IYAOYAS

Dean Rojas spoiled me on frogs back in the day. I won't fish anything but a Spro Bronzeye and consider it the gold standard of frogs.

Heavy rain doesn't help my fishing either.

I can't believe I haven't seen the Bronco Bug in any of these posts yet!😂 Zoom Fluke Rapala DT 8 Zoom Magnum Lizard Crush City Bronco Bug bladed jig Battlebaits brush bomb Battlebaits Suppressor Bass Reaper Bait co. Tap That ned bait Yamamoto Zako Yamamoto Senko

I'm whateverIcangetthemtobiteonstream. I'll throw whatever. I don't care if Wheeler told me to use it in his videos or I found it in some obscure place on the internet nobody knows about.

I've been using the bronco bug since it came out. One of my favorite baits. I figured I'd go stock up last night before they wouldn't be available for the next 6 months. This was all they had. Now they don't have any. lol

My wife is from Virginia Beach. We have family there. All of a sudden I feel the urge to visit the inlaws for some strange reason...😂

Dave acting like us NC boys from the mountains should know what's going on down there on the coast. 😂 Albemarle might as well be in Egypt. I live in the same town Jake Whitaker is from and it's 7.5 hours from where I'm at.🤦‍♂️

I lived in Pungo and fished back bay on the Virginia side quite often when I was stationed in Oceana. My advice is to STRONGLY heed the warnings about the wind. I had a 14 foot sears jon boat with a 7.5 hp and still almost got swamped hugging the shoreline back to the creek I launched from. I had to bale water as I headed back a few times and it was not fun. As mentioned above start in the creeks. Try to find the creeks with anything different from all the others. If you can find cypress trees they are a good place to start. I like to throw a jig around the base of the knees. Also ditches used to be my secret spots. If you can find a ditch that is a foot or two deeper than the rest of the area around it you can almost guarantee there will be bass in there especially in colder water. My go to bait for fishing ditches believe it or not was a lipless crankbait. However keep in mind this was back in the 90s early 00s. Tides are a big factor in a tidal basin. Usually the last two hours of outgoing and the first two hours of incoming will be your best bet. Lastly as other have said duck blinds can really produce especially if their isolated. Texas rigged creature baits(Back then it was the Gambler Ugly Otter that was the hotness) and wacky senkos were my juice for duck blinds. If you're on the north end then my suggestion is to try Coinjock. It was a big producer back in my day from the sound all the way down the ICW to the North river. Be careful on the ICW though LOTS of traffic especially during the warmer months.

Here are the three high end rods I have. I bought these from the guy who own speed spools. He was selling a few of these on the side at the last fishing show I went to. What I know about custom rods could fill up a thimble but I do know these are by far my favorite rods to use. My cranking rod I have coupled with an Abu Revo Premier 8.1:1 and I can't wait to grab that rod out of the box every time I go.

Just realized I hadn't posted a pic of my Cadillac yet. 2006 Stratos 486SF with an 06 Johnson 150 two stroke. This is my first glass boat. I've had her for 3 years and I love this boat more than my wife(or so she says). Tops out at 50mph with a full tank and two old fat farts in it and that's plenty good for me.

So... Who's planning a trip to the albemarle sound!

1or 2 gallon ziploc bags and keep them in the original packaging for me.

I use a snap on the Rapala Original minnow. That's pretty much it.

I'm a bit heavy handed with my hooksets so I like a little softer rod than a medium heavy. My fluke rod is a 7'3 medium fast.

Looking at all these awesome looking banks makes my swim jig nerve twitch.

Battle baits will do custom orders if you message him. Thats what I have to do whenever I need something from him.

If you are looking for small spinnerbaits the battle baits minigun us what you want. Hard to get ahold of though as the business is literally one guy working out if his garage but his quality is unparalled.

Allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. I prefer the Spro version. I fish highland reservoirs and the faster I can get my bait down the better. The slower resin for me means it will take longer than the Spro and thus is less efficient. Now that being said I wrap my hooks with lead wire anyways so I guess the point was moot. lol What was I talking about again?🤦‍♂️

Gar is the only thing I've ever caught on a whole dead fish.

Well if you picked Welcher he'll carry your whole team!😂

Dat boy good!

Got up this morning and it was a little cold but tolerable. Sun comes out early and is shining all day. The temperature shoots up into the 60s and it is beautiful. I think to myself "Man what a beautiful day! I believe I'll go give my boat a thorough cleaning top to bottom in preparation for my first tournament of the year next week. I drag out the shop vac and the buckets and hose, turn my phone on to Bassmaster live and get ready to work my butt off. I clean all the trash out of the nooks and crannies and fire up the vacuum. The sun feels good. I get to about 80% done vacuuming and literally in about 30 seconds it gets dark and it was at that time God decided that I don't need the hose to wash out the boat today. He'll handle the water for me. It rains so hard I'm not sure if it is coming up or down. No rain in the forecast no clouds in the sky until just then. I grab my phone and make a mad dash for the front door(which in my age and shape a wandering amble is the best I got). I come in the house and look at the weather app on my phone. 100% chance of rain from 1-3 pm with thunderstorms possible. Literally 3 hours ago it said no rain at all. I think I'm cursed. Anybody else as lucky as me?

I picked Hackney and this is the third time Ive picked him and he let me down. I'm almost mad at him.😂

Fishing lake Cunningham SC in my kayak. It is a very small lake but has some really nice bass in it. 9.9 restricted city lake takes me about 30 minutes to pedal the length of it. The boat ramp is on one end and the dam is all the way at the other with no other public ramps. So it's march. I put in and pedal all the way to the dam. Just before you get to the dam it has a sharp S curve and then opens up. I came around the S curve and as soon as I cleared it into the main dam part my graph lights up with so much bait balls my screen was almost all green. It's still pretty much prespawn so I grab my Arig and begin to work my way around the bank(Its shaped pretty much like a big bowl with the dam on one end of it) Didn't take but just a few seconds before I started seeing schooling bass busting on top. I literally pedaled out to the middle of the bowl and would just wait for them to bust and cast to them. It was electric. Every cast landed a fish(sometimes two) I ended up putting 52 bass in the boat and the smallest one had to have been at least two pounds. Ended up with a 5.5 pounder being the largest and I could barely lift my arms after I was done. Thank God my kayak was a pedal kayak because I wouldn't have been able to paddle home. lol Here's a video of the first fish from that day. Now keep in mind I had just started kayak fishing way back then and I had never really caught any decent bass so I got super excited over this little 2 pounder here and then my mind was blown. Still to this day the best day of fishing ever for me.

I'm the same way.