txchaser

Edge boxes are really nice but I will only buy on amazon when the price drops from time to time. Especially good for plastics that come in blister packs like the keitechs. And the 3600 flex is perfect for chatterbaits and swimjigs with a trailer. For terminal, by far the best so far is the bass mafia 3600 'ice coffin' or something like that. The spaces for dividers are very close together - don't need much space for 30 beads, 15 1/8 oz tungsten, etc. But for crankbaits the plano CDS thin are the best I've found by far. I drop some of the flambeau blue dividers cut up a little since they have anti-ruse. I had extras from the one flambeau box I have. I don't like the regular waterproof planos because the way the edges are curved removes a lot of usable space.

Just weighing in on this winter thread with a few observations. 1) Yeah there's some luck involved. Can you learn from your luck? And in my case can I learn that day, not on the the drive home wishing I shoulda coulda woulda! 2) 100% the bigger fish are more likely to be deeper, or at most a couple of tail swishes from whatever deep water is around there. Not 100%, there's always that shallow monster, but way way more likely to be in 8-12' than in 3-4'. 3) I think there are something like eight different kinds of LMB - based on behavior not genetics. These will be in 'southern lbs' so YMMV. I think onshore=littoral and offshore=pelagic as I'm describing it. onshore/offshore small 1-3 (kinda the same in terms of what they do. water puppies, chase nearly anything although sometimes get super keyed on a specific presentation) onshore/offshore adult 4-7 (offshore adults still group and wolf pack some. Lazier though, more likely to be under a shad ball or chasing big gizzards) onshore/offshore big 8-12 (example behavior - onshore bigs are mean and don't share cover much, offshore bigs can still pack up some but IMO less likely at the top of the range. In both cases more likely to be isolated) offshore/offshore giant 13+ (IDK, haven't caught enough to really see patterns beyond being near deep water 100% of the time and better bigs and giants with steady retrieves, slower, silent or near silent baits.) What do you have to add or refute to the categories above? And in texas I notice most of the offshore fish are built different - they are far more likely to have a gut and shoulders eg over 100% relative weight. They live a different life than the shore fish - more food and more activity to get that food too.

If a white spinnerbait works for you then maybe an a-rig would. But whenever the idea fairy tells me to try what you are suggesting (and I do) it hasn't worked out for me with shad colored baits. Mayyybe with GP trailers and no blades. Or gold blades. Give it a shot, if it works I can say I was in the thread when @IntroC invented it and it ultimately was banned from tournament fishing for being too good.

In soft plastics, SK's Falcon Craw color. When they are eating craws they can get keyed in really hard on some red in the bait. I really like the two tone GP/red on these. In moving baits, red/black keitechs. Shallow. Same reason as above. In hard baits, black. For gill eaters. Each of these have had enough outstanding results in the right situation that I'm past the 'it is just confidence' conclusion.

After you've had them in the market for a bit, consider calling american legacy. While you'd have to ship they will likely buy them all. I think they are going to be below 1/2 of retail though.

The crankbait pause mentioned is an A+ nugget. Caught a nice fish this weekend by accident - was fishing a flatside, and paused halfway through the retrieve to fiddle with electronics. Five seconds later the fish smoked the lure. Turned out to be a great clue to slow down even more on the retrieve, incorporate pauses etc. And to try a jerkbait, which worked well with longer pauses.

Its more tank-y than a tat300, if that tells you anything. I use one for frogging and one for heavy punching. It feels like it is made for the heavy winching of big fish out of nasty grass.

I don't know if it was here or on youtube, but I recall someone making a comment about breaking a lake into thirds, and then creek arms into thirds, etc as a way to try to get dialed in faster. Seems to fit with my experience of on smaller waters I'm better off posting up on the best spot and getting them dialed in from there, and on bigger waters if I'm not getting bit I should move, assuming I have a pretty good read on where they are in the column. I'm not saying they can't be picky in big water, but it does seem like they are less picky on what, but far more likely to not even be there at all. An example of how I fished a bigger (for me) lake this weekend - we've had a south wind for a bit, pushing warm water and air towards the north end of the lake. There's warm water coming in off the creeks but it's nasty and muddy, and this lake is kindof silted in. So I wanted to be close to deeper water as we are rolling in to prespawn. That put me on the top 1/3 of the lake. Picked a point and fished all three sides of the point (directly in the wind, parallel, protected) - I expected the directly in the wind side, but nope, bite was far better on the parallel than the others. And inside that the bites were where the banks were a little steeper/less distance to deep water. I was looking for shallow fish moving up because of the warm water. What I didn't expect is that where there were fish shallow, there were often some fish out a little deeper too - hanging out waiting to move up and eat I guess. I also ran the 1/3's in one of the creek arms since it was right by the point, and relatively short. Bunch of buck bass but no bigger girls moving up to feed, which was the opposite of what was in the good area mentioned above.

