BassNJake

You are correct. Diagram(not mine) was to show how the hook end is inserted first and where to bring the point of the hook out of the tube. This part will take some trial and error to make sure the head of the jig is all the way to the top of the tube.

When I only bank fished I would say, I wish I had a boat so I could access all the water. After getting a boat, having access to all the water has become the new "problem". My home lake has 800 miles of shoreline and almost 53 sq miles of water surface. Where to start, what depth, what presentation, how long to stay, how far to run, main channel or in the creeks??? The questions related to location have now increased by (insert large number here) and the amount of my patience has decreased due to having so many places to fish that I can easily access. When I bank fished I had a limited amount of techniques I could use. Things like a drop shot, spoons, deep diving cranks, A rigs ... .... just didn't make it into my arsenal. So now not only do I have access to all the water, I also have the ability to fish anything I want. So not only was I happy to get a boat so was the bait monkey.

This ^^^ When the backs of the creeks are jammed with shad( the OP stated a TON and millions of shad), you're not going to get bit fishing in the midst of that shad buffet. I come across these situations almost every fall where one of the creek arms I am in have millions of shad packed into the last 25 yards of the creek arm. You can't throw a bait that has a treble hook, as soon as it hits the water you'll have shad snagged on each hook point. I wasted a lot of time fishing these areas that are packed full of shad with nothing to show for it. I began treating these area like I would a prespawn spot. I focus on the mouth where the bigger bass will be making their way towards the back of the creek but have not been to the buffet yet. So I'll hit the points and drop offs leading towards the back off the creek and have had a lot better success. I often try to match the hatch but one of my best days were when I was tossing a black weightless senko.

To link to a specific member just type the @ symbol followed by a name like @Catt and then just choose from the list

I have not had any problem with high speed reels and "winching" bass out of cover. I can really control my toads a lot better with a high speed reel. I no longer have to reel at a faster pace to keep the toad on the top. By slowing down I feel I have better control. Often the bass will be coming towards me after striking the toad so it helps to be able to pick up that extra line.

I think IPT(inches per turn) is something to look at along with gear ratio. When I was looking to buy a real with a higher gear ratio 8+, I found many to have the same IPT as lower geared reels. I then noticed that reels from the same company would have differences in inches per turn depending on which reel was selected. I have included some screen shots from lews, shimano and kast king to show the differences.

I managed to catch one on a toad this past Saturday. Our lake was right near 50. I'm glad I left the cold and moved down south. Good luck waiting it out!!

A couple of pictures to show where I have to back down to access the lake when they drop the water

The rapala DT 7 is my go to flat sided crank. I stocked up on a bunch before they were discontinued. I always seem to catch an early season walleye or 2 with them as well. My wife likes that.

Here's a color chart of some of the varieties in Mississippi.

I used to fish those rock veins a lot with minimal success. I used to ask myself where do I start when the whole lake is rock? I started targeting the isolated stuff and have had much better success. One of the nice things about them dropping the lake 20 feet every year is seeing all the places I caught fish the year before with no water on them. Say the lake is down 5 feet, I'll drive around marking areas with the same color waypoint. When the lake drops another 5 feet, I'll do the same using a different color. This makes it easier for me to pattern my milk runs.

In response to the question, I am going to start fish the isolated structure. My home lake is basically all rock. You'll hear guys say all the time that they caught the fish on a muddy featureless bank. This is where they are usually wrong, there was some type of isolated feature that the bass were holding to. Sometimes its just one or two rocks or a section of gravel the size of a 5 gallon bucket. One of my best spots I found using google earth and its just a couple of large rocks with a couple drainage areas that run beside it. Also there is a laydown at the end of a point where a vein of rocks breaks up. (the ditches are caused by rains when they drop the water.) You can fish these areas all year round as the isolated rocks on the drains continue to extend into 40 feet of water. Fish will move both up and down depending on the conditions in this area. You will also see this lake has many rock veins that run thru it. Most guys find the way the rocks are laying and fish with them so they are not getting snagged. I have always found that fishing parallel to the veins produces the best. I tried to show a little diagram with arrows pointing to the drains, stars to show the isolated areas where we have success year after year.(blue line shows where it would be at full pool + bottom picture))

I have seen all types of youtube channels fishing, lure making, combat sports, gaming and many others. Most of the channels I have watched have evolved from their initial videos. Many will go back and make a video poking fun of their first videos for their lack of direction, errors and other things they learn while making them. Sometimes a person will make a specific type of video that they will get more feedback on, this prompting the direction of the channel to take a different path. My suggestion is not to be afraid to fail. Some of the most important successes came from learning from some type of failure.

When I was younger, I fell through the ice twice. Everytime it gets cold my fingers and toes remind me of those 2 trips. A guy my dad worked with got stranded on lake erie , when where they were fishing the ice broke off and floated into open water. They were out there on 4 wheelers and snowmobiles and had to be rescued by the coast guard.

