Aaron_H

Since @N Florida Mike is already becoming a fine chatterbait angler, I think I found my new victim to cheerlead about them... ? I feel that I tend to oscillate between "try a thousand new things" and "key in and simplify a few techniques that I'm successful with." The choices we have now in comparison to even the 90s when I was growing up are staggering, let alone the earlier days of bass fishing. It can be difficult sometimes to weed out the gimmicks and find the tackle that makes true advances, sometimes the amount of choices can be paralyzing.

Phone probably figured you focus on bass enough for the both of you. Nice job figuring out some new water!

That would eat my PB channel cat, my gosh. And what a stud bass, too. Nice day (minus the cold, big YUCK from me there).

Update: It's exactly the same startup as the base models I tuned. In the future I'll save a few bucks and tune them myself. I do really like the O'Shaughnessy bend hook, though. Wish the OG model had that.

Thank you for the detailed response. I just picked up my first SVS reel and haven't gotten to throw it yet so I was second guessing a little after seeing your post, but we just fish a bit differently from each other. I have heard nothing but great things about Daiwa's magforce breaks and if they could put that in something with Shimano ergonomics I'd jump at trying that out.

Is the SVS braking really that finicky? I cast my standard $99 SLX reels into the wind all the time and the VBS is fine. I don't get as much distance as my DC, but it's never unfishable IMO. All of my best jerkbait days this year were with the wind in my face throwing them on a standard SLX.

If you can get the new Tac-40 with the monocoque handle, the Medium/Moderate-Fast is a pretty nice rod, comparable in action to a Dobyns 705CB, I think they're only like $70-80 now, too, dropped down from the old price of $99.99.

Decided the bait monkey couldn't wait for Black Friday deals, so I ended up buying a few things this week. Stopped at BPS and picked up a couple of RES 2-taps, and a pack of Berkley Gilly 90mm (which I'll need a smaller hook for, 3/0 EWG is too big) Then today my SLX MGL showed up, new SLX A 6'10" M to pair it with should be here tomorrow. And picked up a crosseyez chatterbait to see just how much better (if at all) the startup is versus my tuned chatterbaits.

Sometimes I forget just how big Texas is. ?

That second one kind of looks like a Guadalupe bass to me, but I'm no expert. Killing it with those 5lber man, good job.

Of all the reels ever made, it is one of them.

That's awesome! I know the first one I saw was with that speed craw trailer, did you stick with that or did you find something else that worked for you?

Missouri state record LMB is 13lb 14oz from what I could find, an 8lb LMB is a little under 60% of the size of the state record. Proportionally, that would be like catching a 10lber here in FL. That's a rare fish, I wouldn't beat yourself up for not hitting that goal, but it is one to keep striving for IMO. Keep it up, hopefully next year.

You also caught a chatterbait fish finally, that's not nothing! ?

So secret, even the bass don't know about it!

@TnRiver46 right now If that's a B- year, I'm looking forward to seeing what you catch during an A year!

Yeah, I thought I was pretty hardcore fishing on average 110-125 days out of the year, but good lord.

Still plenty of time left here in FL to get into some big fall fish, so I'll let you know in January. ? So far, though, my numbers are down from this time last year by about 100 fish, but I had about two months in the summer where I could not fish at all due to thunderstorms. Numbers aren't the biggest deal to me, though, and I did much better this year on size than any other year, with my best five coming in at 43lb 9oz, anchored by two over 10 pounds (and my first year landing a DD bass finally). I also put in a lot of time learning a new technique this year (2022 Year of the Jerkbait™), and caught my three biggest bass of the year on it, and some fantastic numbers days. It was incredibly rewarding and I thank several members here (including @A-Jay and @Bluebasser86) for inspiring me to really grind that out and giving me some tips on lure selection and hardware upgrades.

Thank you for sharing, that was a great read. I noticed his criteria aligns fairly closely with mine for narrowing down potential trophy bass ponds (age, forage, etc), though I lean towards smaller 5-15 acre ponds versus his 20 acre minimum since, being bank-bound for freshwater, I can cover more water proportionally on a smaller body of water. One thing that surprised me is that he's using a medium rod paired with mono for a buzzbait, not really a conventional pairing these days (but it's clearly working for him). I would have assumed there was too much sponginess (especially with the more parabolic action of the Ugly Sticks) to get a really solid hookup with what are generally pretty heavy gauge hooks. His trailer hook and sharpening technique are probably offsetting that, and I assume he uses the lighter rod to load up easier with his casting technique.

What a brute! Phenomenal fish, Glenn. Also curious to hear how much she weighed. (Psst, your link goes to the 10XD page, not the 6XD.)

For combos I own, I'm close to 50-50: 7 casting setups and 6 spinning. As far as usage goes, I'm closer to 90-95% casting and 5-10% spinning, only bust out the spinning for lighter finesse techniques which I don't use as often these days.

Sometimes I catch catfish, too. For the last year or so I've been feeding the bluegill and shiners out behind the house, and a few weeks ago I started seeing a group of half a dozen or so channel cats coming in to feed, as well. I've caught a couple of them, but this is the biggest so far. Still small for a channel cat, but I'll take it. Weighed in at 5lb 7oz. Caught on that Lew's Laser TXS spincast combo I picked up at Academy a few weeks ago. Spooled with 6lb mono, using a 1/16 oz jighead with a junebug/chartruese shadpole CT. Buried me up in the grass several times and peeled a bunch of drag, but it was no problem for that combo. I originally only bought it because I wanted a new panfish rod (and to eventually mess around with some BFS stuff) and because the reel was LH compatible and not held together with a plastic pin like the newer Zebco 33 models. It's not buttery smooth, but it's not a coffee grinder, either. For 50 bucks I'm very happy with it so far, and would gladly recommend it to anyone interested in this type of platform.

I do not, having grown up on fresh snapper and grouper, tilapia is not what I consider a tasty fish. These ponds are fed directly from road drainage and the water is generally not safe to eat from, otherwise I would at least clean them and give them away to people who do like tilapia. I feel wasteful culling them like this, but FWC does not allow them to be released alive.

Not the caliber of jerkbait fish I was expecting from this pond This one was the biggest of the evening, but still a far cry from what I'm after. Only one I weighed out of the ten I caught, went 3lb 1oz. This pond has some real big girls in it that I'm hoping to connect with this fall. Last November in this pond I caught my then-PB of 9lb 1oz yo-yoing a lipless through some shad schools. Been a little slower going this fall, but today was the first time I've seen serious bait activity on top so far this fall, a good sign. Wind was kicking for the first few hours, sustained around 12 or 13 mph which wasn't too bad, had some gusts around 20 though, definitely helped get the bite fired up. That first hour they were munching the gold Stunna 112, but quickly shifted to the lipless once the wind laid down a bit. And managed to get this little guy on that 4" BD Shad swimbait I found a while back. Had one other fish on it but it came off when I bank flipped it. Smaller than this one so I didn't sweat it. I also got into some tilapia schools, caught (and culled) seven of them before I got bored and moved on, all on the Thunderhawk Sergeant lipless in gold/black. It's a sweet lipless, I've been trying to put more time into it to see how it stacks up, and I do love those rotating hook hangers. Today makes 92 tilapia I have culled for 2022 so far, all caught on hook and line.