the reel ess

Throw them on straight braid. Set drag looser accordingly and maybe use a lighter action rod. I started using the Heddon Sonar for winter bass and it works well. I mean, in winter 3 fish in a day is good. Anything more is icing. Also works on big crappie. But I was losing two a trip because you have to let it go to bottom over and over. I started throwing them on 30# braid and haven't lost one since. I have gradually been moving toward straight braid on almost all my combos. Lures cost too much to lose. I find the CC Spot and even the Academy store brand H2O lipless cranks get more bites for me. So I swapped the good hooks off my Traps onto those lures.

Hey

I fish a 30 acre manmade watershed impoundment. It's mostly between very shallow and 10'D. It gets about 20' deep near the dam. Fish are almost always in the 0-8' range. I fish very shallow to that depth year round except the middle of winter. Even then, bass are rarely caught deeper than that range. They'll be adjacent to the deeper creek channel or on flats near it, but not in it. So, until the water gets really cold, I'm a shallow water guy. The weather is settling after the hurricanes' influence and the moon is waxing. It's getting in the 50s at night so the shallow water bite should be fire.

I put some in my bag for that very reason. But I have yet to use them. There seems to be a huge difference in diameter between the 3" and the 4". I don't really have a small enough flipping hook for the 3".

I think you can cut a slit in the tube on the side of the hook bend, not the side with the point. That way the tube can flatten out when the fish bites down. You can also use a straight shank flipping hook. But those can tend to poke through the plastic sooner. But yeah, the creature and craw/beaver baits work better for me too. The Senko style baits are probably my best pitching bait. I got my PB on one. I still use a Gamakatsu EWG superline hook with all of these. I've tried them all and just settled on this one. I used to use regular hooks until a potential PB straightened one out.

I almost entirely C&R mostly because I'm lazy. But my buddy keeps fish in a slot between about 1.5-3 lbs. Everything larger gets thrown back. The reasoning is sound. This is a 30 acre or so private lake. He and I are the only people I know of bass fishing there. Most people troll for crappie at this lake. Then there's another place I fish that has yellow grubs in the fish. Once you've seen those while cleaning a fish, you can't unsee it. 🤮

It's been around a long time. You might also be thinking of the Injured Minnow.

I like topwaters and continuous chunking and winding. I hate catfishing and I'm not really into crappie or panfish because it's kinda boring. One of my favorite baits is a 110 Whopper Plopper because it covers a lot of area quickly. But I've come to realize that letting it soak for a few seconds before retrieving can trigger a strike, either before it moves or right after. So I force myself to be a little more patient. And when nothing else works, I break out the pitching stick and hit every piece of wood in the lake and the holes in lilies and grass. That forces me to slow down a lot. This is also a good way to get quality fish if they'll comply. Big bass are not doing the same things little bass are doing. They're usually not in the same places and don't behave the same.

Also try a jerkbait at the deep edge, over it and in lanes. A fluke or trick worm is also a good bait for it.

I sent BPS a Lew's reel to be worked on. They called me and said they did not have parts for it. They asked if I would accept a very comparable refurbished JM Carbonlite reel for $50. I said yes and they sent it. It was nearly identical to the Lew's I sent them except for color.

I want to do this because I have an older light action rod that belonged to my dad. I have never found a use for it because where I fish most of the time there are some bruisers and a lot of grass. The bass know how to take advantage.

When I was a kid watching Bill Dance I thought you were supposed to encourage the acrobatics. LOL.

...catch bass on topwaters every time out. But I always have one rigged up. Sometimes as many as 3 to start the day. Rumor has it the Whopper Plopper doesn't work anymore. LOL. It's been my 2nd best lure of 2025. I caught a nice one in February on it. ...use straight braid. I do this for almost all my rods now. Just got tired of losing bass because of the leader knot. If they aren't worried about the hook and the weight, they most likely don't care about the line 95% of the time. On the trebles, I just adjust my drag/thumb accordingly. Also, baits cost too much now to be losing. ...catch big bass shallow in the dog days. Pssshhh!!! Some of my biggest bass have been so shallow I hit them with the lure. They're still there or close by if there's grass around. I'm the same. When the 2 lb. bass won't bite the usual stuff I don't downsize. I go for broke. If I catch one good bass, my day has been made. Saturday I only caught 3 fish. A dink, an average size crappie and this 6-1. But I had a good fight and got one to add to my "fish over 3 lbs." log. BTW, I got it shallow on a size 10 X-Rap.

