MN_Bassin

That's true in some cases, but sometimes I'd just be having a bad day and try to fix it by fishing, and between me and my friend both skipping docks with identical baits, he'd crush me somehow. I think maybe it has to do with having confidence, and that boosts performance (better placed casts).

I'd do what you're doing, only focus on those boulders. If that is the only thing different than the weeds, fish will really key in on them. Maybe look for areas where different kinds of weeds merge together, there may be a contrasting bottom composition that can hold fish. On such a small pond, little things magnify, if that makes sense. The subtle changes are more pronounced in a little pond than in a large lake.

Throughout my years of fishing, I've noticed that whenever I get negative or frusterated, fish avoid my lure and nothing seems to click together. I can't even count how many times that I'm using the same lure and presenting it the same as my friend, and he's smoking the fish, while I'm negative and getting skunked. Then it only takes one little thing within an instant to change my mood and then I'll hammer 'em. Or vice versa. I'll start out feeling good and can't keep them off my line, while my friend can't get a hit and he's having a hissy fit. I have no clue what ever causes this, the fish can't sense that kind of stuff....? Also, I always seem to catch fish on presentations that I'm most confident in, verses a new bait I'm second thoughts about. Do you guys encounter similar outings like that? What are your theories why this is? My dad's friend always claims that you must "fish with swagger".

Ever since I could walk, I've been using 6'6" medium light action spinning rods. They cover a variety of different situations just fine. A rod 6'-6'6" med lite would be fine.

I do 95% of my fishing from a kayak, and as long as its not unbearably windy, its soo more peaceful than in a boat. Windy days I'll be cursing kayak fishing, but nothing compares to being so close to the water and the fish. But without scupper plugs on a wavy day, you can add #8. 8. You prefer fishing with a wet, aching bottom.

So do the fish smell the sharpie? I would guess that the strong odor would put them off.

I love the morning and evening bite obviously, but I feel like midday is overlooked. On a hot, sunny day, I know bass will be holding under the most shaded parts of docks.

In Minnesota, especially in the metro area, bigger bass are rare. 2lbs are solid, 3-4lbs are pigs, 5-6lbs are giants, 7+lbs are potential lake records. The state record is 8lbs 15oz. Its sorta sad knowing that a trophy class fish up here doesn't even raise an eye down south. As for numbers, I consider 15 fish in 4 hours a solid day, but not amazing.

That night, my friend had a different frog on, I think it was the KVD Sexy Frog. He was getting the same amount of bites as me, but couldn't connect with any until he changed. I think it was a combination of a long skirt, and the hooks were slightly angled outwards on the side. I hardly had a skirt on mine, and the hooks were both parallel with the body on top. I always trim my skirt to an roughly an inch, and always make sure the hooks are parallel.

Without a doubt, 95% of the time for me, subsurface lures provide better days. When the stage is set for topwater, it's truly special.

Its always nice to hear that explosion, Frog Turds... I can't even type that with a straight face. And thanks TWSpook, spinning is what I've used from day 1, and believe I can do just about anything with it that a baitcaster can do, without the pain of backlashes.

The other day, my friend and I went to a lake around the metro here, Chisago. It was a hot, sunny day with less than 4 mph winds. We started with the typical lures, until I noticed a pattern forming. The reeds that protrude into the water would collect a thin layer of algae or slime around it, which in turn would provide shade and oxygen. Within those areas, I would hear frogs chirping and sunnies pecking at little bugs on the surface, and every now and again there'd be a giant splash. Presumably those were bass coming up on sunnies from below. I knew I had to put on a scum frog, which is a generic hollow body frog. What followed was one of the best top water days of my life. There was almost always an explosion somewhere around me and my friend. A few nice sized fish were caught, but most of the fish were nothing special. However, I think any fish caught topwater is 50x better than a fish caught subsurface. Excuse my Gopro microphone, sometimes it would connect and disconnect, causing a cracking sound. I'm in the sandy/dark camo kayak with the head mount on, my buddy has the chest mount on. https://youtu.be/mn5gRq6k0t8 By the way, does anyone really think colors on a frog matter? In slop, all bass see is an object or silhouette above.

Grumpy Old Men is not a bass fishing movie, but a hilarious comedy centered around ice fishing.

In order to fish the deeper water when there's no major contour change, you may need to look for other indicators such as birds keying in on baitfish or a weedline that extends farther out of some reason. That would give you an extra advantage, instead of casting blindly. Personally, I'd throw a swim jig on the weedlines, or punch farther in the pads.

Man I hate spincasts with passion. I feel like my hate originates from when I was younger and everyone my age or googans had them, so if I needed to borrow a rod, I'd be screwed. Plus backlash is awful when you cant see it. But its sorta funny seeing an angler at the top level using one.

My lake doesn't even show up as blue BOW on Navionics. Would the contours just be over the normal ground color?

Thanks everyone! I'm interested in the Navionics idea... I already have the app. Would the sonar, combined with Navionics, only show the certain spot I'm at like a fish finder? Or would it create an actual full map (given that I map the entire lake) I can look at time and time again?

So there's a lake near me that is my secret honey hole, it is man made (the construction company dug it out) and has no boat access, and only electric motors are allowed on the lake. In my kayak, my only competition is home owners on their pontoons (and most don't fish) or little kids off of docks. There's rumored to be potential state record LMBs in there, and I believe it, because my PB came out of there. However, there is no lake depth map available, so me and my friend have stuck to skipping docks, the weeds between docks, and a few bridges. I know a lot of big bass like to hang out deep, but we've never had much success because we are casting blindly. Is there anything that would heighten our success for bigger bass? Or do we just stick to fishing like we have been and hope for another lucky day? The average fish is probably 17" and 2+ lbs, and there is honestly millions of tiny sunfish, so the main successful pattern is a sunfish colored swimjig. What would you do?

Until I learnt of swimjigs, I used Trigger X flukes 90% of the time, to much success. There's just something about a fluke that the bass can't resist...

Pretty much all I ever throw is a 3/8oz swimjig with a paddle tail trailer. If I'm not using that, its in the evening or morning and I'm using a buzzbait.

What would be your line choices? I generally just stick to 30# Suffix 832 braid, in all lakes except for Mille Lacs, in which I have a 12# flouro leader. Oh I'm sure, because I supposedly have "too many lures", but man, there isn't such a thing as too many lures!

I've given up on Google search and decided to join the community here because of the extensive knowledge. I've been fishing ever since I could walk, but have only used med. lite 6'6" fast action spinning rods my whole life. Although they're fairly universal rods, I've just recent gotten into tournament fishing and may need an extra advantage on getting the fish in the boat. I think a lot of tourney anglers have too many rods, so I want to limit myself to several rods with specific purposes (skipping, flipping/pitching, crankbait/spinnerbait, etc.). If you had to choose 5 rods or less to cover the broad spectrum of presentations, what would they be? (Action, blank, length, etc.) Ideally, I'd like every rod to be spinning except for the flipping/skipping pole. Thanks, Tate.