FCPhil

Tatula CT!!! Could not be more impressed with the one I purchased.

@dodgeguy and @J Francho, any recommendations on color of ribbon tail worms in thick grass? The pond I fish is very clear. Will green pumpkin blend in too much to the grass?

When you talk about really long pauses with a jerkbait, how do you make sure you don’t miss strikes during the pause, just watching the line? I always feel like I’m going to be missing strikes but maybe I just need to commit to the longer pauses.

Assuming your right handed...you should start with a left hand retrieve baitcaster if your just starting. With a left hand retrieve, you will not have to switch hands before and after casting and your right arm will give you more power to fight fish, being the one holding the rod.

I can understand the debate about whether bed fishing overall hurts the fishing, like whether keeping bass vs. catch and release hurts the fishing. But I don’t understand how it is an ethical issue...we are hooking them through the jaw and dragging them through the water just to pick them up and photograph them. If that’s not an ethical issue I don’t get how bed fishing is. We are the alien abductors of the fishing world...just don’t abduct them out of their beds! (I’m all about catch and release, but for the sake of the fishing)

I fish a similar pond and even though the topwater bite fades during the day, I tend to catch bigger fish on topwaters midday than morning/evenings. And often it catches more than subsurface lures even in the day. There has got to be fish hiding under the mats. If a jig drops too fast to fish around the mats lookup a lure called a “zero-gravity jig”. It’s a jig that falls as fast as a weightless soft plastic. It might draw some fish out from the edges of the mat. Also I would try both rattling and silent crankbaits if you have not already.

Have you tried a bladed jig? Nice thing about stained water is bass are more will to come to the surface, even during the day. Maybe you don’t even need to go subsurface! I would grab a Whopper Plopper 110 and a Teckel Sprinker frog. Use one where the water is clean and one around the mats, and chuck and wind all hours of the day. Keep a good grip on your rod, you need to hold on tight with those lures! If it is slow and they won’t chase, throw a popper/popping frog around the edges of the mats.

I’m not and expert but here is my best shot at explaining it. It is counter intuitive. When you cut 2 feet off the rod in your example, the rod just became a lot stiffer, since the tip you cut off was the softest point. This means that now, when you apply load to the rod, the lower portion of the rod that previously flexed only a very small amount will start to flex more because the top end of the rod is stiffer. The truth is, the entire rod flexes always, it’s just the lower section flexes very little compared to the top. The stiffer the top becomes, the more the lower portion will flex, making it a “slower rod”. How much one section of the rod flexes is affected by how much the other sections flex. (You’re example would be correct if you had a rod that was a steel pipe for 50% of the length and a soft rod for the next 50%. The steel pipe would never flex and shorting the tip would shorten the flexing part making the action faster. Although the bottom of a real rod is very stiff, it still flexes some and will flex more and more as the top gets stiffer.)

@TotalNoob despite not being talked about as much, jerkbaits work excellent for largemouth too. They just have a bit of a learning curve in how to retrieve them. You think you’re missing bites on the pauses but you just got to trust you will hook them.

I have noticed that even though the majority of my fishing is in the morning, I have caught disproportionately more big fish mid day. I have noticed the Whopper Plopper (loud, fast moving bait) catches a bigger average all times of the day.

Snaps are great when you only have one or two rods and need to quickly switch lures. I always use them since I fish from the bank with two rods. Swivels are unnecessary and just add hardware to your presentation unless you fish inline spinners or spoons, which I never do.

I don’t have much experience with chatterbait personally but I have noticed a trend of people crediting them with bigger catches. Not as dramatically as something like large swimbaits but still noticeable. I’m planning to fish them more this year.

Surprised so many recommendations of moving baits. I’ll have to try them more this spring. Do you try to fish them pretty slow for the prespawn or do you still fish them at a pretty standard pace?

How do you retrieve the spinnerbaits for prespawn?

I use topwater walking baits for fishing around cover and over shallow flats where I am confident there are fish. I especially like them for the post-spawn and clear water. I like to fish them slower than most people with hard jerks followed by a pause. I use chopper style baits (think Whopper Plopper) for covering lots of water when I have less confidence in where the bass are. Also, I like it for summer and muddier water. I downsize to poppers more as a finesse lure when the fishing is especially tough. Calm, sunny late-mornings are usually when I use them. I use frogs and buzzbaits the generally the same way as the styles above but in areas where there is too much vegitation on the surface to fish treble hook baits. However, I prefer a walking frog as more of my “finesse” presentation and the popping frogs as my standard presentation. Instead of fishing toads I use the Teckel Sprinker frog. As for specific lures: Ima Skimmer, Whopper Plopper 110, Rebel Pop-R, Teckel Sprinker frog, Boyah Pad Crasher and Poppin Pad Crasher.

Been thinking about fishing the prespawn once the ice melts where I am at. The prespawn has always been a difficult season for me. What are people’s top 3 lures/presentations for the prespawn and how do you fish them during the pre-spawn?

I wouldn’t say I have mastered it but I love fishing topwater and feel pretty confident with just about every style of topwater lure. Weightless worm fishing also is something I’m pretty confident with. I feel like I’m starting to get a feel for fishing glidebaits, which has been a multi season learning curve. I feel the most at a loss fishing Texas Rigs and Spinner baits. I don’t fish bottom contact presentations much because of the conditions I fish in and I have never had much luck on spinnerbaits and set them aside since. Going to work on the T-rig this season though.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but in my experience, lakes always take longer to melt than I expect. Hopefully you’ll beat the odds. Certain smaller bodies of water melt much faster than others so you can always check smaller ponds first.

1. Strike King KVD 1.5 squarebill 2. Lipless crankbait 3. For areas of the lake that are hard bottom try any crankbait that dives deep enough to dig along the bottom. I know you said no topwaters but if you have not already tried it the Whopper Plopper 110 is the king of power fishing! ...I doubt that comment will go unchallenged.

Welcome to lure building! It’s definitely a trial and error process. In the future you can cut the slot for the bill with a narrow tooth hand saw and then widen it with a crosscut hand saw. Keep it up! Also, you don’t have to weight crankbaits if you don’t want to. Just depends on the action you want.

You might want to try a classic Texas rig with a lighter hooks and a buoyant soft plastic. Elaztech baits (zman, some Strike King) float usually. If it is buoyant enough it will float vertical but still be as weedless as a Texas rig.

A heavy rod (baitcaster) might help you fish heavier cover when needs.

I don’t think you need to worry about them failing. I have used two Black Max’s for the last four years and never had one fail. They do wear out and I upgraded one this winter but it was just the gears getting a little rough and the drag getting sticky, but it was a gradual process. Once, I was palming the reel and set the hook with too strong a grip and the heel of my thumb hit the spool release bar, lost the fish. This only happened once though and I chalk it up to user error. Also, I have winched in bass with tons of weeds on them and the gears held up fine. Edit: in the long run, I think it is worth buying better reels, they will last longer and cast better. I just picked up a Tatula CT and love it.

Thanks for the input, I’m going to try Jika rigging one along with a Texas rig see which works better. I saw in some other places you talk about jika rigs working well. How heavy of a pencil weight do you recommend?

@WolfyBrandon please let us know how you like the Ima Glide flukes when you get a chance to try them.