billmac

Since I live in NY, I'll plug NY. I grew up fishing rivers and creeks, and our waters are loaded with smallmouth. Honestly, other than some trout waters, you would be hard pressed not to catch smallmouth. And of course there is the St. Lawrence river, where 5lb smallmouth don't even excite comment any longer. Here's the map for NY smallmouth.

Stopped in to Walmart to get line. Two spools of 50lb braid, and lots of the uber-cheap stuff on the bottom row. Otherwise, completely empty.

Is there some optimal depth for the prop?

I don't worry about time so much. I fish when I can. If I'm in the right place (the fish are there) then I figure it's the right time.

You guys who have the transducer on the trolling motor: How do you keep from banging it up on rocks, trees, etc?

Anyone have a 16 foot bass boat? They were clearly made when people were using 5.5-6ft rods. I can fit 7 ft rods in my rod locker, but I have to kind of wrangle and scrape them in. Does anyone have a better solution? (other than buy a bigger boat or shorter rods).

It's possible I might add some trout to the list. Muskies are always a possibility but I don't expect to get one. Perch, bluegill, and maybe crappie will be on the list before the summer is over.

3 fishing trips, 6 species so far. Trip #1 was a pike and largemouth day. Trip #2 was a zero. Trip #3 saw me get a nice walleye, some smallmouth, rock bass, and shiner (what I now know are really fallfish). The smallmouth was my 6th species. It is really unusual for smallmouth not to be my first fish of the year. That's likely it for me for gamefish. I'll probably add some panfish to the list.

Makes me feel better. I bought an Ugly Stik and as soon as I pulled it out of the tube, I felt like I had made a mistake. However it does seem like a decent bludgeoning weapon if hordes of pan-fishermen attack me.

I'm the faculty advisor (not quite a coach) for our university BASS club. I'm wondering if any of you have experience coaching a college team? I'd like to be able to ask some questions and get some ideas.

So I fished a small pond in the Adirondacks a few days ago. The pond looked to be a uniform 3-4 feet deep everywhere. No visible cover except a few lily pads, some downed trees, and a little overhanging brush. We tore up the pike and very nice largemouth, all pulled within a foot or two from shore. I caught what may be my PB pike (about 34", 10-11 lbs) on about my third cast, from the bank while we waited for lunch to be ready. I caught the first pike on a chatterbait, had a pike break me off a few casts later, and then the rest on a spinnerbait. My wife caught the best bass of the day on a meeney spin.

I think a lot of people use braid to fluoro as an economic measure, rather than a strategic one. That's why I do it. However I don't really trust the knot, and my rods have very small guides. So I spool my reel up with braid, and then tie on a 20-30 yard fluoro leader. My knot never leaves the reel.

Maybe as my whopper plopper rod.

I had a $50 gift card to BPS, so I ordered a M/H,F, 7' Ugly Stik Elite. I'm not going to send it back, but it seems incredibly heavy. What particular use do you think it might be best for? Keep in mind that I live at the top of NY, so I won't be flipping 3/4 oz jigs into cyprus stumps to wrestle 8lb largemouth out.

https://www.bassmaster.com/news/st-lawrence-lands-bassmaster-college-national-championship Whoot! These are my students!

Sorry I missed. For some reason I was certain it was tonight.

I think I saw them on an episode of River Monsters

Frankly I still haven't quite figured out the allure of kayak fishing. I have kayaks and like to take them out on the water, but if I need to use a carry-on craft I'd much rather fish from a canoe.

To get someone hooked on fishing, then they need to catch fish. I wouldn't advise them to target a particular fish. There's a reason a lot of kids start out catching panfish. Use live bait, or easy crank and retrieve lures. As they get better and more successful, then they can start experimenting with targeting particular species and using more difficult presentations.

I'm embarrassed to say I had this problem after I bought my first bass boat two years ago. Bottom line is that I thought I was trimming it all the way down, but I wasn't. I was tilting the motor down until it seemed like it was stopping, but that was just the beginning of the trim.

My first cast (if you can call it that) with a ned rig was dropping it into the river about 2 feet off shore and a big smallmouth hammering it instantly. I was fishing a rather big ned rig in the St. Lawrence and had my PB smallmouth to the boat before it threw the hook.

I don't use live bait much anymore except when fishing with the grandkids, but I think day in and day out, it's hard to beat plain old nightcrawlers.

Apples, pears, peaches, raspberries, cherries, pigs, goats, cows, the Tokyo rig.

If we're going to eradicate non-native species in America, I'm keeping my door locked.

By all means kill them, if you're going to eat them.