MassYak85

These are my go-to replacements on jerkbaits. Scary sharp.

This. My dad does well with a silver minnow. Only downside is the hook sucks, and pickerel/pike love them more than the bass.

Copperstate has a pretty good 45% off sale for some apparel. Some Simms and Aftco stuff in there. Copperstate TackleClothing Sale - 45% OffLooking for a variety of types and brands of fishing supplies? Copperstate Tackle is an online fishing supply store. Copperstate Tackle has all kinds of Fishing Supplies Online for sales such as fishi

Looking at the preview, I see more to be excited about than last year, I think I might give the following baits a try: Daiwa Mr. Fortune Vision 110 SSR Both these baits fill a need of fishing above those weed beds that aren't quite to the surface but are high enough that a lot of those "3-4ft" range baits get hung up. If they are truly capable of staying within 2ft these would be big in the fall for me. Rapala Stryder 180: The interchangeable weights to change sink rates on the fly is intriguing Savage Gear Scandal: Sure it's a blatant shot at the Deps SS, but that tail design makes me think it could be fished more aggressively and stay stable. My only gripe with the Deps is fishing it faster it tends to nose up and rise to the surface. Looks like Z-man is trying to get ahead of the tungsten supply chain issues and is coming out with the "Forge" flipping weights using some sort of "alloy". Will have to see what kind of density they are able to yield with that.

It depends for me. A "natural" trailer with claws that don't flap, I'll keep throwing it with one missing. But something that has action as it falls, I want both claws flapping.

They do their job too well. They literally cut through the fishes mouth. So the hole they leave is bigger than a traditional needle point which leaves more opportunity for the hook to come free when they shake. I avoid them like the plague.

For 2/0 and under I usually use the roboworm rebarbs. They're a lighter wire so I like them for finesse on spinning gear. I'll use the normal straight shank Gammys for my 4/0 and 5/0 hooks when fishing bigger worms on a baitcaster. Never had a problem with those and I add my own keeper with a piece of shrink wrap tubing. I've slightly bent hooks on hard hooksets but that's pretty rare and I mitigate that with just having the drag not locked down. Don't think I've ever broken the standard wire 5/0. I'd buy owner's version but last time I did I forgot they are cutting point hooks which I DESPISE. Next time I will likely get their cover shot or cover shot HD series instead. I do love the jungle hooks for flipping.

There was a weekend during the summer off of high school one year when a local pond set up just perfectly vegetation wise. Normally this place gets CHOKED by weeds in the summer, but for whatever reason that didn't develop this year. Instead the only cover they had was isolated stumps and lilypad clusters in 3-5 FOW. The whole pond was like this. The water was exceptionally clear and it was bright and hot. Basically their only option was to to tuck under these small patches of lilypads that were only maybe 5 feet across each. I think I had back to back days in my kayak of 25 fish using nothing but a wacky rigged senko. You could call your shots basically. The sad part is those should have been 40-50 fish days the bite was that good...except this was when I was still learning how to fish so I had a 4'6" ultralight ugly stick and 15lb braid. Broke off some nice fish that day, lost plenty of others in the pads on terrible hooksets. Can't imagine the damage I could have done with a proper rod and some jigs.

I've used MUG for years in the past and never had a complaint, good stuff. I've switched mostly to Sunline System leader in recent years though and like that a lot as well.

Just grabbed a few prickly pears this past week. Haven't gotten to try them yet. I want to avoid a treble hook as much as I can so my plan to rig it is gonna be jamming a drop shot weight through the center, taking a wacky hook (2/0) and piercing through the eye, and probably doing some bobber stops or keepers on either side of the bit on the hook to hold it in place. If that fails I may end up just using an EWG and a nail weight.

