DitchPanda

My local waters have cooled considerably from cold over night temps...I'm talking a few nights in the upper 20s. I went yesterday...it was cloudy windy and around 50 when I was out. I caught 3 and missed 1 on a lip less...biggest was almost 4lbs. I'd really like your weather starting now for the next 5 months. Yes its worth it..go man!

Pulling for you buddy...hope it turns out ok. yes...yes it has. One big bad movie.

For me its less about that and more about the absolute stupidity of drinking and driving. I love fishing so much that I dont need to be inebriated to enjoy it. Also if I hurt or killed someone because of drunk driving I don't think I could live with myself.

I've tried to teach myself to skip off and on and I usually end up ticked off with a blown up reel. Then ill randomly try it one day when the situation arises and ill do it perfect. Maybe when I'm trying...I'm trying to hard or thinking about it to much.

This is also a good point. I used to have several buddies who wanted to go "fishing" which meant drink a case then drive home. When I was younger this was ok...at least young dumb me thought it was. Now I don't fish with anybody who isn't there for the fishing. I can't even remember the last time I had a beer while fishing. Been years.

Yep..we've been in severe drought stage here for 4 or 5 months...this is the lowest I've seen the local river and ponds in....well I don't even know how long. It was windy and cold today but I managed 3 on a lip less...2 dinks and 1 close to 4lbs.

Out of the 4 or so guys I fish with only 1 is a serious bass guy like me. Still like pan fishing and perch fishing with the other guys.

I use 5/16 most often

Must be a good lake..don't have such a thing around me

Ha tough day...only 18 bass. I feel real bad for you! I haven't caught 18 bass in my last 6 trips.

Perfect...thanks for the reply

That's awesome to learn some of your history..I didn't know about your bait making. I'm glad you responded again because I had a thought come to me and you may be just the guy to answer it. I'm thinking of possible spinner bait trailers...what are your thoughts of the zoom swimming chunk on a spinnerbait? Do you use it and how do you like it? I know guys back in the day used uncle josh pork in different forms on a spinnerbait...the swimming chunk should be similar I'd imagine

Numbers wise I had a good year until fall as well..but like I said for me I've attributed it to the low falling water. Starting in spring I had lots of 10-15 fish outings but we had good water depth then. Now I'm lucky to get a few bites...but when I do they tend to be quality.

Am I stumped? No not at all I've got it all figured out...no struggle here(he says rolling his eyes..disgusted for lying!) Yeah I'm having a tough time this year too...alot of days its tough to even get a bite. I understand why for me tho. The lakes and ponds I'm fishing are very low from drought all summer...so alot of the fish are still offshore...and I don't have a boat. My best day so far this fall on my home pond is 5 bites in 2hrs...last year I had several days when I got 20 in that same amount of time...but last year our ponds were full and even had water coming in so it pulled the bass up shallow into predictable spots. One thing I'm happy about this fall has been size...in the past 3 weeks I've caught 4 4s a 4.5 and a 6 plus I lost a 4 and broke a spinnerbait on a 5+.

Yeah I had a booyah fail the other day on a 5+ lb fish...all I got back was the blades...I knew better than throw it cuz the wire was weak but it was a dumb choice and I paid for it. Oh well can't catch them all. Btw I've been throwing those baits you sent me...they run great and have caught me some fish even when its been tough.

I feel like they hold up better yes if all things are equal. I feel like same wire type and size a twist eye has more strength. At least it has seemed that way in my experience. I actually just ordered a couple Stanley's after reading how good and durable they are on here. Never thrown one.

The war eagle extremes with Trokar hooks and the wake model spinnerbaits use the closed eye. Do you have any experience with the North land spinnerbaits? Are they decent quality? The have single blade Colorado spinner baits with the closed eye frame for like $3-$4 and was wondering if they are any good

Alright for you spinnerbait junkies like myself...which style do you prefer and why? For me I prefer the closed eye as they seem to hold up better and I also like the classic look. Problem is they are tough to find.

Winter here for me means ice fishing. I like it but much prefer open water. The hard part for us is we never know what length of winter we are in store for. We also get some nasty bitter cold some years...I'm talking like a week straight of -30 to -40 wind chill.A few years back we had ice 2 weeks before Thanksgiving up until the 2nd week of April. That's 5 months of lock down. Last year we didn't get ice until December and it was gone by the first part of March...only 3 months. Those are the winters I pray for.

For me no water clarity is good for it. I can't catch crap on pbj jigs, worms, trds.

So nowhere near that caliber but I had one between 5 and 6 yesterday lock up on my spinner bait....come up jump, shake her head break my wire and spit the blades back at me!

I agree that all of them break after enough fish..I posted above that tonight I broke a booyah. That bait had caught I don't know how many and definitely didn't owe me anything. Wish it wouldn't have happened on a big one...but it makes sense that it did and no pun intended when you fish a spinnerbait thems the breaks. It had been a long time since I had a wire failure...usually losing the bait before that would happen. But I'm pretty sure my last few prior were war eagles and that's why I mentioned it. Also I don't like how the wire breaks loose from the head so easily. Maybe its nitpicky and yeah its easy to fix with a few drops of super glue but it bugs me. Now the reason I have these complaints about war eagle is I do throw them...the reason is simple...they catch fish as good or better than alot of brands. Kinda like how Keitechs outperform other swim baits but they are fragile..that's the tradeoff...money in the wallet or fish on the line. Funny thing is 2 weeks ago I caught a 6lb large mouth..my biggest fish since may. On what you may ask? A war eagle spinnerbait! Long winded point I'm making is all I was trying to point out was that war eagles in my experience didn't hold up as well. But I definitely was saying they don't catch fish...or that I wasn't gonna use them anymore. I'm just more aware of checking them more often.

That's simple...its like almost everything else now days...if it was that easy and could be summed up that quick how could most of these people justify their jobs?

Lipless can also be good in cold water..that's what I caught my 7 on this April. They can be burned, slow rolled or even hopped like a jig. So they are versatile and can be adapted for water temp. Another bait ive caught big prespawn fish on is a bladed jig. Had a season a few years ago that I caught several 5 to 6lb fish on one in a few week time period in May. Then for some reason they stopped producing for me as well so I leaned heavily on spinnerbait and swim jig. Then this May I was out with a buddy in a private pond he has access to. We were targeting crappie but like every self respecting bass angler I had a baitcaster along just in case. The crappie deal wasn't happening so we decided to call it. He says hey ill troll the shoreline on the way back if you wanna throw that jig thing. A few casts in a hookup and wouldn't you know its a beauty...right about 6lbs. He says its the biggest bass he's ever seen.

For cold water I like Colorado blade spinnerbaits. A half ounce bait with a single blade can be very good...depending on water clarity I will change blade color. Skirt color isn't as important to me...using white,chartreuse or white chartreuse combo. Some guys swear by a black skirt and copper blade...I've never used that combo in fall as my water is usually not that dirty. Booyah makes some decent ones as does strike king...and I've heard that site sponsor siebert outdoors makes a good one as well. I've never tried his single blade spinners but everything else of his I've tried has been quality. Let me specify that this isn't true winter fishing...I'm talking about late fall and early spring as my cold water. In winter its hard for me to use a spinner bait...they don't break through 15inches of ice very well.