plawren53202

Almost by necessity a worm, or some kind of soft plastic, is by far my best bait...in the ponds where I fish, there is almost always (a) weeds, (b) woody cover or (c) both that almost require using Texas rigged baits .I'd also include Ned rig in this as kind of an adjunct of worms. I enjoy the few times that I can find a little more open water and fish a lipless or squarebill, but most often I've got some kind of soft plastic tied on at these ponds. Having said that, I have learned that you can cover a lot of different styles using just soft plastics. Shallow or deeper, slower or faster presentation, change up the sink rate, etc. If the fish are feeding more actively I can go with something with more movement like a brush hog or a creature bait with lots of appendages. Less active, I can go with a Yum Dinger, a fluke, or a Ned rig. Add in colors, weighted versus weightless, and wacky style, and you can cover a whole lot of situations with just a "worm." Also same boat as you with the rods. Doing mainly bank fishing, I'm obviously not going to be carrying 8 or 9 rods with me. I have one spinning combo and one baitcaster, and with both of them I intentionally tried to get something very "middle of the road" that would cover as much ground as possible (M/H-fast on the baitcaster, and M-fast on the spinning). I'd love to have a dedicated frog rod, a crankbait rod, etc., but it just isn't practical (or in the budget LOL). My M/H-fast baitcaster might not be the perfect rod for a frog or a crankbait, but I can make do with either.

Thanks for the information, that's actually really helpful to hear those parts of the process without relying on fancy electronics. I'm fortunate because my dad just got a new Bass Tracker and upgraded the front electronics unit to a Garmin 73sv. It's not one of the huge screen models, but it has all the tools like navigation/maps, traditional sonar, down and side imaging, ability to split screens with any of those, etc. Learning to use it will be the next step. But I like hearing about how people fished these ledges prior to electronics. I was watching YouTube and listening to someone who used an approach similar to yours using just a basic depthfinder, they would find the dropoff in one spot and mark it with a buoy, then motor about 200 yards away and do the same thing, and then fish the line between the two.

I'm really liking it so far, and that's after several months of use in both spinning and baitcasting functions. To me it mainly acts like mono, certainly it has much more of the softness and castability of mono, but with noticeably less stretch and increased sensitivity, like fluoro.

12 lb. Sufix Advance

Bingo. Pond I fish a lot is pretty clear, and highly pressured. If I see a fish, I can count him (her?) out for a while as having no chance to catch it. In certain places on the pond, I can cast to the other side of the pond (it's where the creek flows in) though it's a long cast. In other places, I can't and so I cast down the bank I'm standing on as far as possible. Don't underestimate the usefulness of weed cover for this. If bass are back in the weeds they may not see you as easily. Think of these bass as deer hunting. You have to use stealth, approach the bank quietly, mind your shadow, keep a low profile, don't just stomp up to the bank and start casting.

My subdivision pond that I fish all the time is loaded with dinks. Ned rig is always a good choice. I get a lot of mileage out of 4" Yum Dingers, wacky rigged or Texas rigged depending on whether I'm fishing them in the weeds or not. I catch lots of dinks on a fluke, just the standard Super Fluke on a 3/0 or 4/0 EWG hook (doesn't have to be the mini flukes, the dinks have no problem with the standard fluke). Caught lots of dinks earlier this season on mini jigs, like the SK Bitsy Bug or the Bass Pro version (XPS Finesse Jig) with a Netbait Tiny Paca Chunk as a trailer. If they want a more active or moving bait, I have a lot of luck with the small size (1/4 oz. I think?) Cotton Cordell Spot that Walmart sells. They also like the SK or Booyah mini spinnerbaits. In addition to all of this, I don't use but would imagine they would work great as well a lot of the suggestions above for more traditionally panfish baits like Beetle Spins, inline spinners, Rooster Tails, etc.

I think this is a really concise way to summarize the difference. I did study maps before I went this past time, but once on the water the pond instincts took over. Next time I'm going to force myself to stick with what looks good on the maps and electronics, not to my eyes.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Lots of suggestions that look exactly like what I had in mind. Next question for everyone, what lens color do you prefer for fishing? Based on past use, my main use for sunglasses fishing is bright sun, bluebird sky kinds of situations. I'm not typically going to be wearing sunglasses when it's cloudy, for instance. So based on that, what lens color would you recommend?

I'll throw one more possible factor in, amount of pressure the fish receive. In my subdivision pond, that receives a LOT of pressure, generally the fish won't hardly move to hit a bait. You really have to have it right on their head. And this pond has pretty clear water which, consistent with the above, in my experience can cause them to move more to get to a bait. In contrast, couple of weeks ago I was fishing at my inlaws' property ponds, which gets essentially no pressure. Even in stained water, over and over I would cast and see a swirl three feet away from where my bait hit (I was fishing really shallow water right up against the bank), and then instantly the whammo as they hit it.

