TOXIC

You have to get the bait into the bed and in some cases the right part of the bed to trigger them. You can't drag through the bed and catch them. Dropshot or tube will work. I throw a Yamamoto DShad and let it flutter right down into the bed. Smallmouth get totally stupid once they lock on the bed. I had a buddy catch one on a piece of shoestring as bait.

Yamamoto Cowboy. ?

I had a friend polish and then apply Sharkhide and his boat would blind you in the sun.

Wonderful story. Sorry for your loss. My grandfather introduced me to fishing by taking me to Lac LaRonge up in Saskatchewan when I was young. He and my grandmother went every year. 150 miles of gravel road to get to camp. Carried in his own twin 35 horse motors for the wooden boats up there. Spent a week doing the most unbelievable fishing I have ever had. Same Indian guide every year and brought home coolers of fish. Had wonderful shore lunches. Sadly my grandfather passed from leukemia not long after that trip. The good......I still feel his presence every time I go out on the water. Everytime. I know he is with me.

I used to love it when I was guiding to get a husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend as clients. The men were always trying to be all macho and know-it-all about fishing to impress their females. The differences was that the women would actually listen to what I had to say and would do what I told them. They normally outfished their boyfriend/husband and it was a hoot. When I would get a couple of tournament anglers in the boat as clients, I would take them to the fish and let them have at it but if they were not catching, I would give some pointers. Usually they just brushed me off and claimed the spot was no good and wanting to move. So, I would grab my rod and proceed to catch a few fish off the spot and tell them if they would listen to me they could do the same. My standard saying was "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you". ?

All for strict enforcement. When I was guiding, I asked clients to show their license. If they "forgot" to get one I marched them up to the bait store at the launch. Saltwater guides can by one that covers anyone in their boat but not freshwater guides. I get checked often here in Virginia and don't mind at all. I never get checked in Wisconsin so one day I motored up to the Sheriff and asked him why he never did a check on me since he was pulling boats over left and right. He told me "You bass guys always have your chit together and it's a waste of my time" with a smile. The only time I ever had a problem with enforcement was when I was wade fishing and I was up to my chest in water and 2 DNR Officers paddled up in a canoe and asked me for my license. I told them it was in my Jeep parked on shore not more than 50 yards away. I got a ticket anyway. ?

Yep. My fishing partner lives about 2 miles from that ramp and buys an annual pass. If he is not in town I pick it up from his wife in the morning. Alternate launch for us is on base at Quantico at Hospital Point. There was 4 tournaments going out of Hope Springs a couple of weeks ago so we avoided them and went on Base. If we are going to fish a lot in Quantico creek it's right at the mouth. With fuel getting up there again, I'm all for trailering more than running. I topped off my tanks and it was $80. I run a big block HPDI and she likes to drink. ?

My last boat, a 20 footer with a 225 did not have one. My current boat, a 21 footer with a 250 has one. It takes some getting used to. I want one for safety reasons. Now for the best of both worlds, the new G2's have the option to use the hand throttle or the foot throttle via a setting in the electronics and because the foot throttle is fly by wire, there is no cable and the resistance is very light on the peddle. It also has auto trim where the motor will trim itself out depending on speed. It will also automatically trim down as you slow down. Amazing motor.

You will always be safer at the larger ramps with more traffic or on site bait store etc. Smallwood and Leesylvainia are your best bets. I launch out of Hope Springs just because I like Aquia Creek. To me it's worth the run to make sure my trailer/truck are safe in the lot.

In my opinion you'd be better off rigging up a grub. Any water action of as we all know kids like to retrieve and cast a lot, will give the curl tale action. There's a pretty popular bass technique called float n fly that would also work.

Although I don't have any 2 piece, I have a telescoping CastAway Flippin stick. For those of us who also flyfish 4 piece are pretty common and those rods ain't cheap. ?

Not to hijack but I never know if the site is going to rotate my pics or not. They are properly orientated when I pick them but come out every which way.?

One thing often overlooked is the skill of the rodmaker. Few mass produced take the time to properly spline the blank before building the components. Also used to be the quality of things like cork, eva or Wynn grips. In my personal opinion, once a rod breaks a certain price point ($150-200) you then start paying for warranty and name recognition. Some of the Japanese rods are the most expensive on the market.

You know in Japan they sell them as food fish live in the markets. ?

I pre rig my tackle with the baits I know catch fish in the location I am fishing. I have enough rods on deck to cover the whole spectrum of offerings (both water column and action). I normally don't change unless I think a different color may produce better. Assuming I am confident the fish are there. If I am in a new place or I am not confident, I will stay on the move until I locate them either by electronics or catches using high percentage baits or my confidence baits. Some days I win, other days the fish win. ?

