Sphynx

It's a very difficult thing to manage, we are so tempted to become personally invested in the outcomes of the conflicts we serve in, but the reality at the end of the day is that while success on the field of conflict is our lane, whether it results in long term diplomatic or "political" success in the end has very, very little to do with our efforts and getting too emotionally invested is a sure fire way to get your feelings hurt, I sure do hope that we can find a way to get the rest of our folks out of that place without it getting any more messy, the butchers bill after a couple of decades dealing with this from battlefield and follow on casualties is already appalling enough, no need to make it any worse by making bad choices.

This time of year is a bit of a transition period, I had to work pretty hard to figure out new patterns this weekend too, only things in my whole dang tackle bag that got bit were a jerkbait and a Pop-r, I think I probably could have used a fluke instead of a hard Jerkbait, but once I was on them I didn't see any reason to tempt fate lol.

For a bank trip, I typically spend between one and two hours, on Sundays I usually go most of the day excluding whatever chores etc want any looking after, as far as actual fishing while on the bank, I have something FUBAR in my back that the VA/Army assure me is unrelated to my service and could not possibly be related to my four explosions which is oh so comforting, but it does mean that more than 30-45 minutes on my feet begins to get painful and requires a bit of a break to get off my feet, this usually works out well since it gives me a chance to adjust my plan after about a45 minutes to retie lures that will/are working and remove the ones that didn't work out. If I'm on a boat I can fish nearly constantly as long as I have a seat that I can utilize as needed, it's obnoxious back boating and having to cast around power poles/talons and motors as it is, and trying it from a seated position does not help matters, but I don't have much of a choice these days so I have to do what I gotta do to get along and a bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work.

It's a trap, don't fall for it!

Jerkbaits and Pop-R's were the ticket today, they wanted nothing to do with squarebill or lipless cranks, tubes or shakeyhead presentations, I did grab a small fish on a Whopper Plopper 90 in bone, first one of those this year and hopefully not the last

Lots of good options listed here, short and long version is time on the water will have to be put in for a lot of this advice to really sink in, I am pretty sure we have an article here about fishing a 5" Senko, it's as good a place as any to start, try to pay attention when your fishing to what you were doing when you get bit, then try to duplicate that in a similar spot, I bet within 10 to 15 hours of time on the water you will begin to feel much more comfortable with how and where one or two rigs will work, and you'll probably be on your second or third bag of yum dingers or senko's weights and hooks from break offs, that's OK and it's just part of learning how to fish.

I've had good luck with the strike King Sexy Dawg/Sexy Dawg Jr. For a walking bait, still playing around with it but I have a couple of St. Croix Mojo Glass rods that really, really launch stuff, you'd probably have to fiddle with the hooks to get something you could reliably set at the end of a long cast (braid to a leader would be helpful) but I can get a 1/2oz Rat-L-Trap out there a freaking mile with that setup, no reason a spook couldn't be cast just as far.

I have a number of honey holes, and I don't protect them very well, I have taken people directly to them and pointed at the place where the big fish will inevitably be caught, and most of the time they still can't read the conditions well enough to pick a presentation that will get them bit by a good fish, so I really don't worry too much about it out here, if I were in an area with more people that actually put effort into bass fishing I might be a bit more cautious, but that's not really a concern out here, they are all either after trout, steelhead, salmon, sturgeon catfish or walleye.

Been tough sledding out here too, I feel your pain, they'll start to corral baitfish soon and it'll get easier again.

So the grumpy old men named the mystical fish they were after Catfish Hunter...you picked out a name for this wily critter yet?

Take a look at the hardware on your baits, dull hooks are as often the problem as anything else when I don't change anything but start losing more fish than average, you can either touch up the ones on there or else replace them with something newer, but I find hooks dull a lot more swiftly than you might think, as few as 5-10 fish and I have noticed a major difference with some of them.

I have had great success on bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap, Strike King KVD 1.5 squarebills and Red Eye Shad lipless, 6th Sense crush squarebills, just find rocky sections and retrieve over them, good chance you'll get bit eventually.

I think k this year a paddletail of one sort or another has probably outfished everything else I have fished 2 or 3 to one, the only other thing that is really very close is a lipless, very clear to me that smallmouth in the PNW are big baitfish feeders and you can have some very good success on a paddletail.

