casts_by_fly

Yes, a swim jig is my default jig to tie on since we have far more grass then brush. But then I’ll throw them into anywhere and they come through great. Only caution is using swim jigs with the lighter weed guards to do that. They can get hung up easier and I’ve lost a couple that way.

Take a piece of wire and make a 2” stem with a twist at the top. Now add any threaded weight you want. I did that forever and still do. If you’re going to use bullet weights, use two weights half the size and put them both wide end to the middle so you make a diamond weight.

Also possible, but you're limited from Trenton down more or less. About 40 river miles, much of it not great and looking like the Sabine with greater tidal flux.

We have a winner. And an easy fix for you. Hardware store for the win.

Cara 6’11” eye crosser with 50# braid. Same I throw frogs on. Same Jason Christie throws frogs on.

Gut feel and go from there. My default starting point is the 4” rage bug and 3/8 oz. I’ll often have a second one on with either heavier or lighter. Sometimes a smaller one. Then start fishing and see where it goes. If I vary from my starting point, I’ll go smaller first since our water is clear and there are a lot of guys that fish it.

The KVD deep jerkbaits will drop to 12’ easy. I’ve watched them on live imaging at that depth with just a couple cranks and then jerking them. On a long cast and straight reel (or against any current) they will definitely hit 12’.

I fish the 10” zoom worms on a 5/0 gamakatsu round bend offset hook. No problems at all.

Depends how much they allow to be in the open field of play. Each river goes for 30+ miles from the point. They would have to lock through once or even twice but then the same thing happens on the Harris chain. And they just eliminated one of the locks on the Mon river so with 1 lock through you could be ~30 river miles (22 air miles) away. I think that’s plenty of field for them to play in.

layers. If it is cold, a good pair of thermal base layer does all of the insulation work. Rain jacket if you need it or if it is windy. For me in the early season this all typically means a good base layer with a Hoodie over it, add rain jacket as needed. Shoulder season a lighter base layer plus hoodie or lighter base layer plus lighter hooded fishing shirt, maybe with hoodie over. This time of year it's a thin undershirt with a fishing hoodie over it for morning and evening warmth and bug protection, day time sun protection. The main thing though, don't wear baggy clothes. And if your usual PFD is the class 2 in your picture, an upgrade will help there also. Those class 2s are bulky.

on top of the above, many states have fisheries biology reports posted on their respective websites. They will do various sample (electro, trap nets, etc) that are targeted to multiple species, but usually the comments will have something about 'significant panfish population' or 'herring based fishery'. Since you're looking for bass, electrofishing is the usual way to sample bass populations so you can get a feel for lakes in your area as well. If your lake wasn't sampled you can at least understand the nearby ones for forage base. Here is the link for PA as they have a particularly well organized one. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/fishandboat/fishing/where-to-fish/biologist-reports.html And remember, bass are opportunists. In some place they might specialize in one thing but for the most part, every lake has bluegills, crayfish, and 'generic' minnows (2-5" dark over light long skinny fish). If bass are feeding on bluegills and a 4" shiner comes rolling along with a hook in it, they are going to eat it too.

I agree there isn’t a lake to do it (aside from Erie) but the three rivers in Pittsburgh is plenty big enough. And the beauty of Pittsburgh is that the convention center is right on the river. I can’t remember if it had its own ramp but there is one right across the river so just a quick hop across the bridge. And there are a bunch of hotels downtown for spectators. At the time of the classic, BASS said it was an incredible event for the spectators and as an event. It just was small bags. I think it would be better now as the water has cleaned up a lot, there is more grass in the rivers, and you know…. FFS.

I check windfinder and weather underground every day. Twice a day if I know I’m going fishing in the next 48 hours. The wind direction will help me decide which lake I’m going to and where I might be starting in that lake depending on if I’m in the mood to fish in it or out of it.

