Brett Stair

I’m recently back to fishing and bass fishing and can’t catch a dang fish in Texas. I’ve been on Cedar Creek three times in different areas in the south, Athens once, and bank fished at Eagle Mountain and Cedar Creek. I’ve had one bite at Athens on a Texas rigged worm but lost him when he jumped out of the water. (With right handed reel I set the hook left and left the rod high trying to reel... two no no’s) I’ve fished the following: on Cedar Creek - tx rig worm/craw/lizard/baby brush hog/magic shad, spinner bait with Colorado blade/ Colorado/willow blades plain and with craw trailer/magic shad trailer/baby brush hog trailer, square bill, zman Chatterbait plain and with magic shad trailer, and even a top water frog. on Eagle Mountain - tx rig worm/craw, spinner bait, Chatterbait on Athens - tx rig worm/baby brush hog/lizard, spinner baits with and without the magic shad trailer, top water devils horse, Chatterbait, and a drop shot swim bait. I've slow rolled, crawled the bottom, burned, twitched, bounced.... just about every way to retrieve I can think of and covered the water column as much as possible. Mostly been fishing from the back of the boat and my father in law has only caught three fish in these trips as well all from the front. We’ve been fishing the shallows and creek channels with no idea if they’ve spawned on Cedar Creek because the water is so muddy to deep stained. It’s post spawn on Athens because we saw a lot of abandoned beds. We’ve been fishing from predawn to afternoon or late evening. What the the heck do I have to do to catch a dang fish?

Howdy from Texas! I’m returning to bass fishing after 20+ years away from fishing in general. I remember days long past fishing with my dad and grandad or the ponds on my uncles property and catching all kinds of mostly large mouth bass. Only problems now... they are all gone. Now I’ll mostly fish with my father in law on Cedar Creek Lake in Texas or from the bank at a lake near Fort Worth. Currently I have an Abu Garcia Revo SX 6.4 paired with a 7’1” Cabela’s Med-Heavy fast action Tournament ZX rod and an Abu Garcia ProMax 7.1 on a 7’ Berkley Cherrywood HD Med-Heavy fast action rod. I’m considering taking the promax setup back to Wal-Mart and getting a better reel and rod more set up for flipping. Plus the Revo is left handed and I actually prefer casting right and reeling left. Any advice is appreciated.

Oh great.... now I’m wondering if my newbie setup is all messed up. (found the site a few weeks too late evidently). Here’s what I have and now I’m wondering if I need to switch applications or rods and reels... or what my next set up should be. 1st rod I got is Berkeley Cherrywood HD 7’ MHF with an Abu Garcia ProMax 7.1:1 that I put 12 lb Trilene XT on for my flipping, pitching, and skipping rod (when what I am capable of doing is worthy of being called any of the three). 2nd rod ended up becoming a 7’1” Cabelas Tournament ZX MHF with an Abu Garcia 3rd gen Revo SX 6.4 with 12# Trilene Big game for my spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, and crankbaits. (Long story short ... the Revo was discontinued and in the bargain cave for $70 and I couldn’t say eno... was planning on a lews speed spool 5.4:1 with a 7’2” mhef when I went in.) Should i I switch applications or swap reels on the rods? What should my next setup be? and I’m still trying to figure out the baitcasters which is why they both have mono on them at the moment.