CNYBassin

Navionics app for your phone and reading the contour/topo maps are a good place to start. Learn how to identify flats, points, humps, ledges and drop offs, etc. Actually, if you don't have electronics, I highly recommend the navionics smartphone app. It has helped me tremendously while fishing out of my small jon boat at smaller (non power) reservoirs.

Man, as far as etiquette, I've seen some of the worst out there. Being from rural upstate New York, we have to deal with a lot of "city" folks coming up here during their vacations. This is especially apparent during HUNTING season. Everyone takes off during the opening of deer firearm season, and so many city slickers come up here and cause mayhem. But fishing etiquette, I deal with a ton of obliviousness from pleasure vessels, water skiers and jet skis. That's a norm. Always fun having a big pleasure vessel rip past you doing 40 or 50, while you're less than 50 feet away in a little 12ft Jon Boat with a trolling motor for power. But as far as actual fisherman being complete tools, nothing beats the Salmon River in Pulaski NY. It is a god d**n zoo up there, and anyone who has ever fished it knows this to be true. Not only do you have to deal with jerks on a regular basis, but you have to deal with snaggers and people poaching your areas. During the salmon runs(less so for steelhead because it's colder), it is shoulder to shoulder on the river. Line crossers. Poachers. Snaggers. People in a hurry. People who think they own the place. Out of towners. You name it. I can't think of one other place I've fished in my lifetime, where there's more altercations being guys. I've done my best to avoid it as much as possible. However, all of that said, fishing the Salmon River is one of the coolest fishing opportunities in the state. I actually much prefer it for Steelhead. In case you're having trouble picturing what the crowd is like when I say it's a zoo, here's one of the first pictures found on google when searching for the Salmon River in New York. This isn't even that bad. Now imagine how likely it is that just ONE of those guys will be a bad apple. I don't want to make it seem like upstate New York is bad for fishing. It's not. It's a paradise up here. I have met some of the nicest people on the water up here, especially on my home lake which is Oneida.

Hooking fish in the tongue lowers their chances of survival versus hooking them in the mouth or lips. Although I'm not sure exactly by how much BUT: Their tongue has major blood vessels run through it, and the heart is not very far back behind the tongue. If it gets punctured, there's not much you can do other than remove the hook as quickly as possible, and release the fish as quickly as possible. You can also buy some Please Release Me or Catch & Release, rub a bit on your finger, and then rub your finger on the puncture in the tongue. It's a coagulant and it may help prevent any more trauma. All you can do at that point is release him and hope for the best. You didn't do anything wrong though. This is just the chance we take when catch & release fishing. Nothing to be ashamed of. The point is you tried. Clean him up and make a meal out of him.

Smashed Slammed Nailed Choked Hammered I instinctively ALWAYS say "There we go." when setting the hook on a fish. I don't even know I'm saying it half the time. I'm also guilty of saying "good one" a lot and then reeling in a 1lb fish.

There's only one way to find out. Throw a bait in there. Simple as that. I'm also a firm believer that no matter what time of year, there will be fish shallow. There may not be as many in summer as there would be during the spawn, but some will be there for sure. Whether it's resident fish who spend their whole lives in that particular area, of they're in the shallow vegetation looking for better oxygen content in the water. You'll find fish shallow no matter how hot it gets. They love laying in the shade, and munching on the bluegills and sunfish that are often hanging around shallow in the summer. Now, I have it pretty good up here in upstate New York because rarely will it exceed 90 degrees in the summer, and with that, the water temp rarely ever exceeds the low 80s. I'll fish docks year round with success. So it doesn't get hot up here, but we get one less season to fish on open water. But I love ice fishing too so I can't complain!

Bass don't need stuff like Shad or typical minnows to survive. All they need are sunfish/bluegill, or other species like Perch. As well as crayfish. They'll also eat their own, by the way. Up here in the northeast, we don't have a lot of Shad present in our lakes, not like there is down south. In some bigger natural lakes, we do have Gizzard shad, and other stuff like Alewive, Golden/Emerald Shiners, Dace, Fathead Minnows, etc. But, in the lakes without Shad, there is usually an abundance of Yellow Perch, as well as Bluegill, Crappie, Pumpkinseed, Redbreast sunfish, etc. Those are all forage fish for Black Bass. The Bass often feed HEAVILY on the Yellow Perch in the reservoirs that I fish every week. Because of that, it's very rare to catch a larger one unless it's through the ice in the winter. Most of them are small 6-8 inches, and the bass gorge on them, especially when they're roaming around in schools and feeding on the surface. Often, you'll see this and then all of a sudden a bass will come up and erupt on them. A lot of hard baits in my box are Perch colored for this reason. The Walleye eat them too. It's hard to say what the fish you saw were without a picture. Loads of baitfish have silver/grey tones. Shad typically are wider in profile, while minnows are slender. Could of been fathead minnows. Which one of these pictures did it look MORE like?

