MIbassyaker

I've been using 15lb Power Pro Super8slick for spinning and been happy with it. About the same diameter as 6lb mono/fluoro. As long as you're running a leader, may as well go for visibility and use a colored braid. I like the lime green.

It kind of is fluke season right now in a lot of the places I fish -- both pre-spawn and post-spawn bass seem to readily hit a fluke shallow, even when they aren't willing chase something like a crankbait or spinnerbait. Post-spawn seems an especially good time for slow lures up in the top and middle of the water column. Stationary topwaters like a popper, or twitching a floating minnow will often also produce well at this time.

Terror of the Riffles, 14". Honestly kind of a handful in current with the ultralight:

I don't mind admitting I have so much trouble with clear water lakes in the Spring that I often wait until June to go there, when there will be a well-developed deep weedline to target. Until then, I also find clear lakes with predominantly bluegill/sunfish forage difficult to fish. Until the deep weedline is esablished, I'm most successful making long casts to depths right around the limit of visibility from above with jigs, tubes, or deep-diving jerkbaits. More often, however, I'm fishing murkier stuff in April-May.

In a strange twist, after repeatedly scraping the bottom of the barrel in the prior events, I wound up with 1271 for the Sabine, which put me at 23rd place.... just missing the cutoff for a prize package: UPDATE: Actually, I did qualify for 4th place prize package -- got the email today:

Among northern natural lakes, classic smallmouth waters tend to have the most desirable features for developers and property owners: Clear water, sandy or gravelly shorelines, and minimal weedy, mucky areas. But natural lakes age, and nearly all human development accelerates the aging rapidly by greatly increasing sedimentation and fertility, which destroys those same features over time. While this often benefits largemouth, it can do great harm to smallmouth populations as the feeding and spawning conditions they are best adapted to deteriorate. The smaller the lake, the worse it gets, and the faster it worsens. My area of Michigan is dotted with many small natural inland lakes of a few dozen to a few hundred acres. According to decades-old surveys, some of these once had smallmouth populations, but now are greatly reduced, and in some cases possibly gone.

-For a shore or wading trip, about an hour or two of actual fishing is most common (not counting the walking if getting to the water is a bit of a hike). Maybe longer if conditions are nice, I'm catching some, and my arthritic knee isn't acting up. -Kayak lake trips are 2-5 hours on the water, with 3-4 hours the most common. (usually don't have time for more, and less than two is not worth the travel time and effort of gearing up and hauling the yak out there) -Kayak river float trips can be up to about 8 hours from put-in to take-out if I'm going some distance, but that's about as long as I can tolerate. More commonly 3 to 5 hours.

Now that the statute of limitations has run out on charges from the now-defunct Hair Police, I am free to reveal what @gim has playing on repeat in his truck:

I have a few branded hats and shirts, and some with fishing jokes or references printed on them. But I don't dress consistently with any particular "look".

Had one since I was a kid, from back when was called "Dance's Eel": Never caught a thing on it, although I admit it does look good swimming in the water.

A pretty good morning back on the lower Grand River Bayous -- 26 bass in four hours, jerking around a DShad in two feet or less of water Some representative 2lbers: . A couple a little better, about 3:

Usually wherever the deep weedline in the summer is, which is about 15-20 feet down in most of the natural lakes I fish.

Lowen Schmitt Crews Schlapper Ike

I've used the Coolbaits down-under, but I think it's the same price.

Ordinary Big Game mono

3 hours on The Bayou (one of them, anyway) this morning, 9:30-12:30 Took a about an hour for them to wake up, but then I caught 10 in the last 2 hours; half were keeper sized. A DShad did most of the work, but it needed to sit there without me moving it for 5-10 seconds before they would hit. A few more-or-less cookie-cutter 14"-15"ers: And then one pretty good one at 3.34lb:

Unintentional? Marge Gunderson from Fargo, set in Minnesota: Al and Tim from Home Improvement, set in Michigan:

Ah, meme localization reciprocated -- nicely done 😉

Imagine having strong opinions about.....Rock Bass

I rarely ever catch bass that I can see, bedding or no.

Three hours on a new lake today, one I've been wanting to try for some time, but never got around to it. It's one of the more popular spots for tournaments in the area, with a reputation for big fish...and of course every time I have gone out to scout it during summer, the launch is packed full. I figured Spring or Fall mid-week would be the best time to try it, so I did that (launch parking was only half-full when I rolled up at 10am). And, until I get around to fixing the crack on my main kayak, I'm still stuck on my old one with no sonar. Best I could do was pull up fishermaps on my phone and guesstimate where I was on the lake relative to the depth chart -- at least there was cell coverage. With no prior experience here, pretty well-educated fish, and only approximate depth info, I decided to just do the easy thing and go around beating the bank with a spinnerbait, dshad, and lizard. I got a few: Best two -- 17" and and 18":

I can't fish at work, but there are a couple detours I can take between work and home that have fairly generous public shore access to the river and some gravel pit lakes.

If I didn't need to car-top my kayaks, I would have gotten a pedal drive too.

!!!!!!!!!