N Florida Mike

Praying for you. Ive been considering a job change but so far havent felt like it was the right time. Academy is my fav. in my area. The employees seem happy and they have a good selection of stuff. Keep the faith, dont worry. Things will work out.

5 -5 1/4

Sounds like fun. Just enjoy the experience. I fished tournaments for a couple years and tried so hard I didnt enjoy it like I would have. Hope you catch a lot. Keep us posted.

The closest I came was taking clarinet in 6th grade. I couldnt get anything to come out of it but squawks and squeeks. I was 0 % interested in it . One day the teacher called on me to play an E note. I had no idea , so I went "eeeee" with the clarinet to my lips. For some reason , I only went for it one simester. I did end up learning to play a real instrument. 5 string Banjo !?

Born and raised n the Southside of jax. Fl. I Live 1/2 mile from where I grew up. When I was a kid ,we lived on the edge of suburbs and country. To the south was country,to the north was suburb. My nature was always looking south. In the 80s they started developing to the south and they are still going as I write. In high school kids regularly brought guns in the truck in case they saw something to pop on the way to school or home. Never any body shot, just a lot of fistfights. Spent much of my time as a young man fishing , hunting ,4 wheeling ,working on my parents friends farm. And one of my best friends lived on a farm like the dukes of hazzard . ( Im pretty sure they based the show on this family ! ) Deep woods were 5 min. away back then. Bears ,deer ,panthers etc. Glad I got to see old Florida before it changed so much. But At least I still live on our little lake that hasnt changed much since I started fishing here in the 70s. Its like an oasis of country in the suburbs.

I'm the biggest fish eater in the family. I dont care if its bone-in or filets. The rest of my immediate family like filets only , except my wife does love bone- in catfish. So I make sure there's a good supply of filets or catfish so I dont get " that look " from the wife. I meat fish for a variety of fresh and saltwater fish. The only fish I throw back with any consistency are bass. But Ive kept 147 of them this year out of the lake since there are too many small bass. I keep the 12-15 inch fish and the rest are released. Bass are good fileted but to me the skin gives them a muddy taste with the bones .

Why wouldnt tennessee want Les Miles. He'd be by far better than anyone since fulmer. And someone please explain why Jimbo fisher would leave Fl. state to go to T. AM. No cut on the aggies , but it seems like a downgrade to me. As a Florida fan , Im fairly excited about mullen. Maybe with his offensive experience things will change in gator land. Couldnt get much worse. Unless your a Vol fan.

I hear ya. My cousin's team. Glad they're doing well. More of my family are heels though.

If it stays fairly warm , Ive seen bedding fish in late dec. up here. My PB was one , caught on a dec. 31st. Caught a nice 6.3 pounder on Christmas day a couple years ago and it was on a bed too.

Thanks everyone. Sounds like a lot if variables. I'll try different style spnnerbaits, retrieves,and conditions until I have success again.

But I am catching fish in the same part of the lake just not on the spinnerbait. Its a shallow , weedy , and small lake ,so the fish are easy to find. They have been all over the worms since September. Not one peck or even a follow on the spinnerbait. I try fast ,slow ,medium retrieves ,stop and go with 0 success. Wondering if the skirt is getting too torn up. I changed it though before the last trip and still nothing. The water clarity doesnt fluctuate much. It stays fairly clear ( 3-4 feet visibility or more ). This S. bait has 1 small colorado blade. I fished another one thats bigger with 2 small willow blades when they were still biting the other one , and never got bit once. By way of extra info., the topwater bite on this lake is poor. Hard baits produce next to nothing. Cant use cranks, too weedy and shallow. But soft plastics- whole different story ?.

I hadnt fished a spinnerbait much in my many years of bass fishing . I would just get a fish here and there. This spring I determined to think out of the box more. So I bought a small single bladed strike king spinnerbait with a white/ yellow skirt. I suprised myself by catching app. 30 fish on it in 3-4 trips. All school size though. So Im thinking Breakthrough !!! on a new bait. The mystery is I have not caught a fish or had a strike on it since fishing the same waters since may or so. The lake is big enough for it not to be that fish are used to it yet. The bait looks and runs the same ( to me ) as before.It went from full throttle bites to nothing. What gives ?

Great info. Based on your replies , I will be trying some of these . Its amazing the variation of baits that catch bigger fish throughout the country. Thanks for the input !

Id love to try it down there. The furthest south Ive fished is stick marsh. Where did you fish up here ? Ended up with 8 bass this afternoon. Kind of slow.

Fished from about 3 on today . Post front conditions. Not a cloud in the sky. Worked hard to get 8. Most were caught on a 10 inch grape shad culprit. Its funny, but as I woke up this morning I was thinking about using this bait today. No hawgs, ( I lost one though ) but all decent fish.

My main problem catching them is that we dont have em up here.

It would be interesting to hear about the baits we used to catch our top 5 Biggest bass. ( Those of us who remember or keep records ) You dont have to include the size of the fish. ( but you can ) I'll start: 5. Booyah jr pad crasher . leopard frog pattern. 4. Culprit worm , 7.5 inch , red shad. 3. Zoom super fluke . Bubble gum color. 2. Senko . 4 inch. Watermelon red w/ black. 1. Manns jelly worm, 10 inch , grape color.

Thanks for the report. I havent ever caught a peacock bass but would love too. I plan on going later today so tonite I will report. We had a lot of rain yesterday ,so we'll see how that affects the fishing.

Probably the hardest 2 for me are not tresspassing and not getting too upset with others. We have a lot of pond fishing where I live. I do not ( but did when I was young ) fish in peoples yards connecting to a pond. I cant enjoy it because of the stress of the possibility of someone confronting me.I live on a small private lake and it would tick me off if I saw someone I didnt know fishing in my back yard wihout permission. What I do is fish common areas ,parks , schools, behind shopping centers. There are never any no tresspassing signs or I wont fish there.I struggle with this because I know its technically tresspassing but..... I almost never get asked to leave these areas , and if I do then I dont argue and just leave. The other is not getting upset with others that dont follow much etiquette. I take fishing seriously , there is time and money on the line and food on the table too. I hate confrontation ,but when other boaters cut your line ( has happened to me a few times ) or someone steals your fish ( has happened once ) etc. sometimes you feel compelled to confront it.But my goal is to " live peacably with all men " as much as possible. Good rules to fish by.

Ive fished soft plastics for over 40 years now and ,including those Ive fished with, easily 90% + of the fish Ive caught or seen caught were on soft plastics. It could be as high as 95 %. Out of my top ten biggest fish , 9 came on some kind of plastic bait ( worms mostly ) A frog accounted for the 5th largest. I used to keep a log back when but havent for a long time. When I did , about the only difference in the entry would be what color culprit worm I caught them on that day. ( And it was usually either red shad or black shad ) Being on bassresource has been helpful in getting me out of the box. I have had some new found success with spinnerbaits, but only on school size fish.I have made a minimal gain using top water frogs. Last year I didnt catch as many fish but did get #2 and # 5 biggest ever, which is positive. I have tried and tried to do better with hard baits but just catch a very occasional fish with them . Same with topwater.The last 6 months or so I kind of went back to my roots and have had good success,if not great. But my fishing is always anchored by soft plastics.

Its been a tradition for me and my middle son to fish on thanksgiving. We have missed maybe a few times or went hunting instead. We usually have our family get - together after 5 , so we get off the water or out of the woods by 3 or so , then have time to get home and help with the preparations.