BrianMDTX

@GRiver It wasn’t a DD lol, but my last outing I was determined to catch one more on my last cast. I had seen some splashing activity amongst some roots in the water by the bank and figured if I could place a WR just right there, I’d catch a bass. One cast. Right spot. Bam!

@Swamp Girl My thoughts and prayers for your dad, and for you. Safe travels.

One other thing to ponder. We all want to catch bass. All of us. But there is so much more to bass fishing than simply catching a bass. It’s the preparation. Selecting the right rods, reels, lines, baits and terminal tackle. Planning the trip. Simply enjoying being out on the water in nature’s beauty. If you become solely fixated on numbers, you miss the rest of the story. The scent of the air and the water. The sounds of water lapping at the hull. The clouds overhead providing shade and shadows on a sunny day. It’s all the sum parts added up that make a great day out on the water. Fishing a Texas rig? Really slow down and “feel” how your bait reacts on rocks, sunken timber, and when you can differences in the bottom, it will help you detect strikes better. But always remember this: a day fishing with no fish is better than no fishing. On terribly slow days I really focus on my casting accuracy. Never let yourself get distracted by slow days. That one last cast you make to see if you can put that jig right where you want it may be the time you get bit hard.

How far from shore were you? It can be difficult to tell at times on video. Was that brown bass shallow or deep? Real nice fish and gorgeous scenery!

Let me add to this but not fishing. I bowhunted for seven years…seven years! before I ever arrowed a deer. At times I wanted to give up but I refused. I eventually figured out I was going from place to place to place, from stand to stand to stand, and never really learning the land, the deer, the areas they bedded and fed, their routine. And then one trip, after hunting the same stand for a month and learning patterns, it clicked. Stick to one or two bodies of water. Learn where the bass hide. What they feed on. Focus on the positives and not the negatives.

Wow. The bass are nice! But that vista? OMG, fall in the NE is truly a thing of beauty! That view, with a fire and a cocktail, and I’d be in heaven.

I had high hopes for this morning. Threat of rain this afternoon that I thought would amplify the bite. Alas, it was not to be. Caught six and missed one. But while quantity was down and the bite was slow, the bass I hooked fought with extreme vigor. I started old school with a blackberry Mann’s Jelly Worm TR with a 1/4 oz. tungsten weight and after a few casts I hooked a solid 3 lb. bass. No jumping today. They all headed out and for the bottom. That was the only one I caught on that bait. I switched to an A-Jay Special and hooked a solid fish but it threw the hook. More than that, it pulled the skirt off the plastic body. Couldn’t get it back on so I cut it off and put the remains in the tackle box and tied on a spare. Switched over to a spinnerbait with no success, then started casting a Siebert Fogy bladed jig. Been very successful with that lately, but not today. Caught one on a 5” green pumpkin Senko WR and then motored back to where I lost the bass earlier. I tossed the spare A-Jay Special and it got immediately hammered. Likely the same bass. This one did not throw the hook. Turned out to be a solid 4 lb’er. Caught two more on a 4” #956 Senko WR and that was that.

Check the hook sharpness on that Silver Minnow. Great lure but always seemed to come with dull hooks.

I love a good Texas rig craw.

Got my Siebert Fogys. Just in time for the weekend!

Thank you. Sincerely. I’ve never been at a loss for words, but my artistic ability certainly does not extend to photography. I have the artistic vision of a toddler when it comes to framing shots and taking good ones. It’s just not in me to “see” what makes a great photograph. I have a friend, a retired Baltimore City police officer. He got into photography back in the late 70s. He took a photograph of a brick wall. A simple brick wall. It was a work of art. It was so visually stunning I had it made into a poster. His vision was art. Mine would have been, well, a brick wall. Music? The only musical bones in my body are the malleus, the incus and the stapes. And that’s being generous. I am in awe of people who can compose or play music. As I cannot, I’ll simply take pleasure in the sound of a perfect cast, the whine of drag being pulled by a big bass, the splash when one launches out of the water and my nonsensical “lyrics” when they throw the hook! 😂

I love the photos of my bass. But in all truth, the photographs, still frames and moving pictures that I see in my mind’s eye are better memories. There are hunting and fishing trips from years, even decades back, that I can recall vividly when I close my eyes and remember. Losing hard copies of old photographs or access to digital ones would be a real shame. The day I can longer recall the sights, sounds and the raw, visceral excitement in my mind’s eye will be the true, tragic loss. Then again, it’s nice to know that there a select few who can, with simple pen and paper (or keyboard), turn words into something tangible. We can “hear” the sounds. We can “see” the scenes. We can “feel” the rush of adrenaline…all by taking a few moments to read words that someone with talent and vision has laid out for us. It’s a feast for the senses.