Bluegill flash is my most effective color by far in my local pond. I have to order it online and can't find it in store anywhere around me. Interestingly, the other day I was in an Academy and they of course did not have bluegill flash, but they did have the baby bass color (can't remember if Zoom calls it baby bass or something else). I thought, since the bass just wrapped up spawning, and lots of little fry swimming around now, maybe that's worth a try. The only time out with it so far, I caught three quick ones before weather forced me off the pond. So just throwing that out there in case baby bass might work for you as well, and I think it fits the topic in matching the hatch with the newborn bass fry.

I'll second that. I kept watching all of these YouTube videos where they were demonstrating knots with 80 lb. bright yellow braid and 50 lb. mono, that looked like tying two ropes together. Little different tying 15 lb. braid to 8 lb. fluoro ?

Apologies if this isn't the right section for this question, it didn't seem like it fit in the Tackle or Rods and Line sections. Looking for a decent but reasonably priced pair of polarized glasses. I know lots of people love their Costas and Raybans but unfortunately I don't have spare funds in that amount right now. I grabbed a pair of the $9.99 Strike Kings at Walmart a few weeks ago just out of convenience. They're okay as far as being able to cut through the glare, but they're terrible at staying clean. They get smudged up very easily and are almost impossible to get clean, so I'm constantly looking through a haze of smudge. Also fog up really easily from sweat or my breath (like when I have a neck gaiter pulled up over my nose). So I'm wondering what are some decent quality glasses that aren't going to break the bank. For instance last time I was in Academy I saw that they had some Strike King and Columbia glasses for between $30 and $50. I would be okay with spending $40 or so on a pair, IF I knew that they would be a substantial upgrade from the cheapies I have now. Just don't want to pony up $125+ for Costas or something like that. Thanks!

For the longest time I avoided using braid because of exactly this...I used to fly fish years back, and I hated using flyline to leader connections that I had to tie a knot for. I finally broke down this year and switched my spinning combos to braid. The learning curve on the knots went a lot faster than I thought it would. I tried a few different knots and landed on the double uni knot (I know, a lot of people prefer other knots like the Alberto, my brain is just better at tying the double uni). The first few attempts...weren't great. One morning in particular at the river I had to retie my leader to the mainline three times, there were a couple of fish that morning swimming around with a Ned rig and eight feet of mono trailing from their jaws ?. But it progressed pretty quickly. I'm proud to say this weekend, my son and I were using my M bass spinning combos for some crappie fishing. We had numerous hangups in brushpiles in which I was pulling on the line hard, even having to wrap the braid around a pair of pliers so it wouldn't screw up the rod or reel (or cut my hand). Once even pulled so hard that I pulled a six foot wooden stake out of the muddy bottom and up to the surface. And the knots held up through all of that. You'll love that combo, and the 832 (its what I have on my spinning combos).

Thanks everyone--really useful things for me to give some thought to. This makes a lot of sense and I wish I could do this, however unfortunately I think my lake trips are only going to be about once a month. During quarantine I've gotten used to fishing 4 or 5 days a week most weeks and it's like an addiction, no way I could go cold turkey ? All joking aside, I think fishing that much especially this year has been really helpful in a lot of ways. Lots of skills like strike detection, working on different presentations that I think will transfer anywhere. I think I just need to add to the toolbox now, things like reading a map, reading electronics and learning to think in terms of finding fish offshore.

Til this past weekend, I have been a small water bass angler. I don't own a boat, so all of my fishing is either bank fishing or, when at my in-laws' property with a 7 acre pond, in a johnboat. My dad just got a new Bass Tracker and a camper at Kentucky Lake. Just got back from my first weekend down there. My dad is mostly interested in crappie fishing, so we did that most of the weekend. I bent his arm into bass fishing one evening. Have been watching lots of YouTube videos, how to study maps and read your electronics, postspawn patterns for early summer, yada yada yada. Thought I had at least a little clue....until I got out on the water. ?? Came home with the skunk that evening. It dawned on me the fundamental difference between the fishing I am used to and this. For most of the ponds I fish, they are places without a lot of obvious cover or structure. I've developed some ability to look at a (small) body of water that doesn't have any real apparent place for fish to relate to, and find a little indention in the bank here, a slight dip in the bank that I think might indicate a "channel" or ditch out in the water there, a small weed clump, a guess as to where there might be a foot or two dropoff out from the bank, those kinds of things. I realized that in the fishing I'm usually doing, it is all about finding a likely target zone where there don't appear to be any. In contrast, I realized that on a major impoundment like Kentucky Lake, everything looks like a likely target zone. Kentucky Lake in particular has mile after mile of banks with flooded buck brush, weeds and pads, and tons of offshore structure. Obviously there's not fish in all those places. So whereas my normal fishing is determining good spots where there don't seem to be any, the trick with fishing a major impoundment is going to be finding good spots where there seem to be good spots everywhere. I know lots of you on here are old pros when it comes to fishing major impoundments. I feel fairly confident at this point in my small water fishing ability, but I'm looking forward to the new challenge of working to develop skill in finding fish on big water as well. But as for this weekend, I'm enjoying a cold glass of lemonade with my slice of humble pie that Kentucky Lake served up.