Some pretty good stuff in the 45% category, sizes and colors are pretty limited though. LC Pointers, LV 500s, PB Rats, Evergreen Showerblows, Evergreen Combat Rats, Yamamoto Senkos and Grubs, Coolbaits underspin (my personal favorite),

Spinning gear I usually play them a bit, especially finesse technqiues with lighter wire hooks. Same goes for certain baits like jerkbaits, can't horse them too much. But if I have the line, hook, and rod to do so I want them in the boat as quick as I can.

I like Zoom flukes for the Donkey Rig because they stay high in the water and look like that typical fleeing baitfish surface activity you see. But I like the Yamamoto D-Shads for fishing deeper because they sink faster.

Same. I saw they got some in stock and was like "fiiiiiiiine I guess I'll finally try these things". Is everyone using trebles or can I get away with a wacky hook?

I resisted long enough but I just caved and ordered a prickly pear...we'll see.

I make an effort not to pull hard when it first gets hung up and 90% of the time that keeps the hook from burying into something. From there some combination of shaking it and what I call the "bow and arrow" method of snapping the line usually gets it. I've never tried the method in the video cause I value my line guides.

I've gone through phases. When I first started out, I pretty much just fished weightless senkos. So the conditions I wanted was calm, shallow, easy identifiable cover. Anything other than that would throw me off. Then I started learning all the techniques, what lures "should" work in certain conditions, I got more rods, more colors, more baits, more sizes. I was too fluid. I would constantly be experimenting with the gear, sometimes to my detriment, but it was a good learning process. Now I am far less fluid with my gear. I know what I like, I know what baits can do what I want and get less hung up on the specifics. I still have all the gear but I'm spending my time covering water, trying to figure out the location and the presentation/retrieve. I'm more fluid in FINDING the fish and exploring different areas, but I'm less fluid in the baits I might employ. Usually the less gear I have to put away at the end of the day, the better my fishing day was.

Fished Norton today with my dad to celebrate Father’s Day a little early. Water was in the low 70s. I hadn’t seen any reports of the lake being treated for weeds yet so I wanted to target the weed lines. Boy did the monkeys paw twist. The lake was CHOKED with thick matted grass. I’ve never seen it that bad there and it didn’t seem like the typical type of vegetation. Made it nearly impossible to fish in some areas. Luckily we found some deeper areas (5-6ft) that we could see and fish the hard weed edges and that ended up working. I got 8 my dad got 4. Most of the bass were just super solid 2.5-3.5lbers. My biggest went 3-8. One thing I’ve noticed at Norton is the bass are just built different. They fight like hell, and they jump way more than any other lake I’ve fished. They fight like smallies I can’t explain why. Every time I’ve gone it’s the same way. Probably 5 of my fish when I set the hook I was like “this could be a 5lber”. The wind was brutal, but the wind blown weed lines were crucial to getting bites it seemed. I got all my fish on a spinner bait. ZERO PICKEREL 🙏

Alright internet detectives, what do we think...5lbs? Maybe 6? Seems like Santa needs to get this guy some new scale batteries. 😉 WGMEGorham man catches state-record bassLocal fisherman T.J. Couture of Gorham hauled in a huge bass last week that weighed in at 13.5 pounds.

Basic power pro for most things. I do like Daiwa Samurai though for more finesse applications. Super smooth.

I've had some really good days there when the weeds are well established. Some years they spray it early in the summer and kill it all off and then it can be tougher to find them after that.

The hooks suck lol, but I'll take the tradeoff. I usually step up to a heavy power rod if I'm fishing them.

Deeper beds like 8-10ft I like a T-rig or C-rig big worm. If they're more actively feeding or it's windy I'll fish a spinnerbait right over the top making sure to make contact with it. If it is real thick and coming up to the surface as a mat I'll punch it.

Backlashing a 100 sized reel with a 5oz bait flying through the air is a quick way to turn a functioning gear set into not that.

I've had really god luck with USPS priority mail it's all I use when shipping baits or reels to people, haven't ever shipped a rod though. What sucks is the pricing. Used to be able to ship a small flat rate box for like 8 bucks, now it's like 12.