I've got two rods to add to the mix now that I have fished them for the start of a season. Both will get more play when my elbow gets right and I can use a baitcaster again, but for now I can put them in here. I wish I could add them to the original post, but that's non-editable so we'll add them here. Cara BFS (7'2", ML/MF)- Coming in at a 3-power is the Cara BFS. They launched two rods this winter in the Cara BFS series. I'm not fishing true BFS light, but I wanted something in a casting rod that I could throw a true 1/8 oz total bait weight comfortably and more usually fish a 1/16 head plus a finesse TRD or a 4" senko on the back and have enough backbone to drive the hook through a texas rig with a hidden hookpoint. I have the phenix feather M and it is a solid choice, but I wanted a little lighter tip and a little more backbone down low. That's exactly what the Cara BFS is. The tip is lighter than the phenix. It is rated 1/16-5/16 which would imply a lighter rating than the phenix by a mile. However, I am pretty confident that this rod is the Cara ML spinning blank made into a BFS casting rod. The original specs from the youtube video they released was 1/8-5/8. It was on the blank in the closeup and in the comments from falcon themselves. That matches the Cara spinning rod in every spec (length, rating, lure rating, etc). Then between the launch video and the first production, I think they said to themselves, "BFS should be lighter. The BFS crowd will think 1/8-5/8 is too heavy. Cut down the rating". So they did on paper. Is it accurate? Fairly. I put an aldebaran on mine. I can cast a true 1/16 oz total bait weight just fine in the yard (overhead casting, 25 yards). It won't do a nice sidearm flick or roll cast, but I'm also not fishing that light. When you make it 1/8 oz TBW then there are no limitations. I started with 10lb 832, but I've recently switched to 8 lb supernatural mono. I don't know if that is a permanent swap, but the 832 just felt light in physical weight and wispy. I didn't like how the wind would blow around the line like thread and 8 lb mono is much better in that regard. The last trip out that I used it, that combo felt awesome. I was pitching a mini craw (1/16 oz ned head and zman TRD crawz) to bedded smallies. TBW around 1/4 oz and it felt like a mini version of my swim jig rod (if you put 3/8 oz on that rod). I will totally be doing more of this with neds, finesse jigs, and other tiny baits pitching to cover (cover that 8 lb mono can handle well enough). I would say the rod is a 5/8 oz rating from a backbone perspective and could handle a 3/8 jig and small trailer, but not if you are using heavier wire. Light wire 1/8 oz swim jig? Definitely going to do that. Sniper jig? for sure. There is also a 6'11" rated the same the rest of the way across the board. I suspect it is the same blank with 3" cut off the butt to make it shorter. I'd love to get my hands on one to check, but I don't need two of the 'same' function blank. Cara Big bait rod (7'9", H/F 1-5 oz)- In the original post for this thread, I talk about the rod power number ratings. This rod is a 7 power, just the same as the eye crosser and the Amistad. I wouldn't have guessed that if you didn't tell me. This rod is a big rod. The amistad and Eye crosser are pretty similar in total power. This rod feels like they took an amistad, beefed up the tip a little, and extended the butt 6". Last year I started throwing 6" magdrafts on the other two rods and it worked. The regular is 1.25-1.5 oz and the freestyle is probably just a little more with my using a 3/8 oz weighted hook (I plan to try a 3/4 oz hook on them later this summer). With the amistad (no slouch of a rod) it fishes fine but you know you're working the rod. The Big Bait Rod just eats up a 6" magdraft. It feels the same as my lighter rods throwing a 1/2 oz spinnerbait. I grabbed some 8" MDs and I was throwing them earlier in the year with no issues. This rod will fling an 8" magdraft 40 yards on 20 lb fluoro. I was babying it at first as I thought that was too much for the rod. It was just me. I wasn't used to throwing that much weight. With a modest side arm lob it just flings it. And yet, if there isn't a bait hanging on the end the rod is super balanced and doesn't feel tip heavy at all. I have a Chronarch 200E on it which isn't a huge reel and it feels just balanced. I'm excited to throw this rod more this summer into some truly heavy stuff. I suspect that it would be a pretty good punching rod with an ounce or ounce and a half plus plastic. I'm going to find out.

I'm a big falcon fan and have consolidated all of my casting rods to falcons. The Bucoo SR and lowrider sit at $100 and $130 respectively. I have a couple Bucoo and they are a good rod for the price. But I would spend the extra $30 for cork, slightly lighter guides, and a wider range of actions. You don't say the uses or power ranges you're looking at, but the 7'2" swim jig and the 6'10" head turner are two falcon actions that will give you a lot of mileage. I have the cara swim jig and the expert and bucoo Head turner. @Joedodge just picked up the lowrider swim jig and can give feedback. I don't know their spinning rods.

In that case they should stick out even better. The males will take the mud and fan it away from a harder rocky bottom. The rocks are usually lighter color than the mud so you should be able to see them somewhere. With the water being dark, light spots should stand out. We have a couple tannic lakes around here and you can see gravel in 2-3' of water on a good day. Find that around some shallow cover or under an overhanging bush and you shoudl find a bed or two.

