FatBoy

I went to wallworld tonight to get some essentials for the wife -- diet coke, diapers, etc. I went back to sporting goods JUST TO LOOK. I SWEAR, I was just going to look. I'm on a bit of a tight budget right now, but the bait monkey NEEDED a fix. So I was looking through the box of Riverside plastics. Now, I'm not a big fan of riverside stuff. But I've heard that they're basically YUM seconds, so I thought it couldn't hurt to see what they had for $1 a bag. And I found these... Anybody familiar with these? They don't seem to be a YUM product. Any good ideas for rigging em? I was thinking they might work good on a small jig head or weightless. May one of those EWG hooks with the weight on the shank? The bait monkey made me do it, I swear!!!

Your first real bass and it was 18"? DANG!!! Florida is the place to be (if you can't be in California ) As for the weight, check out the fish weight calculator in the Tacklebox link at the top of the page. It's obviously a rough approximation. But it puts an 18" bass at 3-5.

For smallies you want to look for slack water with sandy or rocky bottoms. Don't know about LMB in rivers.

I caught one other and lost two more. None of them had this problem. Probably just that one fish.

I was working on my May challenge yesterday (results posted) and got this sickly looking thing. This is the skinniest bass I've ever seen. It went probably 14" but I bet it didn't weigh even 1 lb. I actually felt sorry for it. It thought it was getting a nice meal, first in a while it seems. But all he got was my treble hook in the jaw. :o :o

Just about anything will work on a given day. senkos, t-rigged plastics, flukes, spinnerbaits are my go to baits. If you're stuck on the bank like I am most of the time look for some spots with good cover like weeds or piles of sticks first. If your pond doesn't have good shoreline cover you'll have to try different depths and distances from shore until you find the fish. And keep moving. The great thing about a small pond is that you fish around the whole thing once or twice in one trip. I see guys bringing lawn chairs and camping in one spot, usually the one with the easiest access and the shadiest spot or whatever. That's NOT the way to do it. I'll fan cast from one spot to cover a few different depths. Make 5-10 casts. Then move down the bank a few yards and do it again. I'll fight my way through woods and briars to get to a good looking spot. After a couple outings you'll get to learn where the hot spots are on your pond.

The anticipation. Like when you know you're in the right spot and you've got the right bait and you're just waiting for that big one to hit. And another favorite part is when you beat your buddy for that day. ;D ;D ;D

Today was by far my best outing so far this year. Went to our neighborhood pond with the kids. I only caught 3 dinks. But my 5 yo caught his first bass ever (on his brand new spiderman rod!!!). He was SOOOOO excited.

Yeeeeeee-haw!!! Congrats!

Roadwarrior will probably be along soon to give you the real lowdown. But when you say "dancing it through the pads" that sounds like swimming it to me. That's not what you want to do. The magic of the fat ika is the fall. You want to pitch/flip it into that cover. Lift and drop, not swimming and reeling.

Two words: black buzzbait.

OR, you can get from here to there on THIS: have even more fun and look DARN good doing it!!! (Sorry, but I couldn't resist. )

Hey 4biz, why don't you direct this guy to BassResource.com and this thread? I'd like to see what he thinks about all this! (Just trying to stir the pot a little more ;D ;D ;D ;D)

FONGOOLIED ;D ;D ;D I just learned my new word for the day!

SWEETNESS!!! That IS a CHUNK!

I'm no expert with jigs...far from it. But when I'm losing fish it seems like it's usually cause I'm setting the hook too hard. When I do manage to land one I find a big hole in that thin membrane LBH was talking about and think I was lucky to get that one in. That's when I remember to calm down a little and try not to rip its face off on the hook set.

Hey Avid, that's a good idea. I'm already using the 1/6 and 1/4 oz versions. Not sure that they make a bigger rooster tail. But there are other inline spinners. Also, I'll be a little bit surprised if bigger bass will hit a bigger rooster tail when they wouldn't hit a regular SB. But you never know. And hey everybody: Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything about keeping fish or moving them to other water until I get some professional advice. I've already contacted the DNR and got the name of the people I need to talk to.

I'm also going to predict that this thread gets moved to the Fishing Tackle section ;D ;D ;D

That's a great question...and I'm not even remotely qualified to answer it. I'm going to predict that the answer will have more to do with which is best to work through certain types of cover without hanging up or whatnot (rather than which looks more real, etc.). I can't wait to hear what others have to say.

Anyone else starting to think Fish Chris just has one stuffed bass he bought at a yard sale and he just goes to different spots and holds it at different distances away from his body? This is just getting ridiculous! ;D ;D ;D Living in Illinois makes me just want to...to... Way to go, man! I'm just playing with you. I don't believe for a minute that if I lived in Cali I could catch even one of those monsters.

;D ;D ;D, Now thats funny right there, I don't care who ya are !!!

That's......different. (To me anyway.) Seems like the only trick will be matching the hook with the tube. You'll need a hook with a long enough shank so that the barb comes out the bottom of the tube. Also, seems like a bullet sinker would work just fine too as long as it's fat enough to hold its place inside the tube. See there. I just saved you $1.59! Let us know how it goes.

Afetr I had drawn a diagram and used a calculator and thought about all of this for a good long while I came to the same conclusion. Oh well, it was still a fun little excercise. All the math I ever get to do at work involves chemistry and statistics. Physics and geometry are fun! We're just a couple of bassin' geeks!

Congrats on 36 yrs of marriage. But with a name like LONG Mike....well I guess that's all I need to say. ;D ;D ;D

You're absolutely right Ceph. Good catch! Regardless of all the math, what we can learn from all this is that the shallower you want your lure to run, the faster you should reel. Also, to maintain a constant depth all the way back to the boat, you need to slow down the retrieve as the lure gets closer. If you don't slow down, the lure will rise in the water column. I'm willing to bet most of the guys here are saying "well, duh!" ;D ;D ;D