buzzbaiter83

I don’t like seeing people kill fish for the heck of it. I’ve seen people carry them around in a bucket to show off until they throw them away. I have no problem with anyone taking fish home to eat. I love eating fish. Especially fish that I’ve caught. I know where it’s been & how it’s been handled. Crappie, bluegill, Walleye, Catfish, white bass, & even the occasional spotted bass from our local lake that’s overrun with them. I don’t eat trophy fish though or even lm & sm bass. There are species that taste much better to me. I don’t like seeing people take trophy bass from a fishery to eat but that’s their right. But then then again I love hunting game to eat & growing my own garden. I like being as self sufficient as possible. Catch & release is great and I do my fair share but to me fishing was invented for the purpose of catching fish to eat. I say to each his own.

I love watching bassfishing YouTube videos. If I watch any pros I watch Jacob Wheeler, Hunter Shryock, Brandon Palaniuk, & occasionally Scott Martin. I also like a lot of the normal guys. *** has great content & I enjoy some of LTB videos. That being said, YouTube content is made for people with different preferences. If I learn something new & out of the box then it’s well worth it. If not, I’ve gotten some entertainment anyways. I’ve never seen an unboxing video but that’s not my cup of tea. If it’s helping new anglers get out on the water then I’m all for it. There’s a lot worse kids could be doing than making YouTube fishing videos.

I know FLA, TX, & CA are the big 3 but if I could only choose 1 state to fish for the rest of my life it would be between Alabama & Tennessee.

I like Dingers. I like the softness of the bait. I mostly Neko Rig them. I like other stick baits like Senkos and Shim-E-Sticks too. I haven’t noticed a difference in fish catching ability between them so I stick with the cheap Yums.

I watched bass in my pond & local lakes launch themselves out of the water after dragonflies. I’ve had success trimming a senko, putting 2 crossed o-rings with something between them like a rubber and to imitate wings and casting to them. Ive had bass at Chik in the fall completely jump out of the water when hitting a frog in the grass. It looks like those videos of great white sharks attacking a fake seal.

Jesse Wiggins fished team tourneys with his brother out of an old boat of their grandpas starting out. They won 2 big tournaments on Smith Lake by fishing next to the launch because the motor was so old it wouldn’t crank in the cold. You don’t have to be born with a silver spoon to make it if you have the knowledge, drive & skill.

I think your lake #2 & my lake are the same. I also think I fish tournaments out of your lake #4. ??

1. Lipless Crankbaits produce the biggest fish Feb-May. 2. Crawfish baits are useless 3. The only Shad that come close to bank are <3” long. 4. May-Nov bass are as likely to be caught casting a small square bill in the middle of the lake as they are around cover or bank. 5. Decent bass only come near bank between 4am-10am May-Nov. 6. Small baits work best if fishing soft plastics. 7. Bass change their patterns for no rhyme or reason what so ever. Doesn’t matter if the weather/temps/lake levels/pressure are constant, fish will be different each day. 8. No matter if you have 3lb or 16lb, you may win a tournament on any day.

I may be one of the few who find it easier to lip a fish out of my kayak than my bass boat. Maybe because I have long arms, I dunno. I hold the rod in my hand opposite of the fish. Stretch out my arm and then lip the fish with the hand closest to the fish. I would definitely use a landing net if I had trouble lipping. I like the ones made of silicone instead of mesh.

You can still fish a wacky worm if you can find some wacky hooks with weedguards. You won’t get snagged nearly as much. I like VMC & Gamakatsu brands. Swimjigs are excellent choices in heavy cover. Good luck.

??. @EGbassing I was building a house and had a bunch of stuff stored in his garage. It was coming a flash flood and we moved everything out in a hurry to my new place. He took a misstep getting out of the truck.

I agree! Especially with a mushroom jig like a Ned Rig where all the weight is in one area at the head. When he jumps he’s gonna shake that lead head around. Barbless hooks are going to fail a high % of the time.