Looks like Bass will gorge themselves over a holiday weekend too!!

I am usually throwing a toad type bait and follow with a senko(reverse rig). I'll cruise down a section of shoreline hitting all of the outside spots and the little cuts I can get my toad into. After going down the section of shoreline this way, I'll turn around and work my way back concentrating on pitching the senko to the thicker and hard to reach spots. My theory is that any fish I get on the toad is going to be an aggressive active fish, mainly holding near the edges of the structure/cover I encounter. When I come back down the shoreline I am picking apart the structure/cover for the fish that are not as aggressive or for what ever reason are holding tighter to these spots. This has become the most efficient way for me to fish topwater first without feeling like I just passed over so many "prime" spots. It also gives these spots a chance to rest after seeing a topwater buzz by.

My wife told me that is how it was around here in TN too. I laughed it off but have heard it so many times now.

My "haunting" occurred on Lake Chickamauga as I was prefishing for our championship. We caught a few fish here and there, we really struck out fishing deeper ledges so we moved shallow. We ended up in a small marina fished all around the docks without a bite. We pulled into a slip, tied off, ate lunch and decided to head somewhere else. My partner was moving us out of the slip and I decided to flip my reverse rig senko into the corner of the slip we were leaving. I feel the classic tap, reel down and set the hook. I'm not sure if I limp wristed it or just wasnt prepared for that big of a fish but my rod almost came out of my hands. It's just a stalemate, i can feel something on the line but its not moving and neither are we. My partner asks if I snagged the dock because any forward momentum we had was gone and the trolling motor was still on 5. The fish is pulling drag and I'm just holding on. My partner starts backing the boat into the slip and I can feel the fish starting to come up. I jam the rod in the water just to see the bass version of jaws come to the surface on the other side of the walkway and spit my senko back at me. I just fell onto the back deck shaking my head wishing I could go back in time 5 minutes to try again. My partner was having a fit. Oh my gosh, that was a 15 pound bass!! Holy sheet, that thing dragged the boat with the trolling motor on 5!! Dude, that was a state record!! The fish I had on for a split second had a dead eye on its right hand side.(glossy and glazed looking) I'll never forget that head. Fast forward a couple of years to last winter and my partner calls and tells me someone caught my fish. He links me to an article about a guy who caught a 14.5lb bass out of the chick and yep you guessed it, it had a dead right eye(well both now because he mounted it). https://newschannel9.com/sports/outdoors/chickamauga-big-bass-just-shy-of-new-state-record I dont know if it was the same bass as the one I had on appeared to be darker and the dead eye had a little bit of a bulge to it But we were fishing in July and this one was caught in December so temps could have to do with the differences. I have went for 5 years and have never gotten another bite out of that little marina.

Sorry for not being a little more precise, Damiki rig fishing is boring. You spend hours idling around to mark these suspended fish and then spend hours just hovering a tiny jig in 25 feet of water over fish that are suspended in 30 feet for 3-5 bites a day is boring to me. As we transition into winter more of the fish are suspending without really relating to anything. (not sure if that just a TN thing or not but Douglas, Cherokee and Norris lakes all fish this way in the winter) Catching these suspended bass are tough and the Damiki rig works pretty well around here. Just not well enough to prevent it from being boring.

I generally do not use my livewell, it has become extra storage for the insane amount of "good ideas" the bait monkey talked me into. I also keep a spare of everything in there. Spare set of clothes, TP, trash bags, TM cord and various tools I might need. On the rare occasion, I need to use the livewell ... my deck looks like a yard sale until I can get everything put somewhere else

55 degrees is prime silver buddy or tailspinner temperature for me. When I fished these in Ohio a yoyo retrieve worked well as did slowly grinding them across large flats near deep water (I remove the treble hooks and use a single hook on the rear) Here in TN many of the "locals" will bend the tail almost 90 degrees so it will spiral on the way down as they vertical jig it over schools. I will also fish the damiki rig if I am marking a bunch of suspended bass. However, fishing that is as boring as it gets and most days I'd prefer working around the house if thats the only bite happening

I'm going to try and make the classic. I have a couple surgeries scheduled before the classic, but I'm hoping I'll be there. I was tossing the idea of being a marshal around, but the $500 price tag is a little steep for me.

If you are using the Chrome browser, you will see a shield with a little red X on the far right hand side of the address bar. It states something about the site running unsafe scripts. You can click it and there will be an option to run unsafe scripts on this webpage. This will then allow the video to be played. I think the site is a secure site(https) but when linking back to the video it is not a secure site.(http) However, I'm no computer genius. The address appears as https This icon is on the top right clicking it returns an option to load the unsafe scripts After loading the unsafe scripts the address is no longer secure However, the video does load

I'd have to go with Cast Away- due to my love of tossing topwaters endlessly