RHuff

Heading out to Summersville Lake in WV this weekend tomorrow and seeking where to start. I'm expecting low 50 degree water temps on this rocky highland reservoir. Deep winter drawdown. Deep canyon with steep banks. Minimum vegetation. Water clarity clear to slightly stained. Windy. Overcast. Primary forage is crawfish and gizzard shad. How would you attack each species: Smallmouth? Largemouth? Spotted Bass?

If I fish up river in current I just cast past the target and let it float down stream while it does its thing... If I absolutely need the bait to drop faster, I'll texas rig a 3/0 finesse wide gap hook with a 1/32 oz bullet weight. It'll sink the worm but it isn't heavy enough to kill the action of the stick worm doing it's "shimmy"

Well said. Winning in a bass tournament is cashing a check... Even KVD lost a lot more tournaments than he won.

I caught my first limit of the year today on the Frittside 5.. I throw it on 8lb fireline and 8lb Berkley Flouroshield on a spinning reel.. I like to throw the following: Late Winter/Early Spring: Red Craw Late Prespawn/Spawn: Ghost Morning Dawn Post Spawn/Early Summer: MF Bluegill Late Summer/Fall: Kentucky Blue In dingy or heavy stained water I’ll throw the Mustard Shad or Black/Chartreuse

I prefer the Frittside 5 and Frittside 7

In the winter fish wind protected banks and in the summer fish banks with wind and current hitting them....

I prefer chunk trailers

Maybe I misunderstood the point of the thread. I thought the OP asked what lures to start fishing with. I use that process as a starting point to pick my FIRST lures that I tie on. If things don't work out you adjust. How and when you adjust is just as important as where you begin. No arguing that going against the grain or thinking outside the box doesn't produce fish. To me, it makes sense to start with something logical though rather than picking something random. It's just how my brain works lol

I'm certainly no expert and am still learning things myself but I've tried to do better in the last year or two about not having preconceived notions regarding when and what to throw before I actually see the lake I am fishing. I've been taking all of my baits off when I get home from a day out to clean and organize my tackle and make the decision on what to tie on after getting on the water. I'm trying to break myself from throwing "what I think the fish should be eating" to "what the data says to throw," if that makes sense. After launching, I immediately look at the water color, what temperature, and then I try to identify what depth the baitfish are holding at. That will help me decide on what type of baits to throw. Next I try to identify actual bass in the vicinity of bait fish either holding on bottom or suspended. That helps me key in. From there I pick baits that fit each of those four criteria. It's sort of a process of elimination. For example, lets say the water is stained, moderate wind, 55 degrees, baitfish is holding in 5-10ft of water, and bass seem to be high in the water column, that tells me they are up and active so I am gonna throw moving flashy baits such as jerkbaits, shallow crankbaits, burn a spinnerbait or chatterbait, or a swimbait with heavy tail action..... If the water is clear, 80 degrees, little wind, sunny, baitfish is in 20ft of water I'm gonna be flipping mats or looking for fish out deep.... Deep diving cranks, football jigs, flipping heavy cover, etc... If water is 38 degrees, baitfish scattered, water is clear, and no wind, and I see bass bellied on the bottom I'm gonna throw something slow and deep like a jig or a blade bait....

Thanks for posting Glenn. Probably the one technique I struggle with more than anything. I can fish a weightless stick worm or drag a jig all day but for some reason I have zero patience with a drop shot. I need to force myself to learn to fish it....

I use the Lew's Super Duty LFS 8:3:1 Reel with a 7'4 Bass Pro Carbonlite 2.0 Heavy/Fast Rod.. I typically flip 30lb braid but I may look at the Berkley X5 65lb.. Below is a few photos of the lake I am referring to...

I caught more fish in '22 on a stickworm than any other two baits combined I fully expect it to be the same this year.... It wasn't because that's all I fished either. It just turned out a lot of times at the end of the day that's what I get bit on when I couldn't get bit on anything else.

