BrianMDTX

If you’ve read my posts over the years, you know I’m primarily a soft plastics angler. I use other baits of course, but soft plastics are normally what I catch most of my bass with. Some baits, like jigs, I’ve gotten better with over the years, and others, like spinnerbaits and chatterbaits, have just not done the job. I started with a swim jig this morning (no bites), then a chatterbaits (same). Switched to a Rage Craw TR and caught one, then four on a Yum Dinger TR. I was heading back and decided to try chatterbaits again. Well, something switched as bass started hitting chatterbaits hard. Caught five bass in less than an hour, with the biggest at 4 lbs. To me, the funniest part is that I had chattrbaits tied on to 10 lb. Big Game on an Abu Garcia Black Max reel and a Daiwa Aird-X MF rod. Cheapest rig in my arsenal and it got the job done. So 8 bass + 2 dinks in 4 hours. Fun morning! Well, don’t know if things have changed recently, but I can’t add photos from Imgur.

Getting into my inflatable is easy peasy. Getting out can look like the Keystone Kops. I have to get the boat parallel to shore and use an oar to keep the boat against the shoreline as I step off. There are times the boat, the oar, the wind and myself do NOT want to cooperate. When that happens, I look utterly foolish. Once I stepped off and once on shore, I lost my balance and face-planted in the grass. Nothing wounded but ego and pride. But it beats the snot out of sitting at home.

Nice chonkey bass! I went this morning and caught 6. All were 12”-13” except for one that went 16”. Once again, I caught bass on a non-stick worm WR, which up until the previous trip had never happened. The others were on a AJ Special and a Rage Craw TR. A bladed jig and a squarebill did zilch. lol! I typed “bladed jig” and it got changed to bladed jig! Ok. I guess combining chatter and bait no longer is allowed lol.

I hate this thread. When we lived in Maryland sweet corn was a summer staple. Normally cooked it on the grill in the husk with butter, salt and pepper after cooking. Or ears placed on top of crabs while steaming. Now in south Texas and the corn sucks. I mean, it really sucks.

I tried this. One #956 Senko wacky rig. First cast- 0700 First bass- 0720 Lost Senko- 0721 Back home- 0800 Nope. No more “one lure” fishing for me!

Hmmm…plenty of nice bass. Allagash White, fried clam strips. Quite the temptress you are! 🤣

We should have a raffle. “Fish with Swampy!” Winner gets to go fishing (not guiding, just fishing) with Katie and the proceeds donated to charity. Judging by the documented catches Katie posts, I bet a lot of BR folks would participate. Just a thought.

My last cast always sucks. Not far enough. Not in the right spot. Have to last cast again. And again. And again. Which pales in comparison to the “Ok, just one more fish and then done.” 😂

It’s all your mindset. I have been a bowhunter for decades. Spent many a day from dawn to dusk motionless in a tree without seeing a doe, let alone a buck. To some, that’s a waste of a day. To me? I saw a fox pounce on a mouse. An owl flew right past my nose. I saw shrews buried and crawling through tunnels in the leaves. I heard the soft hiss of snow as it drifted down between the trees and lay on my shoulders like a cotton blanket. Fishing? Not getting bites, I begin to search for small pockets to make accurate casts to. I skip baits under brush to see if I can reach a potential sweet spot. I watch the ducks leave vortex wakes in the water as they fly past barely skimming the surface. A water snake slips by as silent as possible on its way to the opposite shore. It's never a waste of time if you allow yourself to revel in nature’s majesty. Focus on the adventure, not the outcome. As life should be.

I had a big 8 pointer run into the side of my 1990 Ford Ranger, with a 4 pointer in the bed. Never saw it. Thought I ran over something. Lady in front of me was in an Explorer. She U-turned and I followed. When we stopped, I asked if something fell off her vehicle. She asked if I saw a huge 8 pointer. I found a long trail of deer snot running down the left side of the bed and my left tail light busted. He ran off. No blood so likely fine. Better than that. Wife leaves early Sunday morning for work. Two minutes later she calls and says she hit a deer. Get there and it looked like a small deer went right under the front of her Mazda CX-5 and came out the back and ran off. Found some hair and blood, and cracked fascia in front. Nothing serious, but she asked me to drive her to work and wanted the SUV checked out at the shop on Monday. Park the SUV in the garage, open a claim with insurance company, and take my wife to work in my Mazda 6. Driving back home on northbound I-95, two exits away from home, I see a large doe run across 4 lanes of southbound 95, jumps the Jersey wall and keeps going. It looked like one of those old WWII movies where a sub fires a torpedo and the ship sails right into the torpedo and Boom! I was doing 70 and surrounded by vehicles and stopping would have caused a major wreck. It hit the left front and somersaulted in the air two lanes over. Whole front of my car was wrecked. Made it two miles home and called insurance company. They asked if I was inquiring about the earlier claim. No…this is another claim. Two deer collisions in two hours.

