papajoe222

Welcome to BR. Take some time to check out the videos and articles. Search the different forums,too. There’s a lot to learn here. Start with seasonal patterns and expand on them. Spring, if you know some spawning areas, pre spawn areas you can up your catch rate by focusing on them. Postspawn areas will be similar to the pre spawn ones, but a little tougher to produce. Summer, Concentrate on cover, both man made and natural. Any with deep water nearby are prime. Bottom transition areas can be goldmines Fall, treat it similar to spring, but follow the forage. When there is current from heavy rainfall, look for anywhere the current is interrupted and look for areas where the water clears up.

Fish Head underspin for exposed hook. https://discounttackle.com/products/fish-head-spin-underspin-jig?_pos=5&_sid=64ac221b3&_ss=r Flashy Swimmer for weedless.

If I could throw only one of the two, it'd be a silent one. If water clarity gets to the point where the fish need a rattle to get their attention, it isn't where I want to be throwing a jerkbait. I have and will throw a rattling version in super clear water for smallmouth as they will come up 20+ft. to hit one. I believe that rattle on the twitch gets their attention and as long as I pause it long enough after the twitch, I don't concern myself about the noise factor.

When I suspect this is happening to my presentations, I break out my blade baits and tail spins. I present them similar to a jigging spoon with more of a slow, steady raise of the rod tip and then letting it fall on semislack line. The fast drop after the slower rise, triggers any bass that may have followed it up. Steep drops and bluffs get the same treatment most anytime of year.

I Would call it technique specific and yes I am very much so inclined. I have purchased or built rods specific to the technique I plan to use them for. Some have dual purpose, but the intended one is why I have it. One specific rod is one I built on a medium/mod spinning rod blank rated for 1/8-3/8oz. The only presentation I use it for is hair jigs, specifically 1/8-3/16oz. ones. Paired to a Daiwa Alphas and 6lb. mono, anytime I feel the need to 'finesse' that rod is on my deck. I could use my jerkbait rod, which would be a suitable substitute, but then what would I use for jerkbaits?

I only throw two styles of worms, ribbon tail and straight tail. If I were forced to choose one over the other, the ribbon tail would be my choice. Culprit, Zoom and NetBait. If I weighed them all, I'd bet somewhere around ten pounds at the season's end. Add five for the spring opener.

I'll continue to learn what makes women such complex creatures. I've studied my wife for 55yrs and I'm still only halfway into the forward of that book.

Jeez. How hard do you need to set the hook on a frog? Better yet, why are you posting about fishing for frogs (it's called frogging BTW), this is a bass fishing forum. OH YEA, I'd say something about your hair color, but it isn't necessary. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. In my hayday, we used 5.5ft. broomstick rods and mono for fishing plastic worms. I would remove all slack while pointing my rod tip at the water, swing as hard and fast as could upward and end up with the rod tip somewhere between 11:00 and 12:30. With the newer rods and line, I never get it past 2:00, but I still try.

We had a thread here for jokes. I'm too lazy to look for it, so I thought I'd start a new and improved one. It really isn't new and it's only improved because yours truly thought to revive it. Some of my favorites are blond jokes; Three blonds are sitting on a river bank each with a pole in hand. The game warden approaches and asks to see their licenses. We don't have them because we don't need them. What do you mean you don't need them, you're obviously fishing. With that all three reel in their lines and attached to the end were magnets. See, says the first blond, no hooks just magnets. We drag them along the bottom collecting all sorts of debris and cleaning up the river in the process. Well I guess you're right. You don't need a license for that. Have fun and thanks for your efforts. As soon as he was out of earshot the blonds began laughing so hard their sides started to ache. What a moron! How'd he ever get to be a game warden? Doesn't he know there are steelhead in this river?

The guy in the cart looks like a regular poster her on BR, but there's no doubt about the guy pushing him. Next time, just give Glen a call. Heck, he may even escort you to your boat. BTW, I liked your old avitar better. Just saying.

JCfishing mentioned something in the fall turnover thread about fishing the fog on the lake early in the morning. This got me wondering about fishing early on fall days as I've always waited until the sun was up for three or four hours. My thinking was the cool evening temps had cooled off the surface layer of water and the sun would warm it up a little if given the chance. I've even waited until mid afternoon on days when the air temp and cloudy skies worked against that train of thought. What say you? I know, get out whenever you can, but if you have a choice?

I had the opportunity to fish Lake Geneva for the first time in years, with my nephew in his jon boat. It has a little kicker outboard, no trolling motor or depth finder. It didn't matter, this lake is known for its steep drop offs and I fondly remember some awesome smallmouth action on one that's on the north shore. I began throwing a short arm spinnerbait and hooked up with a nice SM just after we got there. Two hours and four SM later, he still had nothing to show. We were throwing the same Booyah spinnerbait, but I hadn't noticed that when I did the modification, I'd added a second skirt to mine. The extra bulk and slower fall rate was the difference and upon adding a second skirt, he was finally into fish. We ended up with ten fish combined. I recall doing this (adding a second skirt) to jigs years ago to slow the fall rate. Don't know why I hadn't thought of it sooner for S/Bs. does anyone else make this modification to jigs or spinnerbaits?