My profile pic notwithstanding, most of the bigger bass I catch are long and thin. I like to say they have a 7 lb. heads and a 4 lb bodies. You see the big mouth when they jump and you start thinking "Potential PB!" until you get your hands on them. They do get a little more beefy in very early spring and leading up to the spawn, but they are rarely fat fish. The bass in my pic was an exception and it was not in the spring. It's pretty conspicuous looking and I believe I caught it twice a couple months apart in the same area. I wish I could catch it again because it's apparently a very gluttonous fish.

Only on the bait I caught it on. A T-rigged black/blue Yum Dinger with 3/16 oz. pegged weight and 4/0 EWG Gamakatsu superline hook on straight 30# braid. I was pitching it to lilies that line the edge at the dam of the reservoir. I bought a 100 pack of the Yum Dingers from Amazon. I am still using it on the same combo: a Falcon BuCoo pitching stick and Lew's Speed Spool reel. But I'm about to change that reel out because the drag has gotten too stickyy from years of abuse.

When they don't seem to want anything, I just keep throwing a Whopper Plopper, knowing it will anger at least one bass. And it'll probably be a good one.

I guess it depends on other factors as much as the air temp. If it dips in the 40s for one night, then heats back up well the next day, probably good to go. But if the pressure rose with it or wind is blowing out of the NE or east, might be out of luck. It happened to me about a month ago. Bass were killing it shallow when the temps were getting in the 90s. Then we had a nice, comfy cooling trend and they cut off. All we could catch were dinks. The wind was persistent and out of the east or NE the whole time.

Hit a 6 instead of a 4. It was 7-14. I already take an acid blocker in the morning and one at night.

Fishing-wise, my 2025 has been awesome. I got back into a private lake full of healthy bass and dinks. I've caught 18 bass over 3 lbs., my biggest weighing 7 lbs. 14 oz. I only started back fishing there in late May. Life-wise, I'm dealing with some hopefully minor health issues. I have to see a couple of specialists. It will likely include an upper endoscopy. But I'm 55. No one gets out of life without a little discomfort. My dad died of a GI bleed so I'm taking no chances. Overall, I'm blessed.

A jerkbait. May I recommend the Rapala X-Rap in size 10? Clown color works for me. https://www.cabelas.com/p/rapala-x-rap I also have a smaller size that gets more, but smaller bites.

I've fished this lure with a lightly weighted VMC drop dead hook. This is also my favorite hook for a toad. https://www.scheels.com/p/04319311913/?store=&msclkid=aa76691fccbd1f8b3cf401d3a01606dc You can T-rig it and just bump it along bottom. I like it best around sparse vegetation. Fish will eat it up. I like the Houdini color. I need to buy some of these. Edit: I see why I didn't replace them. They're expensive.

I am subscribed to him. He puts out about 3 10-12 minute videos a day. Most are hating on FFS, which I agree with. Many have sensational thumbnails like "You'll never fish a Senko the same way after watching this" or "Double your catch with this one trick". If that worked I'd be catching 30+ every time out. He seems to have a vendetta against the Whopper Plopper.

I feel this sort of stuff is best left to the pros. I'm also not going to take a knife and rough up the finish on a new lure. I doubt it would get me one more bite in a month of Saturdays. But I'm not on the water 300 days a year.

IMO the reel ratio is much less important than the rod. You want that rod to turn the bass and lift it to the surface and ski that bad boy across the mat. That's even harder from a kayak because you're sitting at water level. But I do use a 7-something:1 Lew's reel.

Doh!!!