My father is mainly a trout guy, but my uncle was a big time Pike and Bass angler, especially since he lived on a private lake loaded with medium sized pike and boat loads of good sized smallmouth. That being said, he is the one who got me started. Before I learned the nuances of bass fishing, I learned a lot about stream fishing for brown and rainbow trout mainly, as well as learned how to utilize a fly rod and even tie common flies like nymphs, etc. I loved fishing for trout, but I had incidentally caught bass on local ponds when pan fishing, and I loved the way they fought(much better than Trout I thought).. so I wanted to learn more about it. So one year I visited my uncles house, told him I wanted to learn how to bass fish, and he took me on the boat and gave me a top water lure. It was an old grey snag proof moss mouse. Teeth marks all over it. Told me to throw it out as far as I could and aim for the grass... then just wait. And that's when I saw my first top water explosion, and landed my first adult sized bass that was roughly 3 1/4 lbs, then I was hooked. I ended up going on long hiatuses from bass fishing as I was growing up, especially with school and work. I ended up getting back into it in my mid 20s heavily, and that's where I really started focusing a lot on watching pros, reading forums, watching youtube videos about baits and techniques. In the past, all I had were fishing magazines that I would get at the grocery store. There was so much to learn. After a while I started setting goals for myself. I would find a new technique I wanted to try, and then I would devote myself to using that single technique until I gained some confidence in it, before I switched to anything else. So for example, if I wanted to learn how to jig fish, or texas rig soft plastics like senkos, I'd spend the whole day throwing them and nothing else and I wouldn't stop until I caught fish on it. Then I did the next thing with spinner baits, crank baits, and other moving baits... drop shot, shaky head, punching grass mats, etc. Then I started to learn WHAT baits worked best at what times. Moving baits or finesse baits. Hard baits or soft plastics. Etc. How to find fish. How to pattern fish. So in summary: I would have to say my father is the one who put a pole in my hand, my uncle is the one who opened my eyes to how much fun bass fishing is, and got me started but it was the internet age, forums and communities like this one, as well as youtube(Glenn is one I follow regularly) that really expanded my knowledge well past just what lures you throw. It was within the last 2 or 3 years that I really started getting in-depth with the science behind bass fishing. I've lurked here for a number of years, and it was only recently(like within the past 2 months) that I made an account. Bass anglers in this day and age have it far easier than guys did prior to the internet and youtube age, that I know for certain. Back in the day all you had was magazines, and maybe Bill Dance on TV lol. Now there's a vast wealth of knowledge being shared on a daily basis all over youtube.

Yes, absolutely make sure you use monofilament backing with braided line. It doesn't have to be anything special. Some regular old stren original will do you fine. Just try to keep the diameters close to the same, because it's easier to tie your junction knot with similar diameter lines. Not only will this prevent line slip but it will save you money on spool ups with braid. There's zero reason to fill up a reel with 150 yards of braid. You're never gonna use it all, and half of it will never even get wet. Put on 50 yards of mono, and fill it the rest of the way up with braid. That gives you roughly 2 long casts worth of braid. That's more than enough line to work with, and you'll have cushion should you hook into a bigger fish incidentally. This is pretty much exactly what I do. Now, instead of only filling up 1 reel with that 150 yard filler spool of braid, you can fill 2, possibly 3, depending on how stingy you wanna be. It'll save you quite a bit of money in the long run. There's no reason to fill a spool up entirely with braid. You're never gonna get run down to the backing with 40 or 50lb line, lol. If you don't want to go the backing route, another solution is wrapping the spool with electrical tape. Just one full wrap is all that's needed. Braid is pretty slick stuff, and it doesn't dig into itself like regular line will. It will dig into the electrical tape or the mono backing, and work like a charm. And don't worry about the junction knot. It will bury itself fine in the spool, and it won't cause any issues with casting or cause a backlash or anything like that. Just make sure when you spool the line onto the baitcaster, you're doing it under a fair amount of tension, and you want the line coming off the top of the filler spool, and onto the reel. Good braid will last you multiple seasons. At the end of the season, you can take all the braid off the reel, and then turn it around and reel it back on in reverse, so you can make use of the fresh braid that's been buried in the reel. I do this all the time with some braids that fade quickly. PS: If you're looking for an all-purpose rod, I'd recommend going with a medium-heavy over a heavy power rod. Something in the 7 to 7'6 range. 7'3 would be pretty ideal. Fast or mod-fast action probably.