Yeah that's generally the idea. Depending on how fast of a gear ratio your baitcaster is, I might not keep reeling during the actual sweep...like reel down, then sweep (no reeling) and then play the fish. If you have an 8, it might end up still making for a pretty jarring hookset. Something slower like a 6, it might not be a big deal. You're definitely on point with the part about "smooth but firm sweep rather than a crazy snappy sweep."

Just a thought and I could be way off base with this, but my memory (don't have one in front of me) is that the Bitsy Bug has a fairly thin hook. I know earlier this year I was having good luck with them fishing them on a M spinning combo. It seems to me that a MH/F baitcasting combo might be a bit heavy for a Bitsy Bug. Not that you can't fish one on that combo, but I would probably lean toward more of a sweeping hookset like someone else mentioned than a big bone jarring MLF highlights film hookset. That MH/F combo should have plenty of power to support a more gentle hookset, picturing how I "set" the hook fishing a Ned rig on my M spinning combo.

Yeah, I've heard that. My dad's family all had places in the Paris area, and some of them still live there. So for him, as a retirement getaway it was a no brainer notwithstanding the current state of fishing there. Thanks for the fishing intel. My plan for bass was to try shallow early and late, and try some deeper transition type areas like deeper on secondary points when the sun is higher.

I have a love/hate with weeds. There is a fine line between not enough and too many. Our subdivision pond is like a bowl with almost no natural structure. When some weeds grow along the bank the fishing picks up tremendously. The bass finally have something to relate to. The weeds never get out of control that I have seen there, but the homeowners along the water don't want a single leaf of vegetation so the subdivision usually treats to control them. ? On the other hand, my wife's family property in north MO has two ponds, a 7 acre and a 2 acre. They are on private land, rarely fished and so of course it is amazing fishing; HOWEVER the weeds are borderline out of control on both. About 12 years ago my brother in law thought he would take control of the matter in the big pond and treated it with some herbicide (that was supposedly recommended by a conservation agent). There was shortly thereafter a huge fish kill and it took quite a few years of transplanting bass from the other pond to restore the fishing. (Thankfully it's back to being gangbusters, see my post in recent fishing trips). Of the types of weeds, I love fishing lily pads.

PS*****Just noticed that I posted this in Central! Oops! Mods please feel free to move this to the Southeast forum appropriate for TN!

OP here...ironically enough, I caught three in about 20 minutes this morning on the baby bass flukes I picked up the other night.

So my dad got this wild hair the last few weeks and now has a camper on a pad in the Paris TN area, and for the first time in many years, a bass boat. Headed down there this weekend. I only have a couple of days for this first trip, and he's going to want to do some crappie fishing also, so I have to make the most of my time there. So hoping to get some pointers on where to fish (types of areas, obviously not anyone's honey holes) for some bass. My game plan at this point: they should have just finished the last of the spawn; may be some up shallow guarding fry; also may be some targeting early morning shad spawn. Otherwise I would guess many of the fish are beginning their transition to deeper summer areas. So I was planning on locating likely spawning areas in the backs of pockets and focus on structure between those and the main river channel. Secondary points and humps between the spawning areas and channels. Also going to look for some gravel banks in these types of areas where they may be hitting the shad spawn. Let me know if I'm way off base or if you have any other ideas. Again, I'm totally comfortable reading Navionics and identifying types of areas and then using his electronics to find them, I just want to make sure I'm looking for the right types of areas.

Got me wondering about this because I was in Academy a couple of days ago and for some reason happened to keep noticing all of the bass-colored bass lures. I bought a package of baby bass Super Flukes just for the heck of it. And at my subdivision pond, they are wrapping up the spawn and I can see hordes of fry swimming around in the shallows. So all that got me thinking, I assume if they make bass-colored bass lures, bass must eat other bass. Not a pattern I have ever targeted if that's the case, but seems like it might make a little sense in a pond where there aren't any shad for them to eat.

I appreciate everyone's responses, and the diversity of opinions. I think this is where I land on this, generally. There are a couple of places I fish where it's Ned without much thought: my subdivision pond or other ponds I fish with lots of dinks; nearby small stream, for smallmouths. The Ned is my skunk killer on the pressured public ponds I fish most of the time. This morning for example, the bite had quit at my subdivision pond; I tied on a Ned (SK Rage Ned in Okeechobee craw) and caught fish on 3 casts in a row. Granted they were all 3 dinks; but that's about all there is in this pond. Reason for my question was that my parents just got a place at Kentucky Lake. To date I haven't really gotten to do any bigger water/boat fishing. So I don't have any personal experience if the Ned's role as my skunk killer will transfer to bigger water. I could envision the shaky head filling that role, and fishing it a lot like I fish a Ned rig--slow dragged along the bottom, or short hops on the bottom. I just don't use the shaky head a lot right now because the places I fish with lots of dinks, I get a lot of short takes from them on any longer worm, where they are clamped on to the end of the worm but no hook set.

I picked up this rod a couple of months ago (casting) and liked it so much I got the spinning model as well. 1/8 oz is perhaps a little light but when I fish a 1/8 oz bullet weight, then adding in weight of hook and plastic bait, it is manageable to cast. Fishing the bait, feeling it and setting the hook are all no problem.