billmac

Leatherneck: I'm probably being nosy, but I'm wondering what part of the country doesn't have any largemouth?

I just took a quick look at the Elite stats for 2018, 2019, and 2020. As I said, it was a quick look, so I might have missed something, but it looks like the St. Lawrence River (ie: smallmouth), had the highest tournament weights in 2018 and so far in 2020, and was third in 2019. Doesn't prove anything, I just thought it was interesting.

I too prefer smallmouth, but I'm in smallmouth country. However I've never found them particularly challenging to catch, not any more than largemouth. I agree that walleye are better eating and not much for fighting, but I find them more challenging to catch than bass. Harder to locate at any rate. For eating and fighting, I don't think you can beat pike.

I'm an impatient fisherman, so I prefer lures to live bait. But I also prefer catching fish to not catching fish so I'm absolutely willing to use LB when that's what they want.

I found the secret to fishing micro-smallmouth: Use gigantic lures. The larger the lure, the smaller the smallmouth that will attack it.

The beauty of forums is that they are interactive. If you don't find what you want, you can always ask. The articles here are excellent, but I learn the most from the forums. Yeah, I probably ask questions that have been asked a hundred times before, but someone is always good enough to answer them again, or at least point to a forum post where I can find the answer.

I loved Fur Fish and Game, Bassmaster, and InFisherman. I only kept my stack of InFisherman. I have the 4 bound volumes of Harry n Charlie. I would love to read those comics between where the 4th volume ends and when the series ended, but I don't know how that could happen.

I'm fishing from a boat.

I want to develop some jig skills so I'm going to make a concerted effort to use them more. I'm in the very tip top of NY and typically fish smaller rivers and reservoirs, so a 3lb bass would typically be an unusually large catch. I'm wondering about jig size. I'd love to catch bigger fish, but I don't want to go so big I shut out the 1 and 2 lb-ers. What do you think? 1/4 oz? I'm thinking of football jigs and jigs to drag through brush. Thanks.

Jig with curly tail grub.

Sadly I've never caught a catfish. It's on my list. But up here we have bullhead which are a lot smaller and even their jaws can exert a lot of pressure. And of course there are the spines.

Yeah, I really just have to tie on a jig and leave it there until I get some more proficiency at it. I've had pretty good luck with crankbaits this summer and I was never much of a crankbait fisherman.

This is just a bit of self-reflection. I've got to get into the cover when I fish. All my life I've thrown at cover, and along cover, but never really into the cover. I'll do weedlines and around lilypads and along the edges of rocks and trees, but I've never had the confidence to throw right in there. Too afraid of getting hung, or dragging back an 8lb ball of pond salad. I'm not super skilled with lures that you can throw right into the midst of cover. I thought I wanted to develop more of an offshore game, but I'm thinking I'd be better served at developing a better shallow water game, since that's what I've fished most of my life anyway.

The fishing section of the Walmarts in my area are depressingly empty. Not sure about the baits you've mentioned, but good luck buying hooks and/or sinkers.

Weather permitting, I'm going to head to these lakes on Monday. Anyone have any experience on these lakes (in the NY Adirondack mountains)?

I have had them steal the bait, but mostly they avoid the trap.

I have a farm, and I have a real problem with rats. Somehow they've gotten wise to snap traps and electro traps. It seems the only way I can kill them is with poison, which I hate to do because of cats and dogs, although I haven't had any of them get poisoned. I have a rat raiding the pantry in my house and I simply can't catch it. I too have gotten a bit soft-hearted as I have gotten older and I am reluctant to kill things. But not rats. I hate rats.

I just had this problem. Rebuilt fuel pump. Changed primer bulb and fuel lines. No improvement. Finally I changed out the gaskets, needles and seats in my carbs, and that did the trick. I think perhaps one of the needles was sticking unless I crazy cranked the primer bulb. You should see if you are getting adequate fuel to the carbs.

No, it never seems to find the new lake.

I don't know if it is related to installing a Navionics card, but my Hook 7 doesn't recognize that it is on a new body of water unless I do a reset to factory defaults. It always brings up the last body of water. Anyone ever see this?

Fished a local power reservoir yesterday. 12 smallmouth and 1 pike. Fish were mostly small but it was fun. The cool thing (for me) was I had 6 rods rigged and caught fish on all 6. 1. Flicker shad. 2. Tube on a shaky head. 3. Jig and spinner with curly tail grub. 4. Drop shot (with a real worm). 5. Curly tail grub on a jig. 6. Whopper plopper knockoff. One thing I have noticed over and over again, the bigger the lure, the smaller the smallmouth you can catch with it.

So I'm planning a trip to Black Lake in a couple weeks. I'd like to get some bass, but I love pike too and I'd love to catch some crappie. How's the fishing in the lake? Any advice?

I typically use lighter lures, and I didn't adjust my spool at all, so that might be part of the problem.

How much of a difference does braid vs mono vs fluoro make?

I watch the pros effortlessly pitching lures all the time, but I can't seem to do it. As soon as the lure takes up the slack on its forward motion, it jerks the spool and causes a snarl. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong but I can't seem to manage it.