TriStateBassin106

2020 has been a awesome year for me in terms of catch rate. I've only been skunked less than 10 times probably and caught over 135 fish, if anything the added people pressure is an advantage for me because a lot of idiots are now on the water. Bass fishing is a huge learning experience and not everyone has the capability to learn it. If you fish with a bobber and crankbait tied together and don't realize what your doing wrong I'm not helping you learn how to catch them. If anything i'll encourage you to keep doing it. It saves me fish.

Take license pics if you see people taking bass. Busted a crap ton of illegal trout fisherman last year in North Jersey, I'm talking about buckets full of breeders and below the limit size.

New Jersey.

Yes! I fish many smaller lakes and the bigger fish have been out feeding! Much needed since my summer was full of dinks!

Has the bite for you guys changed from being shallow and parallel to the bank to out deep or near the middle of ponds you fish? I fish two relatively small ponds near me. One is a simple retention pond with a fountain and max depth of 8ft. The other pond is part of a public park with 3 fountains and a max depth of 15ft, these two ponds are mostly featureless v shaped bottoms and some scattered peaces of cover that usually produce in the summer when casting parallel or around the cover. But for the past week and a half all my bites have either been in the "middle" or near deep pockets around the fountains. Is this normal for bass to migrate to the deeper pockets during the fall/fall transition? Am I the only one who is catching them out deep? And do the fish still stay shallow?

I'm only able to fish pressured ponds around here so a good day of fishing for me is 5 to 7 bass and a fair day is 2 to 3 fish over the span of 2 hours, usually the low number of fish are the result of me targeting bigger fish which I'm usually rewarded with, I don't go after anything less than 14 inches and below a lb. If I did though I would catch a whole bunch lol. Water temps yesterday were 75 degrees and it's starting to get chilly out, managed to get a couple on a war eagle spinnerbait though.

Black n blue = Dirty water all weather conditions/stained water on cloudy days Green Pumpkin = Stained water on sunny days/Clearer water cloudy days Watermelon Red flake = Clearer water sunny days, the Yamamoto Watermelon Red senko that shade is really good for stained or slighty dirty water IMO I hate white soft plastics, I've never caught anything on them. Also I'm not really sold on the different flakes. If I can't catch anything on something with green or purple flake it's probably the fish just not being generally inteterested in anything. I've had days where I've caught fish on both Straight black worms and also worms with blue flecks added to em.

So it appears a good chunk of the country is currently under a smokey haze from those wildfires out on the west coast. In the northeast we have been getting some wicked and weird sunsets and sunrises. I'm currently not aware of how long this will last but I had planned some outings during this time..does this haze effect the bass at all and if so is it negative or positive?

As I said last week the bite was good but the quality ones still haven't showed up, well last night they sorta did...landed this hog under the pond fountain slow jigging a war eagle finesse jig black and blue paired with a baby rage menace trailer, based on his fat belly he was probably feeding on shiners which are plentiful in this pond and are big.

Here in NJ the fall is right around the corner and some of the creeks around here are soon gonna be stocked with trout but before that stocking begins late next month I really want to get after some creek smallmouth during this time, what lures would you guys recommed throwing for them? The creek I'm fishing has a lot of dink sized smallmouth but holds a few good ones, what parts of the creek should I focus on and what should I know about how smallmouth act this time of year in creeks? Do they feed heavily in the fall like largemouths do?

Had fun the past week, only got skunked once and it was last night due to heavy rain the day before and sudden drop in temps, but I got on a bunch during a feeding frenzy over the span of three days including a couple night time fish. Nothing big but a good sign that the fall bing in these fish will start to kick up. Hopefully I'll start to get on some quality fish soon.

Bass don't react well to sudden water temps changes This is interesting because it's starting to get like that here in Jersey. Last night we had some rain and the temps dropped down into the lower 50s but todays high was 79 degrees and tomorrow is supposed to be a high of 73, let's just say the fishing today was brutal. Not even one bite, all the heavy rain probably spooked them to suspend or hold tight to structure, I fish a lot of retention ponds and it was a good bite until the rain. I really hope the fall bite in the northeast isn't a bust this year.

