Turkey sandwich

Last weekend was my first trip out targeting bass this year, and noticed the same. I was in northern PA (where snow was still happening well into April) before temperatures went crazy. I got on a largemouth lake where the water was already 72-76 over the course of the day, beds were easily visible, but virtually all of them were empty and being replaced by sunfish. It was incredibly weird for this time of the year. All of the bass we caught appeared to be 12-17" males while beating the banks around creeks and coves. The lake has a massive spawning flat with nothing on it other than sunfish beginning to to take over the beds, and carp going crazy in weeds. It was weird, man.

This. Tubes are probably one of the most under utilized flipping and pitching baits and they can be fantastic. They drop through vegetation well, can be fished like a jig in holes in surface vegetation, and can be worked at a TON of different speeds on the fall. Finding a good hook that you like and can rig well is probably the most tricky part. Generally, for this, I like straight shank hooks with wide gaps like a punching hook with any weight pegged to the hook eye. They can also be fished weightless like a soft jerk bait near the surface and allowed to go all crazy on the fall. This can be a really fun technique when fish are either feeding up, or suspended.

No need to be all preachy, fellas. Having the drag tensioned almost all the way down makes good sense for frog fishing. Using a snap, however, wouldn't be my first choice. I've seen most snaps fail (models like the Mustard posted above are the exception) resulting in lots of cursing. I'll fish swivels on baits likely to twist 12-24" up the leader, generally. For in-line spinners, spoons, and some soft plastic worm techniques, this makes good sense. For almost everything else, it doesn't really serve a purpose. As for snaps, I use them on my crank bait rods pretty religiously because they don't impede action (I might even argue that a snap or loop knot actually helps add action to the bait) on crankbaits, and make switching them out much, much easier. Other than that, they generally do more harm than good. General rule, if you don't see better guides or elite tournament guys doing something, there's generally a reason.

I was on a lake above the Poconos here in PA and the water temp was already mid 70s. I appear to have missed the spawn in PA completely.

Did you get a length? Are you a midget? A giant?

That looks like a great flathead! I'm still yet to pick one up on the north branch, but wouldn't be surprised to start seeing more of them in the near future. Sometimes it depends on season and where you're catching fish, but walleye and channel cats are super common.

Definitely do! The fishing can be super fast and the scenery is awesome. Also, the potential for fun multi species fishing can be awesome. It's not uncommon to catch smallmouth, walleye, channel cats, and pike/musky over a single day/weekend.

Congrats on the fish! It looks like the quality was awesome while you were out. I'm just glad you seemed to enjoy your trip. I've been stuck inside the last few weekends and I'm chomping at the bit to get out this weekend. Some of the pictures I've been seeing via facebook from guys on the Susquehanna are ridiculous. This spring (and it's been weird) seems to have had the Susquehanna fishing amazing when it's actually fishable. Hopefully you had a good enough time to see why some of us love that river. Also, that jet boat has me pretty jealous. What were the conditions while you got out? It looks like you had quite the mix of weather? The Susquehanna is a big river. A little further downstream near Harrisburg, it stays consistently well over a mile wide the rest of it's length down to the reservoirs and into the Chesapeake. The main stem alone is something like 450 or 500 miles long.

It's a great series of rods! I have an Avid X drop shot rod that I love. Also, when you look at the line weight rating, that's for the diameter. If it's rated for 14LB mono, it'll do fine with 30-40lb braid. The biggest thing to consider is the size of lure you're going to be fishing. Also, are you on shore or fishing from a boat? Are you only going to be carrying 1 rod? I'll echo either the Medium or Medium heavy for versatility. (I've caught several pike and musky on M and MH powered St. Croix rods, and both have the backbone to handle the fish.) If you're fishing primarily treble hooked lures (crankbaits, large topwaters, jerk baits, etc), a Moderate or Moderate Fast action is ideal. If you're fishing primarily single hooked lures (T-rigs, C-rigs, soft swim baits, jigs, etc) a Fast action rod is much more ideal.

I see no disadvantage to being able to cast with both hands, but I don't think it's necessary. I cast with my right hand and all of my reels are left hand retrieve. I learned with left hand retrieve spinning gear and it's all that's ever felt comfortable for me. If I were to change today, taking into account how hard it can be to accurately cast into tight places or do complicated stuff like skip, I feel like I'd only end up frustrated and spending more time clearing backlashes than sticking my bait where I want it.