That's tough to answer without knowing what specifically you're going to use the setup for. I don't personally like Copolymer lines. Some people do, I don't care for it. So I would recommend 100% fluorocarbon or braided line. It just depends on what techniques you're going to be using that rod for. You could always go with like 40lb power pro, and tie in a leader if necessary.

Fluoro over mono definitely for shaky heads. It's a finesse tactic, and you want the added "invisibility" of fluoro, and the bite sensitivity. Gear ratio is not awfully important with this technique, something in the 6.5:1 ratio should be just fine. I personally prefer 7:1 reels for just about everything, including cranking. Call me crazy. With a baitcaster, you run into issues using real thin diameter line as it tends to dig into itself a lot more on the spool than thicker lines do. 10# test would be the minimum I think. That's why a spinning setup is better for this sort of technique. You're throwing less weight around, and you can probably get a further cast on a whippy spinning rod, something like a medium-light or medium power. Plus you can run 6 or 8# test line on a spinning reel with no issue. If you're going to use the baitcaster, I wouldn't go any lighter than a 3/16 ounce shaky head. Might even wanna go up to 1/4 ounce. Put a zoom finesse worm, roboworm, or biospawn plasmatail on it. Just a regular straight tail worm. Depending on water clarity, stick with natural colors first, green pumpkins and watermelons, and then branch out from there. If you can't get bit on that, they're just not biting! And remember, just because they call it a shaky head, doesn't mean you have to constantly shake it. You can drag it like you would a c-rig or football jig too.

Right now I'm running a mix of regular power pro and Sufix 832. On my punching and frogging rods, I have 832 50lb test, and if I hook into a toothy critter like a Tiger Musky or a Pike, I feel a little more safe. Works great and is super smooth, but it fades color pretty fast. On my spinning tackle, my shaky head/ drop shot stuff, I use 15lb or 20lb power pro with Seaguar fluorocarbon leaders. I prefer 15lb truth be told, but I have 20lb on one of my rods because the store ran out of 15lb. Not a huge difference really. Typically I run 8 or 10lb test leaders. Not a fan of Spiderwire.

As long as they hold a fishing license, it's none of my business. Where I do make it my business is when I see people taking out under-sized fish. I too have fished public reservoirs where people come from out of town, and they beat the banks throwing everything they catch in buckets. The issue is they're taking 8 to 10" bass to eat. I don't know why, but they are. This is illegal, and these people do not care. They go to Walmart or whereever is closest to buy a license, and they don't read up on the regulations afterwards. These are the types of people that can do major damage to a otherwise healthy population, and it irks me to no end. One time I was able to successfully alert the DEC to a guy who had caught 45+ crappies, and was bragging about it at the boat launch. The legal limit is 25. I called the DEC, and to my surprise the officer showed up quickly and caught the guy packing up. Needless to say his day was ruined. I have a major issue with people who don't follow the rules on our waterways. From speed limits, to pleasure vessels ripping past small motorless craft at 50mph because they simply don't care, to people taking illegal fish. It rubs me the wrong way, and all I can do is alert the lake association of whatever body of water I'm on, and the state DEC. Besides that though, I don't care if people are taking the fish they catch, as long as they don't exceed the limit, and the fish are legal size. That's their right. If I'm fishing a lake where the locals have an arrangement to catch & release, I will respect their wishes if I'm an out of towner. Most places I go to like this, there's a local bait shop, and I always pop in to ask questions prior to getting on the water for the first time. I personally do not keep bass. Some do, and they have every right to. The only fish I take out of the water for consumption are Walleyes, Salmon or Crappie. Besides that, I'm a catch & release guy who was raised to respect wild life and to only harvest what you intend on eating. I don't like to see people keeping large female bass, but it's simply not my place to challenge them. They are legal to take. Just because I don't do it doesn't mean I get to go around policing others for doing something that's entirely legal. I take pride in keeping what I catch as healthy as possible when I release them back into the water. I follow the 1 minute rule when keeping a fish out of water, and I work hard to ensure another angler will get an opportunity at the fish I caught & released one day. It's sort of an unwritten rule of the bass world, and all you can do is politely ask others to consider catch & release fishing, but if they decline... that's there right, and you move on.

