FCPhil

I agree, the 110 is excellent. From what I hear the 75 has fixed all the issues with the 90 like the 110 has. Still, I like the bigger size of the 110. It catches plenty of small bass and I think produces bigger bites too. My PB in my avatar came on a 110 and its mouth was big enough to eat a school of 110s, let alone one!

Thanks, I’ll have to give it a try. I have a slow-sinking (supposed to suspend but it doesn’t) lipless should let me fish it extra slow if needed.

I fish northern strain bass and almost all my top 10 bass came from the late summer/fall. (A few pre-spawn). Mostly on days where the fishing overall was tough but then one big fish bites. Also, most of my larger bass have come late morning or during the day, also when the fishing is usually slower for me. What kind of swimbaits do you fish? Do you mainly fish top hook swimbaits along the bottom like huddlestons? How do you fish weedy/soft-bottom waters that have too much vegetation to fish on the bottom? Good luck breaking 8!

Hopping a lipless along the bottom like a jig?

When you guys talk about lipless working well in cold water, does that go for really cold water, like the pond is partially frozen cold? I have been been trying to figure out how to catch them at a small pond that freezes and thaws throughout the winter while other ponds stay frozen the whole time. Been thinking about trying a lipless. How would you retrieve them?

Have you had much success on a steady retrieves on spinnerbaits? I feel like steady retrieves rarely produce for me on any subsurface lure, whether it be spinnerbaits, swimjig, swimbaits...I have had a little success on a straight retrieve with crankbaits, but still not great.

If your water is clear of vegetation on the surface you should try a whopper plopper 110. Draws big fish like a buzzbait but casts further, stays on the surface better, can be fished slower or stopped. Also, I hear more about bladed jigs producing bigger bass more than spinnerbaits. Just what I have heard... buzzbaits and spinnerbaits are great at not getting hung up in cover though.

Do you have a spinning rod/reel or a baitcaster?

How fast would you retrieve your lipless crankbait? I guess I don’t necessarily mean just covering water until you cross fish, I mean more just a horizontal retrieve that let’s you fish a bigger area for a reaction strike.

Weightless stickworm. If you don’t count that as fitness try the Berkley Flat Dawg, it is an excellent stickbait with a flattened shape that gives it a lot of action. It nearly as long as other stickbaits but it is a noticeably smaller lure overall. Also, does a popper count as finesse? It’s my favorite “finesse bait” because I love topwater.

You are going to need a searchbait... How much cover is in the waters you fish? The traditional style of jig fishing is perfect for fishing cover. To search large areas of water you need to fish it as a swimjig. A swimjig can work well in weedy water that treble-hooked lures get caught in but my guess is if you had so much success on a lipless crank your going to be disappointed with a swimjig unless you fish it in different areas. Soft-plastics also lend themselves more to target-casting than search-casting. You can search large areas quickly with paddle-tail swimbaits or flukes, but it lends itself more to areas that treble-hooked lures can’t fish, just like the swimjig. I’m sure you would get better with jigs and soft plastics, but it seems to me it would be more productive to fish them a lot but also fish other baits to figure out how best to incorporate jigs and plastics into your system of fishing. Fishing isn’t just a matter of getting good with each lure, but knowing when to fish what lure to always be using the most productive lure for the situation.

Early Spring has always been a difficult time for me. I’m shorebound and fish ponds so it’s a pretty different situation from being on a boat in a large lake. That being said, I have had the most success fishing around shallow cover that is close to deep water. There is a large beaver home on one bank that is very close to the deepest part of this large pond I fish and I have caught good bass around it in the early Spring and late Fall. Anywhere bass can quickly move between deep water and shallower cover/structure is what I would be looking for. I like a jerkbait for finding fish early in the Spring.

I can’t speak to the weight, balance issue but I would check out owner st-41s. They are the stickiest sharp hooks I have seen and pierce with very little pressure. Also they are strong but not brittle. I have bent out size 4 with 30 pound braid on a log but just barely (and saved my glidebait). One thing you should know is they have fairly small barbs which potentially means they can be shaken free more easily if you don’t keep a good amount of pressure on them. If the hooks are not the perfect weight you can also tune them with different size split rings.

