Bankc

My favorite is the one with a claw removed. Bass seem to favor them better, in my experience, than any particular brand or color.

Hard to say. It might. But it might slip after it gets wet and worked around a bit. Who can say? I'd take this opportunity to try again. The more you do it, the easier it'll get. Personally, I find the FG to be a really easy knot to tie. It's a bit time consuming perhaps. But it's basically just one thing, repeated over and over, and then a second thing, repeated over and over. Neither of which are hard to remember or do. The logistics of keeping everything tight are a bit difficult until you get a system down. But once you've figured that out, it's not so bad. So while I wouldn't call the FG knot easy to learn, I would say it's easy to tie once you get figured out... assuming you have the time and space to do it.

Water changes seasons slower than the sky. Here in Oklahoma, the fall doesn't start until usually around the second week of October. Once the night time lows consistently hit in the 50's, the fall bass fishing season begins. Usually around the same time the first leaves begin to change.

I'm probably about 80% something new. Or newish anyway. Something I'm not completely familiar with yet. I like trying new things and learning new things. I'd rather catch one bass and learn something new than catch 10 doing the same old thing. I'm just out there by myself, not fishing in a tournament, so I'm just going to release anything I catch anyway. If I land zero or a hundred bass that day, I still go home the same. But I usually fall back into tried and true near the end of the day if I'm getting skunked. If nothing else, that kind of helps let me know if the problem was what I was doing, or if it was just one of those days. And it gives me something to blame other than myself for the poor fishing that day! Though some days, I just wanna get on fish and quick, so I'll jump immediately to tried and true. It also helps to keep your skills from getting rusty. Though, the gamble there is, if that doesn't work, then I'm out of ideas.

Yeah, a professional thief can steal most anything. I mean, professional thieves once stole the Mona Lisa. If they want your boat, they will get it. Which is why I always have full coverage on any vehicle. But, deterring an amateur thief isn't as hard. You just need to make it more time consuming and require more tools than the likely have on hand. If I were to leave my boat in a hotel/motel parking lot, I would probably try to find a nicer one and leave it in a well lit area, if possible. If not, I'd probably jack up trailer, put it on a block, and take one the tires off.

Deep water bass fishing is a lot harder in my lakes because of the limited visibility. So you really have to be accurate with your casts. And without something above the water to show you exactly where it is that you want to cast, it can be hard to get close enough. Add to that all of the wind we have here, and it's just a really difficult proposition. But, difficult doesn't mean impossible. And I generally prefer a spoon or deep diving crankbait in these situations. Something that covers a lot of water and gets down to depth quickly, because I'll have to make a ton a casts to get one good one. The real downside is, half the time I set the hook, I pull up a white bass or channel cat. The white bass I can tolerate. But I hate handling slimy catfish.

Well, I'm proud of both of you @Koz! It's fascinating the power of good intentions. How the one good act can reverberate and draw out the good in others, and from them others still, and so on. Like happy little ripples of joy in a pond.

This is how I have my lures organized. Not by size, color, or really even type. But by running depth. Usually when I pull up to a spot, I take note of how I plan to fish it and then pick the lure that best matches my game plane. I try to fish the spot, not the lure. Of course, there are often overlaps in what lures I can use for any given spot. And that's where "confidence baits" take on more importance. For instance, I'd rather use a square bill than a spinnerbait, if I can get away with it. And I'd rather use a flutter spoon than a blade bait, if I think it'll work. And I'd rather use anything at all rather than a jerkbait, because I think you guys are all pulling my leg on that one.

True. Here's an article that talks a bit about that: https://www.in-fisherman.com/editorial/understanding-fish-vision/154655#replay

I've got some neon green, hi-viz line spooled up on one of my reels. The fish don't seem to notice it, so I don't worry too much about line visibility or color. I mean, bass will bite a spinnerbait. And that thing looks and sounds nothing like food. Is there anything in nature that looks like a head, with a million tiny rubber legs hanging out the back, that has a pair of spinning metal spoons that follow just overhead everywhere it goes? Besides, we all know if I tied a steak to a fishing line, dogs would still bite it. And dogs are a lot smarter than fish. Heck, if I tied a $100 bill to a fishing line, smart humans would still chase it, knowing full well it's going to get pulled away before they can get to it. It's instinctual. Even when we know it's going to end up bad, we can't help ourselves.

Now, I'm the opposite. I'd rather watch the guy cast and retrieve an empty line than the current, cut to a hookset, reel in bass, hold bass up, and then cut to the next hookset. To me, that might be the fun part of fishing, but if I'm watching other people fish, I like to see the behind the scenes stuff. Like where they're casting and why, how fast their working their bait, how long of a pause. Stuff like that. And then, when they do catch something, it's a surprise to me, the viewer, as well as the angler on the screen. But we all like different things. It reminds me a what my cousin, who's a huge soccer nut, once told me about why he likes watching soccer. I said, the game is too slow, boring and they almost never score. And he said, that to truly appreciate watching soccer, you have to appreciate a good pass. And while I still don't like watching soccer, I understand what he means. Because hockey is like soccer in that respect. And I do like to watch hockey, from time to time.

