Buzzbaiter

I just tossed them into the mangroves and gave them 2-3 twitches, followed by a fall. Kinda like fishing a senko for bass, just jerkier. My experience fishing for saltwater species is pretty limited, but I believe popping corks are more intended for redfish and speckled trout. If you see snook busting on mullet, then switch to baitfish imitations like swimbaits, flukes, and spooks. A lot of your bass baits can be utilized effectively in this scenario.

I haven’t fished the river, but I do occasionally fish at Cockroach Bay, which is only a short ways off. I’d say plan to fish within three days of the full or new moon. This weekend should be good, in theory. I went a couple of weeks ago, and the mullet hadn’t come into the backwaters yet; shrimp imitations worked well. Now, I think the mullet should be pushing up into areas like the Manatee. Try throwing small swimbaits.

If I’m fishing with open hooks and they run with it, I do a soft reel/sweep. If I’m using open hooks and I just feel a thump, I do a wrist flick. If it’s an EWG, I jab them.

🎵 Got a six pack of women Split it with my beer Driving down a backroad A bit too drunk to steer 🎵 If the song sounds like it was written in Chat GPT with the prompt “beer, America, truck, blue jeans, boots, women”, then you can safely categorize it as bro country.

The full moon brings fun times. Caught 8 snook on a DOA shrimp. All small, the biggest (pictured) was ~15”. It’s been a while since I’ve gone snooking and the bugs weren’t bad, so I’m happy with it.

North Florida. There’re also spots on the panhandle with spring fed creeks. As you go south, there seems to be fewer springs and defined creeks, likely because of the flat topography and organic soil.

What changed?

I left Florida on Tuesday afternoon. I-95 northbound was packed, and southbound was all National Guard vehicles. Pretty much all the hotels below the NC state line were packed. University was closed Wednesday and Thursday; I haven’t heard anything about closures on Friday, so I don’t think it hit North Florida too bad.

Florida: October, March-April Maryland: May-June In Florida, the summer heat becomes too intense for me to enjoy fishing. It doesn’t help that the heat also limits fish activity. I like October because the cooler weather limits the amount of tourists and pleasure boaters, and the fish become hungry again. The same goes for March and April, although tourist activity picks up in the spring. In Maryland, I like fishing for smallmouth in rivers and creeks, and late May through early June provides wet-wading access and active fish. Once the water warms towards the dog days, the fishing is still good but there are fewer solid fish to be found. The weather is also comfortable, and it’s nice to see the trees turn green again after spring blooms.

I used to keep logs of every fish I caught, but I became way too tedious. Now I only log new species for my lifelist.

I found a couple of secluded, gin clear ponds today, and blanked at both. I saw some really huge bass at the first pond, and I’m sure there are solid fish in the second one as well. I tried a number of techniques, including wacky rigged stickbaits, Texas rigged craws, grubs, tubes, toads, and live bluegill. I only caught an ouncer bass on the stickbait. I’ve never targeted Florida bass in clear water, so I’m a bit lost. Both ponds are extremely clear, and slightly pressured (about 2-3 other people fishing each pond on a Saturday). Pond 1 is relatively shallow with some deeper pockets along the shallows. There is grass, but it only covers the bottom in some areas. I saw a lot of bass moving around, actively cruising the shallows. The main forage is coppernose bluegill. Pond 2 is a bit deeper, and shoreline grass likely plays a larger role. I didn’t see any bass cruising, so I imagine they tend to tuck up under the shore grasses. There is submerged grass, but it’s spotty and not very developed. The main forage here is also coppernose bluegill. All of the big bass I saw were apathetic to my presentations. Even when I was well out of sight of the fish, they still didn’t want anything to do with me. My guess is that I found them at a bad time. I’ve heard that Florida bass are more temperamental than largemouth, so I might just need to find an active feeding window. Next time, I want to try burning a spinnerbait over the grass and dropshotting plastics if they’re still inactive, but I’m not confident that that’ll solve the fish. Any advice or suggestions?

I went to a national forest in north Florida today. My target species were mud sunfish, bluespotted sunfish, banded sunfish, blackbanded sunfish, and fliers. I caught none of those. However, I did catch this warmouth in roadside ditch. I also found a couple of ponds, where I caught some coppernose bluegill and a dinky Florida bass. I’d like to come back soon to get my target species.

