TriStateBassin106

Near the tail or hook them through the mouth, I never fished with bluegill before but growing up that's how I rigged shiners, sure it would be the same and octopus hooks work the best.

I don't use casting gear to skip but will skip senkos under docks and pontoon boats on finesse tackle, like other posters have also said my advice is to always make sure you have good drag and set the hook and start reeling, most of the time for me it seems like the initial hookset will "bring the fish out" from the dock and in open water. I have the same approach when punching heavy grass, that fish needs to get back to me as quick as possible so it can't dig in the weeds.

I also gut hooked a 14inch fish this past weekend on a texas rigged zoom u tail, I cut the line and took the hook out from the gill method but the fish then started to bleed badly, I even got some blood on my sneakers which sucked, immediately threw the fish back but it was probably gonna die, it really is a horrible feeling but I've come to desensitize myself to it. It's simply part of the game at this point and it sucks. I know the feeling man.. This happens to me sometimes when I'm fishing a texas rigged creature bait like a pitboss or rage menace, sometimes I'll make a pitch at a piece of cover and won't get any bites on the initial fall but as I reel it back to the boat I'll feel a hard thump and it's a bass that ambushed it like a moving bait.

I'm right next door to you in NJ. 100% agree.

I might have worded that wrong, I have a problem with people who get into fishing and don't respect the environment around them and keep undersized fish and litter. Those are the people who were never supposed to get into our sport.

In my opinion bass fishing but fishing overall COVID-19 was one of the worst things to ever happen to the sport, way too many people who were never supposed to get into fishing got into it and began crowding spots and leaving trash behind, two ponds I used frequent are suffering from this COVID boom of anglers and its definitely effecting the catch rates and overall quality of fishing, one of the ponds that usually produced good numbers have been greatly reduced and you're lucky if you catch 2 during an outing. Even if you're trying different things from everybody else. Also apps on social media don't help like fishbrain instagram and facebook because people like to spot burn. For me though bass catching this year has been surprisingly pretty good. I had a pretty good pre-spawn, spawn and now a good post spawn, it will probably slow down once the heat comes out but it's been good so far.

I figured out the problem, the transducer side with the little white dot was facing the wrong way, thank you so much!

So I have my echomap uhd 7inch transducer mounted on the left side of my little 10ft bass raider and when in side view mode, the returns from the right side appear on the left side of the screen and right side returns appear on the left. Is this the normal setting or something that can be fixed? I tried to change this in side view settings but the only thing it has are if I want only the left or right side to appear on the screen but that's not my problem, the returns are on the wrong side.

A long pickerel I caught today, on a ned rig with light line, this guy should've broke me off.

d**n that really sucks, 300 dollars though?

Recently I've been losing a bunch of finesse gear to these toothy critters. Specifically 14 to 16inch chain pickerel on my home lake, sometimes but rarely they'll break off a texas rig on 15lb Flourocarbon bottom contact combo but most of the time it's my 8lb Flourocarbon setup that I throw wacky rigs/ned rigs and dropshots that recieve the most break offs. This past weekend I lost 4 ned rig jigheads to these guys in an hour timespan.. Usually what will happen is i'll feel a very hard thump and then immediately breakoff without doing anything. Do any of you guys have this issue with fish belonging to the pike family? Do you guys up your leaders to deal with it better? Thanks.

Bought some paca craws with that new stuff infused into it, haven't noticed any significant changes in catch rates so far.

2 nights a week after work and whenever I want on the weekends as long as the weather isn't really bad. I'm in my 20s so I don't have to deal with a wife or kids or any other serious responsibilities (yet)

I tend to wear my running shoes with are a pair of old new balances, I don't like wearing crocs in the sun all day because I had a bad case of "croc burn" and had red holes on my feet because I was lazy and didn't put on sunscreen lol.

shipping has been insanely quick recently I ordered some items sunday night and had them by wednesday morning. UPS ground too

Losing my new lure in a tree and seeing it in a branch everytime I'm at the lake knowing I can't reach it.

If you have the app instagram there's a guy named aquatic_biologist who always talks about pond stocking and the dos and don'ts of lake management. Always open to direct messaging very nice guy

On my home lake there's these grass flats and flooded timber I had no idea existed before I saw bass boats out there on it. This was before I had electronics so one day I took the 10ft bass raider with the 55lb thrust out there and to my shock I had a really good day just hovering around the timber. I'm always observant of where the bass club guys fish on my lake, sometimes I'll see them fish spots I know for a fact that are dead water. It's kinda hilarious actually.

?? NJ is an underrated bass fishing state, yeah we don't have giants like florida but we sure do have plenty of lakes with decent fish populations.

This sorta happened to me yesterday on my home 350 acre lake, fish were concentrated on the north end of the lake and tons of smaller size/buck bass were biting but no bigguns.

Jig fished between the laydowns and in them, start closest to the bank and work your way towards the submerged branches. Usually a fish or two hanging out in them, spinnerbaits work good.

The big difference between the 10e and the nxt is really just the color of the boat and the seats. NXT comes with padded seats instead of the hard plastic that the normal 10e comes with. But in regards to the wiring inside the boat the fuse is only 40amps and the inside wiring is 8AWG. My fuse popped after 10 minutes with the 55lb thrust. Here is another thread about the issue. My two cents though is If you want to use the inside wiring you're probably gonna want to use a trolling motor below or at 40lb thrust.

My home lake is a 350 acre manmade impoundment that has an average depth of 7ft and has tons of cabbage grass (duckweed) if the fish aren't shallow they're usually hiding in that stuff. But to go back to the question i've caught quality fish on the bank and out in the grass offshore. We have it in plenty of coves and some fields of it on the main lake. The only "deep" parts of the lake is the area near the dam and channel section which never holds fish for me. I feel like if a lake has more cover on the bank the bass will be there more instead of deep water this time of year.

In my area a consistent 60 to 65 degrees with no sudden cold fronts that bring the water temps down will have a successful spawn. At this point I don't know if the spawn has been successful because we had early spawners who retreated here in NJ after the recent cold fronts. If I had to guess they'll probably come back to spawning soon.

I fish a lot of shallow impoundments that heat up quickly, it seems like when the water heats up above to 60 degrees I will see beds in the northern part of the lake/ponds because that's where heat gets to quicker due to sun angle. I was at one pond yesterday and there's still a fish on a lonely bed from a few weeks ago. I guess he's been guarding eggs.