Troy85

Gotcha. Makes me wonder how many guys pan their live scope, don't see anything and just assume their aren't any fish and move on. I can be impatient, so I see myself doing that if i had live scope. haha

I'm not opposed to it. I am curious though, I've never used it and my only real experience with it a few youtube videos. How well can you see the fish if they are sitting on or near the bottom or sitting around vegetation and not moving much?

Oh yeah. Same here. Then you throw in hurricanes with their surges that kill off all the grass a lot of the bass. It makes for some interesting bass fishing that's for sure. If we can make it thru this summer without a hurricane, next year will be lights out again.

On top of everything else mentioned. I carry a spare Trolling motor blade and a spare fuel primer ball, I've had to replace both while out on the water. This may not be necessary for you, but I fish a lot of shallow water with old oil field equipment scattered around and all sorts of other stuff, so I always carry a spare prop for my outboard.

Marsh bass in brackish tidal water.

This may be a silly question but. Has anyone noticed a difference in prespawn habits bass in the south vs the North? Such as Florida strain vs Northern strain? Catt I quoted you as well because you fish on both TB and fish for marsh bass. Have you noticed any major difference between tidal bass prespawn habits and lake bass? I really only fish for tidal bass in the marsh 99% of time, other than the one or two trips a year I will take to TB or Gville, and never during the prespawn.

Yesterday I was reading the latest issue of BASS. One article had all the stats about all the previous day out on the lake fish caught, one stat was what lures caught the biggest fish overall. Jig came in number one with something like 37%, followed up by TX rig worm in the mid 20s% if I remember correctly. Probably two of the oldest techniques in bass fishing.

I saw a video where Rick Clunn said, the bass is a bruiser and can live pretty much anywhere its forage lives when it comes to water temp, so if there is bait there then there is the potential for bass to be there.

Only one I know of that's close to the size your looking for is Caney Lake in Louisiana. Its around 5,000 acres and is known for big bass. Winning weight for a media tournament last January was close to 34lbs. On google its shown as Caney Creek Reservoir.

Sometimes I intentionally go on what would be considered tough days, just to see if I can catch fish. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Still, I don't think I've ever been out there and been like, Oh man I shoulda just stayed home and cut the grass. LOL

Bassmaster posts their Bassmaster live broadcasts on youtube. Those are good to watch, the bassmaster shows are so condensed down to the exciting moments, the live broadcasts give you a lot more time to watch what they are doing and listen to what they have to say.

There is a bundle on amazon prime that includes all zonas shows, and there is a 7 day free trail. Sign up and binge watch as many as you can in 7 days. That's what I did. haha

I bet if you look in the background you'll see @A-Jay tied to a tree.

Those are super popular and effective for bass down here in winter. I just caught some on it Sunday afternoon, letting it fall into the grass then ripping it out.

I've had luck slow rolling them near the bottom or letting it fall to the bottom then ripping it up when the water is cold. Keep in mind cold water for me is low 50's mostly.

I've never had it midcast. I did once have it happen on a hookset. I was bank fishing at a local park and I went to set the hook and the the rod just flew out of my hands. I tried to catch it, but it just flopped on the bank. Several people saw it happen...I just packed up and left and went to a different spot.

I like this. I'm going to try it out for sure.

Milfoil and coontail, followed by matted Hyacinth. When I can find it, eel grass is high on the list as well, but the hurricanes we got the past few years wiped out most of the eel grass and it hasn't really come back yet.

Fishing in the marsh I've noticed two trends that go against everything I've read. 1. Downsizing in the summer works better than upsizing. 2. Overall the Bass seem to bite top water better on a bluebird day than on a cloudy day.

My brain has a default retrieve speed for bottom baits and moving baits. If I'm not actively paying attention to it, after a few minutes I just go into default mode and will start casting and reeling at a steady pace or just steadily bumping my bait along the bottom at a constant speed. Its something I've been trying to improve for quite some time now. I have gotten a lot better about it, but I'm still working on improving. I catch more fish when not in default mode, so it makes a huge difference obviously. As far as trolling speed, it used to be if I wasn't catching fish my go to would be to crank up the TM and just cover water. While that worked occasionally, I have found the past year or two that actually slowing down on the TM has been more effective than speeding up and trying to cover more water. While this isn't always the case, I'd say it is more often than not. In short, I have to make a very conscious effort to slow down.

Here's a question for you @Catt about bass movements. 99% of my bass fishing is done in the marsh, so I'm just trying to learn more about Reservoir fish and their movements. This once question has always made me wonder. You will read that in summer, most bass will move out to the main river channel. I know some fish stay shallow all year, but in this case I'm just focusing on the ones that move back out. In this example lets use the Housen Arm. Lets say you have a group of fish that spawned on the Big Branch creek arm directly across from Fin n Feather. When those fish move back out for summer, how far do you think most of them go? What would a majority of those fish hang out in the summer in your opinion? Would a majority of them go out to the Housen Creek bed and stop around there? Or would they they eventually follow Housen all the way out to the Sabine river bottom? It may seem like a silly and over specific question, but its one that I think about quite often.

I was up there last week. Friday I fished San Miguel. mostly fished points, caught 1 on a chatter bait. All the rest came on a 1/2 watermelon football jig in 7-10'. Biggest was 4.5, probably caught 7 fish that morning, most were around 1.5-2lbs. Saturday was calm, fished San Miguel again with my brother. Pretty slow day, I think we only caught 5 all day and almost all were dinks. Sunday we ran across and fished the first creek arm south of Patroon. Caught about 10 fishing a small point in 8', largemouth came on the football jig again, fat spots were biting crankbaits. After the sun got up we ran across to Lanan and caught several flipping docks. probably caught 13-15 fish that morning, biggest was 4.75 and a few between 2-3lbs. Monday was slow, fished the same areas but only caught about 6 that morning. The keepers came on a jig, throw backs bit crankbaits. Almost all our fish came on the 1/2 football jig. Im sure I coulda got bit throwing other stuff to, but I love throwing a jig, so if fish are willing to bite, im willing to throw. I really need to work on fishing deeper. I'm so used to shallow water marsh bass fishing that I always assume the fish are shallower than they really are. We had a good trip, but I feel like I should have tried out deeper, the deepest we really tried was probably 12-15'.

No. My brother is die hard fisherman but he doesn't watch tournaments. I do, because if I can't be fishing at least I can be watching fishing.

I wonder how many casual viewers sit down to watch BPT in its current form? My wife, like yours, would prefer to watch BPT over BASS because there is more action. At the same time though, she would never turn it on and watch it on her own. Its kind of the same thing with my casual fishing buddies, they enjoy fishing and go fairly often, but they would never sit down and watch BPT or BASS. Makes me wonder if MLF overestimated the casual viewers desire to watch an 8 hours fishing broadcast.

In SE Louisiana, If I can clearly see the head of my trolling motor the water the clear. If I can just make out the the outline of the trolling motor head its stained. Anything less than that I consider dirty.