It's going to be slow in the summer. I would recommend trying out some night fishing. My best luck so far this summer has come on spinnerbaits, swim baits and a drop shot. I've gotten most of my fish on a regular old 3/8oz white spinnerbait that I make up myself, using a single colorado blade(size 5). Usually go out from 6:00pm till pitch black on my local small bodies of water. The fish get really active after dark.

You ever try one of those weed cutters they sell? It looks like a giant rake, but with a razor blade instead, and you literally chuck the thing into the water, let it sink to the bottom, and then you pull it back with the rope that's attached to it, with a series of tugs to get it cutting. Bunch of companies make these things. I used one at a private lake I lived on years ago to clear out my boat dock that got over grown. Worked real well. But that said, even though milfoil is invasive, it provides very good habitat for smaller forage, and it helps produce oxygen in the summer months when it gets hot. You may want to think twice before getting rid of it. You can trim it down a bit if you'd like but I wouldn't get rid of all of it. Your call though. Mine looked just like this.

Absolutely carolina rigging a fluke will work. Loads of people do this. As far as drop shotting, you can pretty much drop shot any soft plastic and get bites. The key is letting the water current impart the action on the bait, and don't get too crazy shaking the rod tip. You can impart some subtle twitches of the rod, moving the hook, not the weight... but let the fish tell you how they want it. Sometimes they'll want you to slowly drag it along the bottom, with some slight twitches, and other times they want it completely dead sticked. Throw it out, reel up the slack and let it sit and basically watch paint dry. Getting over zealous with a drop shot is one sure fire way to get less bites. I tend to stick with straight tail worms when it comes to drop shot fishing though. Roboworms and KVD dream shots are what I normally use, I just change colors for variety. Another thing I haven't seen anyone mention yet is a lipless crank. Maybe more towards the start of the fall when water temps begin cooling down. You said you're fishing drop offs with grass. Well, ripping a lipless crank across the tops of the grass is a fantastic way to get bit.

What hooks are you using? You really need to slam it home with t-rigged soft plastics. You have to penetrate the plastic, as well as the fishes mouth, so naturally it's going to take more "umph" to drive it home. I personally fish 3/0 and 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG hooks for 90% of my soft plastic fishing(I use flipping hooks for thick creature baits), and I personally haven't had a whole lot of issue. I don't recognize any difference in hook-up percentage between old style offset hooks or wide gap hooks. Make sure you're taking up any slack before you set the hook, you eventually get a rhythm after having done it a while. Lower the rod, reel a couple turns until you feel the weight of the fish, and then slam it home. Make sure your drag is set so that it either doesn't slip at all, or it only slips just a TINY TINY bit. I would try both offset and EWG hooks and see which you prefer, and use something sharp. Gamakatsu. Owner. Trokar. Etc. Every little bit helps. I tend to prefer gamakatsu myself. I use the superline versions since I fish braided line.

Salmon River is slow this time of year. I haven't fished any of the near by reservoirs for bass though. You could drive down 81 and fish Oneida at Brewerton or near Big Bay. That's really not that far away. I haven't fished Salmon River reservoir but it's worth a try. DNC lists both largemouth and smallmouth are present. They recommend fishing wooden structure around the shore lines, stumps, etc. Seems like a limited vegetation system due to the changing water levels. If you try it out, you'll have to let us know how it is. I have fished Altmar & Pulaski for Salmon & Steelhead for years, but oddly enough never visited the reservoir.

No yanking or jerking. Just a steady smooth lift combined with reeling into the fish. I use gamakatsu finesse wide gaps for wacky rigging. Usually 1/0 or 2/0 size. Basically the same hook set I use when fishing a drop shot. Just lift and reel.

My first baitcaster was an old Abu Pro Max, and I loved it. If the silver maxes are anything like it, it's a good reel to learn on but there really is no comparison to reels that are $100 and up. Then you start getting into things like incredibly smooth drag, clicky star drag, clicky cast control, much better brakes and the smoothness from the adding bearings. The end result is these higher priced reels are practically impossible to backlash, even in the wind. From what I see, the Pro Max is a grade up from the Silver Max, so it's hard to say since I've been using all mid-range Lew's reels for the last few years. Most of my reels are in the $150-200 price range now. I do use a $99 Lew's Speed Spool LFS and imo it's the best bang for the buck reel on the market. If all you're trying to do is learn how to use a bait caster, and you want something you can beat up on and not feel guilty about it, the Silver Max will most likely do just fine. It truly depends on the kinda fisherman you are. Some people are completely fine with using cheaper reels for their entire lifetime and never feeling the need to upgrade. Others need to have the latest & greatest whenever something new comes out. Chances are you'll want to upgrade down the road because like I said, you really start getting into better features once you crack that $100 price point.

