Allaroundfishing

I cant agree more last October i was practicing for my high school tournament on lake Gaston. there were 5+ mph winds and a little chop with complete overcast. from 6:30 to 3 I either caught or had strikes on the whopper Plopper. My dad was throwing a spinner bait behind me and sometimes a buzz just to see if he could figure out another pattern. we only landed 4 fish but we were purposely trying to lose them or make them miss so we could save them for tourney day. I had bought two just for giggles and finally got to use them and let me tell you just the amount of strikes i had made me a sure believer in them.

Anyone on the forum going to the raleigh fishing expo this weekend? Well anyone in the area that is ?

In all honestly I dont have one person pegged but someone like jason christie who has been a stick the past few years or maybe seth feider he has had quite the run when it comes to smallmouth so i definitely would not rule him out. but it could be a wild card like caleb sumrall or bill lowen

I was wondering if anyone on this forum have watched or currently watch a fellow on youtube named Marling Baits. He makes all sorts of lures not all of them conventional or even something you would fish with but he makes all of them fishable even if not practical but he truly is an amazing craftsman. If you don't watch him or even don't watch youtube at all i would check him out he might teach you a thing or two or even give you inspiration for your own designs. ?

yea I know that yamahas come standard on skeeters my buddy just re-powered his ranger with the yami because he was so impressed by the performance. All the skeeters i have drove or rode in have impressed me but to me nothing rides like a ranger so i am a little biased ?‍♂️?

to be completely honest I've only rode in two brands of bass boats a ranger and a few skeeters. Honestly I preferred the ranger over all three of the skeeters I rode in. Now I could be biased because the ranger that i rode in was a buddies 2008 520c with a 2017 Yamaha SHO 250. We were running lake Norman in 3-4 ft waves at 50+ mph and we stayed dry, comfortable"meaning my back didn't hurt like hell the next day" and never once did i feel unsafe in that boat, and with the yamaha on it when we were on flat water we pushed 74mph with 2 of us in it. the skeeters rode fine and i enjoyed them but youre right ranger is the epitome of a bass boat its stable, safe, long lasting and above all comfortable. but this is just my opinion on the matter. as for motors I have never had problems with my yamaha.

I have always liked to throw olive green wooly bugger/ wooly worm size 6-2 and varying weights depending on wind/current also try putting a splice of crystal flash tied to the nose really seems to help on sunny days.

great grandfather i've heard nothing but stories how I wish I could meet him again.

Im fairly new to fishing cold water for bass. where i lived in Nw Penn we had hard water for 4 months of the year and only used suckers to catch bass. Im still just figuring out this whole crankbait thing ?. Thanks for your help Yes i've vaguely heard of people talking about how hey aren't the same as they used to be, however with the new ones i bought i also have some from the late 80's that my dad used to troll for walleyes so i might have to try them both and see how it goes.

I have heard a lot about the wiggle wart and have recently decided to purchase some. Would you throw one in the winter or is it a better warm water bait? Thanks, Austin

I have never really been an offshore fisherman and finding isolated cover or structure in deep water usually happens by chance when i'm deep cranking or dragging a football jig. How ever I do know several spots on my home lake where there are lay-downs that are not visible unless the water is down or where there are brush piles that are just deep enough you cant see them in the water. These have proved as honey holes for my partner and I as we won a high school tournament just finding these tiny little *pockets* of cover and fishing them all day. I have noticed when we do find a spot like this our hookup and catch ratio is significantly better around 90 to 95%. I have no proof of this but i believe since we are fishing a spot that has way less pressure than the "community lay-downs" the fish are more likely to grab the jig or whatever we throw in there with less hesitation and maybe hold on longer than a fish that has had baits thrown at him all day. Just my opinion though.

