Functional

You can come...but you can only use a spinnerbait.

@Pat Brown Take a trip to Gaston and well have a nice fish fry then! No limits on quantity or size.

@WRB It has a variety of shad species, herring, bluegill and crayfish. I'll be curious how the F1 stocking effects anything over the next coupe of years. Seems like Woody B has not noticed any marketable improvement on one of the first lakes they tried in around here. Something I noticed pulling my boat Sunday was beds that looks freshly make/fanned. It was in a swimming area and they werent there from the typical spawning period. There were bluegill guarding the beds this time but it got me wondering if there was a recent bass spawn which could explain why there has been a lull in bigger bass? Thoughts? Could also explain why @Woody B is experiencing similar a few hours away. @looking45 I've been looking for a reason to just toss a big swim/glide bait around for a while now....guess I have my reason!

I want them using the same lure if I start catching so I can lord over them that I'm the dominant fisherman and even if they have the same lure they have no hope of being as great as I am. All jokes aside....until we start catching fish we always use something different and at a different part of the water column. Once we start catching we usually switch up to the same lure, sometimes same color, sometimes similar color to test if they hit better. Even when there is a lunch wager on the line there is still how you work the bait and spots you cast to so we never have issues sharing info. Its a good time.

I think they use heavier line to show on camera easier. my thinnest combo so far has been 8lb floro to 15lb braid. I've gone up to 17lb floro and 30lb braid without issues. I usually err on the side of caution and do at least 20 wraps as tight as I can get before I cant keep my leader piece from distorting due to braid pressure when wrapping. I do 3 half hitches then cut the leader tag and then continue with 3 more half hitches just braid over braid. No pull outs or breaks yet.

@WRB the last electro shock study they did was conducted in 2021. I put some of the info in the pic below. They also started stocking F1 strain bass in 2022 as I think a 5 or 7 year program and included some other lakes nearby. I did do some brief night fishing but only until 10pm. I used a rod not suited for it and my hookup was nearly non existent. Those I did manage to hook vane unbuttoned. User error. Either way I think I'll be back up there next weekend and will hit night hard if I am.

@bigbassin' just over 20,000 acres, 34 miles long. Something like over 300 miles of shoreline. Was a river that was damed/flooded in the early 1960s. They first started seeing bass in 2008. I get spots out compete lmb but even so, where did the larger spots go? It's like everything over 12" disappeared. Here is a spot from I believe spring last year that was about typical until this year. @scaleface that's the plan on my next trip.

So this is the second trip now on a particular lake where all my typical spots that yielded 2.5-4lb bass regularly now only produce dinks in numbers. It used to be a mix of LMB and bigger spots but now almost entirely young spots. These spots were established by producing over multiple seasons so its not a matter of "hitting that spot one lucky time". What could be the cause for bigger bass being displaced in ALL of my spots miles apart all of a sudden one season? DNR has put a no minimum length to keep spots to prevent the overrun of lmb but I can't imagine that happening suddenly one season. Even If that is the case, then where have the larger spots gone? Tried making some big runs yesterday to areas that used to produce small bass and got zip. Some samples. (I get one is a lmb but that's the exception lately)

At the inlaws this weekend and catching everything but bass. Did some night fishing and caught this nice sunset. Then this morning had a really good hook up and suddenly went light. Thought I broke off but I had 40# braid. Turns out I broke the hook on a dirty jigs swim jig. No rust... no idea what happened and although it had a lot of weight I can't see any bass breaking a hook.

You probably know but you can donate your kidney even if you aren't a match. You basically trade yours for someone who matches. There is hardly any wait time for it that way. The recovery is usually harder on the donor than recipient though just fyi. Incision at the lower abdomen takes time to heal.

Not from WI but unless its got wood outside for me its a cottage. The fact it isnt on water doesnt matter much. Either way that looks like a really nice place for the 2 of you! Good luck with it and I hope you enjoy it.

