Mastermarsh

If you have any toothy critters in your waters, absolutely not. I know the feeling of setting the hook on a Megabass only to feel slack line, trolling to where the strike happened only to watch your jerkbait/money slowly sinking out of your life forever. I enjoy throwing jerkbaits all year round, as we have a ton of angry Smallies in Michigan and the largemouth/occasional walleye also love them. Each action has its time and place and jerksbaits have quickly become my confidence bait year round when bass are busting baitfish in open water. After far losing far to many megabass to Pike & Musky I have switched to throwing Lucky Strike RC Stx. They have the same action as the 110s and are nearly as effective and come in good variety of colors for about 1/3 the price. Once you upgrade the trebles/split rings they are killer, but the smaller size is almost to light to fish. But I will say that the Vision 110 Jr's are a whole different bag of worms, in my opinion they are unparalleled when targeting river smallmouth.

Has anyone been having luck on frogs yet this year? I seems like I am catching far more fish on walkingbaits, whopper ploppers, and poppers than frogs. Last year around this time the frog bite was on full tilt but it doesn't seem to be prime time yet, anyone else experiencing this?

Ragetail craws, roboworms, or z-man craws seem to work the best for me in Michigan. Everything has its time and place, its best to just experiment and get comfortable with one type of bait like worms or craws and branch out from there.

Thanks guys, I'm fishing a chain of impoundments that don't seem to have any shortage of baitfish for the bass to eat, as every other fish is quite healthy. It was just this particular fish so I'm inclined to agree with you @Team9nine, as the fish was very lethargic. During an internship I where I studied lake trout populations in Canada it was actually fairly common to catch very large fish with undersized bodies. Because of the different tissue types when the fish couldn't sustain its mass, the body shrank & the head would stay the same size. Pretty interesting article since I never knew bass reached this age in my lake.

Tonight while fishing I hooked into a very nice bass at first glance. After not much of a fight I got the fish to the boat and noticed something severely out of sorts. The fish was 22 inches long, had the mouth and head of a 8 pound fish but only weighed just under 4 pounds. The fish was very thin for its size and it seemed to be very low on energy. I was thinking that either the fish is at the end of its life, it had lost a ton of weight spawning (the spawn is just ending here), or it was sick. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?

Falsifiability is the nature of everything in the universe, especially science. That is the draw of research, the fact that there will always be more to learn and expand upon is an amazing notion. But I digress as this should not be an argument about the semantics or philosophy of scientific mythology. Nor is it conducive to a healthy conversation to insult @makelures work, as I know he has spent countless hours providing us with a resource of information that may help us become better fisherman. Perhaps you don't agree with his research and thats fine, but to insult his work is in bad form. I am certainly appreciating the discussion going on here though as this topic is no where near my field of study, and always enjoy learning from people who know far more than me.

I really didn't want to get involved here, but as a PhD candidate in freshwater Ichthyology this dismal of research is rather disheartening. Fissure man is by no means saying that the research is indisputable, but rather should serve as a reference point for further investigation into the field of color recognition/ preference in all species of fish. The complete dismissal of scientific research for anecdotal evidence based on years of experience is silly. In no way shape or form are you able to recreate the weather conditions, water temperatures, baitfish activity, and water clarity in which specific lures work. But to say that studying the anatomy of a fishes eye and offering color choices isn't valid is closed minded at best. As lovers of the sport and always wanting to improve, I would think that considering the widest range of available information to the most beneficial. Although I will be the first to concede that theory, research, and results do not always play nice with with one another. But thats the fun in science, and more importantly the sport of fishing as a whole. There will never be a cut and dry answer to what color bait the fish will prefer, but using research to help aid in bait selection seems like a surefire way to begin figuring them out.

Replacing the hooks on jerkbaits is always a good bet. Although I would check the size of the hooks that come with the lure because if you change the size to much it will no longer suspend. For reference, Ito Visions 110s take a size 6 as well as shadow raps. As for that I really can't think of to many baits that have size 8 trebles. They might work well on kvd 1.5s or any smaller finess type crankbait.

The smallmouth are on their beds currently in LSC, and most of the largemouth are still prespawn or on their beds. I worked a 6 pounder in about 2 feet of water for half an hour trying to get her to bite today. They will more than likely have a heavy spawn in the next week or so with the coming heat wave in Mi over the next week.

Having just switched from using the uni-uni knot to the FG I have figured a couple things out over the many hours I spent perfecting it. Its much easier to tie using a heavier flouro leader like 15 and 12 pound as the braid tends to lay better and bite in easier. You also don't need to use quite as many wraps, I have found that around 16-18 to be ideal. But it's a headache trying to tie an 8 pound leader using the FG knot, and the alberto is relatively the same size when finished and passes through guides just as well.

I have both the 71 and 201, they both have a little play in the assembly. It bugged the hell out of me at first but I don't notice it anymore. I've taken both of them apart a few times and everything is where it is supposed to be, so im at a loss for the reason they are like that.