Doelman

Haha, well if she fishes I would be absolutely shocked, much less have an account on here. Maybe if she knew I was posting pictures of her "cess"pool on a forum, it would motivate her to take care of it. I'll have to remember this fish when I'm swatting mosquitoes when I'm in the garden.

I have the trokar weedless wacky hooks and I actually seem to get a better hook up ratio with the gammy weedless wacky hooks. Also put me in the camp of someone that has never broken a hook on a bass, bent? sure, but not broken. I have had a few break in saltwater though.

I'm strictly a paddle fisherman and I always troll a bait while moving between spots. I do not troll crankbaits while I'm moving spot to spot, because I don't want to have to worry about getting snagged on the bottom, also some cranks can create a lot of resistance and that slows you down. I do troll crankbaits when I'm actually trying to troll though. I've caught bass on a large number of lures while moving around. Up north, Mepps spinners have been the best bait to troll and almost anything will bite them. Down here in the south, I've had excellent luck trolling swim jigs, shallow running jerk baits, some top water baits like wake baits, plastics, swim baits. Really anything that has action with a simple retrieve can be trolled behind the boat, it just depends on what they want that day.

The worst thing we can do is politicize keeping our waters clean. I think we're all on the same side here in wanting to have healthy fish to eat, clean water to swim in, and garbage free waters to enjoy. Here in Alabama the health department issues fish consumption warnings every year, there are literally hundreds of waterways in this state with some kind of fish consumption warning, there are several that tell you not to eat ANY kind of fish at all. That's just absurd, we should never consider this acceptable, and it's all because corporations and individuals want to make greater and greater profits at the expense of out waterways. http://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/tox/assets/2017-al-fish-consumption-advisory-final-july-6-2017.pdf You don't realize how dirty and polluted our waters are until you spend some time in virtually untouched waters of the world. As an aside, I have no idea how good the fish was off Venice before, but I had a trip down there this year and the fishing was excellent. I strongly suggest anyone that wants to experience world class blue water fishing to book a trip down there. The river itself was absolutely nasty though, so much trash.

My neighbor has decided to create a wildlife sanctuary in her backyard. I suppose she's trying to bolster the local population of frogs and mosquitoes. The frogs are fine, and actually nice to listen to at night, but the skeeters form vampiric clouds, even during midday, so I decided to do something about it. I thought about buying some goldfish and putting them in there, but if she saw goldfish in there she would know someone dumped them in and might cause a stink. The next best thing? Gambusia (mosquito fish) these guys are native and will eat the crap out of some mosquito larvae. A quick drive to a friend's lake house with net, bucket, and of course a rod in tow, because you can't ever get next to a body of water without at least taking one cast. An hour and a few dozen mosquito fish later, I'm about to leave and take a cast with a swim jig. Reel reel reel pop reel reel pop reel WHAM a short fight and there she is, my personal best large mouth bass at 7 lbs. I wonder if I should thank my neighbor?

You're fishing for bass, not Tuna, set your drag at an appropriate setting and let it be. Like what was said above, you can use your hand to slow the fish down if you want by applying pressure to the side of the spool, but I would only do that if you think you're going to get tangled in something. Increasing drag pressure increases your chance of a hook being pulled out or straightened, knot being pulled, or an unknown weakness in the line snapping. Let the fish pull some drag, it's more fun that way anyway.

The key to bleeding fish is to get it in the water ASAP, fish blood clots in the water, not the air. I've released fish that were bleeding and see them come back up a few minutes later, I've also released fish and never saw them again, just depends.

yes, you can, just make sure you inspect the snap and leader every time you change the bait out. Those snaps will eventually wear out, just make sure to get good quality smaller snaps.

your state's DNR may have bathygraphic maps, I would check there first since they would be free.

I've never fished Blue Ridge Lake but I have fished a little in the Toccoa and caught some SMB in there.

Big Pike, Big Bass, they're all fun to catch. Throw a big mepps out there, pike love em.

You have six feet of visibility? I usually consider that fairly clear water and fish it as such.

