T-Billy

Hang onto 'em. Good chance you'll circle back to 'em at some point. The baits you mentioned are proven fish catchers.

Lakefront houses just west of Buffalo.

I've told my muskie guide buddy that if he were alive today, Elvis would be jealous of the crowds he draws. He'd set up on a huge offshore school of shad this past Nov. and Dec. and have his clients casting for fish, and would soon be surrounded by other boats just outside his clients casting range. It's just shameful behavior IMO. Absolutely. Nothing to take pride in there. Finding them and figuring out what they'll bite is the hard part. Crowding someone else and copying them takes no skill.

Well, I have a buddy who never shuts up about his prostate so..... I'm guessing you talk about both quite a bit? ?

I was surprised I didn't get into any smallies myself with that thing. I was throwing it rigged with 3.8 and 4.3 Keitechs. Downsizing the baits will probably help with the smallmouth. The structure was crawling with muskie though, and will be again in the early spring, but hopefully I'll be able to find some brownies on it late pre-spawn and through the summer. One ledge near the dam has me particularly excited. We'll see come April.

Atta boy, A-Jay!!! Absolute bruisers. I had an off year with the bronzebacks in 22, but I didn't target them much. My best five this year would go around 16#. Since catching my 6-4 and getting it mounted, I've kinda been on a mission to catch a LM over 7#. Ain't caught one yet, but my average size is way up, and I've seriously upped my heavy cover game over the past couple years. Then came muskiepalooza this fall, and I couldn't take my focus off of catching a four footer. I didn't get there, but I did catch 9 over 40", with the biggest being a 45". I covered a ton of water offshore chasing those esox, and I found some very smallmouth friendly structure. I dropped some waypoints I'll for sure revisit in search of smallies in 23.

The lakes I fish are 1k-2k acre impoundments. As a "general rule" midlake to the lower end produces more and bigger fish for me.

Ultra Molds 3.5" Sweet Craw. Manufactured in my garage. My #1 big bass producer for two years running.

$19 for an annual resident fishing license in OH, with 5 year,10 year, and lifetime options available. ODNR keeps it pretty simple without a bunch of seasons for different species. Pay your $19, and fish for whatever, whenever for the most part.

I use a couple standard 3600 Plano Edge boxes for terminal tackle. They work great. Everything stays where it's supposed to and they cost less than the terminal boxes.

I've not done well with the brown bass on the bama rig yet, and have only had mediocre success with the green ones, but my goodness do those muskie ever love that thing. It produced some nice late season eyes too. I feel like I've only scratched the surface with it though. Tons of potential there. I'll be spending a bunch more time with it come ice out. I can't help but feel that one of these cold water days I'm gonna run into a big school of smallies feeding on shad, and wreck 'em with it. Top big bass producers of 2022 were... #1 the Sweet Craw on a flippin rig. It produced all four of my LM over 5# this year and another heavy 4 that was only a bluegill shy of 5#. #2 My garage made chatterbait. It caught four LM over 4#, my three biggest smallies of the year, all between 3.5 and 4, and was my best numbers bait as well. Most of this chatterbait success was in the dark.

Yeah, they do that south of the Mason Dixon Line. ? Zero chance I'm buying a $15 megabass spinnerbait. Booyah and Z-man work just fine.

I immediately thought of you when I saw the title of this thread.

Nice!!! Congrats Ken!!! Merry Christmas to ya!!! Love the colors on that muskie. Besides being a monster, it's also a gorgeous fish.

Bright sun and no wind will move some fish onto shallow sun baked wood adjacent to deep water if you can find any. They'll be super spooky if it's slick, but they'll generally eat a jig or trig if there's even a little ripple on the surface. This pattern is usually best from mid morning on for me.

Yep, both going in, and coming back up!!!

I'm not an envious type of person, but you turned me a light shade of green with that post brother. ? GO GET 'EM!!!

You won't regret it

We had some bitter winters in the 70's including the blizzard of 77 then some really mild winters in the early 80's with barely any snow and no ice thick enough to skate on. Round and round it goes, decade after decade. Scare tactics make big $$$ for some people, and are a useful tool for others whose motivations aren't allowed to be talked about here. I don't sweat it. I'm gonna live forever.

My two are on my chatterbait rods. I'll be ordering two more in a couple weeks. They're versatile, super smooth, long casting reels. I love those handles. I wish all my reels had 'em.

Muskie fishing is not for you. ? Dog person here, but the wife and I have decided our last was our last. Outdoor cats are invasive/feral predators and get treated as such when I see 'em in the woods.

50's here next weekend, but there'll still be ice on the lakes. A fairly fast stretch of river was half frozen over and completely ice choked yesterday. No fishin, for me. Probably service a few reels.

They told us in elementary school in the 70's we were headed for another ice age. Then it was global warming, but the weather patterns didn't support that theory for a few years, so they started calling it climate change instead. As @TnRiver46 mentioned, the climate has always changed, and it always will. The "experts" are clueless. I don't care what they say. I know how this story ends. ?

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Now THAT"S the attitude to have brother!!! Not only do I not want the monkey off my back, I'm gonna slather it up with banana cream, and log into a JDM tackle site!!! PARTY TIME!!!