Captain Phil

At one time, a 5/1 reel was considered High Speed. Faster is not always better, especially when it comes to fishing. You will catch bigger bass with a slower moving bait than a fast one. ☺️

I have been using Big Game since dinosaurs rules the earth (they were nasty) and I have yet to lose a bass due to the line breaking. Mono has a shelf life. As I don't know the age of your line or how long it's been sitting around, we don't know if that is the issue. You may have just found a bad batch of line, although that would be rare. Maybe the spool was exposed to heat, sunlight or had something else going on? Everyone has their favorite knots. I use a Palomar for 25 pound and up and a double clinch knot (Jimmy Houston knot) for all thinner lines. I wet every knot I tie before I cinch it down. The only time I ever lost a fish due to a knot slipping was with braid, but that's another story.

I'm 75 years young. I never wore glasses except to read until about ten years ago. When I was younger I could tie knots by feel in the dark, so tying them half blind hasn't been that bad. Last year my ten year old glasses were scratched up and I decided to get a new pair. I went to one of the fancy eye stores and after testing my eyes they gave me a new prescription. They wanted $650 for their glasses and I thought that was too much for black wire frames and two pieces of glass. I was not trying to look like Elvis, I just wanted to see better. I went to Walmart's Eye Center and handed them my prescription. The people were nice and very helpful. A week later, I picked up my new top-of-the-line progressive glasses for $250. I couldn't believe the difference. It's amazing what I can see now compared to what I couldn't before. Bad vision tends to sneak up on you. New glasses won't help your fingers work better, but you will see what you are doing. If anyone over 60 is on this forum with ten year old glasses, get a new pair.

I use a twenty year old 5/1 Shimano Calcutta 200 for spinnerbaits. It's been rebuilt at least three times. I have a dozen newer reels including two I bought last year. None of them throw spinnerbaits better than that old work horse. I don't argue, I ask the bass and they tell me what they want. ☺️

Funny story about Fliptail worms. When my son was about 8 years old, we starting taking him fishing with us when we went to Okeechobee. He couldn't cast very well, so we tied a Texas rigged black 9" Fliptail worm on his line with a 3/8 weight. He didn't cast it, just dropped it to the bottom and bounced it along the bottom. The biggest bass I had caught up to that point was 6 1/4 pounds. One day while he was doing his thing, he hooked a big fish on the bottom. I told him it was a mud fish and he should reel it up so we could release it. That's when I saw the line moving to the surface. At that point a huge bass jump out of the water attached to his line. I tried to grab the rod to help him, but he was having none of it. He landed that fish himself and it weighted 8 1/2 pounds. He held our family bass size record for a few years after that which he always reminded me of. I mounted that fish and we still have it. Great memories....

I have to admit I don't fish flukes. I should, but I catch most of my fish on spinnerbaits so it's hard for me to switch. I have fished tournaments with guys who were great fluke fisherman and it was an eye opening experience. Take it from me, a good fluke fisherman will kick your butt. Most of them used no weight. They Texas rigged the fluke with a wide gap hook and the point resting flat on the back. Some used a twist lock on the nose, others used a toothpick through the hook eye. If your flukes are twisting, it's because they aren't rigged straight or the bait itself is not straight. Keep in mind that Florida fisherman fish mostly shallow. If you want the fluke to sink, using a nail weight or weighed hook will get the job done. If you want to wear yourself out, use one in West Lake Toho in March or April. ☺️

OMG! The all black 9" Fliptail worm was such a big fish magnet. Haven't seen one in years.

No worries. The guy who told me is fishing in a better place. ☺️

The Gambler flapp'n shad is a great bait. Use a twist lock hook with the bait pinned in the nose and the point laying flat across the back. When pulled on top, the tail flaps on the retrieve. Throw it back into the pads and pull it out on top. You can easily pull it all day. When a bass hits this lure, you need to drop back. It works much better than a hard buzz bait as bass will hang onto it. If the guy who told me about this was still alive, he would kill me for posting this. It's all he used on the St. Johns and he caught a ton of bass up to 12 pounds on the flapp'n shad.

My father-in-law loved the green frog colored darter.

I honestly don't think there is a way to retrieve a plastic frog that won't catch bass at one time or another. Frog fishing is awesome when it works. Some of this may be regional, but here in Florida a faster retrieve works better for me. Because of this, I tend to use toads more than hollow frogs. I pull them fast like a buzz bait and drop back on the strike. It took me a while to learn this technique. When you get the timing right, it works well. Here on the St. John's River, old timers use a Gambler Flapp'n Shad the same way. I've seen some real giants caught on that bait.

Somewhere I read that there used to be tournaments where the anglers must use old lures and tackle. I don't know the cut off date, but 1960 seems about right to me. When plastic worms came out, it changed bass fishing forever.

