TnRiver46

Does anyone ever eat pike? Maybe that would make them think twice about biting off all your lures.

That's hilarious I bought the exact same bait at dicks like 2 days ago. It was the only bag of them amongst a ton of other baits, I wanted a few more packs. Took them to the counter and the cashier said "hmm never seen that.....oughta work on a drop shot"

You are spot on about those things. I wish you would come up here and catch them all!!! They are super thick and don't bite. Not my cup of tea

HahahahahahahahahbahaHahahahahahaha hahhaha

I have been fishing the Tennessee river for 30+ yrs....... and after reading what roadwarrior posted, I altered my work route slightly today and popped into a sporting goods store!!!!! Wouldn't you know it, they were on clearance. Thanks for the advice! Hahaha

Hahahahha. Guess I read that wrong, thanks. I think I'll order 6-8. Provided I click the correct buttons.......

Nice fish, makes me want to go fish a steam plant! Thanks for the post

Sounds like a fun day!

Yea it was crazy hot this year right up until Halloween. It was upper 90s all summer especially late with no precip

Gets pretty cold in Tennessee but you can fish all year. A whole a lot of folks from Ohio now live here

Thanks man I will check that out. eBay is beyond my skill set

Well I started to order some of those off barlows tackle and went to checkout. Minimum order was $100 so I'm still looking........

Update: went to dicks today and found two brands of blade baits. Johnson thin fisher (which I have used before with some success for crappie/white bass) and vibe brand. The vibe lures looked pretty good. They were $5 so I'll wait until desperate times to buy them.

Drop shot, shakey head, and grub or fluke on 1/8 jig head. Not sure about current conditions on lake Norman but spots doing their winter thing is suspending over deep water following schools of shad

Yea but that takes all the fun out of taking the lure off pegboard and shaking it!!!! I don't think I have ever bought a lure online

Blade baits of any brand are hard to find here. I am still using some of the home made ones I got 7-8 yrs ago. Bass pro shops about 45 minutes away is the closest place I can buy blades , the xps lazer. Academy sports, gander mtn, and dicks sporting goods have a total of zero blade baits out of 50 bajillion fishing lures.

I do both. Depends on how mucky the bottom is

Trick worm is always good in Florida. Ironic!

Last two trips out I have broken off a crankbait in brush. Hung out for 10 seconds both times and it floated up

^^^what he said!!!!

When I saw the topic I clicked so I could reply "worms!" Sass beat me to it. When bass fishing there is never a bad time to use a plastic worm. That being said until about 10 yrs ago I didn't think you could catch bass in winter. We always went after trout when it was cold. Then I kept reading articles about float and fly and silver buddy. Didn't have any silver buddy's back then (hard to find here) so we used little Cleo spoons and started catching smallmouth in winter!!! Nowadays winter is my favorite season to fish. Still haven't had any luck on float and fly for bass but fly without a float is very effective for me on bluff walls. Got some homemade silver buddy's now that work great but what really happened was they gave me confidence that bass will bite in the winter. Now I catch them with almost any lure in winter, I just needed that confidence. Small tube and shakey head are usually where I start but jerkbait crankbait, jig, Texas rig, fluke, hair jig, blade bait, and all kind of things will catch fish in winter. Tightlining a fly of small Berkly gulp minnow is the way to go here in east tn once the water gets to 45 and below. But once you find them you can make them bite a lot of things. I caught what was probably my biggest largemouth dec 27 a few years back on a gold silver buddy, probably about 8 lbs but I didn't measure it.

Got out from 11 am to dark. Only caught 5 fish but of them was a nice one. Started off trolling around an island with a shallow crank, no takers. Then got out to the edge of the main channel and trolled through some timber and a 17" smallmouth grabbed it after it deflected off a limb. Fished for several hours after this hunting white bass and couldn't find them (usually stacked up thick this time of year). Got one small spotted bass flipping a strike king river bug into some heavy logjams. I was marking monster schools of fish where the white bass normally are but only managed to vertical jig one small crappie out of it all. Had 1.5 hrs of daylight left so decided to go back to trolling and got a little smallmouth. Heading back to the launch I decided to throw a Knock off Senko on a heavy shakey head near where I caught the 17" smallmouth earlier. Set the hook and it's already getting somewhat dark and I see a big mouth break the surface. 20" largemouth to end the day, ill take it! Top two pictures are the same fish

Paddle tail shad bait works great below a dam

Holy crap that's cold. Global warming is probably not a popular theory where you live

It is written that we will all suffer and be persecuted for our beliefs. Keep the faith, we are praying