Sword of the Lord

I'm a shore fisherman and I primarily fish ponds in the open country.

I need to revisit this thread. The Zebco Bullet is... Trash! It worked great for about a month. But then the lockups started. Then the line chewing. And now it sits in a dark closet corner because the pickup pins have failed and the trigger to engage the reel doesn't work. It doesn't/didn't even last nearly as long as a Platinum 33.

Tomorrow will have sustained 20+ MPH winds, but as I work long hours during the week and, living in Illinois, the season is quickly winding down, I'm going out anyways. I know I can't cancel out the wind; it is what it is; it's nature. But are there any tips for fishing accurately in the wind? I'm going to throw lipless cranks and spinnerbaits because that's what they're slamming right now. But when the wind is high I can't fish them where I want them. The wind takes the line that isn't in the water and tosses it to one side, and my retrieve ends up several feet to yards away from where I wanted it.

Everyone has their preference, but over the last couple of months I have personally reached the conclusion that straight fluoro is pointless. It messes up too easily and it takes a lot of care. So, so much easier to use it as a leader and get the same effect. No casting issues (because you're probably using mono or braid as a main line) and you don't have to take extra special care of it to keep it right. My opinion only.

Take a 1/2 oz realistic Rat-L-Trap and a 110 Whopper Plopper. You'll get smacked. Don't just straight retrieve the trap. Pause, pop, retrieve fast the slow, pop, pause. You get the idea.

I would frequently experience multiple skunk fests if I didn't fish multiple bodies of water nearly every time out.

I wouldn't worry about the noise of walking or the click of a reel. As soon as your bait smacks water, all of your stealth just went away.

Looks like the darkest largemouth ever.

My small group and I are a closed lipped bunch! Even more astonishing to me is that these fish were not caught in new or unusual spots. I caught them at pretty much my go-to spot at this pond.

At one of the few regular ponds I fish, I haven been catching ~1-2 pounders all summer on Senkos, various plastic worms, and topwaters. I never pulled out anything bigger at this particular pond all summer. Now for fall, I've been throwing lipless crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and chatterbaits almost all the time. This morning a Rat-L-Trap caught me a 4 and a 6 pounder back to back. I never would have known these fish were here. I'm kind of in awe that they would not take Senkos or big worms all summer, or hell even craws. But throw burner baits and the fatties move. I have filmed at this pond before for a small, closed group, and have often said, "There's no big fish in here, but I love this place because of the vast numbers."

Looks like a paradise dude, throw some line in it.

One of the things you do is, DO NOT let them jump, if you can help it. Keep your rod tip low and try to keep them down. Another thing is, don't give them any slack. Keep them tight. The hookset isn't as good with treble hooks. I could be wrong, but I've personally attributed it to the hooks being smaller and not getting as deep. You'll lose as many fish as you catch on treble hook baits until you get it down: Stay low, don't let 'em jump, keep it tight. And then even after you get it down, you'll still lose a good portion. Also make sure they have the bait before setting. Instead of out right missing, you could be just barely catching them and thus they're easily off.

20-21 inches so 4-5 lbs there about. What I figured. The second one was shorter so pretty sure she was 2.5-3 lbs, which is what the bass in the OP appears to be.

False. Once eyes adjust you can definitely tell which one has a bigger profile.

Looks smaller than my best September LMB. I didn't have a scale and thought she was 4 lbs. Who knows? Anyone have a guess? The bass your friend caught looks more like this one I caught from about 2 weeks ago and she was definitely only about 3 lbs, MAYBE.

I dunno about all that, to be honest. I start at this little bity hole every weekend using the exact same lures and colors and snag several LMB before moving on to my preferred ponds for bigger bass.

As an avid pond basser, this 100%. The baitfish here is all bluegill. I have noticed this season that where the bluegill are in big packs, the bass aren't there! Rarely ever will I get bit where the baitfish are. Then I move to the logical spots. Weedlines, overhanging trees, weedbeds, and there they are! It's like going to the refrigerator when you need or want to as opposed to following the food truck around because you don't want to lose it.

We don't really know how the cover is or isn't. Really trying to be middle of the road, so to speak.

I'm hiking to a new isolated pond with my buddy this weekend and I need to go light for the journey, so I'm taking 2 setups and the following: A 3/8 oz spinnerbait. A 1/2 oz lipless crankbait. A 110 Whopper Plopper. A couple of 10.5 inch worms with 1/4 oz bullet weights. I'm going with a 7 ft MH/F casting setup spooled with 14# mono. I'm also taking a spinning outfit for Senkos with the option of Wacky or Texas. 6'6" MF. 10# mono with a 10# 5' fluoro leader. Anything you guys would alter with these setups? Particularly the casting setup to be able to do all that I want to do "good enough"?

Lipless, spinners, chatters, topwaters. Moving lures. They're actively feeding. And Senkos are good always. This is a really active period for bass though so think movement. Anything that is swimming. Can't forget jerkbaits

Right there with you man. They talk about sensitivity being better in more expensive rods, but just like I can't tell the difference between a $50 bottle of wine and a $5 bottle of wine, I've never noticed. Pretty much all of my rods are Lightning rods (not Shock!) and my reels are AG Silver and Black Max. Just good, middle of the road stuff. Nobody can change my very personal opinion that rods and reels for hundreds of dollars is a waste of money. It's also my very personal opinion that people go top shelf just because they can, basically a pi$$ing contest. Just how I view it. I'm not going to straight up tell people that, but I think it, and that's fine. Whatever floats your boat.

Pond fishing always seems to be excellent here in Central Illinois. They're stocked, they're hungry, and you can basically fish the whole thing and hit every spot.

Mono and fluoro will look like a nest when you take it off the reel....

Sometimes I film for a closed, small bass community. This is a bad video. Like, really bad. But I viewed it again earlier and noticed that it holds the key to bass fishermen catching bass or not: Knowing spots, locations. I'm fishing a whopper plopper in this short video. I get two strikes. One miss and one catch. The only two times in the video that I say something along the lines of "that's a good spot, that will get a fish", I get bit. The key is knowing where. Truly.

Yeah but it's like a woman who needs just the right angle and lighting vs the one who is always pretty no matter the angle or lighting.