MGF

I had to give it up several years ago. My lungs went south and I just don't have the wind for it anymore. Most jobs are tough in some way.

No criticism. I would have made a reasonable effort to get the hook out.

Nice! Rained out here this weekend.

Sorry but as a long time blacksmith and farrier I can tell you for a fact that it makes sense to have a favorite hammer. Not all hammers, even of the same type, are created equal. Likewise there are hammers that I just don't like...although most can be reworked to be made acceptable. Wrenches and screw drivers...not so much. LOL In fishing lures there is so much overlap. I have a good number of baits that would be used in similar applications. Some of those I don't bother with or maybe never even tried. It's not so much "giving up on them" so much as just reaching for something else.

One of the nonphysical skills that I think is important is picking up on clues and making good decisions. The other day I left work for a midweek river trip. I was hoping to avoid the locust like plague of tubers that we've been suffering. I launched caught several bass right away. all dinks except for one 16 incher...ok that's a dink to some. I had a long way to go to get to the egress ramp so I continued down river. Then I was overtaken by the tubers and wished I had stayed at work. I called my wife and told her not to pick me up because I was headed back to the launch ramp...I hadn't yet passed any shallow areas that would stop me from getting back up. As I passed the area where I caught those opener bass I noticed there was a momentary lull in the tuber plague. I decided to drop the anchor and take a few casts. In a short time I caught a bunch of bass including a few more 16 inchers and an 18. It's all pretty obvious in hindsight but I had every intention of passing up a good thing in order to make it down river before dark.

The single thing that has put more fish in my boat than anything else is focusing on my own physical skills.

I'm convinced that a lot of the variability I see is because of the movement of bait. On the river the other day I caught a bunch of bass with STUFFED bellies in an area where I sometimes get one or two but I don't usually hang around too long...it's a long way down river to the next ramp. The largest bass had a huge crawdad claw sticking out of his throat. This claw was larger than the crawdads I usually see in the river or have bass spit up in the boat. I think there was bait present that isn't always there. Beyond the obvious I'm not sure what to do to better track the bait location.

One more thing...in more recent years and the internet the access to information and opinions from anglers of all levels from all over the world is unbelievable. I, probably like most of you have consumed a HUGE quantity. I can't say that it hasn't improved my fishing but any improvement is marginal. First exposure to some of the techniques that have really been good for me came off the net but I don't know how many extra fish it accounts for. A huge amount of the available info has limited application to where I fish and I certainly don't have the money to implement all the latest technology. In fact I'm way behind. That's less of a hindrance on my shallow river or a shallow weedy lake than it is on larger reservoir...which I don't fish all that often.

I tend to agree with Catt. I fish a small local river often and I've been fishing it for many years. It seems the longer I fish it the less confident I about trying to predict where the fish will be. It seems that I'm always catching fish where I have never caught them before. I can point to many areas where I have had epic action once or that are good once in a great while. There's one stretch that my wife and I have named "The Good Bank". It has been good and it looks like it should be good but I don't remember the last time I got more than a dink or two there. Since the depth range is very limited it's a little easier when it comes to bait/presentation selection but, very often, the results still seem counterintuitive.

I fish the countdown Rapala in our river and catch brown bass, walleye and pike on them. Actually I get rock bass and crappie on them too. I haven't been using them so much lately but there's no reason other than I have more choices in baits than I have fishing time. I'm usually fishing them pretty shallow but the whole river is shallow.

Anybody who's spent much time in a canoe should know.

My wife says "Keep crushing them!".

Our crawdads are usually pretty close to green pumpkin. I also notice that in clear water the river bottom looks sort of green pumpkin. Last week I had a bass spit up a crawdad that was green pumpkin with orange tips on the claws and a bunch of orange blotches on the tail. It was almost the exact color of some BPS stickos that I have and some rage bugs I have. I think SK calls the color "bamacraw" or something? Black has been one of my most productive jig colors in all water clarities.

I don't really have a reference to put a number to it but I'd guess 30 or 40 ft is pretty easy. About a moderate casts worth?

I get it skipping pretty quick...just a few feet in front of me. When you get it right it can be like the bait has a motor. It just wants to keep going. It's pretty amazing.

The relentless crowds are what's putting me off the most. The quiet river that my wife and I used to enjoy has hundreds of drunks playing loud music bombarding us now. Last week a crowd came at us with one saying..."I hope there aren't any hooks in the water". They use the boat for a hand rail...of course there are hooks! Then there's the mediocre (at best) fishing. I've caught a million fish just like any one I'm going to catch now. How much aggravation would I suffer for another 16" bass? You sit through a long cold boring winter looking forward to a fishing season that just comes to nothing. I'm about ready to sell my equipment. I gave up hunting for lack of decent hunting grounds and fishing may not be far behind.

I agree but there's just too much river between boat ramps for me to fish it all. I have to skip something so I make my best guess as to which are the higher/lower percentage areas.

Crowds make me just want to do something else. A couple weeks ago my wife had to be out of town and I wanted to go down the river. We scheduled it so she'd be back in time to meet me down river. What a mistake! I was so covered up by large groups of loud, drunk, ugly, half naked and inconsiderate groups of tubers that there was no way to fish and no way to get away from it. I was just stuck. I will NEVER allow myself to be in a situation like that again. We have one lake near by that's become a popular musky lake where it's almost impossible to get there on a day when there's parking space left. I managed to get in one day early this spring and it was a cold windy fishless day that wasn't any fun at all. It has not been a good fishing year so far.

I fish a similar bait but unweighted and I tend to fish it on spinning.

Sunday on the river I casted my arm off working all the right cover with all the right stuff in all the right ways. The accuracy and slickness of my casting and skipping was a sight to behold. The only problem is that I didn't catch much. While I worked my wife was just dragged a ned rig behind the boat and in the middle of the river and caught the heck out of them. LOL

Nothing?

My river has long stretches with one lay down after another. While I have caught fish on some of those stretches seeing laydowns doesn't get me excited. Sometimes there are lots of trees (and laydowns) where there is good soil (mud) and I don't catch many brown bass off of mud. I have to skip some water or I'll run out of weekend before I get to the next ramp and I skip the mud.

We're open as far species. There's lots of operators on the net but I'd like to hear from somebody with first hand experience. Thanks.

I think it has to do with the way they're hitting sometimes. Last Sunday on the river I caught quite a few SMB on tubes using a jig with an exposed hook. I had several fall off the hook and land in the boat as I was lifting them in. I lost a couple in the water alongside the boat and I had one nice bass that had the tube way down in his throat but the hook didn't penetrate much. The hooks were sharp. They were kind of picking up the bait and swimming toward the boat. Between the wind , current and the way they were biting I think it sometimes took a ridiculously long time before I even realized the fish was there.

I don't have a problem with his opinions though I don't necessarily share all of them. I don't care for the vids he hoes in the truck because of the background noise. I guess I don't read many of the comments.