Since some on here are currently struggling with the bite right now (myself included) I just wanted to say that I've had some days where the fish just don't want anything you give them.. We all probably have on here. No matter how many times you downsized lures or slowed down.. Some days you're just gonna get flat out skunked. I know it sucks and if it happens frequently it can be pretty demoralizing for you. But also remember as bass anglers getting skunked can be a good learnimg experience. For me after getting skunked is like watching football flim after a team loss. You look at your mistakes and try to re evaluate and understand what you did wrong and what you could do to improve, the same mindset applies to bass fishing. My advice to all the newer anglers right now is just hang in there, never give up and when the deck is stacked against you...escape your comfort zone and try out new things! Gain knowledge by going on sites like Bassresource and put time on the water! You'll overcome!! What advice do you guys have for the newer anglers getting skunked and frustrated?

Bite hasn't turned off for me yet but there was a cooling period in late late august into the first days of september where it struggled to make it to 70 some days and the bite was horrible...but this was because we had a massive cold front that came through New Jersey and screwed everything up, as of now the bite has picked up but since we're in a transition still it could change any day and the bite could suck again.

This I identify with more as being a middle ground, I know guys who only throw smaller stuff and only catch bass less than 10inches or less than half a lb those are honestly the guys who go out of their way to not get skunked, I personally hate catching smaller bass like that, I don't even count it as a catch, this is the average size of the fish I catch at my ponds around here. Anything smaller than this is a super dink in my book,

This^

Exactly!!! I'll take the little guys if it means I don't get skunked!

Specifically targeting big bass (4lbs+) is a luxury I do not have in my neck of the woods, I specifically go out of my way to target numbers instead of bigger fish because I don't feel like getting skunked. IMO right now I would prefer a day of catching 20 bass from the bank that are anywhere from 14 inches to 2lbs instead of maybe 1 huge fish after 6 hours of fishing. Do I welcome big fish when I catch them? Oh hell yes! And i've caught plenty of hogs this year (my profile pic bass was 4lbs) but unfortunately at the moment if I decided to chase only bigger fish at the pressured waters I fish 9/10 I would go home with a skunk. Now would I want to have the luxury of complaining about only catching 2lbers instead of 6lbers? Hell yeah I would!! Huge respect to the guys on this forum who chase the trophy fish, that's a hustle I probably couldn't even do but they grind it out against all odds!!

Yellow perch are infamous for this in my lake, always attack huge swimjigs and cranks..

You mean the heavy load and line zig zagging once you start reeling it in? Best feeling in the world! Dude nice fish! Did you use mono or something else like braid to detect that line movement?

90% of the time machine gun taps are either obnoxious sunfish or underwater structure. Either way my plastic comes back with little peck marks.

Yeah that has happened to me aswell. Usually when the bass is swimming towards you. Hmm that's pretty unique for bigger fish to do that though. All my solid fish usually just straight up slam the bait or my rod gets heavy and the line starts zig zagging.

I've mastered weightless senko fishing this summer. 99% of weightless senko bites are a straight up thump or mushy feeling. A tap tap tap feeling is usually a smaller fish, feeling a heavy load on the other hand usually guarantees a bigger fish.

A friend of mine I fish with is having trouble detecting bites. So after watching me instinctively set the hook over and over again he asked me to explain how to detect slower bites and I tried my hardest to explain that it's all about feeling the bottom and knowing what is what...he doesn't seem to have a hard time with moving baits so far. I've tried explaining to him that I'm not the fastest gunslinger in the west once it comes to bite detection and hook setting but I've definitely programmed myself over time mentally to know what doesn't feel right at the end of my rod tip, I've had many times where I felt that sudden out of place *Thump* and out of habit I set the hook on fish or snag. So far he's only been able to detect bites when his line starts darting but he thinks every rock or bump is a bite now lol.. to keep this story short how can I best explain to him more on how to detect those slower presentation bites?

Have a seat...stay awhile.....the announcement will eventually come