MassYak85

If I bring a friend I give them one of four things....spinnerbait, paddle tail swimbait (keitech), senko, or johnson silver minnow.

@DogBone_384 Those are some respectable trips for this time of year! I'll be out tomorrow and maaaaybe Wednesday (if the rain isn't a downpour) to wrap up the year. Home for the holidays. But after that I'm helping my dad get his boat ready for winter and will probably make the call to pull my kayak racks off before they get encased in ice for the winter. Then it's time to prep for hardwater season. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Planned to hit Manchaug this morning but it had been dropped far too low to launch. Went to Webster instead. Water was 39 to 40 degrees. I was optimistic after seeing a 2 to 3lber follow my jerkbaits to the boat at the first spot we tried. But no other nibbles and the wind picked up so we went to plan B. Managed a perch and a 1.5lber on a blade bait but it was a grind. Marked a couple schools of bait and what looked like grouped up bass but we couldn't get on them. Also tried jerkbaits and finesse jigs with no luck. Was also surprised to see a couple areas of green vegetation but no lick around those either. It's looking like that will be my last time out this year. I just wanted to get at least one bass so mission success! Good luck to those still getting out!

My dad does well on one, I've ordered them when on sale before and like certain crankbaits of theirs. I broke one of the bills off fairly easily and they've had issues leaking. IMO they're overpried and the "baitball" part itself is a gimmick. If I see them heavily marked down I get some but they aren't great.

It usually takes me a bit to find the "sweet spot" for a given lure but when I do I'd say I'm usually an 8. Some days I can't keep lures out of the trees, others I can really thread the needle. The things I really need to work on are skipping lures and pitching.

Officially no, technically yes. When you check out the sale should be applied but they cannot advertise the sale for Shimano. I believe the only TRUE exception to the sale is Megabass.

One that I just found was weather spark, it has a similar weekly/monthly history graph of atmospheric pressure and other conditions that I was looking for.

Snow and single digit temperatures are making an appearance in Vermont this week so I'll be heading back to MA to extend the fishing season the remaining weekends this month I think. Good luck everyone!

So a couple years ago I started doing a fishing log and I was using weather undeground to get all the weather data I needed. This was handy because I could go back a few days after a trip and still gather data and even graphs of things like barometric pressure to look at trends leading up to the day I was fishing. I usually would clip these graphs and include them in my fishing log (spreadsheet). Well I stopped doing the log last year and this year for various reasons but I wanted to start again and I noticed a lot of the weather history features from WU are gone? Has anyone else noticed/gone through this? Maybe they changed the interface and I just can't find it but it seems to me like they "dumbed down" the website. Does anyone use a different weather site to track this type of data?

Had an interesting start to the day. Me and my dad planned to try Buffumville for the first time. His car battery died so I got the towing duties for the day. We get there and the lake had been drawn down a good 3 or 4 feet, still enough water to fish but the end of the ramp had a hell of a lip to it. Deciding not to risk bottoming out the trailer we went to plan B and launched on Webster. Water temps were still fairly warm, about 49 or 50...air temps were half that when we launched. The game plan was to target steep drops near the deeper areas of the lake in hopes they were starting to congregate near winter locations. First area we hit seemed textbook with the bass really getting their feed on. We quickly got 6 or 7 bass, with a mix of dinks and average size fish crushing jerkbaits. After that bite died we tried moving shallow in hopes of finding more active fish without much luck, fishing a mix of jerkbaits, jigs, cranks and spoons. We went to another spot hoping to mark some bait balls around deep structure. Marked some deep in a spot that seemed promising but we couldn't connect on any fish. Tried jigging blade baits as well as small finesse paddle tails in addition to the jerkbaits without a sniff. We probably spent too long on trying to force a pattern to develop there. We ended the day shallow in an area with some weed beds still hanging on. I got my biggest bass of the day there (probably a little over 2-2.5lbs) on the same jerkbait from earlier. In hindsight, the water was still relatively warm, even though we had dressed like we were going ice fishing and my guides were covered in ice most of the day. I think we expected the fish to be deeper than they were and we would have been wise to search for those remaining weed beds first before trying the deep structure. I think we could have found a pretty consistent bite throughout the day had we stuck with that. But all in all a pretty good day, the size (again) wasn't there but we got about a dozen bass between the two of us, with some pickerel and perch thrown in the mix. Definitely the best we've done in November before so I'm happy we're getting more confidence fishing the colder weather. This is the first season I think I can say I've got real confidence in jerkbaits. Oh, probably the strangest thing that happened...we were in like 20' of water and a pretty large crappie swam right up to the boat and let me net it. Never seen that before. I'm hoping to keep getting out until Thanksgiving after which I'll probably call it quits on open water and get ready for the ice season. But I'll be keeping an eye out for any warm December days for sure. Anyone else remember that 60 degree Christmas day we had a few years back? The fish were CHEWING that day, and I've never missed so many hooksets lol.