If the pads are too thick that your lure doesnt get contact with the water then I personally have had no luck. You need to drag your lure over some open areas to get a strike. If the pads are too thick to allow this then you have 3 other options. 1) punching which you said you cant do with your gear. 2) get right up in the pads, cast out and bring the lure INTO the pads from open water. paddle tail/fluke, spinnerbait 3) position against the pads and cast parallel with the pad edge. Frog, paddle tail/fluke, buzz bait, spinnerbait the paddle tail/fluke can be weightless or as much weight as you need. This is from my experience taking week long trips in upstate NY to go for bass and pike in a lake very heavy with weeds and pads. If its a big field of pads then treat it like open water when looking for where to target. They will still gravitate to the laydown, rock, slight hump/depression, drop offs, etc. in big pad fields.

All my spinning gear growing up was left hand retrieve. I wasn't about to relearn how to work lures and set hooks with my left hand/arm when I switched to baitcasters.

They really are massive. I'm curious how the boat rides though being able to have a deck that large.

When I've looked at them the below were on my list Crestliner MX (huge deck) Lund Pro-V Vexus AVX Ranger Alpha (new, over your HP limit) Xpress

Im gunna cheat and list 2. 1) Mirror Lake in NH. My aunt/uncle had a place there and my dad, uncle and me would fish it every time we visited for 1-2 weeks at a time. The water is super clear, some really nice scenery, decent fish. If I had my skills I have now it would be awesome to fish again. Saw my first moose there and hear my first bobcat chasing/killing a rabbit at night fishing at 3 am. Terrifying and awesome all at once. 2) My parents had one of their first campers on a lake in Woodstock NY (not hippies) and the man made lake was some of the best bass fishing I can remember. Size, quantity and aggressiveness were incredible. They did some logging there but left some trees and flooded it so cover and coves were everywhere. I've heard the campground closed down but I still search google maps every month or so to try and find it. It's only a hour from where my wifes family lives who we visit often and I'd make a trip for sure to go again. Both great memories fishing with my dad and my uncle. The two biggest influences in fishing for me.

Love em. Used to camp almost every weekend when we were kids in upstate NY and had one nearly every night. Used to also heat our house with wood burning stoves (not quite the same) and learned to love chopping wood with an axe. Since I moved down south its nearly a death sentence to have a fire in any months that dont have the potential for snow.

@ol'crickety I have both but actually prefer the KVD. Good choice!

ya know looking at some of your pics I think a Manns Baby 1- or KVD Wakebait would be killer in that extremely sparse grass where its 1 strand sticking up every now and then. https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/search-tackle.html?start=0&count=20&prevsearch=KVD&searchtext=KVD+wake https://www.mannsbait.com/shop/1-Minus-c30145978

@AndrewJ Thanks, thats the place I was looking into as well.

nice! where did you get them and hows the quality feel? I need to replace the seats in my 2013 175 for the exact reason. Material is good but all the thread ripped.

I never get tired of your pond pics.

Fall? Did....did you even have a summer? LOL. It feels like you were just able to start going out and not freeze. Nice fish too, always fun on a topwater bite.

My uncles always went out back and smoked a cigar after dinner, so naturally I tried cigars with them. I found I could only enjoy them while drinking whiskey but that compounded the splitting headache I had an terrible sleep those nights. Never smoked, never saw the appeal and I always had hobbies that kept me broke to afford much else. At a previous job a guy used to take his lunch at the same time I did and I'd wait for him to fire up his pipe. Hed smoke his pipe and take a walk around the city. It smelt so good I'd just follow him for about 15-20 minutes then pick a spot to eat wherever I wound up following him. No idea if he ever knew I did that. Still miss that smell.

From my experience it shouldnt take more than 2 seconds pause from splash to get a good hookset even on a lazy fish bite. If you think you need longer than 1-2 seconds I am going to take a WAG and say maybe you have too much slack line in the braid before your next "snap" to walk or bob the frog. There are gear and technique things you can do to fix this. Make sure to reel as you walk to take up the slack youve now created. I use a high speed gear ratio for my frog rod for this reason (i think a 9.X or 10.x?). When the fish takes it down it has less slack to take up which gives you more driving duration during your hook set sweep. The trick in general is leave the least amount of slack without moving the frog unintentionally. A longer rod will pull more line than a shorter rod on the hook set. In a way accomplishing the above while allowing more slack while fishing the lure. Thinking about it more now...for someone whos quick on the trigger it might be a better setup for more slack with a longer rod, kind of a built in delay when setting the hook. Idk...Friday morning thoughts on frogs...