NoShoes

New PB this morning! Scale said 9 lbs but I'm looking for evidence it was lying light lol.

This was helpful. I've done well on Zoom Ol Monsters there but often times have panfish nipping or ripping off the ribbon tail. Most likely decent size bream or crappie playing with it. I also noticed a 5 gal bucket with a lid / holes tied to a tree not long ago, didn't think much of it at the time but possibly could've been a crawfish trap. I should've peeked inside. What would be the best way to mimic that kind of forage?

Catch nets in fresh water is illegal here. I notice tons of small minnows around vegetation but would think the bass are eating things larger than those.

How do you go about learning the forage in your body of water? I fish a ton of black water mill ponds, so I don’t really see any of the bait balls I might see in clearer water.

Was that a dang train on its side off it’s wheels?!

You’ve mentioned before you stay with soft plastics and jigs almost exclusively, what are you using for mid depth? Swim jig?

WRB, yo You’ve mentioned before that you hold the line between your thumb and finger for strike detection, how are you holding your reel to accomplish this?

Thanks for all the thoughts! I’ll definitely put it to good use! Fishing deeper is definitely a new world but I’ll get it!

I’ve been fishing a little over a year now and have done well as a bank beater, but now I’m trying to expand my horizons fishing more structure further off the bank My question relates to the thermocline and deep water access for fish. In my researching of the topic, I understand what the thermocline is and that fish will stay at or above it. What I haven’t quite got yet is with a shallower thermocline, will fish still prefer spots that have access to deeper water, even if it dips below the thermocline? The lake I fish has a thermocline at roughly 10-15 ft right now, so obviously I’ll target that depth and a little shallower. Just wondering if finding points and humps surrounded by much deeper water would be preferable.

Bought a 2008 tracker 175 last week for a song and a dance last week that came with a Garmin Echomap plus 74cv on the console. After taking it out over the weekend I’m in need of freshwater maps and a fish finder on the bow. I’m considering moving the 74cv currently on the console to the bow and replacing it with a Echomap plus 73sv and networking them together. Would the preloaded maps from the 73sv be shared to the 74cv? Is there a different route y’all would take? Im mostly a bank beater coming from a 14’ jon boat but am eager to learn offshore fishing now that I have a boat more set up for graphing.

As a big proponent of mono line, what qualities of fluorocarbon bring you to use it for your day time bottom contact usage even with its deficiencies? Ive been flipping between 12 lb big game and fluoro for the past month or so as a leader on my Texas rigs (I like braid as a mainline just for how it casts and line management). I’ve done extremely well with the fluoro but believe I would’ve done just as well with a mono line leader those days.

What size do you prefer?