Touchy subject. DNR tells us that you have to harvest bass to keep the population healthy but conservation tells us to put them all back. I don't begrudge anyone for keeping their legal limit. I would hope they only keep the smaller class fish to keep the genetics of the bigger fish alive. I have kept and eaten them but I much prefer any number of other freshwater fish for table fare. They just taste better to me. Gills, Crappie, Ring Perch, White Perch, Walleye, Pike, Northern Snakehead, Wipers, Sand Bass and catfish (if prepared properly) all taste better to me than Bass. That being said, if I kill it, I eat it. Nothing should go to waste.

As Tom stated it is very popular. Also as Tom stated, it's a good way to squeeze a little more $$ out of us anglers. I'm sorry but I'm old school. When I need braid, I throw braid. Straight braid, no leader. And 35lb braid is the highest test I throw. I don't buy into fish being line shy. When I don't need braid I throw good mono and in a few cases fluro. As I have said, I am a finesse guy through and through and adding additional knots to achieve....?????? More sensitivity? Not really. Strength? Not needed. IMHO, it gives more failure points without a lot of added value. You put braid on for it's lack of stretch and then add a leader so that it will stretch???? I'll stick to my straight lines......But that is just me.

Well, I had been hearing so much about the spawn being on I decided to hook up the boat and go check out the river. I needed to test my power poles out and run some older fuel out of it as well. Launched at Hope Springs and ran out to the beach. Only negatives to the day were that the wind kicked up and it was out of the East which kills the tide in the creek. We stayed in the creek all day and caught fish pretty much everywhere we went but of course the biggest fish of the day managed to spit my senko when she jumped at the boat. It was at least a 6lber and much bigger than the fish pic below of the 2nd biggest of the day. Second strange thing of the day, the fish only wanted 1 bait. A goby colored Senko. We threw everything in the boat at them but as soon as we picked up that senko, they bit. Very odd. I seriously don't know how I have survived this long without power poles. They enabled us to fish in the wind and resulted in many, many more fish caught. And to think, I was a skeptic when they first came out!! I am a value based fisherman so, if it doesn't add value to my fishing experience, then I don't buy into the hype. Because I am also frugal I bout a pair of 1st gen poles that have to be hard wired. Overall great day on the water and a lot of nice catches.

IMHO, deadsticking a soft plastic imitates a favorite food of the bass and found almost universally....a crawfish. If you've ever watched them, they sit motionless until disturbed and then they aggressively flick their tail in an exagerated reverse move. Bass have been conditioned for a very long time that a movement like that is one of their favorite foods.

I would give seminars on the tank at Bass Pro to show how dead sticking a senko works. I would toss it in the tank and if it didn't get bit by the time it got to the bottom, the bass would gather with their noses pointing down and their tails in the air watching the bait. I call it "Bird Dogging". I would leave the bait motionless for 30 seconds or more (doesn't sound like a long time but it really is) then I would give it a "hop" and one of them would always dart in for the bite. The whole purpose of the demo was to show how bass react to a dead sticked bait.

Accurate but remember, the bucks have to get on the bed first. They don't come in hand in hand. A buck will either fan a bed or choose an old bed and guard it waiting for a female.

Soooo many people think a Senko is an "idiot" bait and while it will catch fish for most people, I have made it my signature bait and I can't explain why but I can catch fish on it when others can't. Took one of my buddies out yeaterday (very good fisherman) and I was schooling him on a weightless Senko. Same color, same line, same rigging. It was windy but I had no problem fishing it weightless. He actually asked me what he was doing wrong and I honestly couldn't tell him what to do differently. So what do I do that no one else does? I fish a Senko. ?

I have a buddy who is a snakehead hunter and his favorite lure is a SPRO Poppin Frog in Tropical color. I catch them on many different lures from DShads to Senkos and even cranks. Here is a Senko Snakehead on 6lb test. My best to date. Any yes, they are very good tablefare if you can get past the slime to clean them.

It is what it is. Relax, get your head straight and take the test. If you don't know it by now, you are not going to get before then. Have confidence in your abilities. I'm not in your field but that's pretty universal advice. I am in a position where I had to test out to get to the next pay raise and the pre-test jitters were always there. Just control them and do your best. Good luck!!

"In a few weekends" everything could change but right now cranks, chatterbaits and Traps are doing some serious damage. They are spawning.