galyonj

Quit talking crazy.

I use a 6'9" ML/F spinning setup with 15lb braid to a 8lb leader for wacky rigs, weightless stickbaits and flukes, ned rigs, all kinds of stuff.

I lose a lot of lures (combination of sloppy casting and fishing around slop), and that one occupies a unique place in my box in that it catches good fish for me and I don't feel like an ******* when I invariably lose it.

Buzzbait might be a winner here, too.

If you have reason to believe the fish are looking up and chasing baitfish, it behooves you to throw something that a) looks or acts like what they're after, and/or b) is above or at the level in the water column that the bass are. So you've got a few options. Soft jerkbaits like flukes, hard floating or suspending jerkbaits, poppers of all sorts, wakebaits, plopper-style lures, walking baits. Senko-style stickbaits will still work, but if the fish are as keyed in to the specific behavior you see as you describe, dragging them on the bottom isn't gonna get it done. Maybe try a wacky rig with a brighter color plastic. You can have any color you want, but if I'm trying to imitate a baitfish, I generally stick to bluegill/baby bass/white/shad patterns. It doesn't really matter if shad aren't in your lake. It matters that what you're throwing looks small enough to eat and helpless enough to be an easy meal.

That's pretty awesome.

I believe it. Nate Marling caught several on a block of wood with a treble hook screwed into it, and ndyakangler caught a mess of smallmouth on a Lego Chewbacca. Those are just a couple examples that I remember off the top of my head. Fish are kinda dumb.

It seems like it's different with every fish. All I know is that if I feel something that I don't expect, or I don't feel something when I do expect to, I'm setting the hook.

Just cut the hook eye with some dikes and then you can put on split rings and new hooks and whatever else you want. Easy-peasy.

Good plan. Do it early, then sit in the AC and relax. lol

It has been BRUTAL.

Near as I can tell…it depends. I have better results fishing this rig weighted than I do weightless, especially in current like I was fishing Saturday. If you don't know how deep you're fishing, or you don't know where the fish are (in terms of both depth and relation to you and where the lure hit the water), just leave the bail open until the line stops coming off, then reel up your slack and start popping it back to you.

@TnRiver46 those mean little babies on Saturday taught me more about fishing a wacky rig and a ned rig than I think I've learned the entire time I've been trying to fish them. I wish I had just started with that instead of all the other junk I threw. lol I also wish we'd been able to hook up on that gar you and I kept chasing.

I ain't Cajun but I will attest to the fact that crawdads are delicious. Like half the fish I caught this weekend were puking up crawdad meat. Smallmouth, rock bass, spots…basically any fish that can fit one in its mouth will eat it.

Went out with @TnRiver46 and another buddy on Saturday. Caught a mess of tiny fish – all new species for me: smallmouth, a spot, and a rock bass. It was rad, even though we had to watch for tigers the whole day. ETA: I could have left everything at home except my spinning rod, a pack of stick baits and some 1/16oz jig heads. They weren't touching anything else.

I submit that a properly executed GT knot is every bit as small and strong as the FG, while being orders of magnitude less fiddly to tie.

Siebert and 6th Sense are all I use.

Hm. Mine too. ?

What's the forage situation? Find the food, you find the bass.

Irsay or Richardson?

Those elastic hair ties that you get 100 to a sleeve at Walmart are pretty legit, too. I, uh…may have snagged a couple from the woman as a test after I saw the dude from Realistic Fishing do it. ?

It's really hard to go wrong with a Rage Craw.

I needed to hear this, because the fishing has been a real grind for me lately. It's about to the point that I'm not having fun anymore.

https://store.baits.com/5-senko.html Tackle Warehouse has it listed as a "core shot luminous chart,", but it has the same model number. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Yamamoto_Senko/descpage-YAS.html CTRL+F for 913 on that page and you'll find it.