Yeah, but it still means a shorter, light power casting rod setup, whether it is glass or graphite. That's the main limitation for me.

@Swamp Girl- if I remember correctly, your water is pretty tannic and you've got sandy bottoms? That would make it a bit tougher to see beds. Being low to the water doesn't help you. Plus its always cloudy and low light in your pictures so that doesn't help to see them. in 3 weeks on a bright sunny day when the sun is high in the sky and after you're done fishing cruise over to the shallows and just paddle around in 1-3' of water with some polarized glasses. If you have a sandy bottom, the beds should stick out a bit in the darker water. You might or might not see fish on them, but at least you'll find where they are. I'm sure they aren't far from where your fish are eating right now.

Interesting. Up here, I've never seen a bass on the beds once they have left the beds the first time. My dad keeps a bunch of bass through the year (from 12-20") and has never had one with eggs either. I bet with the added early year direct sunlight and warmer winters that allows your fish to develop eggs earlier and then get a second round in the fall.

That's always awesome watching him do that. That's the 'original' BFS I think. Very specific rods and setup. I considered setting one of those up for fun (I have a couple blanks downstairs that would fit the bill) but then realized that I fish for trout once every other year so... When I do trout fish though, I pitch a ton. It's usually with a spinning rod a bait, but the action is the same- same pendulum motion, quiet entry, precise placement. There is no room to overhead cast and even a sidearm will catch bankside vegetation. A longer rod and a pitching motion are the most efficient way to get a bait where you want it. Doing it with a casting reel would be even better. I don't think I could pitch a single salmon egg though on the setup I have, but I am going to try it.

Big game runs thick for a given rating, so buy it based on the diameter. 15# is a good all around for bass line. If you're fishing the flats for reds and more medium inshore tackle then have a look at the 12#. The 12# is still 0.013" which is the same diameter as 16# supernatural.

That's a good point about individuals vs populations. Any individual will do its own thing. Populations are the 'average' of all the individuals though and that's where trends emerge. But it takes time and energy and food for a female to make eggs. Once they drop them (assuming they drop them all which may or may not happen all the time) they can't just magic up another cluster of roe. Some individuals might hold on and not spawn with the group so you might see her a month later (or earlier). I think certainly down south the range is broader because the temps are milder. Plenty on here and pro's during events have said that you'll find spawning florida bass from December to April. But it's going to be a distribution curve with a broad peak. Up north (I can speak to NJ and PA) things happen more suddenly. Within a 2-3 week window you can cruise around and see no beds to seeing fry guarders with tons of empty beds. This year I was on my 'home' lake on May 4th. Big natural lake, clear water, I know it well. 68-69 degree water, but it was low 60s just the weekend before. Calendar days wise, that's early in the year to be that warm (I've fished it April 29th with 50 degree water before). That's also early for the largemouth spawn around here (usually mid may). I saw one male starting to make a bed and I cruised the shoreline looking pretty hard. The female that I did catch was busting at the seams. They were close, but not quite there. Fast forward to Wednesday the 14th and they were done. Beds were empty already. Smaller males around shallow guarding, but not a bigger female in sight. Bluegill had gotten busy making beds, though not as many as there will be right now a week later (it will look like a honeycomb in the shallows on that lake right now). If we weren't going on vacation tomorrow I would be on that lake tomorrow evening as there is usually a 1 week lull after the fish spawn (last week) and before the bluegills kick off. Then the bass are chomping on gills for the next 3 weeks solid. Last year I had 20-25 bass evenings fishibg bluegill beds. I think you answered your own comment. They are fat because they are snacking on every gill that comes along. You might still have some spawning, but that post spawn binge on the bluegill spawn refills their bellies. I think you're still a couple week away. Your bass look like they are 'about' ready and if you had a week of 75 and sunny then that would pull them up quickly. In the meantime, they are just going to hang back a little and feed up. Their metabolisms are increasing with the water temp rises and they are hungry. Go catch em.

