the reel ess

Yes, sir! Fill the reel halfway with cheap mono and the rest with braid. Braid ain't cheap. Use 30# braid for standard techniques and 50# min. for frogs.

Single hook lures, I tie. For treble lures, I use Tactical Anglers clips.

I do this with my good fishing buddy. He may tell me he zeroed on bass the day before I get to go. Well, if 6 hours Saturday morning is all the time I'll get to fish for the next week, I'm going anyway. I'm not knocking him. But he splits his time between bass and crappie. If the bass won't bite, He'll troll. If they won't bite for me, I'll try something else until either they cooperate or I run out of time. I keep trying because for me it really only takes one nice fish to make the day worthwhile.

When the bass surfaces with its mouth wide open, turn your rod to the side and keep the same pressure on it. If he is going left, apply pressure to the right and vice versa. That makes it more difficult for the bass to jump and will cut down on the thrashing. Don't do what Bill Dance does. He wants them to jump for the camera and edits out the lost fish. We want the fish to stay down until it's ready to give up.

They LOVE gold where I fish and a little orange on the belly seems to help.

It doesn't work great for me in SC. I've caught a few, but never consistently. This has a ;lot to do with depth and weediness, I believe. If you watch Roland, he wears them out with it, but the water is probably an average of 5-6' deep everywhere.

The hooks on the WP are so sharp the bass usually hook themselves. I use a MH-Mod Fast 7' rod and braid for Whopper Ploppers. It's supposed to be a big, deep cranking rod, but it's my favorite. So I set my drag pretty loose. If the bass don't head for cover I just play them. If they do I just apply the thumb as needed. The WP is a heavy lure and that gives bass leverage to shake it. Sometimes bass don't get all of a topwater or they get hooked in the head or side with just one point. That's the problem with trebles. I once landed a good bass on a Chug Bug that was hooked with one point in the nostril.

LOL. A lifetime supply. I already texted my buddy to see if he wants some.

You won't believe this. I ordered and only paid for 1 pack of #2 Gama EWG treble hooks from Amazon. I got 10 packs. They picked up the box that has 90 hooks and packaged in it and shipped the whole box.

The lure of a thousand casts. I admit I went a couple years with just one missed bite on them before they started working for me. I finally decided to dedicate an entire day to throwing just this bait and got a few bites. I have a 110 and a 90. They both have been good for big bass, but the 110 is better. This year I have a 7.93 lb, a 5.75 lb (both on the same day) and a 4 lb. I also lost a big one. These aren't the only fish I've caught on it. But the bites are few and far between. It just seems to cull small bass, though I've caught a few. And when you get a bite the bass has murder in its heart for this lure.

I had one of those Rapala ones that run off a 9V battery. Only one problem with it. Bass are always about a pound less than I thought they would be. ? It gave up the ghost Saturday. I weighed a 6.1 lb in the morning, then I caught one bigger later in the day, but couldn't weigh it. It's a decent scale, but the battery and the connection corrode and the wire pulled out as I was trying to separate them. So I have this on order. But it won't come until the 6th at the earliest. Any big gals I am fortunate enough to catch before then won't get weighed. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0043X6MX4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've seen a big bird catch a big frog while I was fishing as well.

NM

A couple of outings ago I had to yank my frog away from a snake. I've also had to do the same with a bird. I've missed more bass than I've caught on them. And I've caught a lot of bass on them. I bought a frog-specific rod and dedicated that combo specifically for frogs from March to whenever it gets cold here. I put a T rig on it for pitching when the water is too cold for topwaters.

