MGF

I think it's called the Mederchuck River. LOL. I have 4 ramps within about 5 minutes of my house and 6 or 8 within about 20 minutes. I have a lot of lakes near by but my wife and I really like the river...and my wife is NOT a morning person. Even in the hottest part of summer we still get some good fishing right in the middle of the day. We do have slow days especially early in the spring but on a good day we generally catch fish all day. Tactics might change through the day but often not. I'm originally from the Chicago area and I used to fish a lot of the DuPage county forest preserve lakes as well as the Fox river and the Fox Chain. One of my favorite places on earth, that I need to go back to some day, is the backwaters of Mississippi River pool 13 by Savannah, Il.

Fish a river and get on the water about 10 am. Most of my fishing is on a small river and I usually see the best small mouth action mid day.

I don't have pedestal seats but...If I did manage such a thing a would reach behind me with my scissors and cut my pants free. My fishing pants are inexpensive and I could always patch them. In any case my solution would not require me to register as a sex offender. LOL

ok I'm not the only one without a bass boat.

When I started fishing again after being away for a while I started by throwing a Rapala floater into the river. I got the idea that I might be missing some fish that didn't want to come to the surface so I threw a count down. Then I discovered the suspending jerk baits. They all caught fish. I grew up throwing grubs or other plastics on small lead head jigs and they still work. The "NED" is a nice twist especially with "elazteck". I've been using some kind of jig ever since I can remember and that's getting to be a long time now. LOL The way I look at it is innovation is good but I can't afford to run out and buy a bunch of every new thing that comes out. How about boat fads? Is there anybody who doesn't fish out of a "bass boat" except me? LOL

I can't argue with any of that but I know what the math says. From the surface to approximately 34 feet of fresh water the pressure doubles. So a flexible container filled to a given volume at 34 ft will double in size when brought to the surface. Depth/34 + 1 = pressure in atmospheres...not adjusted for elevation. What you can see is that the greatest change as a percentage occurs near the surface. 100% in the first 34, 50% in the second, 33% in the third and so on. For reference the air spaces of a person like the middle ear, sinuses or lungs can be damaged with fairly small depth changes if pressure isn't equalized. For human divers equalization must be done more often near the surface.

The reason I use a flouro leader on my river spinning tackle is to get away from the buoyancy of braid or mono. It's not because of visibility. It's so I get the action I'm after out of the lure. With some baits I fish straight braid or mono. The same is true for the snap swivel. The primary concern is the action of the bait. I usually fish with several rods so that takes care of most of my lure changing but I can tie knots pretty fast and easy too. I do sometimes use a snap when using a crank bait. A wise man once said "What works, works."

All the baits mentioned and then some. My river is fairly small and the water has been really low...and often is in the fall. When the water is this low the fish are easy to find...they're in the "holes". A hole is anything with more than about 1 1/2 ft of water. For the last couple of weeks our top bait has been a NED rig. In the past we've done real well on floating and suspending jerk baits as well as the count down Rapala.

My home river gets an unbelievable amount of tubing and a fair amount of fishing pressure. I still catch some pretty decent size bass so I don't go too light on the tackle. Finesse? sometimes. The two presentations I've used the most this year since summer hit and the wter level dropped is a 1/20 oz ned rig and a Zoom finesse worm on a split shot rig. Oh, a small tube works pretty well too. Just Wednesday evening my wife and I waded a short section and probably caught around 20 bass...nothing real big. My largest so far this year is 21 1/2". I got a bunch of 19, 18 and 17 with the 15 and under fish being too numerous to count. Throw in the occasional pike and it's too much for an UL and real light line. For the "finesse stuff I use a medium weight spinning spooled with 10# braid and a 10# or 12# flouro leader. Many years ago I started fishing this river with UL tackle and I just lost too many good fish. At times I use a lot of jerk baits, square bills, larger skirted jigs, bladed jigs etc and I throw all that on a medium BC. The lower and clearer the water, the smaller and quieter the presentation.

I should update this. Since the river warmed, dropped and cleared that Zoom finesse worm on the split shot rig has been killing them.

We've used different sized bottles from 2 liter to 16 oz (or whatever they are). I'm assuming you know how to make a trap out of it? Flip the neck backwards, punch some holes in it, put some weight on it and tie a string to it. We usually catch minnows on one of the boat ramps on the river when we see a bunch of minnows of the size we want. I've used them for crappie and walleye. I just crumble some bread into the bottle and toss it in. I usually drink beer while I wait for the traps to fill. I can see the trap so when there are a bunch of minnows in it I pull it in.

I've caught a lot of minnows with traps made from pop bottles and bread for bait. I do remember one time that the minnows just weren't interested and I have no idea why

Lures are for sport fishing for fun. If I had to feed myself I'd want nets and/or traps. My island is out in my river and it's surrounded by small mouth bass. LOL

I've tried skipping a "tiny child" rig and that didn't work well. A ned skips ok but not the former. I don't think I've really tried a neko.

The other thing I would add is that matching the weight of the bait to the rod makes it a lot easier.

