mhone

I have tried throwing and retrieving crankbaits and spinnerbaits along the outside edges and haven’t had any bites. There are lots of holes in this mossy grass that I think I’ll try some of these suggestions. Question is, y’all think there’s some fish under there?

I frequently fish a 16 acre watershed behind my house. Most of the time I’m just beating the bank from my kayak and focus on the brush piles and wood lay downs. Like everyone else, there are times I still cannot find the fish. There are entire sections of the bank that have this mossy vegetation that “floats” and I can see small minnows all around it. Do bass hide in stuff like this? If so, how would you fish this stuff? When I have thrown a T-rig into it with a 1/4oz. weight it usually just pulls this slop to me and I have to pull it off the line. But I’m convinced there’s fish in there!

My #1 bait is the Zoom U-Tail 6” worm in junebug. That ribbon tail is deadly! Thrown with a 6’6” MH-F with 20# braid to 10# mono, 3/16 billet weight and a 2/0 gamakastu offset round bend hooks. I throw this onto and around brush and fallen trees and they usually hit on the fall.

I’ve noticed my Creekhopper will foul one of two ways. The front treble hook will grab the bill or the split ring will rotate back against the head of the bait. Both will make the bait spiral in the water causing line twist… not my favorite fishing frustration!

Junebug has caught me a lot of fish! #1 bait in my kayak.

It’s cause they’ve reached “ herd” immunity! ?

If it wasn’t for zoom trick worms and ribbon tail worms, I’d have like no fish! So happy to hear they’re coming back stronger!

It took me a while to get good at the FG knot but now that I’ve done about 50 of them I feel really confident it will come out right every time. Two tricks I’ve learned on my own: you don’t want the main braided line too tight just no slack, I put my rod in the kayak rod holder and use my teeth to hold the braid with just a little rod tension; secondly in order to pull the half hitch knots tight without hurting my hands, I use two 5” wood dowels (old broom handles) to wrap the main line around and clamp against each other, then pull the braid tag end with my pliers, (after I started that, my knots quit coming loose from the top.) I’m really just a beginner and I love this knot.

YouTube has helped me more than anything getting started. I needed help with everything and Flukemaster and Glenn May’s videos got me started on the right foot. The BR forum has helped move me from novice to an average weekend warrior and taught me that I still have lot to learn!

Thanks @scaleface! That makes perfect sense. I’ll give that a try.

Does anyone have photos/videos of what this looks like? I sometimes feel I only get 1-2 fish per soft plastic.

I have three KastKing combos and I love all three. I have a Crixus light spinning rod, a Perigee II MH-F bait caster rod with a Crixus dark star reel and a Brutus M-MF also with a Dark Star reel. I’m on my second season with the spinning rod and both bait casters are new this season. So far I have enjoyed this equipment. These are my first bait casters and I’ve been able to catch on pretty quickly with them and caught some good fish too. For the price point, I’ll wear these out and then upgrade higher end stuff later. I would recommend KastKing.

Could a loose drag prevent us from getting a good hook set? I checked mine yesterday (couldn’t go fishing since it was supposed to rain all day but didn’t!) and I realized it was probably looser than it should be. I’m going to take @Rich12’s advice and get a hook file. I work in a machine shop and we always want the newest and sharpest tools but I never thought too much about hooks. Thanks for the advice!

I have about a 60% hook up and land ratio. Most of my fishing is from a kayak and is really hard for me to get a great hook set because the kayak moves toward the fish when setting the hook. Today I lost a large (I’m telling the story so it was huge lol!) bass right at the kayak just as I was pulling him out of the water. I was disappointed to say the least. Later I got another bite in about 2’ of water so I hammered down on my hook set and pulled a dink clean out of the water and over my head! But, by golly I landed that one! I’m learning to get better at hook sets but sometimes it’s discouraging when you lose more than land.

So my wife and I visited the North Carolina aquarium at Fort Fisher this past weekend. It was awesome to see the variety of fish they had on display. However, I was disappointed when I got to the tank with the largemouth bass. The ugliest three fish in the whole aquarium were the three bass. They had a funny white film on their skin, around their gills and mouth, and overall didn’t look like my favorite fish to catch. The one in the picture has like a horn growing out between its eyes. Anyone seen bass look so sorry?

I’m staying near Raccoon Lake while Disney vacationing and am hoping to fish there. Were you successful fishing there? I’m struggling to find information about where to fish at since I’m from North Carolina. I’ve only got a few short hours to fish so I want to be as efficient as possible. Any suggestions would appreciated.

I live in the Winston Salem area and there are good opportunities in the area. Belews Lake, Yadkin River, Ararat River, Dan River, all have LM bass and some have SM bass, sunfish, and in some areas stocked trout. Many communities have local fishing ponds like Kernersville lake and Salem lake, King pond, and CG Hill pond in Pfafftown. And I’m sure there’s many more too! The mountains to the west have areas of wild trout and to the east there is Jordan lake where a friend does a lot of Crappie fishing. Also we’re about 4 hours to most NC beaches which has awesome surf fishing. I try to go to the beach twice a year so I can surf fish. I love it here! Hope you find a place right for you!