I don't know how this relationship between spots, largemouth, and smallmouth work exactly. But on the main lake I fish, it at one time had all three in balance, along with a healthy population of white bass and striper-hybrids. But then the smallmouth population collapsed and pretty much vanished. Next the largemouth population dropped. And now the spots and white bass have been reduced. First their sizes got smaller, and then their numbers decreased. Even the baitfish don't seem to be that plentiful anymore. In any case, something's changed the balance and it's not a good lake to fish anymore. And, for whatever reason, the spots and the white bass were the last to go. Well, actually the catfish were the last. As the catfish seem to be the only species I can still catch in size and numbers fairly easily.

2D sonars are especially good for three things. First, for determining the maximum depth that the fish are holding. And a lot of times, especially in the summer, you can use it to find the thermocline. What this does is it allows you to eliminate large portions of the lake as unproductive that are deeper than the deepest places you're finding fish. Second, 2D sonar allows you to find transition zones under the water. They will help you identify things like points and creek channels. Places where the depth changes fast and places like creek channels, which are usually the deepest spot in the area, are often good places to fish. And lastly, 2D sonar allows you to identify cover under water. Cover can be anything from vegetation, submerged timber, rocks, or some junk someone dumped in the lake decades ago. Either way, it's places that baitfish can hide to avoid getting eaten, and predatory fish can hide to ambush baitfish. So these are also good places to find fish. But the best places to fish usually combine all three. They're places that are near the deepest spots that the fish are holding, or near the thermocline. They're places where the depth changes rapidly, or near the creek channel. And they're places with cover for the fish to hide in. If you're just casting towards laydowns, vegetation, and structures sticking up out of the water along the bank, then you don't need sonar. It won't tell you anything you can't see with your own eyes. And that too is a popular and effective way to catch fish. But if you're going to be fishing a good ways off the bank and you can't see very deep into the water, sonar allows you to map out a glimpse of what's directly below you. And you can remember that information to build a mental map of what the bottom looks like and identify areas that are more likely to hold fish. Typically, in my experience, when fish are just chilling in the middle of the lake, what we call suspending, they're pretty much asleep and not worth fishing for. They won't usually bite when they're doing this. Now, sometimes they're schooling up and chasing balls of baitfish, in which case they can be targeted and caught. Especially during the fall. But most of the time, it's best not to waste time on the fish you can see on your sonar. You're usually better off finding places that look like they might contain fish and fishing those than fishing areas where you can see the fish. This is because when fish like bass are actively feeding, they're usually hiding, waiting to ambush their prey. And when they're hidden, they usually won't show up on sonar.

I think there's a balance to strike between being good at just one thing, and being adequate at all things. The more techniques you learn, the more things you learn that can be applied to other techniques in non-traditional ways. So you can actually deepen your mastery of one bait by practicing other presentations. However, if all you do is swap baits and never really learn to how get good with any of them, then you're never really going to be effective at anything. You're strategy at that point is to just hope you get lucky. So there's a balance to be struck between the two. It's kind of like the "wax on; wax off" thing. You learn one thing that emphasizes different motions and timings and it translates back to your primary technique in new ways that you wouldn't have learned if you just focused on only your primary technique. Am I making sense here? I know the idea, but I've having trouble describing it without writing a novel.

3600 sized boxes in a tackle bag Box 1: top waters Box 2: crankbaits 3-7 feet Box 3: crankbaits 10-25 feet Box 4: jigs, spinnerbaits, vibrating jigs, and buzzbaits Box 5: lipless cranks, spoons, and blade baits Box 6: terminal tackle and jig heads Box 7: soft plastics sorted by color (to prevent bleeding) Then I have other pouches in the bag with things like extra line, scent spray, stringer, plug knocker, scale, pliers, fuses, hook sharpeners and other assorted what-nots. I'll swap stuff in and out as necessary, depending on the lake and time of year, so I'm not carrying everything. Just the stuff I might have time to try.

It depends on you and your friend. I think as a general rule, no. It's not improper to fish the same lure as someone else. If it were, then they would outlaw that in tournaments. But on the flip side, if you and your buddy are having a friendly competition, and you keep copying his or her ideas, then that doesn't really honor the spirit of competition, does it? But, if you and your friend are both out there to have a good time and catch some fish, and they discovered something that works, then wouldn't they want you to join in on the fun? So yeah, there aren't any hard and fast rules. It's just something you'll have to work out with your friend to know where the boundaries are.

There are a few antique stores near me that sell old school baits for dirt cheap. They also sell collectible, old baits for ridiculous prices, if you want those. Anyway, I frequently pick something up, especially if it's a color or shape I haven't seen before, or seen in the last 10 years or so at the normal stores. Anything different, just to have something that the bass haven't seen before. For whatever reason, I tend to wind up with a lot of Heddon baits. Some are still available, but neglected, like the Tiny Torpedo and Hellbender. And some are long discontinued, like the River Runt.

