DitchPanda

He's a cool looking cat

Maine coon?

I'm excited to see Oahe on there again as that's semi local for me. Also la Crosse is always fun to watch. At least I don't see guntersville on there this year. If I watch another tourney where I see a top ten guy fishing the bridges at guntersville I may puke. I watched Bass Talk Live yesterday and at the end of the podcast Matt and Mark picked there dream 8 tourney schedule...was much more interesting than this list.

Don't see these mentioned on here very often. Over the years I've seen countless tourney results where Bryan Thrift has had a top ten or even a win with these bait contributing to it. Looks like a cool little wacky rig bait. Anybody try these? How are they?

Bacon rind Hawaiian wiggler

Is this kind of like...are you tryin to diet or dyin to try it?

Its amazing how tough a cat is even a house cat. People talk about how mean and scrappy dogs can be but I feel like pound for pound a cat is much tougher. Also they are deceptively strong and athletic. Take my cat Sullivan for example. He's a lazy laid back 14lb house cat. He can also jump up on the kitchen counter with no effort. I'm not so sure he couldn't jump to the top of the fridge. That's like me jumping up to my roof.

I actually use both for neds and don't notice much difference honestly. Also don't notice much difference in line type. One setup has copolymer and one has braid...can't say I have a preference. For me the key component is rod power...I prefer a medlight over medium big time.

Very slow going for me today. Fished all my good shallow spots and brush piles...the ones that usually hold shad and bass this time of year...no shad or schooling fish around. Caught 2 super dinks..8in and 5in.. on a senko. Tried topwater, Texas rig worm, hair jig and Ned rig all with no dice. Then I lost one under a dock on a wacky worm. Stopped on my starting spot on my way out...2nd cast got a 1.25lb on a wacky worm. Picked the senko back up and fished it thru a big brush pile. On about my 10th or 12th cast I caught my best fish of the day. Maybe 2.5lbs but had the head and body length of a 3.5...she was as thin as a piece of paper!

33 in an afternoon? Jesus that's more than I've caught so far this month. I suck!

Say what you mean and mean what you say...a man is only as good as his word

So we are definitely at or close to our peak water temps here. We have had well over a month of mostly very hot...high 80s-100...degree weather. It makes daytime fishing fairly slow and unproductive. But with the hot weather there always seems to be a morning top water bite. My problem is I never know what to throw. Most of the year I prefer a buzz bait or a frog when fishing cover or grass. This time of year tho the bass act a little different. What are your favorite early morning topwaters?

Well let me go into more detail about why I feel the smallies are still in there. Let me also state that I'm not sure I'm just speculating. The pond in question is like I mentioned above more of a small lake...decent volume of water. Habitat wise it has alot of things smallmouth really like...sand,gravel and chunk rock. It also has alot of forage smallmouth target...craws, shad, different types of river minnows and even a few perch. Lastly there are several springs that come in so this body of water is often times cooler by several degrees all summer then your typical weedy, mossy largemouth pond.

What line you use? What size reel?

Talking about the small 1/16-1/8oz jigs used primarily for smallmouth. I was using a black 1/16oz VMC dominator last week and caught some decent largemouth on it. Problem is that's a light jig and I was having trouble getting distance. I was using a 6ft10 med light omen black with 10lb power pro braid and couldn't get the casting distance I wanted. For those of you throwing these what setup are you using? Any tips or tricks to help?

Why is that? The pond I'm talking is really more of a small lake...it has diverse forage...crappies, various sunfish,craws and shad

Well I guess I can't be certain but I'm almost positive. There is no water inlet or outlet so after the last flood they were trapped. Also the pond in question gets very little fishing pressure especially for bass so it would be hard to imagine they have all been caught and taken.

So lets get this out of the way...I'm not a very good smallmouth angler. Largemouth I can figure out and hold my own but I don't have the time or experience chasing bronze backs to even claim to know what I'm doing. Now for the details of my current situation. A few years ago we had terrible flooding..the local river blew its banks and dumped into my local ponds several times in a few year period. The upside to this was the pond got a small stocking of cool river fish such as pike, white bass and most importantly smallies. That first year I caught probably 20-25 small mouth. Last year we went into a drought and the water level dropped throughout the open water season. I only caught 2-3 small mouth. This year the pond is as low as I've seen it and ive caught 0 small mouth. The structure/cover in this pond which is actually and old gravel pit is mostly sand with rock mixed in...several planted brush piles...a couple shorelines lined with rip rap..max depth of around 15-16 ft. My question is if the fish aren't up shallow where would you look for them? As the water cools in fall will they move in shallow to feed? In this scenario where the largemouth population is dominate will the smallies act more like largemouth or still like small mouth?

Stickbaits(senko, bps stik o and gambler ace), zoom trick worm and zoom super fluke. 99% of the time Texas rigged.

As @Bluebasser86 said this is abnormal and in no way a reflection of war eagle quality. I've got a dozen or more of there baits and they are great.

Think it depends on the scenario. I feel like when I'm working open water especially if the bass are targeting balls of shad I prefer a lighter wire hook because it does slow the fall and improve the action. Alot of the time though I am using a fluke in brush the way I would a senko so in that scenario I prefer the heavy wire hook for strength to pull them out and also for a faster fall to get a reaction strike.

I've seen dead turtles strung from a tree like that. Would like to find the jack@#$ that did it and smash his face in.

For me this is true. But then again as a kid I had all the time in the world to do fun stuff...baseball and fishing. I didn't have a house to take care of or a job to go to 40-50hrs a week.

Little kids can't dodge a wrench or a ball..hence the dodge ball with 3rd graders

Was gonna say for day in day out standard bass fishing I like 6'10"-7'4".