I'll use my gear usually 8 or 9 months of the year depending on what the ice allows. So I do a full tear down of every reel in the winter. I strip them to the frame and clean everything, relube and order parts as necessary. Some look like I never fished them, some are in desperate need of help by the end of the year. I just decomishioned one for the rest of the year cause it got a little too wet and two of the bearings are completely shot. I only have 6 reels I have to do so I consider a fun winter project rather than a huge chore.

I'm terrible at judging fish from pictures. It looked big but was held too close to the camera for me to judge. It seems they deleted the post from their IG I can't find it anymore? Wonder why? I haven't really heard of many big fish coming out of MA this year. Usually the sportfishing awards gets capped off by a 9 or low 10 every year but the current leader is a low 7. I've heard of one or two through social media in the 8 range I think.

Just saw Mass Wildlife posted a pic of a 10.8lb bass someone submitted a picture of on Instagram. Cool to see fish that size being caught.

I'm hoping it warms back up for a week or two before Thanksgiving. Otherwise ice season is gonna be real early this year and I won't even have a chance to fish water temps below 50 degrees without frozen line guides.

Had a pretty decent outing on Saturday. About half a dozen bass, biggest was about 2lbs. Water temps were between 50 and 55. Weather this weekend looks COLD with possible snow Friday. I'm hoping its just a freak cold front otherwise the season is gonna be ending very fast.

Does anyone else get that "itch to fish" a little more when there's some rain or wind? I know we usually associate those conditions with better fishing but I think it goes beyond that. Something about having a lake or pond to yourself and being able to enjoy the outdoors on days most people want to be inside just has a certain appeal to me I guess.

What a day today! Beautiful weather and great foliage along the shorelines! Of course I had to follow yesterday's fish with a humbling skunk but I can't remember a nicer October day! Zero wind though so it was almost HOT at some points.

Got out on Whitehall today. Stuck with the swimbaits today and only caught one fish, but it was the right fish. Wind was blowing a bit today and there was some cold mist. A couple years ago I lost a huge fish on my dark trout MS Slammer on Whitehall and have been a bit determined to make up for it since then. So I started out using that same bait. Tried waking it mostly and about an hour in I was looking away not paying attention to my retrieve when I felt the thing stop dead in it's tracks. Thought I snagged a lily pad stem at first but when I pulled to clear it off she was on! Saw the initial swirl but it wasn't until the first headshake I new this was the biggest fish of the year by far for me. I probably horsed too much but the hooks were buried good into the lower jaw so no issues landing her. Got her in and me and my dad were both thinking it's a 6 1/2 lber. She "only" went 5.40lbs and 20 3/4" which tells you the kind of year we've been having, we hadn't seen a fish even close to this size in a looooong time so our eyes were deceiving us. I was excited nonetheless but she barely squeeked under a pin on the length and here's the kicker...this is the second time I've tied my MA personal best. I have caught three fish over the years, from three different lakes, all the exact same weight to the 100th of a lb. Those are some crazy odds right there. If I was more superstitious I'd call that a curse lol. Oh well, awesome fish and a very memorable catch still. The hunt goes on for the new PB!

