thediscochef

They really are, I had a blast with em. I did have two little wipers at first, I can tell because they look like Sandies with broken up lines. Six total in about 40 minutes of fishing, felt like I was hooking something just about every other cast. I wish black bass fishing was like that...

I know white bass tend to be proportionally taller than stripers, with only one stripe extending to the tail. Stripers have multiple stripes that meet the tail. Wipers I'm less familiar with; the wipers I could verify as a wiper in the past have had builds more like a white bass. My first inclination was that these are stripers, but I'm far enough inland that wipers seemed more likely. I do know that they hit like a FREIGHT TRAIN and fought HARD. BIG fun, I'll be back next week with a buddy. When I'm home I'll read up a bit. Any further input from the forum is always considered a cut above imo. Edit: these are definitely stripers, based on body depth alone. Wipers are deeper like white bass. Thanks for pointing me right @TnRiver46

They probably are stripers given the proportions I'm better at catching bass than I am identifying them lmao

Forum is aglow with beautiful bass. You love to see it. Congrats @HaydenS on your tournament success. That's freakin sweet! I went to pick my car up where it broke down in Waco over the weekend. Mechanic had her ready thankfully. Naturally this means a little bit of lake tourism - Waco is a solid three hours or so from my home, surrounded by different water primarily from the Brazos River system. I went to Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir, a decommissioned power plant lake. It's not really a great shore fishing lake from what I could tell, definitely a destination for the Jon boat. I saw plenty of signs of life, but the shore access didn't have the kind of gradient I need to work a jerkbait properly. Off to Lake Whitney - it never disappoints. I found a really cool spot right up against the dam with huge rock dropoffs to 40+ft that only come 2-3ft out of the water. The water in that area was soooooo clear; you could see huge buffalo and carps and gars swimming around. But obviously not the place for LMB this time of year. Me being me, I set up there just for kicks. I'm glad I did. I kept pulling 2-3lb wipers (edit: stripers) on a sixth sense provoke 106x. Four over two pound in less than one hour, two more that were little within that time frame. I guess I have a wiper/striper spot now. I think jerkbaits are good

This is an interesting thread. In the year I've been targeting LMB solo, I've not once used live bait. I've also never gut-hooked a fish. It hasn't happened. I dislike live bait for my own purposes for logistical reasons, as well as a general desire to avoid killing things unnecessarily too often. The main exception I make for this is venomous snakes. I'm not about to try and shame others from using minnows all the time, cause thats dumb. But I'm not going to use them much. I'm not sure that others using live bait affects my jerkbait fishing. I think the only real way that would be possible is if bass begin to associate a given area with dangerous food that is indistinguishable from non-dangerous food and just stop feeding there altogether. That would probably take some insane pressure and consistency, I would think. I get more upset with the folks dropping green lights off the fishing pier as I suspect that has a greater impact. That said...I may be getting my own light here soon to compete with those dudes on the pier. I have no experienced opinion on gut hooking or mortality with live bait vs lures.

I'm kinda sloppy with my C-rigs but my best of the year so far came on one. 3/8oz-1/2oz tungsten on a spro swivel, 2/0 EWG in a baby brush hog. gets great tail action and hooks up just fine. I mainline braid with a copolymer leader, tying the C-rig to the copolymer leader end, not the braid. detecting bites on a slow movement can be tough, but it worked for me at Lake Fork. My hookup rate was as good as it is with a jerkbait.

I'd rather be snapped at by a snake tbh There's at least antivenom and I'm in DFW, there's hospitals. Naegleria fowleri is 95% mortality *with* treatment. No thanks.

This is my biggest fear in summer fishing at DFW ponds...that water gets warm and it does happen. I don't throw much that I'm unprepared to lose

Y'all catch smallies that I dream about up there. Pretty fish, looks tasty!

Footballs ??? Congratulations and well done on your victory! You love to see it ?

@TroxBox was kind enough to lend me a spot on his boat today, which was awesome. Great guy, great angler! Canyon Lake, TX is absolutely gorgeous but SO CLEAR. We could see bottom in some areas 15 feet I think. We caught fish, had some jerkbait heartbreak but also much success, all mine came on a KVDJ300 and an Ultimate Jerk Shad in the Ghost Shad color. They liked the green. This was the big on the day. I also caught a smallmouth which is always special. I’ve had a good day!

Chunky. Great job, looks like a fun day!

