Fried Lemons

Deep is relative to the stretch of river. I use blades from 1/4 to 3/4oz depending on depth and current. Go with the lightest you can to reduce snags. I use 4 inch paddletails with an exposed hook. I consider it more of an active fish bait so I don't fish it smaller. Shallow snaggy areas I prefer to fish hair for the slow rate of fall.

On my river the walleyes are already moving to the spawning grounds. They and other fish will spend the winter in the nearby deep holes and will occasionally move onto the warmer flats to feed. You want to look for places with slow current and transitions from soft to hard bottom. Rock points and the downstream ends of islands usually have a deep slack pool with a soft bottom. In the right conditions I catch active fish on small paddletail swimbaits. My favorite technique is to bounce bottom with a blade bait. Many different species use the same wintering holes and the blade bait will catch them all.

Working class zero citizens. Very snag resistant and shouldn’t weigh more than 2-3oz depending on the size. Also look at 3:16 rising sons.

You could try tying direct. I've done it in a pinch with braid and did not notice a decrease in bites. IMO you only need the leader if you are expecting big fish (not bass) or are fishing rocks. Or you could fish straight fluoro/mono. To me braid is for spinning gear or heavy cover fishing.

From my experience a complete novice has a fairly short attention span and will do better with a moving bait, particularly with trebles. They can practice and get comfortable with casting while any fish that happens to bite will probably get hooked. When trying to get someone into fishing the most important thing is to put them on fish. Once (if) they develop some interest then I'd introduce texas rigs, which require more patience and the ability to detect strikes.

New toy just came in. It’s a lot smaller than I expected and I love how well it palms. It also has the least amount of backplay that I have seen in a Shimano baitcaster. It’s also the first I-DC5 reel I’ve held so it will be interesting to see how it behaves next to my older 2012 Exsence.

Had a blue heron dive bomb a soft swimbait multiple times. I would walk 50 yards to try and get away but the bird kept following me. He got within 10ft of me to try and ****** it at the end of the cast. He was not afraid of me at all.

If I was going to make a lineup of just one brand of rods it would be shimano. I’m a big fan of their tapers and if you find a particular model you like you can find the same model in their flagship lines. There is a rod at every price point. For example if you like the 6’10 medium Zodias(awesome jerkbait rod) and want to upgrade at some point you can find a rod with the same length and taper in the expride, poison adrena, poison glorious and poison ultima series. The rods get lighter with nicer components the higher up you go. Technically G Loomis rods are also Shimano rods and the conquest blank is a shimano blank so if you prefer simpler USDM styling you have options.

Fished a local river looking for smallies and walleye. Tossed paddle tails, under spins and jerkbaits without a hit. The problem was the fish were hugging the bottom and my baits were catching too much current and not getting down. Tied on a blade bait which was able to slice through the current straight down. My first cast the blade got thumped on the initial fall. I set the hook and immediately knew it was something big. I played tug of war with the fish for 15 minutes before I was able to get a glimpse of a blue cat pushing 50lbs. Unfortunately my 8lb leader couldn’t handle the punishment and broke as the fish made a last ditch run. I caught numerous smaller fish over the next hour and a half. The catfish were an absolute menace.

Widewater is all about deep structure. It’s difficult now because the water is down 3-4ft from usual so most of the near shore structure is too shallow now. The Berma Road side has deep drop offs which are probably still holding fish but access is sketchy and timing is important. The place is also pretty pressured so to succeed you should try fishing a little out of the box. I can guarantee you those fish have seen hundreds of worms, crankbaits and spinnerbaits. So in short: Fish spots with poor access Fish baits you don’t see others throwing Fish deep structure. Every visible target has been cast at thousands of times per season.

Daiwa reel on a Shimano rod? Blasphemy!

Missed the first half of the prespawn this year but made some exciting catches. Caught a few personal bests which unforunately were all incidentally caught invasives. Personal best snakehead (8lbs) Personal best flathead catfish (27lbs) First time/season fishing large swimbaits First time getting to fish Mattawoman by boat (thanks @Junger) Still looking for a pb largemouth and maybe a muskie before the year ends.

3-5 hours if I'm dialed on a bite. 8-10 hours if I'm not. Typically late morning to afternoon when fishing pressure is lowest.

That's a cl8bait baby possum.

Not surprising. They somehow spread from one little pond to almost every major water body in MD. What I wonder is how much of it was intentional stocking. At this rate within 10 years they will have colonized most if not all of the eastern seaboard.

Last weekend I was playing around with a deep cranking bait. I pretty much never fish deep cranks so I was throwing it around on the only setup I had with enough backbone to handle it which is mainly a frogging combo. I noticed the bait tended to want to swim on its side especially at around the halfway point. Those of you who do this a lot, do these baits blow out more easily than shallow divers? I was using an 8:1 reel and even reeling as slow as possible the bait was turning slightly on its side.

For freshwater fishing I think a medium light is all you need. I find they cast finesse lures much better than a stiffer medium power. I have a medium light that I will throw anything from 1/10 to 1/2oz and it handles those presentations well. I have hauled in catfish up to 40lbs and stripers in heavy current on that setup so I am confident it will handle any bass I encounter.

Fished the Potomac looking for stripers today. I hit a couple of spots with just one missed bite on a pointer 78. I finally found the active fish in some white water rushing along a bluff wall. I was catching runts every cast on an easy shiner. I switched to a floating freestyle shad and got some vicious topwater strikes from the bigger fish in the school.

If you are used to braid FC handles way differently. I know a lot of bass anglers love it but in my experience it tends to jump off the spool on some casts. I’ve tried all the premium lines and all of them do this to some extent. It’s better than braid at detecting bites on semi slack line and keeping some baits deeper in the column. Line size I will say 12lb is fine for black bass. For heavy cover I suggest braid.

Did you point your rod at the snag or did you pull with the rod? I don’t think there is a crappie rod on the market that can deadlift 6lbs.

http://web.archive.org/web/20171123043625/http://www.paulusjustfishing.com:80/4linetesting.htm Not all brands are covered but this is the most comprehensive source on this topic. The short answer is labels are generally inaccurate.

Fish as long as there isn’t ice on the water.

Potomac starting to come alive again with the cooler nights. Had a blast catching schoolies on light tackle. Also caught a 25lb flathead on the light spinning rod during a night trip but did not bother photographing him.

If you subscribe to their mailing list you’ll get notifications. There’s a drop happening next week. It’s a one man operation so they sell out fast.

I’ll bite. I started fishing the 6” citizens this season and they have become a go to bait for me. It is by far the best weedless swimbait I’ve used, it comes through timber and weeds very well. Stick some tungsten nails into the bait and it can also be bottom bounced without worry of snagging. The best feature imo is the way the bait is molded around the owner beast hook so the hook stays perfectly seated even as the bait starts getting torn up. The 6” is much smaller than the 7” citizen and the 7.5” battles shad. I’ve caught bass ranging from 1-6lbs on the small citizen so it’s a good all around bait for getting bites while still attracting larger size fish. Now the cons. First would be hook up ratio. There is a learning curve to setting the hook on this bait. You need to keep your rod pointed at the bait during the retrieve which is different from how you would fish a crank bait or spinnerbait. You need a very hard hookset for this bait so you need to be in position at all times. Fish will spit the citizen much quicker than a senko. Second would be the durability. This bait is soft and will start to rip with a few fish. You need mend it if you are fishing this bait. Sticking a toothpick through the screw lock will help keep the nose from tearing out. My first citizen lasted me 20 fish this way before I finally lost it to a snag. That’s my 10 cents. Hope that helps.