I have a couple packs of the TRDs coming in, I'll try them out next to the half senkos I have and see how they do. Maybe I'm a hoarder, but I really hate to waste all these perfectly fine leftover senko halves, I have at least 40.

Typically when I'm fishing out of a canoe, I have a partner in the boat and we never have issues with speed. This year, I find myself doing a lot of solo paddling. I can get around fine, but it's really hard for me to get enough speed to troll cranks properly. Using a canoe paddle I'm constantly having to j stroke and/or rudder to keep it straight, bleeding speed off. I've tried using a kayak paddle and I can get the speed I want, but everything in front of me gets soaked, including my legs. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I bought a chatterbait a few months ago and it's been sitting in my tackle box ever since. Fishing was really really slow this weekend so on a whim I threw it on, managed to get a couple fish and a chunky #4 with it on a steady retrieve. What techniques and what kinds of conditions do you guys like to use chatterbaits?

Summertime afternoon thunderstorms while you're in the middle of the lake in a man powered watercraft. The most annoying thing human wise for me is when you're fighting a big fish and a boat passes right in front of you, right over your fish/line. I've lost a few good fish this way from prop cut offs.

It's pretty common to get hung up on timber with a fish on, but rocks? If it's exposed rock, I could see it happening, but you would see it stuck on the rock. It's possible a fish might get you stuck on some submerged rocks on occasion, but if it's happening often it isn't fish, you're just getting stuck. You're fishing in a river/stream? Current can really really mess with you, when you get snagged in current your line is going to feel somewhat tight, the current is literally pulling on the bow of the line in the water because both ends (rod and lure) aren't moving, so all the force is pulling on the line, it really can feel like a fish. The line is going to "move" as you reel it in until that bow is out and your fishing line is making a straight line to the bait. If you still think it's bass dragging you into the rocks, get a stiffer rod, turn the drag up, make sure you pull it full force out when you set the hook, and don't give it an inch of slack. That's how we grouper fish, big grouper dive back into the reef as soon as their hooked and it's the only way to keep them out.

Haven't used it much for LMB in the south, but a mepps #5 aglia dressed up in canoe country is killer for SMB, as well as pike and walleye.

What they said, simply get out and walk it in areas that are really shallow, ankle deep water isn't going to sweep you off your feet. Your yak is going to get dinged and scratched up, it isn't a Ferrari. You aren't going to have much fun yaking anywhere if you're always stressing yourself out about scratching it up. With that said, you can buy stick on keel guards that will help protect it a bit.

Don't waste money on an O-ring tool, just use your needle nose pliers, works just as well. Slide the oring over the end of the pliers, open them up, slide the plastic in, pop the oring off the pliers. Easy Peasy.

I've always just used a stringer when fishing inshore. Some people like blues, not my favorite but cooked right they're fine to eat.

I don't understand this argument, how is fish grips any worse than lipping a bass with your hand? Yeah, if you try to lift a big bass horizontal with a boga you're going to rip it's jaw off, but you would do the same with your hand. If anything I think it's better for the fish to use a boga, that way you won't drop it into the boat which is one of the worst things you can do to a fish. Don't even get me started with these idiots that drag fish onto the bank....

Good advice guys, thanks! I guess I should start trying out the ned rig, I have a bag full of ripped in half senkos that might work.

I don't know, I've fished most of my life and the majority of that was with 8-10 lb mono. If the hook didn't even penetrate the bait, it wasn't the line causing it. I wouldn't use 8 lb mono anymore either, so I would still change it, but your issue is more than the line. Could just be a string of bad luck too, if the bait isn't in its mouth right there's nothing you can do to get a good hook set.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet, make sure you're reeling down on the fish before setting the hook. On soft plastics, you always want to feel the weight of the fish before setting the hook, your "power" is at the lower half of your hook set motion, not at the top half. This becomes even more important when you're using larger hooks, which require more force to set, with larger fish who also require more force to set, mixed with mono which also requires more force to set. The biggest problem I've seen when people fish with soft plastics is that they set the hook as soon as they feel a bite. You should feel the bite, pause, reel down until you're atleast parallel with the water and you feel the weight of the fish, and then set the hook.