FCPhil

One thing to watch out for with some Owner hooks (St-36, St-41, maybe others too) are they have smaller barbs than a lot of hooks, making it easier for bass to throw them. I’d look into it on the models of hooks you’re considering before ordering them.

If you have trouble with fish shaking off hard body swimbaits you should look at Decoy X-s21 hooks. They are sticky sharp and keep fish pinned very well with the added point. They don’t work for everything though and they do add a little extra weight.

Why do you want to replace the stock hooks? Are the too weak? I highly recommend Decoy X-s21 quad hooks. They don’t work for everything, but for certain lures they are hands down the best. They are scary sharp and keep fish pinned like nothing else.

Very little experience with Flourocarbon but when I have tried it I too have run into knot failure issues. I fish straight braid all the time, I like the comfort of knowing line failure is going to be a non issue. I fish a lot of reaction baits though.

Thanks for the recommendation

Never heard of Fishdrops. I started on a Abu Garcia Black Max. I think it is a great starter reel for the price. If you can find it on a deal it is a really good deal. If you are committed to using a baitcaster long term it will be worth spending a bit more for something that will last longer. The Tatula CT is awesome.

I look for shallow cover close to deep water. Even better if the sun is hitting it as perpendicularly as possible (think north bank when sun is low to the south). Jerkbaits and bottom baits are where I would start.

I use 3/32 inch cotter pins from Home Depot. I glue them in with the expanding waterproof gorilla glue. Even though they don’t screw in they hold plenty strong. It’s an easy and cheap solution. BTW the 1/16 cotter pins bend too easily.

No, more like this: I should mention I am shorebound, so I can fish close to vertically through grass, I have to drag them horizontally through the grass.

I agree. What I was saying is a 1 pound bass may not even be capable of eating the shad next to it, but when it’s 3 pounds it can. I’m just saying it may be easier for a large bass to eat than a smaller bass because there are more fish it is capable of eating, and it may be harder for prey to escape it. And this might lead to the larger bass being less desperate for food and less inclined to eat a lure.

If you jump on the whopper plopper train, check out the Teckel Sprinker frog. It makes nearly as good of a plopping action but runs across the surface and has an excellent hookup ratio. It is worth the price tag. Also, my favorite and most productive lure in the post-spawn is a topwater walking bait. Takes some practice to learn but it is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.

Lunker city Texposer hook. The weeds get bunched up where the line meets the bullet weight. Thanks! I was reading through that post and I just wan to make sure I understand it. Slowly working a Texas rig through the grass feels like the bait is too buried in the roots of the vegitation for bass to find, and you’re often having to pop it free of the vegetation that clings to it, but there are indeed bass down in the depths of the vegetation and with patience will find the worm. I think it is milfoil, is submerged grass ever too dense for a Texas rig to be found by the fish?

They are made out of the dividers of Plano boxes. The plastic slightly floats. On topwaters, when paused, they move subtly on the surface as they try to float flat on the surface. After a pause, for a good 5 seconds they move in the water. I’ve been very pleased with how they turn out.

I’m curious what your take is on this: I assume as bass grow, they become more effective predators. As they grow, they are capable of eating more and more of the fish in the pond (including smaller bass), their faster speed combined with their larger mouth make them harder for prey to escape and their are fewer similar size bass competing with them (for the larger prey). Therefore, as they grow, they become less desperate for food and can be “pickier” about their meals. They would not necessarily have to be smart, just less desperate for food (because it comes easier for them) and thus, less inclined to eat a lure that does not quite look like the prey they are used to. They still eat lures different than their normal prey at times, just less often because they more readily can catch baitfish. Thoughts anyone?

I bought a pack of large ribbon tail worms and I don’t want to waste them. Problem is almost all the water I fish has very heavy vegetation on bottom that grows a few feet up from the bottom to within a few feet of the surface. If I Texas rig them they seem to get lost in the weeds and brings back a bunch of vegetation on the lure. Unweighted, they are difficult to cast. I’m hoping to fish them slowly but through the tops of the weeds. Any suggestions?

Yeah the description on the website says it has a split belly.