Don’t poo-poo your success. You catch bass that even those in bigger bass states would be happy to catch. Yes, you are never going to hook and land an 18 lb. bass in Maine. Simply because they don’t grow that big in northern climes. But if they did, you’d probably catch them. Your dedication is second to none here.

Welcome to BR. There is a lot to loathe about the internet sometimes, but places like this are where it shines. In the past, you might read an article in an outdoor magazine about a new lure, buy it and have no clue how to fish it. Now? You have millions of man-hours of angling experience right at your fingertips that can offer advice immediately. You will learn a lot here.

Try fishing in an inflatable for personal enjoyment, catching a nice bass, grabbing your phone, opening the camera app, have the bass flip around like crazy, and losing it. Not the bass. Your phone. Over the side and down it went. And then so did I lol. No pic of that bass but the phone still works!

Welcome to BR, Evan! Fishing is a sport and activity you can do at almost any age. And the longer you stick with it, the better you get. And at your age (trust me on this as I was 14 once, a long time ago), it’s a great excuse for why you need to get up early and not get in trouble late at night lol.

One Academy gift card down; one Bass Pro gift card to go. Got a new bladed jig (I have some Siebert Fogys on the way courtesy of the brown truck), some new pegs, new 5/0 Gamakatsu EWG’s (got scads of 3/0 and 4/0 but ran out of 5/0), restocked on Zoom Tricks and Rage Menace and Craws in green pumpkin, and am trying Yamamoto Zakos in green pumpkin as a trailer.

I thought of that. To be frank, I do not overly worry about my knots to terminal tackle, or my leader knots. A double-uni is a good knot for same diameter line and easy to tie, and tie well. Should I run out enough line to get to that point, I’m confident in the knot.

Having read and seen these fish, I think I’m good to go! 😂

Ok, that makes sense. I’m sure none of mine are shallow spools. Just seems like a waste of line to me. Thanks!

This is geared towards the mono/hybrid/fluoro users vs. braid. I’ve always taken off all the line and respooled completely with fresh mono or hybrid. But I was on the last of my spool of Sunline Shooter Defier and it was not enough to fill an empty spool. I needed to put fresh line on and wanted to finish this spool as it’s great mono, so I removed about 2/3rds of the line, tied on new line with a double uni and filled the spool with fresh line (ended up with out 5 yards left on the refill spool). I also had a reel with Big Game and one with Yo Zuri Hybrid that needed fresh line and did the same thing. I’ve always used old line as backing line on spinning reels (when I used mono- it’s all braid-to-leader now), but never on a baitcaster. What does the majority do? All fresh line? Or 50%-75% new line over backing line?

Happens frequently once that line tension is reduced. But man oh man, I hate when treble hook baits come off in the net! 😂

It’s all I thought about on Saturday lol. Especially when I went to resharpen the hook and noticed the gap had been bent open. Definitely not from pulling on a snag lol. So either that big gal bent it, or it got bent some other unknown way. Either way, it would have made it a lot easier for a bass to throw the hook. I bent it back into shape, but not sure if that’s wise. If I hook another and the hook breaks, I may break lol.

I know overall that I will catch more bass on the water than off the bank. But sometimes it’s nice to set up on the bank and just work a TR nice and slow. No movement. No keeping the boat in one spot. Just a slow, methodical working of a soft plastic on the bottom. And the fact is, some of my largest bass have been caught that way.

Three to 1,400. Three. if push came to shove, you could probably get three off the bank. I mean, ANYONE can catch 1,397 bass. But 1,400? Well, that’s special! 😂