Planning on making the trip back to MA for some fishing this weekend. Gonna be curious how the bite is after this stretch of cold rain coming up.

I haven't found that I need to adjust much based on weight, but more so air resistance. Like spinnerbaits and jigs I'll adjust a bit going between them.

d**n those are some pretty good sales as far as kayaks go. I'm still split on whether or not I want to save up for a peddle drive yak or wait a little longer and get a john boat setup.

My dad introduced me to fishing VERY young, he's got stories of me that I don't even remember. But it was bobber and worm fishing for a while. When I really started getting into bass fishing specifically I started out using rubber worms and my dad almost exclusively fished spinnerbaits and johnson silver minnows. I fished wacky rigged worms on an EWG hook and a 4'6" UL ugly stick for a few years before starting to learn there was more out there than just that. I slowly started getting new tackle....then not so slowly lol. I bought a lot of tackle in high school and college, learned a lot and caught a lot of fish but in the end the techniques I feel most comfortable with are the ones I have spent the most time with. Still a weightless worm, T-rig, Jig, Spinnerbaits are my go-to's when I can't buy a bite.

Does anyone else get a weird feeling when opening this thread sometimes that your about to have to open your wallet? 66 percent off is too good to pass up.

Thanks for the tips guys! I'll try what @PhishLI said and use some baits with resistance and see if the problem goes away, then pay more attention with other baits. I have been closing the bail manually so I don't think that's been part of the issue.

So the last couple years I've been plauged by wind knots. I fish braid to leader usually on my spinning gear. I reached my breaking point yesterday when I had like 4 in a trip. And these knots are bad, to the point I can usually not get them out and have to cut the line and retie. I went from a fresh spooling of line (with backing) to needing to respool cause I'm down to my backing at the end of a cast....in ONE day. Now I've been trying to systematically eliminate things to find out the problem. Because when I first started bass fishing I almost never got these. Here's what I'm generally doing: A dobyns Fury 7' MF with a Daiwa BG 2000 rigged with 15lb Daiwa J-braid to a 10lb leader (alberto knot). I am usually within the weight rating of the rod and 75% of the time I'm fishing either a weightless senko or some type of paddle tail on a ball head or underspin. So my first thought was...wind knots...must be the wind. Nope, happens no matter what direction I cast or how much wind there is on a given day, even dead calm days. Next I'm thinking I'm casting too hard or something, so I tried different casts, lobs, underhand pitches, tried changing how fast I was casting, still had problems. So then I thought, maybe it's the line....I've probably tried 4 or 5 different types of braid, both 4 and 8 carrier, all have done it, although some worse than others. So then yesterday it finally clicked after I just retied after a wind knot...I've only been using leaders the past few years...maybe the knot is hanging up on the guides and allowing the wind knot to form. Sounds logical....nope. About 10 minutes after going to straight braid I get another wind knot that basically forces me to put the setup out of commission for the weekend cause I'm down to my backing essentially. And that pretty much brings me to where I am now writing this post. Now based on what I've tried, I have nothing else left to think other than there is something wrong with the rod/reel combo itself. Is the reel too small for this rod? Are the guides too small on the Fury spinning rod? Am I a complete idiot and am overlooking something? Someone please help me lol. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result...I can't respool and use this combo again without a little more insight. Or else I might throw it in the lake the next time this happens cause I'm pretty frustrated. I'm fishing what I usually do on a few of my casting combos in the meantime.

Like others said the sweet spot of that rod is like 2-3 ounces. I LOVE it for 9" slammers. I've thrown 4.5 ounces on it. It'll do it, but you can't bomb the baits it's gotta be a slow lob where you let the rod load and unload to launch the bait.