Fried Lemons

Edge rods are 50% off atm if anyone's interested.

Ml rod with 6lb test is more than enough for smallies in most situations. Only time I would consider heavier is in heavy current with rocky cover.

Both sides. The stretch you speak of gets pretty heavily beat. The road side is less pressured but has worse access. I’ve caught big fish from both sides.

Yep, widewater. There are some giants there. The blue cat I'm pretty sure was blind. You can see how the eye in the picture is clouded up. The other eye was completely gone. Doesn't seem to have bothered the fish at all.

Had a really good week fishing jerkbaits and blade baits in the C&O canal and potomac river. I've gained a ton of confidence in blade baits in particular. They've been catching all kinds of species. A 3 caught jigging a lipless crankbait off a point in the canal 14" crappie caught hopping a blade bait in the canal Small walleye caught jigging a blade bait in the canal. Never seen one of these in the canal before. 2lb smallie fishing a jerkbait with a slow steady retrieve. Biggest fish of my life, PB blue cat at 42lbs caught jigging a blade bait for smallies/walleye. Fought for 10 minutes on my bass gear, was surprised my rod held up. No wonder the target fish weren't around.

I have a sad story to share as well. I had just gotten a shiny new reel and I headed down to the water excited to try it out. It had rained the night before making the rocks slippery as can be. In my lack of caution I slipped and fell. I had two combos on me. One rod had snapped just above the first guide and the new reel had a nice bit of rock rash right on the shiny new side plate. The rod was a very nice rod shipped from abroad just a month ago.

For soft plastic toads, keitech noisy flapper. In my view it combines all of the best qualities I’m looking for in a toad: the commotion of a stanley ribbit and the aerodynamics of a horny road, all while being more durable than either. I’m honestly sad I didn’t discover this bait earlier in the season when the frog bite was hot.

832 is nice and smooth but I had issues with how quickly the color faded from the line. I’ve been using smackdown which is thinner than the 832 and seems to hold its color better. I also love sunline fx2 for frogging.

7'MH musky rod with a penn fathom 25 and 65lb braid. This is more than enough to handle any size of catfish found in my local waters, where they can easily run 50lb+. I need to muscle fish away from rocks hence the heavy gear.

Have you considered the type of shore you usually fish? I have a couple rods over 7’ which get great distance but at times I wish they were 6” shorter when I have trees behind and beside me. I find rods 6’6-6’10 give me the best mix of distance and maneuverability.

Trimming the legs unevenly helped me out. Ease of walking also varies by design. The easiest walking frogs I've found are the terminator frogs.

Companion reel is here. The whole combo weighs less than my Stradic 2500. Balance point is exactly on the locking nut.

Back to basics this season. 1/4 oz ballhead jig with a 3" power grub on the river. Not a perfect bait but pretty close at like 80%. I've caught largemouth, smallmouth, striped, and rock bass on this thing as well as the occasional walleye/catfish. Almost makes me feel bad about all those expensive hard baits I have sitting in the box.

As long as your guides have hard ceramic inserts and not the cheap metal ones they should be fine with braid. Vintage reels might have trouble with braid.

I go through phases. I'll get really into catching a certain species and devote all my time and effort into catching that particular fish. Once the season changes or I have some success I'll switch to another species. I feel every species of fish has something unique to offer, be it a technique used to catch it or a particular way of fighting. This season I really keyed in on the invasive flathead catfish in my area. Lots of fun to catch with an extremely powerful fight. I still default to bass fishing for at least 60% of my time on the water.

New ultralight rod. Fit and finish are flawless and the sensitivity is incredible. Most of the UL rods I'm used to are like limp noodles. This rod has a crisp feel and a fast action. Also extremely light weighing in at 2oz. Still waiting on the companion reel. Can't wait to fish with it.

I fish exclusively from shore. All of my lures I organize into various Plano boxes and choose based on where I plan to fish and what species I'm targeting. I can fit up to three Plano 3600 boxes and all of my tools in my backpack although it's usually just one or two. I prefer to carry just one rod whenever possible or at most two, also based on where I'm fishing and what I'm fishing for. The type of bank fishing I do is sometimes very rough with off trail hiking and climbing huge rocks. It's much more enjoyable if I don't have multiple rods to tangle in trees and bump against rocks. I do want to buy a kayak eventually.

If I think I have a fish I reel my rod tip down then give a short, hard set. Assuming you're fishing braid you don't need to swing the rod too much. Just reel down to give yourself some room for a strong hook set.

A few weeks ago I had some work in DC and as I passed around the river I noticed lots of grass mats in the area. Decided to finally go down there and fish them today. Fished a frog for 2 hours, missed one massive blowup. Found a large gap in a mat and noticed multiple large snakehead periodically surfacing to breathe. They would not hit the frog, so I switched to a swimbait. Watched one at around 10lbs follow and slurp it in. Alas I either set the hook too soon or the fish spat the bait just in time. No action for the rest of the day.

Took a long sweaty hike to get to a stretch of the Potomac I wanted to fish. Fishing was slow but I managed two decent fish near a feeder creek. The inflowing water was noticeably more stained than the main river and the fish were holding along the mud line.

I like to throw a 1/8oz kastmaster as a search bait. Casts very far on light tackle and attracts fish from a good distance. Retrieve it just fast enough to avoid snagging the bottom. Once I locate a fish I'll throw a 2 inch grub on a 1/16oz ball head. Usually where there's one there is a school.

Fished the great falls area for 3 hours today. Caught 3 12-16" smallies, so a fairly slow day. On my "last cast" I hooked and lost a giant smallie just as I was reaching down to lip it. My old pb was 19" and I have caught many in the 18" range. This fish was in a different league. 21"+ with a massive girth.

Took a quick trip after work to a wade spot on the potomac. Water was very stained and about a foot above normal for the summer. I didn't go far as there was a threatening thunderstorm a couple miles to the west. Caught a 12" then missed the next two bites from the front eddy on a ledge. Third time I managed to connect to a chunky 17.5" fish. I got rained on soon after and the bite died down.

65lb braid and 80lb leader on a conventional setup. May seem like overkill but even smaller fish can quickly fray through lighter line on all the submerged rocks.

Got out on the river looking for flatheads around flooded cover. Got 2 big bites for the day. 17lber Just barely failed to break 30lbs. Beat my old pb by about 8 pounds. Just glad I beefed up my tackle, there was a submerged boulder that the fish tried its best to break the line on.