brent245

I never caught a bass until I was 23. And I grew up in Texas and had a house on lake Conroe, and then Northern california where I was an hour away from Clear Lake. I only caught catfish and panfish in texas, I had no clue how to fish for bass, and there was no youtube when I was a kid.

I may just go with a shimano Cardiff, they are only $30 more. I do like the red/black color of the Abu though.

Hey guys, I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a budget Swimbait combo. I'm looking at a Abu Garcia Ambassaduer SX 5:3:1 and a Dobyns Fury 8' heavy fast action swimbait rod (FR806SB). Thoughts?

Who is having them on Sale for $199? I was looking at this exact same one.

I guess you could add trebles to a Hudd to accomplish this. My point was the dual exposed trebles really increase your chances of hooking up to a fish that isn't really committed to a big agressive strike. I've just found that during the day I can see large bass just cruising around, they ignore worms, chatterbaits, cranks, darn near everything. I throw out a glide bait and it gets their attention, but they just tend to bump and nudge it and are hesitant to strike. The exposed trebles really help.

In evenings or night try casting parallel to the bank with a topwater noisy bait like a plopper or a pompadour. keep the bait close to the algae growth but not close enough to get hung up. Otherwise a chatter bait should work.

I've had a fair bit of success fishing a s-waver 168 on the bottom when I can see the bait. In clear water on a sandy or gravel bottom, I've been able to pick up quite a few very picky fish who won't really strike at anything. I've tried other methods to pick up these fish but they don't seem interested. They seem to get agitated when I swim this right up into their territory and let it sink to the bottom, I then twitch it a bit. They try to attack it to make it go away but with the exposed trebles I frequently get them hooked. The large bait seems to illicit territorial aggression. Anyone else use this tactic?

jump ship

I have a pack of the Hawk Hawgs. Used one last week on a weighted 4/0 hook and picked up a decent 2.5lb'er just working it around the bottom in clear water. The plastic doesn't seem to be as good of quality as a yamamoto worm or KVD worm. It feels dry already and the pack is only a month old. I have a feeling these don't last long.

I've got a nice pfluger president spinning reel already, I was intrigued by the bullet because of the 29" per handle turn retrieve rate. Its unlike other spincasts. Lets face it, it would be for me really lol.

I have spinning reels, however I suspect those would tangle and cause trouble.

I'm looking at getting the new zebco bullet and a rod for the wife. She's never fished before. I haven't seen a lot of info on this reel but it intrigues me as well since I started on spincasts when I was a kid. I was thinking of pairing it with a dobyns fury cranking rod. Thoughts on the reel?

For those who said night fish, you were right. I ordered a black Pompadour Jr. Topwater bait and got 5 bass after the sun had set, just working the shorline.

I ended up with a Daiwa tatula and a st. croix mojo bass for under $300

I have the same reel. I bought it without ever using a baitcaster 6 weeks ago. I have 20lb stealthbraid on mine. The braid line makes backlashes manageable. Just remember to adjust settings based on weight of the lure and wind. With light baits casting into the wind can cause a backlash, I usually need to dial up the magbrake a couple notches. I generally keep my magbrake around 6 with 1/2oz to 3/4oz baits, lighter baits and weightless worms I set around 7 or 8. I set the spool brake so that the bait falls freely and relatively quickly, but not a freefall. Having never used a baitcaster before I was surprised how easy it was. I never had the need to set the magbrake really high to prevent backlash. Do watch the casing on the crank handle side, mine came loose a couple days ago, the screws started backing out and the reel spool became very loose side to side and didn't want to cast properly. I tightened the screws and it's ok now.

Got this one in about 10 minutes on the Rage blade 1/2oz. First time I used it. I just did a slow retrieve, never letting it touch bottom.

Went today and it was cooler today, overcast and windy. So I threw out a chatterbait. Got this sucker after about 10 mins. One of the larger ones I got out of here.

So I fish here is AZ. The bass fishing has gotten tougher and tougher in the past few weeks. It's now approaching 100 degrees daily. I fish a small pond that I've gotten incredible luck at. I was pulling 4 out an hour about 2 months ago on wacky senkos. Now they won't bite at all. The only tactic I have now that works is sight fishing for bass 4-5 feet off the bank. They ignore senkos and lizards dropped right in front of them, they don't like cranks. But they get ticked if I swim a 6" glide bait in front of them into their "feeding zone". If I swim it right in front of them and let it sink and twitch it, they will swipe at it. They will swipe at it a bunch of times and eventually hook themselves if I'm lucky. They are focused feeding on small minnows and ignore my other attempts. They will rush out of deeper water, come into 6-8 inches of water in an attempt to eat the small minnows. I can see them sitting 4-5 feet of the bank not moving. These are big fish though typically 2-3 pounders. There are alot of other small bass I see swimming around but they ignore everything I throw at them. Is there anything I can do to get them to actively chase lures or senkos or is this just summer fishing?