Thanks Captain for the response. I do like to snell the hook. I like using a 3/0 Berkley Fusion Heavy Flipping Hook. I have never really reeled the slack down I have always just tried to keep my rod tip up and at around the 10 o'clock position and when I feel it step back and use my body to set the hook taking the rod as high as I can. Usually I can feel the bait bury and when I get to the top it feels like I hit a brick wall and my boat will start drifting that direction as I reel.... by the time I get to the hook (if I can even get to it) the fish is long gone....Normally....I have to just reel down and put my rod down horizontal and pull the hook lose ripping up the cluster of pads from their roots on the lake bottom. Then I get to pick a big string of pad stems off my boat deck while the fish is probably laughing all the way to the bank.....

I need something that is easy to slice through thick lilly pad ears and stems... The waters I fish are loaded with thick elephant ear pads and I can get bit by some good fish but have trouble getting them up to the surface a lot... Any recommendations on what size/type of braid to help cut through the pad clusters? Does anything help? Right now my success rate is about 3/10 bites I actually get in the boat. Most I set the hook and they get pinned in a pad cluster and if I am able to go in after then all that is left is the hook.....

Some parts of the country when crawfish first emerge from their muddy haunts during late winter they appear more reddish until they molt a time or two. Afterwards in warmer water they turn greener with a hue of blue.... in late summer early fall they look brown.... I know that's how it goes in my area so I follow the red/gree/brown patterns according to water temp and season.. There is one type of craw in the Louisiana area that stays red year round.....

Start at the wintering holes on the main lake and go from there to the main lake points with steep banks. Baitfish in the area is key. Fish slow. Jerkbaits, Jigs, Stickworms, and tight wobbling crankbaits fished really slowly.

Berkley Wake Bull size 60 in White Shad or Ghost Bluegill

Berkley Fusion 19 Octopus or VMC Ike Approved Wacky in #1 or #2 I tried the Neko hooks but kept tongue hooking fish and having them bleed out....Lost one in a tourny. Most of the time the wacky hooks stick them right in the top of the mouth..

Prefront = warmer air and wind picking up.. darkening sky with heavy cloud cover.. moving or horizontal baits Postfront = Clear blue sky.. moderate wind.. flipping, drop shot, deep jigs, etc

I think that some mature bass are very dominate and territorial.. They find a particular spot they like usually around an isolate piece of cover and they run off smaller less dominate bass..

No trailer.. that's interesting....

I’ve been fishing out of a 17ft aluminum with a 50HP for 5 years. Paid cash for it used when I bought it. I added two Garmins and a motorguide trolling motor with gps lock. It’s easy to tow, easy on gas, I can run 32 mph with myself in good conditions and 29 mph with a partner. I’ve ran this little boat down the Tennessee river from Dayton to Chester Frost on Chickamauga, although it was a long run each way. It fits comfortably in the garage too beside the tractor. I’ve fished several tournaments with it. In some, I wasn’t the smallest and in some I was by far the smallest boat in the field. More times than not though, I did not finish last. I’d like to have something a little bigger, around 19ft with a 150-200HP to take my son, who is now 8, in that is a little safer and a little more roomy to fish from. It’s a hard choice, do I keep what I have or take on additional debt??

Bass can adapt to their surroundings, but require food to survive. This tells me.. 1. Food 2. Water Temperatures

I have caught a lot of fish on the Rapala Shadow Rap and Shadow Rap Shad... A good alternative is the Strike King KVD 300 series the smaller one with two trebles.. it's a good size that matches the forage where I live. A few colors I would recommend is the silver/black back, pro blue, and the white or white/yellow bottom... Tip: If you want to see one of the most aggressive bites known to man try throwing one (Pro Blue) in warm clear water with smallmouth.... Cast it out and let it set for a second and start twitching it at warp speed constantly.... think let it hit the water, let it set for a second or two then jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk...... hard and fast all the way back to the boat.... I would almost call the way the smallmouth attacks it as murder..... The point is let it set to get their attention but try to work it fast enough that they don't get a good look at it... it drives them absolutely nuts.. this technique shines when you notice the fish coming up to your bait but dodging away at the last second...

I'd say if there's usually not a lot of fluctuation of water temp from winter to prespawn I would look closely at when the days start getting longer. That and a combination of longer daylight and full moons...