I skip a lot partly just because I love to do it. Sometimes it seems to get bites even in open water too. I don't fish many docks but there's plenty of low hanging branches in the river or on the pond that I fish sometimes. I would recommend starting with a spinning outfit. It won't educate your thumb but it will give you a chance to learn to skip without having to worry about an overrun. An unweighted worm, NED rig or a small tube is just the sort of thing that I'm often using on the river. Some might disagree but I think the right jig/trailer skips better than just about anything I've tried. I don't have any expensive reels. I'm mostly using a pair of Abu Black Max's and I can skip just fine with them. The thumb...just like any other cast it doesn't really ever come off the spool. Here's the thing though. With a nice smooth skip (or slide) the thumb work is easy. If the skip is more of a crash and burn then an overrun is far more likely. That's why I say that it makes sense to try spinning first. A trick that I picked up somewhere along the way is to peel off a cast's worth of line and run some tape around the spool. Now an overrun can't go all the way to the bottom of the spool and trash all your line. Also, I recommend starting with some fairly heavy mono ...17 or 20 pound. It casts easy, a bird's nest is fairly easy to remove and it's INEXPENSIVE. It doesn't hurt as bad if you have to cut it off and re-spool.

I've been killing the small mouth using a Zoom finesse worm on a #1 ewg with just a split shot to help get it down in the current. But I have to order those small hooks. All you can find on the shelves around here is 3/0 and 4/0...if you're lucky. What little we have for "tackle stores" are pretty empty.

Some kind of jig is always tied on and what I fish the most. The style and size of the jig varies a lot depending on where I'm fishing and when. This year I've been using a split-shot rig an awful lot too.

I'm fishing a river usually less than 10 ft of depth. My most used is a 1/20 oz. I want it to bounce down river just barely bumping the bottom. With just the right amount of weight (not too much) it stays off the snags pretty well. I also use some 1/16 oz ewg heads...because of the ewg. The heaviest I've used is 1/10 0z. There have been days that I have done better with the heavier heads (1/10 oz) but not often.

My river is very low and very clear right now. I'm catching fish on small (ish) subtle presentations. I threw a plopper last weekend and caught one small bass and had one pike blow up on it. Most of the fish came on a NED or a Zoom finesse worm on a split shot rig. Oh my wife got a couple on a floating Rapala minnow...quiet stuff.

I know live bait catches fish but I think the whole Idea with game fish is the idea of a "reaction" bite. I don't know if that exists with most live bait presentations. I keep mentioning the other fun to practice skills like casting...I've been fishing this split shot rig on spinning the last couple of weeks and haven't had the chance to do much real casting. Last night there was weather moving in so I decided to take a wacky rigged dinger up to a local pond and toss it around. This is the pond that's been looking really dead for the last year or so. I did throw a rod with the split shot rig in the truck in case the weeds were too much for the wacky rig. While I was getting my rod out of the truck I heard splashing. I saw a bass on the other side of the pond almost flop onto the bank chasing something. I look down (about a 10 ft drop to the pond) and see a bass a little ways off. I sent a back hand cast just ahead of him from where I stood up on the bank. I remember a time when I couldn't have made that cast to save my life but it was second nature last night. He nailed it about 2 seconds after it hit the water. I took a quick picture and turned him lose. I took one more cast and nothing. I took another. I skipping it this time and caught another bass. That's two bass in three casts. I was about to cast again but the storm was really bearing down on me so I ran for the truck instead. LOL

Now I have to go find mine. I had one when I was a kid. I caught bass on it and I don't remember losing it so it should be here somewhere. The river is low. It might be just the ticket in some places.

On second thought it's not such a straight forward question. I don't have anything against fishing with live bait but there's something about sliding a jig of some type up under a dock or natural cover and having a bass (or pike) jump it that's really addicting. A good top water blow up can be a real rush. Yesterday I saw a nice sized pike dart 20 ft from shade and inhale my tube jig on the fall. I never had those kinds of thrills using live bait. That and I'm a casting nut. I LOVE to skip, pitch or otherwise snake my bait into and around obstructions. Once I skipped a jig way back under some trees and it slid right over a log that was sticking out of the water. It was like the jig landed right in a brown bass's mouth. I slid the bass right over the log and fought him in. Do you get that kind of stuff fishing live bait? Did I mention that I love to skip? Really, I've gotten a lot of fun and satisfaction (and some frustration) from learning and practicing casting. Not to say that I won't fish open water but folks sure look at me funny when I'm skipping baits in the middle of the lake or river. LOL So Most of us aren't fishing for food to keep us alive. If you think it's fun do it. Who cares what the "learning curve it if the learning is fun? If you try artificials and you get frustrated by a lack of fish you can always throw out a line with some bait on it.

Most of my fishing is on a river about that size (from the sounds of it). I never really though of using live bait for bass, although, I did use a lot of night crawlers back in the 70's. My best producing artificial are baits that I don't do much more than let it bounce in the current. Lately I've doing real well on a Zoom finesse worm on a #1 ewg with just a small split shot a couple of feet up the line to help get it down in the current. My wife has been doing well on a NED rig...similar deal. Sometimes she just drags it behind the boat. The exception to the "just let it drift rule" would be a tube jig. I've caught an awful lot of fish this year on a tube. In the spring I was fishing it on a Texas rig and drifting it a lot. Now, in warmer water, I'm using a tube jig and bouncing it some. Not to say that there isn't anything to learn but it isn't that tricky. Get some soft plastics and hooks and throw them in the river. LOL

Congrats but "average sized farm pond"? I have never seen an 8 or 10 acre farm pond...maybe once but it was actually a flooded quarry.