Buzzbaiter

It jumped off.

AI can’t invent new strategies. It takes what other people have already written and said, and spits out some arrangement of that information. I prefer the flexibility of being able to think for myself, even if my way isn’t always the most efficient option. If you copy someone else’s pattern, the best you can do is as good or slightly worse than them.

Summer has been so busy that I haven’t been able to fish for smallmouth more than 5 times since May. I finally got a chance to go creek fishing, and caught 10 smallmouth and a redbreast. They were all fun-sized, as creek smallmouth tend to be. I’m just happy to be out.

Yesterday was a case of first cast curse. I casted out and saw a few 1-2lbers cruising the shallows; I was so focused on those fish that I didn’t notice the ~4lber at the end of my line. I’d have sworn it was sunfish pecking my line until I felt weight and set the hook. The picture doesn’t do justice to the length of this fish. I was worried I had gut hooked him, but he came out straight. After that, it was short strikes and follows. Overall, a good day.

Lil blue cat. Fried up nicely. The meat was a touch softer than I’d like, but still very good.

For impromptu dropshotting, I tie my bullet weights on with a clinch knot, fat side down. Works just fine.

It’s easy to quit a tackle addiction. I’ve quit 3 times this month!

As a Chesapeake Bay fisherman, it’s getting to be the time of year where I check if there’s still fish left to catch

This could be said about 90% of wildlife management issues. People get hyperfocused on menial issues and forget to consider habitat

I was scrolling through Digitaka to re-up on baits. Prices there were surprisingly low, and don’t seem to have increased much from the tariffs. Ordinarily, I’d be happy to buy but I’ve heard that some online retailers have been adding extra fees at checkout to keep price tags down. Has anyone experienced this when buying foreign fishing tackle online? I’ve always had good experiences with Digitaka, but I want to be sure things haven’t changed given current economic happenings. I’d hate to get charged additional fees without knowing

I’ve been out for a while, so I haven’t had a chance to go fishing. I figured I’d head over to the eastern shore to kick things off for the year. My first fish of 2025 was a redbreast sunfish. I caught this guy (and many others) farther upstream in the creek I was fishing. My main goal was shad, so I moved downstream a bit. I got jumpscared by a big pickerel that blasted my crappie tube in <1ft of water, so I switched gears and threw around a stickbait for a bit. Didn’t get anything doing that, but a couple of tiny pickerel showed themselves when I tied on a rooster tail. They were followed by more redbreasts. While fishing the spinner, I got a hard tap and looked to see a school of three large river herring chase my lure out from a hole. I was losing hope on the shad, but seeing those fish refocused me. I moved downstream a bit and saw a bunch of smaller herring rushing up the stream, totally uninterested in swiping at anything. In hindsight, these were probably blueback and/or alewives. I casted around for a little while until I hooked into a hickory shad. He was much bigger than the smaller herring I had seen, and fought hard on 2lb test. This was my first time catching a hickory. I caught another at the same spot. I was interrupted by my first bass of the year. Two more tiny bass inhaled my spinner; it was fun the first time, but got old quick. After that, I caught a white perch. I didn’t know they went this far into freshwater. I ran out of time, so I had to go. It was a great trip to start a new season. I hope to catch an American shad before the run ends. After that, I’m focused on smallmouth.

Younger children/babies seem like they come out of the womb knowing how to operate phones and tablets. Kind of impressive, and kind of scary all the same. But working out a TV remote is higher level thinking

I used to struggle to get bass on the dropshot rig, until I realized the fish didn’t like when I shook the rod too much. Once I started catching fish with the technique, I gave it up pretty quickly. It’s like fishing cutbait except you occasionally have to remind the bass that the bait is still alive.

I’ve done it here and there before ffs minnowing became a thing. I didn’t find it to be more effective than just working craw imitations on the same jigheads. I might try it again this year now that there are specialized baits for it

What’s your methodology for the Giant Dog X? I’m trying to focus on bigger smallmouth this year, and I’m pretty comfortable with walking baits. I figured I should try stick what I know and refine it to catch larger fish.