Nice! I had a blast there. Guy running the pro shop (forget his name) was solid too. Sorted me out of a gear jam.

Once, I think three years ago. Changes?

Here in Texas we are having serious otter problems. Multiple biologists have shared that they are very aggressive and sometimes kill for sport. They see more impact on the larger fish than the smaller ones. Apparently the skins used to be worth something and they were trapped, and that has almost completely stopped. IMO they are as bad for a body of water as cormorants.

Seaguar weighed in a while back and said Tatsu is the same tech and forming process as their leaders, and it seemed like they were in support of using it as a leader too. But blue or gold label is probably better in really rough environments as the outer shell seems tougher. Maybe pickier on knots with the stiffness though.

Paging @A-Jay didn't you retire all your +2's because you weren't getting good results using a jerkbait when the fish were that deep?

Not a IMO (not a biologist) but those look fine to me. It's the flat stomach or lack of shoulders (eg narrow and long) that would give me pause. When they get over 5 are they footballs or long? Oh one other cue for me that I don't hear people talk about - mouth size to body weight on a largemouth. 5lb fish with a 2lb'ers head? YAY. Anyway this is probably like looking at any other animal - you can kinda tell 'well fed' from 'normal' from 'is this thing sick?'

@Swamp Girl 100% agree with the relative weight comment. If you have skinny fish something has to change. If you don't, it is probably fine.

In fairness, I live in Texas so they grow kinda big here. One thing to point out, in each of these cases the bait is more quiet than the usual version of that presentation. Always close to whatever counts for deeper water in that part of the lake or the lake as a whole. Writing this has helped me realize I fiddle around with too much other stuff. Middle: -6th sense 75x Flatside in wild lava craw (late winter, prespawn for this color) and black when they are gill eaters. I fish this everywhere, including in and around weeds. Slowwww, and usually with no bottom contact. Heresy, I know, but that's what's worked so there's that. Don't be afraid to crash it right into a weedline. Bait will get fouled but that last foot occassionally has a big girl. Very light rattles. -Nishine silent lipless. It is a totally different bait than a regular lipless. Fell into this looking for any silent lipless. Needs better hooks for tanks though. -Jackall Digle 2-5m. You'll have to get the 3's from japan, rest are available here. Depending on your lake depth and where your weed edges or interesting structure are, pick based on that. Very light rattle. Bottom: -Netbait t-mac trick worm in kentucky craw, which is GP, dark maroon/scuppernong, with blue flake. Very good match for the local craws. -Carolina rig -Jig with 8" lizard or some other 8" worm (actually a slither rig made by siebert, but it fishes like a jig. Just better in nasty cover). Jig skirt is dark/light GP/watermelon. Kinda looks like a gill or a craw. PB bait, but I had to cut because no other giants: stanley buzz-it frog, kind of a mix of a small buzzbait and a small ribbit frog. I'll never know if a small buzzbait would have done the same. They were on shad post spawn on an inside turn of a creek channel, just off the weed edge. I'd probably only pick this bait on open water shad eaters.

Thanks @Todd Driscoll

Last couple of weekends a big contributor to the day was just using Livescope like regular sonar, but faster and not driving over them. I could see very quickly that there was lots of life in the area that I was in, or not. And then fish accordingly, but not fish for specific fish. Huge time saver, covering water without casting.

Probably five, but they aren't the same five that catch 80% of my big fish.

@Terrel ton of new product launches from Hbird so you may find a lot of opportunities to buy on the auction sites and get the next size up for the same price.