I highly recommend you give baitcasting a decent shot for bass. It is so much more enjoyable to cast in my opinion that I still use it for light lures even though I can’t get much casting distance. I can’t imagine trying to fish a frog or fishing heavy cover with a spinning rod. I also can’t imaging trying to cast larger swimbaits on a spinning reel. I started with a $50 Abu Garcia Black Max and a $25 Daiwa Crossfire Rod from Walmart. Could not be happier with both. During the winter when the ponds were frozen I went out to a park and spent a half hour learning to cast it well enough to use. I was on a tight budget. If you want to spend more for a better reel I highly recommend the Daiwa Tatula CT. I strongly suggest you get a left hand retrieve baitcaster (assuming you’re right handed). You will have more leverage fighting the fish with your strong arm and you won’t have to switch hands when you cast. On my medium heavy rod I can smoothly cast a lure ranging between 1/2oz and 1oz. I can cast 1/4oz to 1-1/2oz if needed.

I too have noticed a trend of bigger bass on buzzing baits. The Whopper Plopper is what I have seen it the most with but buzzing toads and other buzzing styles lures as well.

I saw a video of Scott Martin saying that with some trailers, the trailer does the action for you (like a paddle tail) and others you have to add it yourself with twitchs and jerks while reeling it but that he fishes both. I have had significantly more success on lures with erratic action (stickworm, jerkbait, walking bait, popper, hopping a jig, etc.) than on lures with steady action (crankbait, swimbait, wakebait, chatterbait, etc). Maybe a swimjig/fluke that forces you to add twitches and jerks will work best for you too. (I know you can fish all those baits with an erratic, stop and go retrieve. I plan on trying that more this summer. The one steady retrieve lure that has produced very well for me is the whopper plopper. Something about it just works)

What technique are you best with and what tips can you give for fishing it? I am by no means an expert but by far my favorite and most successful technique is a topwater walker. I used to mostly fish the Ima Skimmer but now I only fish my own versions I made in my garage. Usually when I see people fish walkers they fish them with a fast, steady, smooth retrieve where the lure is constantly zigzagging across the surface. I fish it that way sometimes, but I have had far more success with a slow cadence and sharp, abrupt jerks of the line so there is a brief pause in between. Also, quick sets of 2-3 jerks followed by a pause have produced well. Fishing straight braid makes these abrupt sharp “walks” easier to do. I have the best success with it fishing shallow in the post spawn when bass are feeding on spawning bluegills. If you have trouble with bass shaking free on larger walking baits, try Decoy X-s21 hooks. They keep the fish pinned better than normal trebles but require a firm hookset.

Since I have joined the forum I wanted to introduce myself. I live in northern Colorado and started bass fishing in 2015. I went on vacation to Mexico that year and tried fishing on a whim. I bought a $15 spinning combo at Walmart to give it a shot. After enjoying it a lot in Mexico I wanted to try fishing back home. A friend recommended a certain lake and to fish a grub on a jig head for trout or walleye. I caught two trout that day and brought them home to make ceviche. When I was cleaning them I realized they actually were bass (that’s how little I knew about fishing). The were and are the only two bass I’ll ever keep. As as I kept fishing I caught mostly bass where I live and got more and more into bass fishing. I learned just about everything either by experience or reading online. On thanksgiving day in 2016 I caught a 4 pound 1 ounce bass on a Savage Gear Shine Glide swimbait. This got me interested in glidebaits. That winter I started making my own glidebaits in my garage. After a few duds I started to figure out how to get the correct action on them. Eventually I started making homemade hard lures of other kinds. My goal has become to make homemade versions of every type of hardbait I fish so I can exclusively fish homemade lures. I just have a squarebill and a lipless crankbait to go. This fall I broke my PB with a 5 pound 7 ounce bass. It hit a whopper plopper 110 right by the bank. It was one of the few times my wife and 6 month old daughter were with me which was perfect. Making a homemade plopper-style lure was intimidating but this catch motivated me to finally tackle making one. All I have left to do is paint it. I’m looking forward to 2019 and hoping to break the 6 pound mark! Tight lines!

It’s amazing how different size the state records and just bass in general are in different parts of the country.

I caught my first two bass on a cheap painted jig head from walmart and a white grub. I didn’t know much about fishing at all and I thought they were trout. That’s how I got into bass fishing!

Zoom Super Speed Craw. It has tons of action and vibration.

I’m curious when the ice will melt. It varies a lot here depending on weather we get large amounts of snow on the ice. If the water has thawed though before a big blizzard, a good amount of the snowfall justs melts.

“Ned Rig - won’t do it.” made me laugh. Don’t do it! If there is ever a lure and a presentation that would bore me out of my mind it’s putting 2 inches of a worm on a tiny jig head and dragging it slowly across the bottom...

Glad you got it back. I don’t know about filling voids but mend it works awesome. They say you should store it in your fridge though because it goes bad unless kept cold. Maybe be if you need to fill a void you could use a chunk of another soft plastic of the same color and meld them together.