I never sabotage my fishing by switching from a bait that’s catching bass. Never. Instead, I sabotage myself by relentlessly fishing baits I know catch bass, but maybe not that day. Because I’LL BE DAMNED if I’m giving up on this bait! I know it’s good. I KNOW IT!!!! Im likely a creature of habit. Sometimes bad habits.

That’s my PB! No, it’s MY PB! Mine! Mine! Where’d it go? Your line broke! No, YOUR line broke! Yours! Yours! 🤣

I never heard of Neko Machos until @roadwarrior sent me two packs for Fishmas. Now I use them all the time.

Hmm…where’s Lake Menderchuck? Asking for a friend! 😂

It’s good. But it ain’t cheap!

Find an aircraft mechanic with some expired shelf life Pro Seal. Cut an aluminum patch, coat underneath with Pro Seal and pop rivet in place. Decades from now, when the boat has decayed beyond recognition, that patch will still be good as new. 🤣

It’s been a while since I posted in this thread, and BR as a whole. Summer for the airlines is like retail from Black Friday to Christmas Eve. As busy as it can get. But I finally got out this morning. Only had a few hours so just fished the neighborhood pond. Wasn’t expecting much as it’s been rather dead lately in both quantity and quality. We’ve gotten a lot of rain and all the algae that had been floating on the surface was 100% gone. I guess it all got flushed down the drain pipe, so that was a plus. But wow, what a difference this outing was compared to all of 2025 so far. I caught nine. No dinks. The three biggest were 2.0 to 3.0 lbs. And while disappointing that it threw the hook, I did have a legit 5+ lb. bass on the line. It’s the first one I’ve seen there in two years. Every bait caught bass. A Mann’s Jelly Worm, Rage Craw, a Neko Macho (that hooked the 5 lb’er), a Senko and in a first, I caught two bass on a Zoom Trick on a wacky rig. All in all it was a great 3.5 hours.

For terminal tackle, I’m about 95% an Improved Clinch and 5% Palomar guy, and 100% Lefty Kreh leader for braid-to-leader. They work and are easy-peasy to tie.

You anywhere near Houston? Still looking for my truck keys lol.

lol. I think maybe we should be listening to Katie vs. the other way around!

@Bigbox99 I fish a lot of different soft plastics. A lot, as fishing with a Texas rig (weighted or weightless) is my favorite way to fish. Sometimes they want this, sometimes that. All I can say is that in terms of consistency, a Zoom Trick on a 4/0 EWG will almost always catch bass for me. To me, it’s an ultra-high confidence bait. So yeah, I’m going to keep buying them and fishing with them until such time as I’m convinced they don’t want it anymore. Which doesn’t appear likely.

I’m not gonna lie. A Zoom Trick is one of my all-time favorite worms. Mostly as a weightless TR. A 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG and it’s almost guaranteed to catch a bass. Why I don’t know. Looking at it, it’s nothing special. But it must be, as it’s relatively consistent and it also tends to last a while.

I think 8’-10’ is adequate, depending on rod length. It doesn’t bother me if the leader knot is on the reel as long as it’s on the surface. I don’t want so long a leader that I have the knot under multiple winds on the reel. I don’t change hooks or lures as frequently on my spinning rigs as I do my baitcasters, but I like enough leader that I can retie or change lures a few times and not worry about tying on a new leader.

I’m 100% braid-to-leader on all my spinning reels. My baitcasters are all mono or hybrid (except my frog rig which is braid) and mono lasts quite a while on those, but I tired of respooling loopy mono on spinning reels. 20 lb. Sufix 832 or Seguar Smackdown and an 8’ leader with 8 lb. mono and I’m good.

Never used it, but I do use the Lefty Kreh leader knot. And that’s a great leader knot that’s as simple to tie as your shoes.