billmac

I'm not sure what this means. I'm not much of a crank bait fisherman myself. I just don't have a lot of confidence in them. I will throw lipless from time to time.

Unless the fish are very large, buzzbaits are largely immune to bite offs.

I was a fishing boater for our in-club college tournament today. The tournament was a success even if my day wasn't. My boat was acting up. My only real strike (on a ned rig) turned out to be my PB smallmouth (around 5 lbs) which spit the hook at the boat. We lost about an hour towing a disabled boat back to the dock. The day was forecast to be warm and sunny and it turned out to be colder, windy, and a little rainy. Even with all that, I had a great time.

I think fishing with lures relies on setting the hook before the fish realizes it's not something edible. Not always of course, but generally. Whereas live bait is actually food, so they are going to hold on and swallow if you give them time. If I was fishing to eat, or teaching someone to fish, I would choose live bait. Otherwise I would use lures.

You're welcome!

Anyone who has read my comments knows I'm a big fan of jig and spinner combos. I've never used an underspin jig. I admit I fail to see what advantage there might be in an underspin. What are your thoughts?

Go simple. Tie on a curly tail grub with either a slip sinker or a jig head. Cast and reel.

This does bring up a question: On the BASS and FLW tours, are they actually targeting bigger fish, or are they simply culling the dinks that MLF is counting? I'm sure there is some of both, but I kind of doubt that most of them are targeting big fish. I could be wrong.

So I'm going out Sunday as a volunteer boater for our college bass club tourney out of Waddington NY, on the St. Lawrence river. I have no experience here so any advice you have would be welcome.

I don't think it would be a bad idea to mix it up, maybe have some events where you count everything, and others with a higher threshold, say 3 lbs, and maybe a traditional 5 biggest. Let viewers see some versatility.

I don't know much about copolymer line. Rather than rehash if it's been discussed before, is there a thread on it?

Are there some brands of mono that are more invisible than others?

I got around the leader knot problem by tying on 30 yards or so, so that the knot generally stays on the reel. I probably wouldn't mess with fluoro at all, but I want to fish the St. Lawrence (haven't made it yet) and I've read that mono parts like spider silk when it encounters zebra mussels. Not sure if that's true. One of the problems I've found with fluoro is that it isn't only invisible to the fish. I have a wicked time seeing it when dropshotting or wacky rigging.

He is? I know his son Scott is, but I've never heard Roland mentioned.

I think Rick Clunn is still an elite. Maybe it's time for Roland to come back! He still has a shot at a classic!

I'm the faculty advisor of a fairly new collegiate bass fishing club in the far north of NY. I'm encouraged by the level of interest. We really have no funding and little resources but we had a team place 7th at the tourny here in Waddington this summer. I don't have a particular question, just wanted to start a conversation about how different schools handle their bass clubs and what kind of activities you do. We are hampered a bit because we basically can't fish up here from Nov-March.

No, I wasn't blaming bad fishing on tournaments, I was making the connection between more dead fish than I usually see with tournaments and of course I could be wrong. Cold fronts and the fact that I have no experience on the lake are most likely to blame for our lack of success.

I don't think I've ever seen so many dead fish on a body of water that isn't a tournament spot and someone told me there were at least 2 tournaments in the recent past.

Yes, it was an interesting day. I had trouble starting the outboard, and in the process of fiddling around pulled the kill switch without realizing it, adding to the frustration. But the lake is beautiful, we saw herons, cormorants, an osprey and a kingfisher. And this was my first time fishing a wacky rig, so you have to take the rough with the smooth. Over the course of my life I have often come home wishing I had caught some fish, but I have never come home wishing I hadn't gone fishing.

Glenn, I know from your videos that you use fluoro. I assume this means you simply spool the whole reel with fluoro?

I wouldn't use a mono leader because mono is cheap. I use a fluoro leader on my spinning rod not because of strategic reasons but economic ones.

What would you recommend if you wanted to fish fairly quickly through an area of thick lily pads and coontail (or other weeds), looking for active fish?

That's interesting. When I was a kid trolling was big, but most of the trollers I knew mainly trolled weedlines.

I've been fishing mainly some small power reservoirs near me, and I've been dying to get to Black Lake. Well, my son and I spent about 4 hrs on the lake yesterday for 2 small bass (1LM, 1SM) and only 1 more strike. We pounded the weeds / pads with spinnerbaits and chatterbaits, and the islands / rock humps with drop shot and shakeyheads. We saw a number of dead bass, presumably from the recent tournaments, but we didn't even have panfish followers. I spoke with 1 other guy at the end of the day and he had fished about 8 hrs for 4 bass. My two bass came on a wacky rigged yum dinger. I'm not blaming the lake. It was my first time going since I was a kid, and there was a cold front blowing through, but I had hoped for better. Oh well, that's fishing.

Ha, good point, but what I meant was that they are only good for one bite, and then they are gone.