I don’t know exactly what part of the Bay you plan on fishing, but mahi don’t venture into the Chesapeake (to my knowledge). I also don’t know what you mean by “mega bass.” If we’re factoring for fish that are more common in my part of the Bay (middle/upper), I’d expect blue/channel/white catfish, rockfish, redfish, speckled trout, summer flounder, black drum, cobia, and smaller game (croaker, perch, and spot). I have no experience fishing for cobia; I imagine they’d be in their own league when it comes to gear. However, you do not need extremely heavy gear to do the other stuff. I have a Shimano Spheros SW 4000 with a Medium power Falcon inshore rod, and it does perfectly. Light tackle fishing is popular in the Chesapeake because the fish aren’t huge. Unless you’re going for the tarpon that got lost in the Bay, I think something along those lines would do fine. Maybe heavier if you’re exclusively targeting bull reds, cobia, black drum, and overslot rockfish.

How do you catch gar? I’ve got a bunch (probably longnose gar) in the marshes near me but they mostly ignore plastics.

I’m not catching any of the Menderchuck monsters that you are, so that likely factors into it. The waters I fish are rivers and creeks: relatively shallow without underwater hazards like mussel beds or wrecks. I’d probably struggle more fishing in more adverse conditions with bigger fish. But for the average 2-3 pound Potomac smallmouth, you just have to calm down and get to work. Be there no question, I lose plenty of bass. But when it comes to getting me panicked, black bass have a hard time getting me off my guard.

I used to fish for smallmouth quite often because I felt that they were hard fighters, which, for freshwater, they are. But eventually, I started to figure out how to fight smallmouth effectively, and the explosive runs and jumps became predictable and controllable. Nowadays, I search for salinity to scratch that same itch. Bass are still fun to fight, but they are more of a mental exercise for me.

Chesapeake Bay?

There was a stream in central Maryland that once held native brook trout. I caught my first brookard in that stream, and it was quite beautiful. However, that stream was on the margins, even at that time. The summers became warmer, and the surrounding land became less forested. In the more recent times I’ve been there, it’s been nothing but creek chubs. I couldn’t even see a single salmonid in there. I haven’t bothered fishing that stream for a while. It’s sad to see a fish that once thrived in that stream for an untold number of years suddenly become extirpated at the hands of human development.

An ounce of prevention… With smallmouth, I’ve found that they generally only jump if you let them. Keep calm, and keep them below the surface. Horsing smallmouth in only makes them go upwards. With largemouth and Florida bass, I’ve found that they jump whenever they feel like it. Lighter hooks for better penetration will probably help. As for muskie, I haven’t shaken hands with one yet. But if they’re anything like snook, then I’d be content to jump them, and ecstatic to land them.

Big Gunpowder. I’ve heard that there are snakehead in the nontidal portion of the river, but it doesn’t strike me as archetypical snakehead habitat (granted, I’ve never caught one). All of the known hotspots on the western shore are ultra-pressured, and I’m stuck on the bank. I’m not feeling too confident that I’ll get my first snake before the summer’s end.

I went out in the afternoon yesterday and got a nice smallmouth out of the Gunpowder. I was going for snakeheads, but I’ll take a brown fish.

I’ve always liked the uni knot

I’ve never had walleye, so I’d go crappie, bluegill, then catfish. Catfish taste pretty good, but I have a mild aversion to eating bottom feeders out of dirty water. Bluegill are so small that I don’t bother filleting them. They taste pretty nice, but the bones can be annoying. Crappie are easy to fillet, taste fantastic, and return a high yield, so I enjoy eating them. It’s not an option on the list, but I fried up a mess of kingfish (whiting/sea mullet) last week and really enjoyed them. They taste mild, but not totally neutral; they still have a pleasant briny/sweet flavor. I butterflied them this time around. I’ve filleted kingfish in the past, but they have a triangular shape to their body and scales like armor, which makes it a pain. I don’t know that I prefer them over crappie, but kingfish are a fine fish for frying, and easy to catch, too. I’d eat them more if I lived closer to the surf.

On the topic of different species, I’ll say the following: Largemouth that I’ve caught fight decently, lots of headshakes. Florida bass give up relatively easily, although it might just be because I tend to catch them in heavy weeds where I don’t let them fight. Smallmouth pull hard on short runs, and jump if you let them get towards the surface. They’re very hard fighters. Suwannee bass fight somewhere between largemouth and smallmouth; I’d say they have a fight style similar to the former, but the strength of the latter. Shoal bass are the hardest fighting bass I’ve caught. They fight like schoolie rockfish. On the topic of whether some fisheries have harder fighting bass than others, I’d say yes, and that it likely has to do with genetics, water conditions, and hunting habits. Moving water seems to consistently produce harder fighting fish, irrespective of species. I would imagine fish that feed in open water tend to chase more than those that feed in cover, which might make some fish more inclined to swim around than others.