tail, and perch are my favorite colors. Also the 3" and 4" twister tails -- some of the best skunk repellent ever made. I wish they'd bring the Thunderworm back. EDIT: Oh, forgot about the lizards -- I use those too. They have a longer tail section than most 6" lizards, almost like a ribbontail worm.

Tom's "slip-shot" version of this rig is similar to how I do it - light line with a hook you can rig weedless, rubber bobber stop, and a cylindrical weight (I use 1/8oz from BPS) sliding freely above the stop. Strike detection seems better with the weight sliding freely above the stop, as the line gets pulled through the weight when the fish strikes instead of the fish having to move the weight. I also think it cuts down gut-hooking a little bit which is something you really have to watch out for. I use a 4"-5" straight-tailed worm or a creature usually. One creature bait I like a lot for this is the Netbait Baby Action Cat -- the body is actually a tube, so it's really light, sinks slowly, and collapses and hooks up really well on light-wire hooks.

I would take @Sam's advice and contact Abu, see if they are willing to replace or give a discount on a replacement.

The limiting factors in bank fishing are access, location, and positioning. If you can walk to locations that put you within casting distance of good bass habitat, at good angles, you can be just as successful fishing from the bank (or wading) as from a boat. If you can't, then you won't be as successful. I'm not sure it's more complicated than that.

Al is my hands-down pick too.

Heh, better you than me. I'm afraid for me the misery of ice fishing does not outweigh the enjoyment of ...sometimes catching....something. EDIT: err...I should say, other way around.... the enjoyment doesn't outweigh the misery. I'm 2 hours south of A-Jay, and my snow from one lake effect blitz in November is almost gone. Lakes have some thin ice, but not uniform, and the rivers are wide open with launches still in use.

I have a similar situation to you in that I have a few hundred diverse options within an hour of where I live, the majority of which are small (a few hundred acres or less). I battle a weird and irrational sort of decision paralysis, where it feels wrong to select any one place to fish, because then it means not selecting all the other places I want to fish. That's ridiculous of course, but if you experience the same thing, you know what i'm talking about. My solution has been to plan my seasons ahead of time by creating a fishing schedule of the places i plan to go, and when I want to go there. I do this over the winter to create a month-by-month breakdown of where I will plan to go, when I will go there, and how many times. Start by picking a diverse selection of locations you want to fish over the next several months, or season or year or whatever -- pick a few favorites you've been too a lot before, pick some you're a little familiar with, but would like to get to know better, and pick some new ones you want to try for the first time. Then put together a loose schedule based on when and how often you plan to fish each one you have picked for your schedule. In my case "loose" means each month has a number of locations I want to go to, with an order of priority and a rough judgment when in the month I should go ('early" or "late"). Use the characteristics of the various water-bodies (e.g., water levels, weed growth, etc.), local event schedules (e.g., tournament activity, holiday parties), and seasonal information (e.g., pre-spawn, post-spawn, summer, fall) to help anticipate when would be best times to hit each of the places you want to target, and when would be the best time to avoid them. For instance, In the prespawn season, I can anticipate that smaller, shallower, dark-bottomed waters in my area will warm up faster than bigger, deeper ones, so I put the former on my schedule first, and then move to the latter as a the spawn progresses. I also usually put river float trips on the schedule for july and august when the lake bite gets tougher, but the rivers are running low and clear and the bass will be concentrated in predictable areas. And there's nothing wrong with choosing at random either, especially if you can't think of any better reasons to pick one option over another. The point is just to get the decision made, so you can promptly move on to the task of showing up and figuring them out. This also permits me to be systematic about exploring and learning various water bodies. If I have been to a lake, say, twice before, but both times were in May, then I put it on the schedule for a different month the next time I go, so I can sample locations at different times of the year.

Same goals as always: --Catch a new PB largemouth --Catch a new PB smallmouth --Catch a MI Master Angler qualifying SM or LM (either would be a PB for me) --Catch a new lake/river PB in each place I fish --Increase the number of keeper-sized bass I catch per hour fishing over that of previous years, in each place I fish. --Fish 3-5 new bodies of water in my area (I'll run out eventually, but haven't yet) --Enjoy myself

My purchasing did slow way down over the last year...the bait monkey seems to have finally moved on for now. On the other hand, the Kayak Monkey returned in his place to remind me that I've been fishing out of the same 2009 WS Tarpon model for a long time now. He has convinced me the world will probably end unless I make a major upgrade for 2019. That sounds pretty serious, so who am I to argue?

Sweet! And congratulations!

Lol! is it literally the same chart? Or did they just re-use the pictures of species in common? I know some of those species are pretty widespread. And of course the pics don't always help much for identification if you just pick up a crayfish and want to figure out which one it is, since the coloring varies widely even with the same region -- the Northern Clearwater (O. propinquus) in my area can be anywhere from very light brown to almost black depending on where they live.

I grew up watching people bass fish with worms on TV and seeing them in catalogs and magazines. But never had easy access to bass waters where I could use them; we tended to fish with live bait in the river for catfish, pike, and the occasional walleye, or with grubs or in-line spinners. I did catch a smallie once, but they were really rare in that stretch of the river, at that time (i hear they are much more common there now). When I finally got to fish somewhere that I could target bass specifically with a worm, I made sure I had the worm hooks and weights I needed, and rigged up a 7.5 cuprit ribbontail the way I had seen Bill Dance and folks do it, and started casting around off the end of the dock toward some shoreline slop, and hopping it back, not totally sure what would happen. In about 4 casts, I felt "the tap" -- whoa! So, I set the hook ...and there he was, my first largemouth of any size, about 14". And I thought to myself, "wow, is that all there is to it?? I can do that again!" And so I did.

Here's a crayfish poster for Michigan: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/crayfish.posterDNR_522337_7.pdf Lots of O. propinquus and O. virilis in my area.

If harming or killing fish bothers you, then just give something back: use the occasion as an excuse to make a small donation to the conservation effort of your choice.

Senkos just seem too heavy and soft for nose-hooking. They don't really swing and glide like a fluke anyway, so not sure what nose hooking would really accomplish...I at least can't imagine an advantage over a weightless t-rig for a senko.

"Luck" is when humans misinterpret chance.