BassNJake

BPT is not MLF. Once the cup action starts it will probably look similar to what you have seen in the past.

Good luck as back injuries have a way of resurfacing years later. When I blew out my back, the only relief and the beginning of my recovery was aqua therapy. For me it was like a miracle. Since then I have learned I am no longer in the condition to "push it" or to "work thru" the warning signs Those are clear indicators that I need to take a break and relax IMMEDIATELY

Thanks for the report and hope you get her again!!

Get some heavy line > a shallow squarebill with oversized treble hooks > make a few casts dragging that slop towards you > this will create some "lanes/edges" you can work some baits thru you may not have been able to before. Nasty but worth it

I had a bad spool of SpiderWire stealth that did that.

I'm good for bouncing one off the trolling motor each trip. Busted more than a few lures too. ?

If you look north they catch catch some huge smallies in your backyard. I've been to Chickamuaga about 15 times and my personal best is from an electric motor only lake in Ohio

I like the Keitech salty core tube bait. As with other Keitech baits it is not cheap. I love the way a reverse rig falls back towards the cover as opposed to falling towards the boat.

hahahahahhaaa ... seriously before I got a scale every fish over 3.5 lbs I would add a pound to the weight. So if I thought it was a 6 pounder, it would weigh 5. Once I started subtracting a pound from what I thought it weighed, I was pretty accurate. Now I have the scale to smack me into reality

I throw 2 types of topwaters: something light and something dark, which is what you were doing. If I'm confident there are fish in the area, I'll move down the water column. I like throwing a fluke or donkey rig as a follow up for my topwaters. My thinking is I've already got them looking up, I'll put something a little closer to them that is more realistic. Often times, my thought process does not align with the bass. Does that make me the dumb one? ???

My recipe is sending bait plastics money and they ship it to me. I go to tackleunderground and there are many guys pouring their own soft plastic lures but none that were making their own plastisol that I know of. There are a couple of distributors over there but I think they buy in bulk and repackage. Good luck!!

Seemed to be quite a few guys fishing spawning beds with finesse presentation too On all the tours

My favorite is the keitech noisy flapper. Right now, there is a shad spawn going on at my lake so I'm throwing white or something with a silver streak For the most part I will throw something dark colored the rest of the year. While testing action in a pool on some hand poured baits and observing from underwater, the darker colored baits seem to give off a bigger profile IMO Sometimes my strikes will come in open water right over a darker or lighter spot on the bottom Which gives me confidence on my lake with that has almost 0 weed growth

I'm cheap so I'm gonna do internet searches on tourney results, study maps and use google earth. To me google earth has been the best tool for me when fishing a new lake. Actually, I use it a lot on my home lake as well.

I go about a 100 times a year and on every trip I'll backlash half a dozen times minimum. My issues are that on every cast I try to break the longest cast record, I'm good for bouncing one off the trolling motor head every trip, Also I'm pretty good about pitching to a laydown by first smacking the gunwale with the bait, I'll often begin a circle cast by slamming the bait into the water, I'll try throwing a 1/16 shaky head on a baitcaster into the wind I cant remember the last time a backlash took over a few minutes to get out. I use a crochet needle and basically have more experience than anyone else due to my poor casting lol

I'll often break out the buzzbait when there is a slight chop and some rain. I like adding the trailer when throwing into the wind, it allows for more accuracy as the wind does not catch it as much

Yeah, I'm too ugly for a selfie

So the next event starts on Friday the 17th, is that so they can have Memorial Day weekend off? Weird to start a 6 day event on a Friday. On know many lakes where the boat traffic on Friday is minimal and then once the weekend rolls around it's like a huge parking lot out there. Advantage for Group A fishing Friday or Group B's first day being Saturday?

And that would be one time too many, lesson learned!!

And here I thought all your baits were bottom bouncers ? Now Catt is chucking horny toads .... I knew you had some tricks you weren't letting us in on

This weekend I found a couple good schools out on the ledges in 20- 25 feet Some of the first spawners have made the way back to deep water

Very Nice!! I love that rock crawler crank too, its been very productive this spring

I had an older accurist and it was the worst baitcaster I ever owned. It seemed as if there was no fine tuning the spool adjustments Either it was braking too much and killing the casting distance or it was blowing up in a birds nest I had a couple Diawa's at the time and they were hands down better reels. I have had probably 20 baitcasters since then and it is still the worst one. I tried to use it again many years later with the same results. Just my experience and it was awhile ago

It's just not as consistent at night as it is during the day for me. I think it has to do more with lure presentation though. I can catch a couple here and there but have never just smashed them like I have during the day. Most times during the day there is a sweet spot on the ledge that takes a specific cast to trigger them. Once you have found them you back off and bomb casts at the sweet spot At night I have a harder time with the boat position so my casts are not as accurate and my success is not as good

I think its trial and error until you find something you like. Like you > the heavy rod and braid = a lot of swings and misses for me I switched to a med heavy and braid and now my landing percentage has went way up