I am just looking to extend my season and was thinking I might hook up with Mike @Siebert Outdoors as he is about 350mi. south of me. I’m getting way up in years and don’t know how many fishing seasons I have left. Hoping to extend the ones I do.

Well, I didn't expect this for a couple of weeks, but my home lake is in the process of turning over. It's a small, shallow body of water and it doesn't take long for this to happen. Given the colder than normal nights we've been having, I should have expected it. Once things settle down, I have a strategy for getting some of the big gals to commit, but the lake closes at the end of the month so I won't have many opportunities left to do so. How far south would I need to go to find a lake that doesn't turn over, or is it common, just further down the calendar?

Congrats! I know what it's like to endure a long dry spell. My home waters haven't given up anything over 3.5lb since mid June. The powers that be decided to kill off all the weeds. Catching was excruciatingly difficult and then some invasive form of pondweed took hold and I had to learn tricks to get them to bite, but still no big girls until late September. Once the water temp dropped into the lower 70's, I was finally able to put together some nice catches.

Be him then? No Know what he knows now (and be able to remember it). YES! I know what it's like to target the biggest fish in a lake. That said, I forgot most of what I learned then, not only about trophy size bass, but bass in general. What I haven't forgotten is the days that my efforts produced nothing but frustration and questioning myself as to why I still do (did) it? I do have plenty of memories of what I consider trophy bass from lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota that I revisit in my dreams. Thankfully I don't have nightmares about the time I wasted chasing them.

It's actually one of my favorite presentations when the bite is tough. I really don't like finesse fishing, so I'll try burning a crank, or a razor bladed spinnerbait through hard cover, or just above vegetation. I don't have to guess when a fish bites. My favorite crank for that is a Speed Trap.

Anything below 32 and it gets tough. For me, it seems that smallmouth will hit topwater in late fall when water temps drop less than in the spring when the surface temps are rising. I don't normally throw topwater unless the water temp is above 50.

I've fished everything from small, subdivision ponds to the Great Lakes. I'll fish a rain puddle if it's my only option. Picking a favorite is fairly easy for me........a Minnesota or Wisconsin natural lake. I get overwhelmed by big impoundments and small ponds are like cheating. Give me the challenge and the reward of figuring out the secrets of a natural lake and I'm in my element.

I've heard that when using Tsi321, you need to relube frequently. Any truth to that? IMO, how smooth a reel feels is dependent more on how well the drive gears match up more than the grease used. I do know that some companies use a high viscosity grease on their reels so they 'feel' smoother, but I have two Sols that are super smooth and have been since the first day I got them. The third one needed some polishing of the main gear to get it on par with its sisters.

I'm red/green color blind. Until I began keeping my soft plastics in their original packaging, I couldn't tell you if I was throwing a green pumpkin or watermelon worm. Of course I mainly throw purple worms (they look blue to me), so the problem rarely raised its ugly green head. or is it red? 😜 This is why I rarely concern myself with what color to use.

I was catching a bite to eat after the first day of a tournament. Another angler, I never got his name, was talking about fishing the entire water column, in an area where he'd located fish during practice, before giving up on a spot. I didn't have the kind of free time to prefish a tourney, but it got me to thinking about structure I had been targeting. Next day out, I began with the top of the water column on a small point that didn't show on any of the maps I'd checked out. I switched to a mid depth crank, caught a limit of nice fish and moved to another, bigger point. I continued to catch and cull from that one and finished in the money. Now I don't leave a spot I have confidence in until I fish the whole water column. Or a 20lb. flathead. It's happened to me twice this year, but without FFS.

Your best bet is a rod with #5 or larger tip and running guides. For a 7ft. spinning rod,that would be the last three or four guides. That's approximately a .200 in. diameter. Smaller may work, and with a spinning rod, a little catch of your knot running through the guides isn't a big concern. My question, though, is why go braid to leader? A quality mono has the same amount of stretch as its fluoro equivalent and you don't need to concern yourself with the question of 'how short should I let my leader get before I retie. Your monkey.....your circus.

Yea, I figured it was a poor choice to ise, but like i’d said, the kid was using it, without much success I might add. It was his first tome using a baitcaster. He never backlashed, but in the super clear water, his short casts didn’t produce much. That combo is a StCroix spinnerbait rod, Fuego and 15lb. Yo-Zuri Ultra Soft.

I normally use Yo-Zuri Hybrid for fishing spinner and buzz baits, but yesterday I took a youngster out and he was using my spinnerbait combo, so I tied a buzzer on to my 7ft. MH/F combo spooled with 30lb. braid. I missed way too many fish that I felt I should have hooked up with. Is braid a poor choice for this, or was the rods action too fast, or a combination of both?