I have the previous generation 7' MH MF and use it as a spinnerbait stick primarily, but it's pretty versatile. I can't speak on the med, but the MH fishes heavier power and faster action than most. I love the rod, but would not purchase an Aetos MF action rod as a crank bait rod unless, I were planning on fishing some very stretchy line. This isn't by any means a negative review of the rod (I love mine), but I wouldn't use it for that purpose. Instead, most of my crank bait fishing is done on less expensive Abu Veritas Winch rods.

Generally, this is good advice to cover bases without breaking the bank. I think its good to have some kind of circle/octopus/wacky hook (whatever your preference) for the Senkos. I also think it's a good idea to have straight shank, offset shank, and extra wide gap style worm hooks and know when each makes the most sense.

If you're noticing line fray consistently above the knot, it's highly unlikely either is the problem. Check your guides for grooves or damage. There are reasons why guys spend the extra money to have high end guides on their rods, and one of the biggest is to stand up to braid. Also, if this is your introduction to fishing bottom contact baits, line wear comes with the territory. If you're dragging that jig through laydowns, rocks, etc it's going to get damaged. This is why I tend to retie often while jig or t-rig fishing. Also, unless I'm fishing through grass, I almost never tie braid directly to my jig because of how badly rocks and wood can damage braid. My go to leader for jigs has been Yozuri Hybrid for years because it's nearly bomb proof, but other guys also like Big Game and CXX for the same reasons.

VMC makes great tube jigs, but you can often find other, similar shaped heads for less. Some ball head jigs can also work. The most important part is hook size. For a T-rig, I probably prefer a straight shank hook with a wide gap.

It would always live on in our hearts. That was some kind of magic...

Oh my God, the resurgence of the Bigfoot thread has absolutely made my day.

I know it's slightly off topic, and kinda back on trout, but the White River seems to be a really interesting study on this. I'm sure some of you fellas have fished it. @Bluebasser86 comes to mind. It was on own for producing huge trout, so long as you were fishing live minnows. For everyone with fly or spinning gears, it developed a reputation as a typical put-and-take fishery. Once guys started fishing big jerkbaits and huge flies, it became a regular thing for guys to catch 30lb browns on artificial. Big fish waste less energy eating midges, and instead given the opportunity, will attack an oversized Smithwick, Sex Dungeon, Double Deceiver, or X-Rap. Where they set up, and sometimes how far they'll travel to take a bait is directly correlated with the size of the bait. There are some really awesome podcasts on this that I'll link if anyone is interested.

@scaleface well, he didn't launch the boat intentionally...

Mayfly hatches can be pretty big events on the Susquehanna's North Branch. White flies will cover everything like a giant living cloud. It's really nuts and pretty surreal. When they're THAT heavy, I don't so much try to mimic the flies as smaller fish feeding on them (poppers, floating jerkbaits, walking baits, etc). This is probably my favorite example of larger fish choosing to take larger prey efficiently because of opportunity. Tons of fish rise to sip spinners from the surface and larger predators often sit beneath. It's a really cool pattern. Next time you're out during a hatch, tie on a weightless streamer, Dahlberg Diver, or popper. The Need rig has probably become my favorite helgramite imitation, dead drifted and swung. They're even more ridiculous on the swing during stone fly and Dobson fly hatches. Have you ever seen them just swim with their mouths open scooping spinners off the surface? Also, super cool.

Sounds like you've done a lot of good homework. The think, for tournament fishing, it's a good idea to see patterns as a guide or outline, but they aren't ever gaurunteed, and often you can't see the underwater conditions that can throw a wrench in your gears. I think having plans is a good idea, but fishing the moment is just as important. I also think that changes in conditions should guide your changes through the day until you hit on the patterns that work.

I think a big part of this pattern is the current. If you have structure and current in a body of water that generally has little of either, you're likely to find fish. This is why fishing below waterfalls and dams can be huge depending upon release/flow. There was an Elite series event a few years back where Iaconelli launched his boat into the woods trying to run up a skinny river because the dam pattern was key. Back in high school, we found out that aggressive river smallmouth will take advantage of just about any current breaks near quality feeding areas. So, we'd take turns wading to 3' depth behind fast runs and just took turns fishing the current breaks/eddies we created just standing in the river. Two of us bagged plenty of limits drifting grubs and helgramites this way. It's wild hooking a fish 2' behind your buddy, lol.