As Gim said, when you start catching the fish that don’t have that big bulgy belly, the fins are ragged, and they just look ‘spent’ then you can be pretty confident those fish have spawned. It doesn’t mean the spawn is over, just that those ones are done. Another good indicator that it is ending is when you start catching smaller aggressive males where beds should be. Those will be fry guarders. They are usually the last ‘spawning’ fish that are up shallow before the bluegills start. Temp can be an indicator, plus minus 2 weeks I think. 60 is normally when the smallies are really close and 64-65 for the largemouth. But you have to consider that the fish need an amount of time AT temperature for the eggs to finish developing and the hormonal triggers to kick in. If the water temp is 45 and then overnight it warms to 70, they aren’t immediately going to rush to the bank and drop eggs. If the water is 60 degrees for 8 weeks then they might just start but you can be sure that first warm day that the water hits 65 they are running up the bank. They need a minimum time above a critical temperature first. If you think about the fish down south, they can be spawning over a 6 month period. That’s because the water doesn’t go below the critical temp where eggs develop. So they slowly develop and when the fish feels ready it moves up. Contrast that with up north and the spawning season is much shorter. Because the sun is moving north and getting more intense by the day, the water will get above and stay above that critical temp quickly which gets the fish ready. Then they just need that trigger. In another hobby realm (lawn and grass growing), there is a metric called growing degree days (or growing degree units). Basically it is the accumulation of energy from the sun that could have been used by plants to grow above a certain temp. It is calculated based on the angle of the sun and the cloud cover for a given location (calculated down to a zip code). For instance, grass doesn’t really grow if the soil temp is below 50- there isn’t enough energy to kick off the chemical reactions for photosynthesis. then once the temp creeps above that things start to happen. When the temp is over 60 then the chemical reactions are really kicked off. When the temp hits 80 they actually slow down. The accumulation of time at temperature is measured as the GDD or GDU and it is a great predictive measure of when things will happen. The forsythia bloom at a certain point. Crabgrass germinates at a certain point. Specific flowers emerge. The more I pay attention to it for what it was designed for, the more I believe it can be applied to fish spawning. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the stripers spawn when the forsythia blooms. I know that when the forsythia starts, the bass around here are in the shallower side of prespawn- never fails. I think that with a bit of work there is a correlation to the bass spawn. Looking at the GDD for Portland ME and comparing to here, there is about a 3 week lag, maybe 4. I can tell you that the largemouth are done here on the smaller lakes. I haven’t checked the bigger lakes but I bet they are about done. So nominally in 3 weeks they will be done for you. That would imply that they are getting close to getting towards the beds right now. Looking at the pictures of your fish from the past week, I’d say they are still in the feeding up stage as they make their way to the beds, but they are close. I’d love to know your water temp but I’d have to guess 60 give or take. https://www.greencastonline.com/growing-degree-days/home

I agree it is miles better than red label. I'd disagree on the decent abrasion resistance (or at least list that as my only caution). It doesn't like wood by any stretch. And docks are going to scuff it up pretty good if you're skipping under them. For those applications I would choose something different (or up the poundage). For grass and open water though? rock and roll.

This was talked about on the broadcast a little. This was the 6th time at the event BECAUSE the local chamber of commerce puts on an event for it. BASS doesn't pay to do the events. They bid them out to local CoC to see who will give the best deal. With the turnout that Orange TX was able to make, it makes for an easy argument from the CoC on how they can justify a big bid to BASS regardless of the waterbody they were on. They have tens of thousands of people spending money all weekend, they have future events that are inspired by the elites fishing there, and because they know they will do it again they can invest a little more into an event knowing that it will happen again. BASS has to balance a couple factors when they are setting a schedule. First and foremost is the CoC bid. Then it is the weather/time of year, proximity and competitor travel and quality of fishery. If 3 of 4 are great then you roll with it. The CoC bid though has to be pretty good. There are some fisheries that will happen regardless of the rest- St Johns, Kissimiee, Okeechobee- they are early season kickoff tournaments with plenty of big fish and they warm up faster than most everywhere else in the country. The Tennessee river dams will always play because that's the 'heartland' area for so many competitors and spectators alike. The St Laurence/GL/Champlain because it gives prime catching later in the year for century belts. Texas because of the fisheries and the number of spectators. That allows for a natural flow from Florida to either texas or SE and then back to the other one, then a swing north to the GL and nearby (either champlain, st clair, or mississippi river for instance). Since they try to do 2 in a given subregion, that makes for 8 tournaments of the 9. Then you can throw one more in somewhere else, either on the way between places or add it to a region. This year Oklahoma is not that far from Tx so add that one in. They did the Susquehanna a few years ago on the way north to Champlain. I'd love to see another Pittsburgh tournament, maybe on the way north or back down. They used to tack on the upper misssissippi on the back end of the schedule, but I think they stopped because its so far up and the fishing wasn't that great a lot of the time. A sportswriter I follow has a couple tenets when it comes to sports. In this case, "when the question is why, the answer is money".