The Columbia and the Willamette both offer some fine bass fishing opportunities, with fall coming up, I'd recommend focusing heavily on baitfish imitators, paddletail swimbaits, flukes, squarebills, lipless, poppers, topwater walking baits and jerkbaits immediately spring to mind, if they aren't interested in those jigs and tubes ought to get it done for you,

Hey, welcome to BR, which rivers are you fishing? Got several members here that can provide tips and advice specific to your area if you find yourself stuck!

It's worth whatever someone will agree to pay for it.

That is a fact, and the Columbia can produce a few nice sized fish too, biggest ones I've seen are probably in the 4-5lb range, wouldn't be shocked if there was a couple of those in the Willamette too, if catching numbers of fish is how you define success, Oregon isn't a bad spot to get your kicks.

Guess you guys got a reasonable group of soldiers over there then, my old roommate was stationed at Camp Casey and he said somebody always did something to screw the pooch so they couldn't go to Seoul or anywhere to hit the nightlife up, he did introduce us to Soju, and that is a very dangerous substance for a bunch of stupid young privates to discover lol.

I let my mind wander most of the day in the direction of my hobbies, at least the parts that do not require a lot of mental focus, but you show me a guy who has ever driven a commercial vehicle across Interstate 80 in Nebraska who claims they haven't zoned out as they cruised through endless corn fields and I'll show you a guy with a curious relationship with honesty, the same cannot be said however for placed like NYC or LA, Chicago or other constantly dangerous to drive in places, since my fishing probably occurs 90% of the time while I am over the road, I'd say that counts for thinking about it while driving to my spots whether I knew I was going there or not.

The presence of food is an enormous piece of the fish puzzle, doesn't matter if your fishing northern strains, Florida strain, spots, smallies, or any other variety of bass, if there is no baitfish or crawfish or gobies or whatever for them to eat in the area, your not going to find fish very often, also remember that just because there is bait doesn't necessarily mean there are fish, but it does help you eliminate unproductive water to know that an area that won't hold food is a waste of time for a bass fisherman, your eyes and ears will be your best tools for finding bait, you can see and hear them jumping/feeding on the surface or swimming around, see craws and gobies on rocks etc, once you find bait, you can start covering water, lots of great individual bait recommendations already in here for doing that, I imagine @WRB will be able to drop a few particularly valuable pearls of wisdom as usual once you provide the information he has requested too.

Never shot a USP, but I do enjoy the snot out of a number of Sig and Springfield XD models, I tend to favor a single stack 9mm for my daily needs, but I don't use one in a duty sense so my requirements are vastly different, if I had to carry a pistol as a primary escalation of force tool, I would have a short list of firearms that might make the list, Glock would top them, but Springfield, Smith & Wesson, and Sig would all be right up there with them, all of them at this point have service histories that give me confidence that it will handle the abuse a lot of duty guns end up seeing from weather conditions and prolonged periods between cleanings and maintenance, and be able to handle the volumes of ammo I personally insisted on running through them when I was carrying a pistol for professional considerations, I don't think that there is any reason an HK wouldn't make the list out of hand for me except for the fact that I have next to zero experience with the manufacturer, but the age old adage applies, if you are confident in its ability to go bang every time you pull the trigger and you are able to hit what your shooting at, it's probably a solid choice.

I have had great success with lipless and squarebill crankbaits in similar areas in the past, if they are not particularly interested in a feeding bite then perhaps a reaction bite would serve you better, in addition to cranks you might find success on a jerkbait (soft or hard would work well enough in these conditions) or topwater, I find that poppers and walking baits do pretty well fished over rip rap, if you want to stick with something slower on the bottom a finesse football head jig might get stuck less, or since you have current from the incoming water a shakeyhead would probably work well too.

Boy I bet those would do some serious damage on a swing head...

Personally I never have, I carry mine in two different configurations, if I'm beating the bank I use a Cabelas Advanced Angler backpack which can store 5 3600 footprint EDGE boxes stored bottom down, the other way I store them is in my advanced angler bag for when I am on a boat and that stores them on the side, I guess if you were to reach in and try to grab them out by the latch you could theoretically have an issue with them popping open, but it's never been a problem for me.

I like using a Morrish Hopper pattern fly late summer out west here and it has been my experience that when a hopper bite is on and you figure it out and get on it you'll wear them out pretty hard because the fish get plain reckless, works for trout and for bass too.