TnRiver46

I do with certain colors of salty worms, mostly brown (which is called green pumpkin haha). It makes it more pale. I was showing my Buddy the difference once and caught one on the first cast, he started stomping on his 😂

I had that red one back in the day

@gim , one of the rowers got me back Friday evening. They went by and one of them was barking like a dog. As with most people, they don’t realize you can hear what they are saying across the water. He then said “I was looking right at the guy in the kayak when I was barking.” Then the next boat that went by said “that dude in the kayak is staring at us.” Which I was, but unfortunately my Jedi mind powers weren’t strong enough to capsize their vessel 😂 Yesterday my wife wanted to go trout fishing so I took her to a local tailwater. I caught two and lost at least two more that were much bigger. She also lost one that was peeling line off her fly reel, would have liked to have seen her get that one into the net. Water was friggin freezing, I think I heard someone say it was 39 degrees. The trout felt like ice blocks

All bodies? They are not all the same so I wouldn’t think so. Pond managers in the south have found that killing small ones helps create larger bass. This might also ring true on small lakes in the north, I’m not sure. But all peer reviewed studies I read in college (not AI collection of fishing magazine articles that have been proven wrong over and over) recommend letting fish reach sexual maturity for a few years before harvesting. How can a big female “spread its genetics” if you eat it when it has only spawned once or twice ? Also, males can spread genetics too so why only kill them? They might have been born from a long line of big girls. What you run into with regulations sometimes is they are driven more by fisherman opinions and politicians and lobbyists as opposed to science. When somebody kills a large bass, it stings us fishermen because now we can’t catch it. A large female bass has laid eggs for a decade, her genetics have already been successfully distributed for 10 seasons. If you kill her as a 1.5 lber, because you assume she is a male, she only got to spread the genetics maybe 2-3 times. I haven’t read many peer reviewed studies from natural lakes up north but I’m sure they are out there. Another thing the head biologists told us when I was working with native brook trout in the Smokies was the concept of consumptive mortality. As fishermen we can go down the slippery slope of flattering ourselves, thinking we are catching most of the fish. 70ish percent of these fish die every single year, regardless of what anyone does with a rod and reel. And that’s referring to a tiny population of fish, not something that is in almost every body of water like a bass. Unless you involve a net, a fisherman with a rod and reel isn’t going to affect fish populations nearly as much as Mother Nature (floods, habitat loss, predation, etc). In my opinion, as long as you aren’t keeping more fish than you can eat, you probably aren’t affecting much at all. The exception is always small ponds, humans (and otters) can actually clean those out Aldo Leopold was onto it many many years ago when he wrote “Sand county Almanac.” Wise use is the way, preservation does not equal conservation. That’s about as close as a blanket strategy I can think of for fisheries management, don’t take more than you need and the rest will work itself out

. Obviously a larger fish has potential to carry more eggs, because they have a bigger belly. Bass don’t actually spawn every year, frequency is lower the older they get (past a certain age). Also, smaller eggs can exist in a female in higher volume, which could potentially lead to a “better” spawn. That is unless, of course, they eat their young, which happens 😂 Every single body of water is a case study. Small lakes it helps to thin small fish because there become too many mouth to feed. In TN, there are no small lakes. Just 300+ million year old rivers. I can’t think of a single place locally that there are too many small bass. The best thing they ever did for SMB here was put an 18” minimum length limit to keep them. Nowadays you can catch 20” smallmouth regularly, that was not the case 40 years ago

It could also be argued that the males are more important to reproduction as they guard the nest and females don’t

Hahah true but it’s still a bell curve and that dump truck load gets lighter when they are old How do you know if they are male vs female if you don’t cut them open? And so you’re telling me a female bass goes from an egg straight to an 18”er?

@thediscochef , actually those 14-17” fish are the prime breeding stock. Mamaw and papaw don’t horizontal polka much anymore, humans or fish.

Weightless worm against the stumps

My Wagner at Martin prediction was way better than my gross at guntersville prediction

I like to catch fish and guntersville is a poop show

Bobby would be getting big ones night fishing in summer, not a bad idea

I’m always more than thrilled to be fishing. The only thing that puts a damper on it is rowers haha

Hey I thought you turned it off……. 😂

I keep thinking dang I wanna go there to and fish! Much more appealing to me than guntersville One guy got a striper in practice that bottomed out a 50 lb scale and I love catching Alabama bass (the artist formerly known as coosa spots) Everyone is saying they caught 30-50 fish , if that’s wrong I don’t wanna be right

I’ve skipped school just to not catch a trout

THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY ENTIRE FISHING CAREER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A boat full of rowers got stuck on a mud flat. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited to see something!!!!! The guy on the megaphone in the boat that runs you over said “nobody saw what happened” as they all had to get out in the ankle deep water and move their boat. I shouted from my kayak with the gusto of a million trumpets “I saw what happened!!!! I saw it!!!!” Honestly, I’m still giddy. I have a picture of an abandoned bass boat on the same mud flat 10 years ago. Y’all know me, I’m a nice guy. But there is nothing more annoying on the water than rowers. They come within 10 feet of your boat every single time they pass, which is like a dozen in a short trip after work. Several times I could reach out and smack them with my paddle. And then there is the noise. My goodness the noise. They absolutely refuse to shut up. The sound of a mosquito in your ear is heavenly compared to a bunch of screaming giggling rowers that won’t get the heck away from someone trying to fish. I’ve offered them $20 the get the heck away from me several times. To see their dumb rear ends stuck in the mud made my year. Here is a pic of them freeing the boat, kind of hard to see. Now back to the fish…….. Hit the river after work from 4:30-6:30. Caught crappie yellow bass and bluegill. Saw several herons standing in rows, pretty cool formations. I was also treated to a wonderful sunset

I used to always click the time of post to get the last one, that seems to work about 1/3 of the time now.

Hank Cherry posted and video and said “Sabine River….. I mean lake Martin” haha I did see someone caught a 50 ish lb striper in practice, said it took them over 20 minutes to reel it in and it bottomed out a 50 lb scale

Bob!!! Our hearts ache for you and your family. But we love ya and are praying for everyone, BR crew is here when you need us