I had a similar thought earlier as I was trying to locate a pack of senkos. I have like four full boxes of plastics. I know that's nothing compared to a lot of folks but I accumulated all that in just a year. I found the senkos in the trunk of my car. I'm only 30, let's not start this business yet ?

I think there's maybe 2.5% of fishermen that can translate the difference between a $200 and a $600 rod into more fish. I think it was WRB who said that first, though likely with different statistics. I'd actually tag him but I'm sure he sees these threads enough. I digress. IMO, if you can't catch a fish on a $250 combo...it's not the gear. I tend to think that combos beyond the $300 price point are more or less splitting hairs. Someone out there definitely needs to split hairs for maximum effect - but that someone is also definitely not most of us. Surely not me.

Ahhhh that makes sense...a few things just clicked for me. Thanks!!

They also have them listed on the website where you can customize the combo and order it for pickup at the store of your choice. You are only limited by what's in stock. This should be featured at all BPS if I'm not mistaken

I've not purchased one, but I know at my local BPS they have carbonlite rods with other reels that they can sell too - that way you can get the rod with a better reel. Tbh though for that money I'd go to academy and get an h20xpress tac40 They're $60 right now on closeout. Pair it with a good Lews casting reel that fits your price range. You won't regret it. For spinning gear, daiwa reels.

I'm very curious about what you're referencing here - can you expand a little? Maybe this is something I need to also be looking at

Hey thanks It felt good to do well. Helps when I'm not doubting my knots ?

As promised 2.25 2.5 4.6 The three best of six fish in 2.5 hours of fishing. Some really cool strikes today, absolutely wonderful. One right next to a boat pier, I was just messing with the jerkbait and a little spotted bass comes up and slams it. Thats better. Now to go move furniture for a friend. Thank you cold front, very cool!

It was my knot of choice until I got a tatula reel with a t wing system, the bulk of the knot would hit the guide every time. The modified Albright knot fixed that, and when I tie it properly it is just as strong. But I can't keep polluting the water like that. I'm now using a Lews that doesn't have the t wing issue. I typically run a braid to a copolymer leader, usually CXX. Before I started deviating from the double uni...I'd never lost a bait on a fouled cast that I can remember. May just have to suck it up on that tatula and use some big game mono so I don't have to deviate at all from the knots I'm good at Anyway sorry for getting off topic, my next post will have a fish in it

Same...I'm just struggling to keep my jerkbaits attached to my line right now. In five days I've lost two to trees, three on rocks, and one to a failed leader line. Not much to show for it, just a bruised ego and a whole lot of self-doubt at waters I thought I knew a little bit about. I miss December, when I couldn't hardly skunk if I tried... Update: I lost another to a leader failure. We're going back to the double uni, I'm not good enough at knot tying to do an Albright successfully and I'm losing jerkbaits at an unsustainable and frankly angering pace. Back at it tomorrow, hopefully I do more than just littering with extra steps...

A humbling day, this little dink decided to try a 4" jerkbait. A 4" jerkbait that quickly afterwards decorated a tree. And then was quickly joined by another one. So I called it a day. First time I've ever caught a fish in that little lake,. Only took four total lure losses in two trips to get it. I know there's bigger fish in there. Gonna be a while before I go back though...hard to look at my Christmas ornaments until I catch something good again. It's been a very challenging two weeks...I did really well the week of the 14th and I think I've had one quality fish since, and 4 or 5 lost jerkbaits, for 4 or 5 different reasons. I guess that's a sign I'm getting more confident and trying them in more places. I have a trip coming up on Friday that I'm very excited about, so it's going to be a good week regardless.

I think I was too young to fully grasp it at the time, but in 8th grade I was out in Alaska with my uncle and cousin. We were out salmon fishing despite it being way early. I was in waders and slipped and fell in the creek we were fishing. I had to get myself up out of the water, I was furthest downstream. That water was COLD and I reached about the last segment of hikable bank for a while and was out in probably 30 seconds. What made that dangerous to me was the remote location; we were far from any help and I wouldn't have come out of that if I hadn't moved quickly. Once on Lake Texoma as a nasty storm rolled in, boat was rolling probably 4 feet vertically. We got in before the worst hit but we were soaked and probably minutes from the center of the mess. Last night some lady at the boat ramp casted into a bush and was trying to climb on the rock pile to retrieve it. The thing that made this dangerous was that she was not at all equipped, physically or gear-wise, to be wondering around on boulders. I got the lure for her and probably avoided a second ambulance call to the lake last night.