I'd also try some 5" swim baits. You can fish them as shallow or deep as you'd like. Casting a drop shot out into the deeper water and working it back up the slope is another option. A lot of people wouldn't think of a fishing a drop shot in a pond but for finicky fish that may be holding deep... it's hard to beat. I'd also be throwing some white spinnerbaits. Probably with just a single size 5 colorado blade. The last two would obviously be a top water frog, and a senko. The senko could be rigged however you like. C rigged or T rigged, and if the fish are holding shallow, even weightless wacky. If I had just those things in my box, I'd feel pretty confident. You can target any portion of the water column with those baits, and once you locate the fish, you can dial it in.

You might want to experiment with some bluegill/perch colored soft plastic swim baits. Try and choose a size that matches the forage of the lake/size of the perch or bluegill. Probably 4 to 5 inch. Cast out, let it sink to the bottom, parallel to the drop off, and then slow retrieve it so it's just ticking the bottom. Incorporate some pauses, etc. Swimbaits are also incredibly effective at targeting suspending fish, you can change up your retrieve and cadence depending on where the fish are holding in the water column. Swimbaits can be a hidden *gem* of a bait if no one on that lake has been using them. I have a local lake where you practically have to use a swim bait to get bit.. because no one is using them, and the fish aren't used to seeing them constantly. So I'd start with some paddle tails, and a pack of zoom flukes. See where that gets you. I'd reccomend using them with some gamakatsu weighted swimbait hooks, maybe 1/8oz just to give it some fall rate. The flukes can be fished weightless through the weeds too. As far as brands are concerned, here are all the ones I've tried and can say for certain they are producers. Considering you're fishing these in weedy areas, I would recommend going with a weighted swimbait hook, like a Gamakatsu SpringLock, 4/0 to 5/0. 1/8oz perhaps. Skin hook the back of the bait for a pretty weedless presentation. For the zoom flukes, you can texas rig them either weightless or with a bullet weight. Yamamoto heart tails (pricey) Jackall Rhythm Wave Netbait BK swimbaits Keitech FAT Impacts (great scent) Keitech Easy Shiners (my personal favorite, in bluegill flash color) Strike King Rage Swimmer Basstrix paddle tails (pricey) Zoom 5" Swimmer Gambler EZ & BIG EZ. (Good option. Affordable. Very popular in the south & Florida) All of those, and more I haven't mentioned, have been successful for me. My favorites have been the Keitech brand, because the scent they use on them is very unique, and I have a lot of confidence that it's getting me more bites than I would get with an unscented plastic. They call it squid scent but I can't comment on the "accuracy" of that lol. Most all of those brands offer a black w/ blue flake color if you'd like to stick with that. I'd recommend some natural sun fish or perch colored tones though. As far as the flukes are concerned, they're just a classic bait that tends to work all year round. I like white/pearl colored ones but being that you don't have minnows or shad, you may want to opt for green pumpkin tones to try and match the pan fish.

Agreed. Hooking a walleye during a slow troll is pretty much like reeling in a tree branch. But they make up for it with how good they are to eat lol. Even casting for walleye, they're very lazy fighters. Very little runs or head shakes. I haven't had the opportunity to catch any real monsters, mainly just 15 to 22 inchers up in my neck of the woods, so I may be missing out. Even pickerel fight tougher than they do.

Best post on this thread, and summed up nicely. Times are a changing. When I was a young kid learning how to fish with my pop, I would of killed to have this resource, and the youtube fishing channels. I had to rely on magazines, and Cabela's catalogs. Some channels are fantastic, some are garbage. It's personal preference, and we get to decide what we want to watch. Easy as that. There is no reason to put anyone down over it. Ignore it, and move on.

Shallow water with a ton of stumps and wood is spinnerbait heaven, especially if you can get it to smack up against the stumps on the retrieve or just graze em. Either 3/8 or 1/2 is fine. Without knowing the forage or clarity it's tough to say what colors... but white never fails for me. A white 3/8 oz tandem colo/colo has caught me more fish than anything else. When it comes to spinner baits, I use 4 colors. Black & Blue, White, Chartreuse and Green Pumpkin. Sometimes I'll throw a variation of those colors, like a sexy shad(white+chartreuse) or a bluegill color... but those are the 4 main base colors I use. Time tested.

Squarebills, Spinnerbait, Buzzbait, Senkos, and Jigs(including bladed, with a paddletail trailer). Go to town!