Rule #1 for me on this stuff is get it off-season - seasonal apparel gets huge discounts. Simms is probably the best stuff out there for heavy weather. And will have the smallest off-season discount. I wear a Huk bib, works just fine, wasn't that expensive. IMO bibs aren't that complicated of a product. It fits or it doesn't, leaks or it doesn't. We get a decent amount of rain in Texas but not a lot of days where it is raining and 40 degrees, so that is part of the decision. And a Gill heavy jacket (OS3 I think) for the nastiest of weather. My favorite part is the rubber seals on the wrists are done exactly right to keep cold water from running up the jacket. Given that you are in Nebraska, listen to the Minnesota/Alaska/Canada people, they have to live in their gear. @MRQturbo Same mustang as the PFD brand? What would you compare it to in terms of quality.

100% seeing the screen makes it more interesting than watching a guy flip a jig into the 500th flooded bush.

Any tips on how to dial in a force trolling motor to be more smooth with adjustments? Trying to track baits on livescope is really hard when the pedal feels a little sticky for lack of a better way to say it. Maybe turn the friction down? Maybe everyone is putting TS-321 or grease on a joint somewhere? Or perhaps theres a setting? If the TM moves 1 degree that's a lot out in the 80ft range.

BLUF: lots of risk in the world, my read is this is pretty low risk for the reward. I don't feel the same way about some other spots in Mexico. Next 90 days has the potential to be volatile and have a lot change though. I'll share a couple of thoughts, having been to the lodge, and also being relatively security conscious, and having a few people around me that are more on the nervious nelly side of the equation. I also have been to a bunch of sketchy places in the world so I think I have a decent radar for "this is not OK, we are leaving RIGHT NOW". My radar went up zero times on the trip...if anything it went down over time as I started to learn more. Everything has risk; some risks are worth the reward and some are not. Driving every day is probably the most obvious risk, it is one of the most dangerous things we do. But it has a lot of payoff, walking sucks and horses are a lot of work. Eating ice cream every day is dangerous too, just takes longer to see the impact. Everyone has their own point on the risk reward curve and that's ok. Baccarac itself is pretty remote, and the local economy relies on the lake. Tilapia harvesting seems to be the core, but the lodge makes a lot of really good jobs and supports a lot of families. Perhaps a controversial take, but I think about the cartels like a business that ignores all laws. Just money and in some cases some power/ego. Actions they take have consequences, so they have their own risk reward curve too. Jacking with some tiny mountain town and wrecking the economy means no local support. And for at least the next four years giving an administration that seems to relish FAFO as a strategy, a reason to say 'Well they FA, so now they are going to find out". No politics intended here, just calling it like I see it. Low payoff and potentially really high risk for the cartel. Highest risk: Dragging your own very nice boat down, speaking only english, being an ass to everyone you mee, stopping in the worst part of towns in the US along the way because the hotels are cheap there. Oh and getting grumpy about the 'toll' one might have to pay on the spot in cash. Less: Fly commercial, but take the mountains drive in your own rent car. Less: Fly commercial but take the shuttle; see above re the lake's impact. An action against the shuttle doesn't serve anyone's economic interests. Less: Land at their airstrip, on their plane. Introduces a new risk, in that flying in private aviation is more risky than commercial carriers. The plane seems very well maintained, and (very) importantly the cockpit is nice garmin glass, not a bunch of old analog and duct tape. 100% would feel safe in that plane again, and doing it that way gives about another full day of fishing. There were some very specific interactions with parts of the Mexican government that I won't share for opsec reasons, that also gave me comfort about safety on the flight and at the lodge. Don't forget to ask the question to yourself about why you specifically might be targeted or around someone that was targeted. For most people the first is unlikely, and the second is situation-specific. Bass fishing doesn't overlap much with the 'someone nearby me was targeted'. With all that said, the situation in Mexico is in a high state of change right now, and it's not nervous to sit it out for a minute and see how things are going to shake out. Wow this went way longer than expected. Thanks for making it this far.

This isn't entirely true, but it is close: Invisx has a bit of stretch to me, great treble hook line. Tatsu is more of a bottom contact line, less stretch. Also if I recall correctly, Tatsu has the same coating they put on their leader lines and is (per Seaguar) suitable for a leader. Better heavy cover line too. If you took away my tatsu and said you can only use invisx, the only thing I'd really be bummed about was bottom fishing and long-cast single hook applications like an owner beast. In both cases, amazon is nearly unbeatable for pricing.