There's not a lot of difference between swim jigs and pitching jigs. You can use different heads for these techniques or you can use a grass-type head for both. I had @cadman make me a couple swimmers in golden shiner pattern and a couple black/blue ones when I got serious about jigs. I still have the swim jigs. I would go with 3/8 for the swimmers and 3/8-1/2 oz. for pitching. 3/8 oz. is my go-to year round. For football heads I'd go 3/4 oz., though I haven't tried those yet, I intend to. Colors : some sort of brown and some black/blue for pitching. Match the trailer color. Or not, it might not matter. Fish colors for swimming, usually. And watch a bunch of YouTube videos. You'll learn a lot. Then tie one on and only use it for a day. Watch your line. When they bite, often it's before the bait hits bottom so you don't feel anything. The bait just starts moving away or off to the side. Set the hook HARD with your drag pretty tight and keep the fish coming to you. Play it as little as possible, especially in heavy cover. You can't set it too hard. Use a rod with some good backbone. At least a MH-Fast. I use a Hvy-Fast with 30# braid. You'll probably miss a couple bites, but you'll see what it takes to get better. I just reread your post and I have another suggestion. Pitching grass can be more productive with a Texas rigged Craw type bait. I like the Strike King Rage Bug. I actually use it as my jig trailer most of the time too because it skips better than the rage craw. Use a big enough weight to get the bait into the grass. If you do this, use a flipping hook or a superline EWG hook, probably the former is better. Big bass can straighten out wire hooks enough to escape.

Unless a few can break through enough to eat small bass. I've caught a chunky bass with a bass down its throat in a place I fish that's overpopulated. My buddy tells me to keep everything I catch. It was only about a pound and a half, but that fish stands a chance of getting big. I had to throw it back.

In that case, if at all possible, it's best to reel the fish in over the backlash. I've had to do this a number of times after skipping a bait under something. Usually, it's just a little overrun. The first fluoro I got hold of was garbage as well. It was rotten and breaking in no time. It really turned me off to it. I can't remember a specific time when I had a reel or rod failure fighting a fish. But many times I set the hook to nothing. Just broke off. I used to only change line when it started breaking. Once I got into a school of 3 lb bass and was wearing them out on a Spook. I caught 5 on 5 casts. On the 6th I got a bite and that fish got my only Spook. Lesson: Don't get so excited you forget to check your line if using mono-and buy more Spooks. I quickly tied on a Pop R, but they had no interest in it. That bite was over. Funny, because I had a neighbor with a bass boat trolling down the bank toward me and I caught those fish right in front of him. He said "I think you know something I don't." I assured him I just lucked up and came across a school of very hungry fish.

@Run2jeepn Yeah, I know it's not easy lugging around a bunch of rods in a Jeep. Mine is a 2-door soft top.

In my somewhat extensive experience with overpopulated ponds, the biggest bass in a dink factory might be 1-2 lbs. Use your biggest baits. Frog, spinner/buzzbaits, big topwaters, even a rat. Dinks will still bite.

I see a few Johnny Rattlers in that pic.

Lew's. But if you want somebody to do the work, send it to BPS rod/reel repair or contact DVT. BPS has most parts in stock for most BC reels.

Looks great. Make me one too. I have a Jeep too and I'd like to use it for fishing sometimes because my daughter, who's 16, keeps wanting to use my truck.

That's the reason I bought the one I'm currently using. My first kayak was a Perception Pescador 12'. It served me well as an entry level kayak. It was nice and light and tracked pretty well, but not very stable and the seat was padded, molded in and it put my butt and legs to sleep after a couple hours. So I decided it was time to step up to a used FeelFree Lure that came with a trolling motor setup. The seat was awesome. But it was HEAVY and I felt like I was wasting time lugging it around and taking off and putting on the motor/battery. I sold it for what I paid and got a new Pescador Pro 10'. It only weighs 50 lbs. so it's quick and easy to load and unload. Its stability is between the other two models and it has a good stadium seat. It doesn't track great and the rear has a tendency to creep around on you. But I'm pretty used to it now. I don't notice any difference in numbers of fish since I'm paddling again. And I really like the exercise of it. I'll fish on a bigger body of water in wind up to 10 MPH, but not much more than that. But I have a couple of other options. One is a friend's pond that's sort of low-lying and shielded from heavy wind. It's a go-to on some of those spring days when it's "white capping in the commode". And I have a couple of places I can go walk.

I have a friend who occasionally goes with me that only wants to use a bubblegum weightless Trick Worm. And he works it so slow it stays on bottom and catches fish with it. I call it the (his name) method. When my dad and I were getting into bass fishing, my dad only used plastic worms. He was of the opinion that they would catch bass better than any other bait in any situation. I made him rethink that as I got into other techniques. But it still will consistently catch bass in most situations.

I have before, but I don't anymore. I just don't see much advantage. If I was flipping really stained water, I might try it. The last one I used was black glass and it broke.