The coolest looking lure I remember from the old days was the Heddon Head-on Basser. I saw one when a childhood friend and I were looking though his Dad's tackle box. The polished steel teeth were awesome. Bass lures had to be big and heavy because the reels we had were horrible. The old man who taught me how to fish made his own Buzz baits out of a cut up table spoon with a spinner on the front. Cranking it with a 3/1 reel was a real task. ☺️

I read once where the Bass Oreno was the highest selling lure in term of numbers back in the day. I'm pretty sure the Rattle Trap has overtaken that category by now. I've only caught one bass on a Bass Oreno and I remember it distinctly as it was right at dusk. I have a number of Sonics in my collection. For those who don't know, it was the first flat lipless crankbait and the great grand daddy of the Rattle Trap. The lure that was popular that I never caught a bass on was the flatfish. Their magazine ads made you want one. I forgot about the Little George. That was a great bait.

I was recently messing with my lure collection when I noticed a few lures that I haven't seen used in a while. These lures were hot back in the early sixties when I first started fishing for bass. Arbogast Jitterbug & Hula Popper. Creek Chub Darter. Heddon Lucky 13. Anyone ever catch a bass on a Bass Oreno? ☺️

When bass fishing, I have been hammering down my reel drags for years. I also fish bass with heavier tackle than most of today's anglers. Bass are pretty predictable. Their runs are short and powerful. With experience, you can anticipate what they are going to do and use your thumb to give line if you have to. Fishing for hard running salt water fish is a lot different. The first big bone fish I ever hooked backlashed an Ambassadour 5500C on the first run against the drag. I've caught sailfish over 100 pounds on 8 pound mono. This would have been impossible without a good drag system. I believe most of today's anglers should use the drag. Bass fishing is different today than it was when I first started. Lines are lighter and finesse fishing is more popular.

Plastic frogs have more wind resistance than most other bass lures. I can chunk a 1/2 oz. Rattle Trap clear across most golf course ponds. When I attempt to do the same thing with a plastic frog, it gets a lot trickier. Add some wind and you are in for some fun times. Take it easy. Accuracy is more important that distance. Reminds me of the 500 pound gorilla on the golf course joke... ☺️

Welcome to the world of braid and frog fishing! This happens to everyone. Frogs are light and tend to catch the wind on the cast. Couple that with the feeling that every cast has to be 300 yards and this is what happens. Make sure your line is tight on the spool. Tightening your spool friction and making smoother less violent casts will help a bunch.

Bass tournament are great for the sport. Anglers benefit from the knowledge they gain. They wake up local government officials and businesses to the financial benefits of good fishing. They sell a lot of boats, accessories and tackle. That said, I don't view bass tournaments as riveting TV. I suspect they televise them to please the sponsors? I record them and fast forward to the good parts. Thank God for Zona or I wouldn't make it through.

I like Zona. I especially liked his old fishing show. He's not your average boring TV host. He knows tournaments and what the anglers are going through. When you get right down to it, watching 100 anglers reel up two pound bass all day can get pretty boring. The last tournament on the upper Mississippi was the best or the worst depending upon how you felt about it.

If you can stand the heat, late August and September can be good for bass fishing here in Central Florida. Our regular afternoon thunderstorms start around that time and it seems to rain almost every afternoon making it very hot and steamy. This brings lake water levels up and the fish follow the water. It is advisable to be off the water before the fireworks start around 3 PM. August and September have been some of my best months for larger fish. Most are caught flipping heavy cover, but lately spinnerbaiting docks has been productive for me. My favorite fall bass month is October. If you ever get a chance to fish the north end of Okeechobee when water is running out of the Kissimmee River, do it.

A neighbor of mine has a 2012 Chevrolet Volt with 70,000 miles showing on the odometer. He took it to our local Chevy dealer and was told he needed a new battery. The quote was $29,842 including $1,700 to install it. He didn't have to buy gas for ten years, now he owns a ten year old car that is basically worthless. My wife drives a ten year old Toyota Avalon that gets about 30 miles per gallon. If she drives the same amount at an average of $3.50 a gallon, she pays about $8,000 for gas. Her Avalon is currently worth about $10K and she will most likely drive it for the rest of her life.

Why is that?

Some years ago I was fishing deep in the Everglades when I noticed a wading bird sitting in a tree that looked to be in distress. I went over to it and the end of it's wing was wrapped in monofilament fishing line and it couldn't free itself from the tree. He looked to be in real trouble and had obviously had been held captive for some time. The bird did not try to fight me as I cut the line to free it. The poor thing just looked at me with a grateful look in it's eyes. I don't know what happened to the bird after that, but I never threw fishing line in the water again. Discarded fishing line does far worse things than mess up your seals.

Over the years my daily driver has been all over the map. Everything from a ten year old beater to new Trucks, Cadillacs, Corvettes, Fords, Lincolns and a even a few Italian and German sports cars. Most everything I have owned has had a trailer hitch. My best friend says I will probably have a hitch on the hearse that takes me to my final resting place. ☺️ In 2020 I purchased what I believe is the best American car I have ever owned, a new Ford Explorer. This car is nothing like the old Explorer and it is truly amazing. It is roomy, rear wheel drive, gets 30 mpg on the highway, tows my Ranger RT178 like it's not back there and looks to be more expensive than it is. In two years of ownership, I have put about 30,000 miles on this vehicle and it has never had a single problem. It has a 300 hp engine with four drive modes and it's quicker than most SUVs at the stoplight. Now that they are outlawing gas cars (seriously?), this may be the last vehicle I ever own and I'm OK with that.