Rest will rarely cure back pain unless it’s just a muscle strain. You want to work on mobility & strengthen your core & erectors. Find a physical therapist who is actually fit & they will tell you the same. YouTube has some videos from good physical therapist with mobility videos. Kelly Starret & MobilityWod saved my back after years of Olympic Weightlifting with poor stretching. My dad pretty much dropped a washer on me & I caught it bent over one day and destroyed my lower back. I have lifted weights all my life & I struggled for months no matter how much I rested or stretched. Found MobilityWod on YouTube and in a few weeks my lower back was almost 100%. Couch stretches, flossing the muscle with rollers & balls, & working on my piriformis & psoas fixed me. Then I did the necessary work to strengthen my posterior chain & core. Rarely does my yak give me soreness now.

There’s just not a lot of fish in EKY unless we’re talking Laurel, Yatesville, or Paintsville Lakes. I live in SEKY. Our local lakes have been as tough as I’ve seen them this year. It’s been a weird weather year, especially since May. If I can give you any advice it would be to pick up a spinning rod with 6-8lb test and learn some finesse techniques. Drop-shot, wacky-rig, Neko Rig, & Ned Rigs are the only things producing any fish for me locally right now. Hope that helps.

I can honestly say I’ve never kept count of how many fish I’ve caught for a year. Unless it’s something I’m eating with a limit like crappie or walleye I don’t even keep up with how many I’ve caught in a single day.

Clip the middle with a set of clippers before you bend it down. It’ll make it a 2 pronged weedless guard. The plastic won’t slide down either. Fixed that same problem for me one night when I ran out of VMCs. Now I’ll use the Gamakatsu’s just as much.

Love Rage Craws. I didn’t think they could get better until I started Neko Rigging them.

80% of the tournaments I fish are night tourneys. We start in daylight hours but end between 4 or 5am. We run 50-60mph at night, even faster if we need to get back fast. The river channel is 60-140ft deep depending on the lake we’re fishing. If there’s been rain or we notice any logs or trash on our way out we move slower than normal back to the dock. We use our Q-Beam to check for floating objects. If we see a boat it gets a couple flashes in the air. There’s plenty of room for boats to travel. Our lakes are typically clean of debris. The only real danger is a dock or boat that’s came untied and floated out. We’re constantly checking. Teamwork is the key to night running like @catt said.

There’s not really a bad way to retrieve it. I’ve had the most success stroking it like a jig and then shaking it after the fall in this warm weather.

I’ll start fishing nights in April wearing coveralls and continue all the way til November. Just like the daytime bite you’ll catch more numbers in spring and fall but I agree with @Catt about summertime and the predictability of big bass. They’re gonna be holding deep on some structure whether it’s a point, hump, ledge, or whatever. You just gotta find them.

Saw the same thing on Douglas Lake last month. Water was up as high as I’ve seen it there. Could see dorsal fins shallow in people’s yards around trees. Told my partner they had to be carp. Threw a frog for the heck of it and caught one. Caught several more. No big ones but definitely surprised me. Maybe eating night crawlers that got flooded out of their holes. I’ve seen them do that in my backyard pond up shallow in rising water.

Catfish, drum, & striper we’re all surprising to me. I’ve honestly caught about every game fish we have in East TN except a walleye on it.

I’m pretty sure most of the half dressed “outdoor personality” females on instagram are posting pictures with bass they’ve “caught”. But seriously my wife is a great fisherman. She’s does as well as anyone else I take when she gets the chance to go. Fishing just doesn’t rank as high on her hobby priority list as it does on mine.

Go at dusk. Fish til you get tired. Night time fishing is peaceful. It’s quiet and everything slows down. If I had to pick a timeframe though I’d launch around 11-12pm and fish til just after daylight.

Clear water is my favorite for throwing a bluegill colored swimjig with a Keitech swing impact fat paddletail. Swimjigs have become one of my favorite lures over the past couple years.