@WRB - any angler not considering primary forage species is going to waste a lot of time on the water and miss a lot of opportunities for success. I definitely think that seasonal conditions definitely play a big role in forage, but I'm also interested in the more common, less pronounced conditions that are less obvious than shad spawns, picking fry/eggs off of redds, blugill spawns, massive hatches, shad runs, etc because those aren't the conditions we fish most of the time. Not that I want to neglect them, and for sure I think that this conversation pertains to them, but I think that in most of those cases we're talking about already very active aggressive fish with very wide strike zones. These, I think, are the conditions where bass will eat d**n near anything and most good, seasoned anglers have few problems taking advantage of opportunities. On the other hand, mimicing forage in a manner that's most efficient and within that feeding window/strike zone on a 90 degree blue bird day in August is usually a much tougher deal (though one that more anglers encounter based on when they choose to get on the water versus say an alewife kill in late fall when the air temp might just be 35-40 degrees). It's getting those fish that aren't already frenzied to bite that is way more challenging and this is where I think really making sure you're presenting efficiently within that window is key.

@Mr. Aquarium - for sure, those can be some really fun conditions to fish. But I also think that those conditions make up the minority of feeding opportunities for most fish in most systems. I think there will be pelagic schools of largemouth in most larger systems that will spend long periods following schools and busting on herring species (shad, alewives, blueback herring, etc), and sometimes white perch, etc. And getting on an active school is great for numbers, but this strategy, for me at least, hasn't generally resulted in catching larger (18"+) versus midsized (12"-17") fish. So, it could be a few things. One possibility is that those larger pelagic bass have a more keen eye for live bait versus artificial lures. Another is that pelagic fish tend to not pack on as much weight because they're constantly on the move versus their breathren that tend to be home bodies that keep a smaller home range and rely more on opportunity and cover for ambush. I've also seen plenty of huge smallmouth (lakes) that move constantly chasing perch, but I'm curious if they're separate populations from those that simply follow structure to ambush gobies, madtom, sculpins, and crayfish. I also think that bass get forced into specific roles because of other dominant predatory fish in a system (musky, pike, walleye, larger trout/salmon, etc) dominating specific hunting grounds. I'm kind of curious on @Dwight Hottle and @Catt 's opinions on this.

Usually, I like a bait that matches the most likely forage, and generally if fish are schooling, feeding up, or ambushing baitfish I like a pretty fast eratic action, and I'll change my presentation alternating dramatic pauses until I dial it in. As the spawn gets closer, I start to notice a pretty wide separation between big fish on the cusps of spawning and juveniles just trying to bulk up/second and third wave spawners that generally aren't the 4+lb fish we're generally looking for. In the summer and fall, if this corresponds with a hatch or bass busting on baitfish towards the surface or weed/structure lines, you can be in for some really exciting conditions.

Agreed. But even with large mouths designed for gripping, bass still prefer taking baits in the fashion least likely to damage them. For example, taking a perch even half the size as the one pictured tail first would run the risk of damaging the fish's gills, gullet, etc. I think this idea is huge in terms of presentation is huge. I think that finesse, or slow presentations allowed to sit in the fish's direct line of vision is huge, and I think that this is one of the reasons that guys like Jeff Little are as successful as they are catching large, wary fish deadsticking and why guys like Aaron Martens became a legend crawling dropshot rigs. I also think this is one of the reasons drag free nymphing is such an effective trout tactic. Similarly, I also think it's interesting to note how much further predators will travel for larger meals. Look at smallmouth in rivers. Smaller fish will stack very fast water in the tiniest of Eddie's because of how easily they can feed on nymphs, darters and minnows overwhelmed by the fast current, etc without having to move much at all. Larger fish, however tend to sit on the edge of this water in protected areas and will absolutely go well out of their ways to attack bigger swimbaits, jerkbaits, big spinnerbaits with large profiles, etc. even if it requires a lot more energy. I think this also raises some questions about the orientations of their strike zones, also, that go well beyond smallmouth being better built to feed down and largemouth feeding up.