Black Hawk Basser

Dremel?

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef

I've done well this summer with Tokyo rigs, fishing them nearly vertically around docks. I've had better results than I usually have with a Texas rig.

Popper, worked slowly. The deal around here in peak summer is bluegills riding high in the water column over deep water. The bass are below them. Consistent pattern every year in any water body where there is a deep basin area.

I guess I'm going by In Fisherman, who said they see all kinds of dead crappies and bluegills floating directly under the ice in winter from deep catch and release. They also said that you'd have to reel in a fish over the course of like a half hour...sorry to get off topic. I'm done.

Don't forget that the mortality rate can be high for fish caught in 25+ feet of water due to barotrauma.

He's on a roll lately! 13" yellow bass - 3" longer than required for a Iowa Master Angler award.

Yes, catfish always seem to do that. It was too girthy to get a handle on it around its body so that was the only way I could get a picture without putting it on the boat floor. Here's my thumb today.

Haha! My thumb hates me for doing that. He thrashed hard and scraped it up pretty good. I didn't want to let it wallow around and slime up my boat!

Caught this beast on a jug line with a piece of sunfish that we caught the day before.

My little guy and me went to our favorite pond to troll some baits for panfish, as he just loves doing that. While we were cruising around the pond perimeter, I noticed a very fishy looking irregularity in the weed line that I just had to toss my watermelon red flake Stik-O at. Bam! Didn't measure length or weight, but it was definitely my best for the year.

Except if you need to pound a nail, it's intuitively obvious that you need a hammer. There are dozens of bass 'tools', and one could fish their whole life and do just fine without some of them. This thread may help to enlighten those that haven't even considered trying some of these bass tools.

I've ripped Countdowns for years, but generally they catch more walleye than bass around here. You could always swap out for larger hooks or add lead tape to any suspending jerkbait to make it a sinker.

Nope, I have not heard of this. Do you substitute the milk in place of the club soda?

Love me a good mojito.

I really like the poisontail mold, but I think I'd rather go with the Arkie.

I just use a sling pack with a box or two for hooks/sinkers/lures and about 10 more bags of plastics than I would ever need. ?

Booyah Poppin Pad Crasher, or if soft plastics count, Zoom UV Speed Worm

I'll try some Big Game. Any size braid I've tried has been cut with ease by a hard charging bass.

Flipping docks is my bread and butter at my home lake this time of year, as it is a somewhat featureless dishpan type of lake. What line would you recommend to help reduce break-offs from rubbing on dock poles, boat lifts, etc? I know that some breakage is inevitable, but I'd like to see if I can put the odds a little more in my favor. Line visibility is not much of a factor - this lake gets nasty algae blooms in the summer.

I was pointing that out to my wife Saturday! After further examination, I think it's now been identified as an insect.

I hopped onto a milk run of docks to check to see if they have set up under them yet since mid-June is usually when that happens here. Yep, they are where I thought they'd be! I'm going out on the boat in the early AM to see what I can do with some really big baits for some bigger fish. I'm ready for some big girls after a somewhat disappointing spring for size. I'm ok with taking the skunk at this point. Addendum: So, my morning in the boat did not go as planned. Of course, the wind had to blow 40 mph! Boat control was nearly impossible, and I lost two fish on dock break-offs. Just one of those days....I did manage to boat this chunker, though, on a homemade jig with a Chigger Craw trailer. Possibly my best one of the year, which was what I set out to do. Looks like some bass are just starting the post spawn feed, as you can see from her still-wounded tail.

I don't think it's a bad idea to snell any up-eye hook.

I like the Berkley Fusion 19's. They have a fluoro weedguard that doesn't seem to get in the way.

I do it, and I can look at and feel the evidence of the usage on my fingers and think back on my awesome day of fishing.