It's mostly because FFS shows a live view of what's happening across multiple dimensions. You can watch an individual fish react to your bait in real time, which allows you to adjust mid retrieve to target a single fish. Whereas with traditional sonars, including stuff like downscan and sidescan, you're not getting a live view of what's happening in front of you. In fact, 2D sonar isn't really even 2D. It's more like a one dimensional sonar (only the single dimension is a cone, not an infinitely thin line) across time. You can't see height and width, you can only see height and time. How it works, is it's basically just the old style flasher sonar only where ever return sequence is displayed in a single row of pixels on the far right side of the screen. And then, as the next sonar return sequence comes it, it moves that first row of returns over one pixel to the left to display the next return sequence in it's spot. And that pattern repeats until the whole screen is filled with moments of sonar return with the newest on the right and oldest on the left. What you see isn't what the bottom actually looks like, even though it can kind of look like the bottom. And what this means is, if you're traveling forward with the sonar running, it shows you the bottom that's behind you, because behind you is also in the past. But if you're remaining still, it's showing you the same bottom, only at different moments in time, but it appears as if it's showing you the layout of the bottom. Why this matters is because it's hard to target a fish like this. You can see it below you and know it's depth, but you can't see exactly what it's doing. You can't watch it react in real time to your bait. And you can't accurately judge it's size. If it moves out of the cone quickly enough, a very large fish can appear very small. And if a small fish just hangs out in the cone long enough, it can appear very large. So you can't watch the fish move and tell how it's reacting to your bait, because there's not way to distinguish between size and movement on traditional sonar. Whereas with FFS, you can actually watch the fish follow or ignore your bait, and pinpoint the exact moment it either commits to the bait, or turns away.

I'm super-extra-extreme right handed. My left hand is just about useless to me outside of storing my watch and wedding ring. But with enough practice, I got it to work and now feel comfortable doing fishing type stuff with it. Fishing, other than some casting, doesn't really require fine motor skills or extreme dexterity and precision. And even casting isn't too hard. Reeling and setting the hook are simple. I'd say, if you can steer a car with your left hand, you can fish with your left hand. It just takes practice getting used to it so it doesn't feel awkward. And not even a ton of practice. Force yourself to use your off hand for a couple of trips, and it'll come. Heck, by the end of the first hour you'll be surprised at the level of progress you've made!

I've cast a spinnerbait 300 yards before. It would have gone further, but I ran out of line. Though, I have to give some credit to the 80+ mph gusts behind me. That came about because I often like to fish on my lunch break, and we had a rare day where we had extremely high winds, but no storms. And I knew it was too windy to fish, but having nothing else to do after finishing my sandwich, I started to get curious... What would happen if I tried? The biggest surprise about it was getting soaked by billions of droplets of water in the air. You'd think with the wind behind you, pushing the waves away from you, it wouldn't be an issue. And I don't understand the physics behind it, but that's what happened.

The cheapskate, DIY guy inside me likes this a lot!

I think some of it has to do with whether it's a reaction bite or a feeding bite. If they're reacting on instinct, then maybe they don't have time to notice the line. But if they're hunting prey, then maybe they do. A stationary bait, like a drop shot, gives them time to inspect the prey before deciding how to capture it. They can look for irregularities and single out the best and easiest meals. Whereas a moving bait forces them to make and act on an immediate decision without all of the information. If they blink (metaphorically), the opportunity has gone. In other words, it's not just an issue of if it's possible that they can physically see the line, but if they can make sense of what the line is and what it means. I will also add that when fishing in stained or muddy water, I typically grab black or dark blue baits, specifically because they stand out better in the darker water. So, to me, it would seem that darkening your line would be counter productive to hiding your line. But that's all just based on what I've been told and what I've experienced. I haven't conducted nor heard of any extensive scientific tests that come to a firm conclusion on any of this. So it's all just one man's opinion, which isn't worth squat. Either way, if I'm concerned about bass seeing my line, I tie on a fluorocarbon leader. That just seems like a better solution to me if you're trying to stay invisible.

I have a bit of an electronics background, so I've done quite a bit of soldering and building my own stuff. So I would probably just add the extra USB ports myself and hook up a 12v to 5v buck converter to feed them. My preferred method for connections on a kayak is to solder everything then coat the connection in liquid electrical tape. If you've got some basic soldering skills, it's a pretty cheap and easy way to do all of this. Just make sure everything is on a fuse. Or you could install some 12v cigarette lighter sockets and buy some USB adapters for that. That would bypass the need for the buck converters and make installation a bit easier. But you'd probably have to cut a hole in your kayak to mount it/them.

Weight doesn't matter to me, in a vacuum. But, a lighter rod does tend to be a more sensitive rod, all other things being equal. So I do tend to prefer lighter rods for that reason. But the actual weight of the rod, which is just a few ounces, doesn't matter to me. If someone gave me the option of two rods, with the heavier rod being more sensitive, then that's the one I'd pick.

Ms. Taylor's tank. It's just an farm pond next to my grandparent's old house that no one really fished but us. And, being a small pond and fishing it so often, I got to know every square inch of it. Every submerged rock. Every piece of timber. Every weed. There was no need for sonar or FFS. I already knew where every fish in that pond was. But you can't go back. So I'm just thankful I got to experience something like that when I did. Not everyone does.