Here is something to check out. A weighted hook may not hide but it might at least be flush on the bottom: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Lunker_City_Fin-S_Shad/descpage-LCFSH.html

If it has a lot of submerged vegetation: I have had a lot of success on topwaters, especially in lower light conditions/wind. Walking baits and “Ploppers” have been especially productive. In brighter conditions jerkbaits that run above the weeds work great. If it has had a hard bottom: Toowaters still are great in the mornings/evenings/lower light but otherwise I would favor a crankbait that digs on the bottom.

You said you believe larger bass are caught more frequently pre-spawn because they are concentrated in shallow water. I agree but that is true of all bass. Do you find they make up a larger percentage of catches certain times of year than others and if so, what is your take on why? @WRB what is your take on why larger bass make up a differing percentage of catches through the year? (If you agree they do). Also, does fishing pressure factor in? It seems to certainly affect fish making them more wary or less in my experience. I agree there must be something to this. Even if it is not intelligent reasoning like we have, it seems they somehow can be conditioned by fishing pressure to be more wary of unknown lures. As my wife jokes about one swimbait I had, a bass says to another bass “Hey Gary, look at how that goofy fish is swimming!” “Weird, lets stay away!”

I assume what makes a 5# bass difficult to catch in my waters, and what makes a #10 bass difficult to catch in other waters is the same. Maybe it’s different though... I would expect larger bass have to eat much more, which should actually work in our favor, making them more likely to be caught if they are eating more prey. The fact they are not caught as often seems to suggest they do avoid lures, despite hunting more food. Maybe they just eat bigger prey? At this point I’m leaning that both are a factor. It seems like if large bass were only rare, they would make up an equal percentage of catches year round. But in my experience, they are by far most likely to be caught in the pre-spawn and Fall. During the post-spawn, I catch the majority of my fish because they are concentrated by the spawning bluegills on the bank, but none of them are the truly big ones for my water.

I have not fished it but people rave about the action of the 6th sense Curve 55.

I got into glidebait fishing a few years ago. I caught my second biggest fish on the Savage Gear Shine Glide (smaller size). Personally, I recommend you start off trying it with some smaller swimbaits (even the smaller full-body swimbaits are big compared to other lures). Investing lots of time into a few trophy bites sounded great in theory, but on the water it took a lot more patience then I expected. The bigger baits hardly ever caught fish in my waters, and when they did they were just average size. I fish smaller baits to try to get a balance of quantity and quality. With glidebaits, I cannot ever get strikes on a straight retrieve, it took me a long time of little success to realize this. In my experience, to get bass to commit on glidebaits, you have to glide them back and forth with short turns of your reel. Almost like a slow motion jerkbait. This is why I highly recommend the Savage Gear Shine Glide. It doesn’t have the nicest looking action on a straight retrieve, but it’s tall, narrow body allows you to work it back and forth faster without becoming unstable and turning over. Many glidebaits cannot be fished very aggressively without becoming unstable, so you are limited to slower and more steady retrieves. Good luck!

This past year I caught 82 bass over a pound (I’m shorebound) including my PB which was 5lb 7oz. My next biggest of the year was 3-14 followed by a few more 3’s. These numbers got me thinking, are larger bass really smarter/harder to catch, or are the just rare? It seems possible where I fish that a 5 pounder is simply a 1 out of 82 fish. (*I realize big is a relative term depending where you fish). Typically I have assumed larger bass were more difficult to catch for one of the following reasons: 1. They have learned over years of being caught and released to avoid lures (but I have heard studies show they have very little ability to reason like this). 2. Their temperament is less aggressive so they are less likely to be caught and live longer (but then it seems they would be out-competed for food). 3. They have happened to choose to inhabit areas of the lake that not fished as often (seems to only apply for bank fishing). On the other hand, if large fish are just rare, not harder to catch, why are they more vulnerable in the pre-spawn and fall when they feeding drive is heightened, and less likely to be caught other times of the year like smaller bass?

I use a spreadsheet on my phone. I just record details about every catch over one pound. I think it helps. It helps separate fact from the fiction of my memory...helps me get a more realistic gauge on what actually is going on.

No, just curious what the original price would have been, I would think you could up it by 20%-30% ***assuming it’s a pretty expensive bait. If not I’m sure the paint job is worth a good amount.