TnRiver46

Here’s the one I was watching Jacob wheeler hook a storm largo shad onto. Just twist it on righty tighty . Fast forward to about 15:40 mark for rigging

If memory serves, you are new to bass fishing? Man I was in the same boat as you for a long time. I mean like, several years!!!! I dont even think I caught my first winter bass until after college, all those winters wasted!!!! Honestly I didn’t really believe it was possible. We were always under the impression that you had to fish for stocked trout in the winter so that’s what we did. I had read all the articles about float n fly fishing for winter smallmouth in TN and tried it a few times here and there, no bites (I’ve still never caught a bass with float n fly). Luckily somewhere along the way, one of these articles mentioned something about a silver buddy. It was December 27, circa 2009 and me and a couple buddies were on my boat armed with a million different flies to dangle under floats and a few silver buddies and little Cleo spoons. Of course, nothing on the bobbers……… after a few hours my buddy James was fishing with a Cleo and says “I think I’ve got one” and by golly he did. So we all tie on spoons and catch a few 2-3 lb bass green and brown!!! Hallelujah it can be done! So then we try the silver buddies and catch a few more. My buddy had a gold one tied on his rod that was laying in the boat. I pick up his rod to try the gold one and a fish grabs it and starts pulling really hard down deep, like something that would live in the ocean. He buries the rod into the water and it’s just slammed onto the gunnel of my boat, I thought the fish was going to pull me off the front deck and into the water. I pushed the thumb bar and let him take some line, my first ever experience with “freespooling” only because I was using someone else’s rod and thought it was going to snap over the side of the boat. Get her into the boat and it’s a monster, probably still my biggest bass to date. Needless to say, I’ve been a winter fishing junkie ever since that day. Here’s the funny thing, I haven’t caught a fish on a silver buddy in years. They are great baits but once I learned that the fish will bite in winter and gained some confidence, I can now catch them with all my regular baits (worms, tubes, spoons, jerkbaits, sometimes even topwater). ALL YOU NEED IS SOMETHING TO TRIGGER YOUR CONFIDENCE! There’s no telling what/where/when it will be but if you know where some fish are hiding based on sonar, I would definitely fish a spoon for them. Nowadays I almost always use a 2.5 inch gulp minnow or 2.75 inch tube and always have pretty good results. I’m sure the spoons and blade baits would still work, I just needed that first good day to build from. another thing that helped me was starting to follow some tournaments. I remember two bassmaster classics with very cold water in the high 30s at take off. One was at grand lake and one was at hartwell. You hear them say the water temp on TV and think “doggone I bet they will have to fish differently……” then you see guys catching the heck out of fish with crank baits underspins jerkbaits and jigs and they are culling before the water temp was much over 40…….. winter tournaments almost always have bigger weights. So before 2009 I literally didn’t even think you could catch a bass in winter and now it’s my favorite time of year to fish by a landslide (avatar pic is probably my biggest smallmouth caught in December). If only it wasn’t dark outside all winter !!!!!

Looks like a great jighead to me, although i didn’t see how much it weighs on there. The screw lock certainly increases the life of the plastic. I saw Jacob wheeler using a similar jighead recently from vmc mooneye and they were slaying them. The mooneye heads have the aspirin shape head instead of ball head but the screw lock is similar

I would have never imagined Kansas being the capital of treble hook lures in the US but I swear you find 100 times more lures than anyone I’ve ever heard of. I found one (1) crank bait the other day and was overjoyed

My cousin always used finishing nails before the word neko ever hit the market

It depends on the size of the shakey head. Some guys around here throw 10” worms on 1/2 oz shakey heads with 6/0 hooks. You don’t want to be chucking that on 10 lb anything, especially braid.

some guy dumped just such a tanker into the ocoee river a few years ago, I believe he was relieved of his driving duties

Hate to hear that, I hope he/she doesn’t have any symptoms and everyone comes though just fine. I don’t have any kids so I can’t offer much in the way of advice but know that we are rooting for y’all at bass resource!

I can usually catch about a dozen on a finesse worm before I lose it to a snag. The key for me is don’t wacky rig it haha the reason I don’t wacky rig is two fold. First of all, it gets stuck. Secondly it makes the worm fly off the hook. Yes I’ve heard about all the o rings and various tricks but I don’t care to fool with all that jazz . They will still eat a weightless worm hooked straight I promise

I’m lucky to live in the midst of something called “Knoxville’s urban wilderness.” It’s 50+ miles of multi use trails and over 500 acres of wild lands. The trails are mostly used for mountain biking but I’m way too chicken for that. Knoxville won a large amount of grant money years ago through AMBC (Appalachian mount bike club) and the urban wilderness has really took off since then. I like to walk or jog on the trails and sometimes take a dog or two back in there. There’s also a big rock wall that people use for climbing that’s only a couple hundred yards from my front door. It’s funny because I only bought my house based on proximity to the river, had no clue about any of this. It’s pretty awesome for several reasons, included skyrocketing property values. Also there’s a rock quarry inside the wilderness area that has bass and crappie to catch, it’s only about a mile from home. I’ve only started fishing it this summer, it’s pretty fun. Our weather is not too cold to fish, the problem i encounter is darkness. If I get home from work at 5, it’s kind of a wash hooking up the boat and going to the river because you can’t see to cast after about 5:45. Sometimes if I’ve got a boating itch I’ll sneak home from work a little early and try to get 2 hours in but my boat is typically only used on weekends after the time change. Darn you daylight savings time!!!!

Hahahaha unfortunately I think Iaconneli was also in elementary school about the time I did the report

There’s a few parts of Carolina that are as cold as you want it to be! Luckily we get bathed in the afternoon sun on this side of the Appalachians. There’s a reason they named it Cold Mountain NC!

I did a report on Ike in elementary school, I’ve still got some pins hahaha

We started doing prime rib for Christmas, it’s wonderful

Yeah we eat at noon . I didn’t do any cooking, All I did was pick up heavy things and get stuff off the top shelves and of course took the trash outside like 6 times already today haha. We brined it Tuesday night and put it in the oven Wednesday night

Mmmmmmmm

My grandpa was involved in that……. Not the book but the making haha

I like the muddler minnow quite a bit

That’s what is all about from my understanding I don’t necessarily think it’s the turkey (triptophan or whatever it is) because I feel sleepy nearly every time I gorge on any food, not just turkey. The turkey just so happens to be associated with the most gluttonous day of the year

Is there something wrong with being sleepy? If so then I don’t want to be right………. I’d gladly participate again this year

I’ve also got oar locks on my smaller boat, they are pretty nice!! I can never find 8 footers at any stores though. However my boat is 14’ x 4’ so the 7 footers do alright. Longer always seemed better with oars in oar locks

Now you can really let your toes out hahah

Happy thanksgiving right back at ya!!! I mostly fish plastic worms but never wacky rigged, maybe one day. I just hook them regular ole weedless style

Depends on where. Many days they are running 30,000 cubic feet per second and we paddle a few miles upstream against it. That’ll have your life jacket dripping with sweat real quick, especially in 100% humidity. Further down the reservoirs with no noticeably surface current, it’s a breeze

I would never……..