I was float fishing the Shenandoah river with my great uncle, my cousin Sean and his two kids along with my little brother. My brother and I were stopped below some rapids in the slack water off to the side of the main channel. I knew from previous experience that there was a large "cliff" or drop off under the water so I was showing my brother how to fish it with a 1/8 ounce jig head and a 3 inch Mister twister. I made one cast and hooked up with a typical Shenandoah smallie, about 10 inches or so. I handed that rod to my brother and rigged up my other rod to fish the same way. When i heard the drag go on my brothers pole he had a good one on, we got it in and it was 14 inches so after a quick picture we let it go and got back to it. Now that whole time we took pics and released my jig head was sitting on the bottom right above the drop off so I twitched it once to get it to swing off the cliff. I never felt the hit just years of experience told me to swing on it because something felt off. When I set the hook into the fish i knew immediately i had a good one on, I didn't think it was a giant but i knew for a fact it was a big one as instead of fighting the current it ran straight down stream. I handed the rod to my little brother and told him it was a good one and he was gonna catch it, I was pulling up our anchor he said oh its jumping. i turned and watched this beautiful smallie jump out of the water in a series of 3 tail walks. I knew then that my brother had an absolute tank on easy 18+ inches probably a solid 2 and a half pounder. (Remember this is a river fish and though to some a 2 lb smallie is nothing this river is not noted for large fish) My brother being inexperienced didn't realize that when the fish jump thats more than likely when your gonna loose them, he said and i quote "i want him to jump again cause he's pretty looking" So at this point the fish was just head shaking and pulling and I figured that he was hooked good so I wasn't to afraid of losing him from my brother not fighting him very good. (My brother was only 8 at the time) I watched as the fish came up from the clear slack water beneath us with its mouth open i knew immediately it was going to jump and come off, as the hook was in the bottom corner of his jaw and he was coming up too fast for my brother to catch up. Sure enough he jumped no more than 10 feet from the boat and came off. I believe my great uncle and i were more heart broken then my brother. He had fished that river for more than 15 years and had only caught one fish over 18 inches. I had fished it for 8 years and my biggest fish was 16 and a half. To this day the image of that fish tail walking is stuck in my head, it is a beautiful yet sad image watching that fish dance with the beautiful river in the background.

Without a paddle ?

All that can be said is some ponds are not equal to others when it come to how aggressive the fish are. I fished a fairly large pond for many years and never did good on topwaters with casting gear but if i put a small popper or dry fly on my fly rod and i would catch everything from small perch and bluegills to fairly large bass (2-3 lbs)

although a little unorthodox I will put a 2 or 3 inch white or black Mister twister curl tail on a mushroom jig head and just hop it on the bottom and slowly drag. If the bottom of said water has grass or other debris i would reel it s l o w l y just let that grubs tail do the action. I've caught them like this even when the water was in between 37-40 degrees.

When i was younger i used to fish small creeks all the time in Nw Pennsylvania. the best success i had was a berkley atomic tube (any tube will work). I would just cast towards bigger boulders in current and let them fall behind it. I caught everything from rock bass to small catfish and carp. If there is little current or your fishing a pool just cast and drag slowly across the bottom. I loved fishing like this and wish my area had a better selection for creeks but its a blast even if you dont catch anything just the scenery is beautiful.

Honestly in my personal experience the only thing you do by waiting until later in the day is losing time on the water when you could be learning and saving yourself the discomfort of the chilly weather. How ever contrary to most people if i know that we have a high pressure system where it is going to be sunny and cloudless most of the i am going to be out when the sun first rises in the morning. something about the winter time and first sun is magical, but that is just my experience. I will note however that both of my last personal bests 5lb 12oz. and 6lb 10oz respectively came on a sunny January day about 2 pm on a weightless wacky rig fishing about a 12 foot deep rocky point. It was frustratingly slow but just letting that worm shimmy down slowly put around 7 fish in the boat in 30 mins. Hope I helped!!

I just got done fishing a tournament in similar conditions on the Tar river in Washington Nc. with the recent water fluctuations the fishing was off and i only managed to catch one size able bass. I flipped cypress trees all day and any lay downs in the water, i had no success but others that i talked to used shaky heads and light Texas rigs with trick worms around tree to catch fish. The only bites i got were on a kvd 1.5 in sexy chartreuse shad color every time i hit it off something i would pause it for half a second then continue. i did this for about 2 hours before finally catching fish. Also another thing to remember is with the conditions cover as much ground as possible i had to cover about 500 yards of bank before getting a bite. Hope this helps and good luck.