Harold H

The Thill beads are plastic

You can buy packs of the Thill bobber stops in 40 packs, which comes with 40 beads and 40 knots. The beads are most important, you can buy a spool of cheap nylon thread and tie your owns stop knots in less than a minute

Thats a chunky nice bass, I certainly would never hook a bass like that to fish with. There are videos of people pulling bass apart where one tried to eat the other but it was too big. Largemouth in particular are vicious, predatory creatures, as we know they will eat anything that will fit in their mouth, and even go for more

I make my own underspins with deconstructed beetle spins, lol. Take a 1/4 oz beetle spin and remove the blade and split ring, add to a #7 barrel swivel. Connect this to an oval split ring, then attatch that to the jig head and super glue it. This thing puts off a lot of vibration

I saw a comment from a guy who knew an expert crappie jig fisherman that used live minnows, and he asked him one day why do you use minnows, if you're so good with a jig? He replied, would you rather have a hot dog or a steak? I say give them what they want to eat, chuck a 15 incher out on a 8/0 circle hook and see what happens. The Owner Mutu Light I believe comes in an 8/0, and would be less thick than say a Mustad Demon hook. Just open its mouth and hook it through a nostril and if it doesnt get bit you can release it. And if you do get a big bass to hit it, the circle hook will ensure a much higher chance of successful c&r Edit: the Owner Mutu Light circle hook goes up to 7/0

Paul Elias and the Manns 12" jelly worm Well, this footage doesnt show where he caught the monster bag on a jelly worm. I cant find it

Man I got all that right now, thanks for the hint. I got some 10" power worms green pumpkin chartreuse tail Just dug these out from the stash, will try em out like you said. My best day bass fishing came from using a junebug u tail zoom worm

Please, recommend whatever you think will help us catch a monster. Even if its out of my price range, others might take interest. And if it could catch me the biggest bass of my life, I would save up to purchase one Im thinking a huge ol bass' vision is not great, so its relying more on its lateral line. So if you can pick a bait that most closely resembles its natural forage, and swim it properly to mimic what the fish eats as closely as possible, it will trigger a bite. And maybe slap on a little Pro Cure for added scent

I feel that, set your own standards

Im looking at getting these in the 2" and 2 3/4", might be the ticket. These things are pricey but highly reviewed and I already caught a nice one at that pond on the #7 shad pattern

How come live bait catches don't count? Wasn't the world record in Japan caught on a live bluegill?

https://youtu.be/-SZOX3l0Nww?si=CFWzUaa7k45kWnol

Im going to have to go ahead and disagree on this one, comparing fish to puppies, and such

I will add, that live bait may not work as well as artificials in some places, at times. I caught this fish at a highly pressured pond, with a homemade underspin and a 4" black powerbait curly tail grub, just swimming it back. Caught a 2 lber then caught this one right after, I think it agitated them into biting. Ive tried live gills at this pond numerous times to no avail. But on that evening, my homemade lure got em. Probably couldve caught another but I held the fish up, thought it was a catfish at first while fighting it, and some jack bag kids walked over and cast their catfish lines right in my casting path. But theres nothing like catching a nice bass

I read it out of a newspaper article from over 20 years ago, dont think it hit mainstream media. Also, only rented jon boats and batteries are allowed, no gas motors

http://reports.oah.state.nc.us/ncac/title%2015a%20-%20environmental%20quality/chapter%2010%20-%20wildlife%20resources%20and%20water%20safety/subchapter%20c/15a%20ncac%2010c%20.0701.pdf Bluegill is considered game fish, but is totally legal to use as bait as long as caught by hook and line, no cast nets

But what if... using live bait is the only way to get the biggest bass in the water to bite? I fished Little River reservoir in Durham as a kid, and they did a shock test there many years ago. 22 lb largemouth came to the surface. Now, getting that fish to bite ANYTHING may be very difficult, but what would be most likely to elicit a strike, a factory made lure, or fresh food? I have a tackle box full of hundreds of dollars of hard baits, and no doubt they will all catch fish, with time and effort, but not like live, in most instances I would think. Artificial can certainly outfish live, and can catch monsters as we all know, Butch Brown is an example with the Huddleston. Where some might have many days out of the year to fish, some of us are more limited, and may not have the time it takes to master a lure or technique. And how much do some pay to have a fish mounted, Im sure they wouldnt mind forkin out a little extra for the bait to catch the fish in the first place. And I wont even go into how many Senkos litter the floors or numerous bodies of water

For anyone interested, you can order Black Salties from Anderson farms to certain states. They have small, large, and xl if youre after a real monster. Theyre very hardy unlike shiners and can last for weeks or longer of properly taken care of. Not sure if Outhouse Tackle reopened or not, I think a man named Don might be running it now, but I used to get them there a dozen for $9, I tried to get the biggest ones BLACK SALTY - Anderson Minnow Farm https://share.google/G2LmfYVmgvHHMvlj7 One of the Best Live Baits: The New Black Salty - Game & Fish https://share.google/2Zun1WWZZ9Iy8eiet

Ive heard that white bass is really good too

Lots of lobbying behind certain efforts to make some things illegal, or vice versa. And is it actually about protecting the fish population/anglers, or $$$. And whose doing the lobbying

If a person were to try and fish a live bass. How would you rig it? What gear would you use? How would you fish it? I use a Thill 4" Big Fish slider and a medium HEAVY rod with 15 lb big game mono with an 18 inch leader and a spinner bait trailer hook snelled, thats how I hooked that monster twice on a little bluegill and a black salty. I think the best size bluegill is about credit card sized, saw a huge bass, probably the most beautiful Ive seen with my eyes, come up one day while I was crappie fishing and a little bluegill was following my lure on the surface, she came out of nowhere, inhaled the bluegill from behind, and disappeared to the depths, just as quick as she came. Looking at a bass compared to bluegill, a bass has a longer, narrower body with less spiny fins, so probably an easier meal to digest. Also crappie, has a narrower body with less spiny dorsal fins. With that said, we know bass LOVE eating bluegill/sunfish, and the reason they jump out of the water is a survival mechanism to try and throw a backwards swallowed bluegill. Im going to play around with a c rig and circle hook and try to keep em swimming in one area, and lose the bobber and see what happens. If you just freeline them they can get into stuff, but some people just throw em out on a hook. And for those that might look at live bait fishing as unsporting, its not as easy as it might look/seem, but probably the QUICKEST way to get the bass of a lifetime, if theres trophies in your waters. So even if bass makes good bait, for sake of not getting anyone in possible trouble, ill advise not to use them. Bluegill and crappie should work fine, and if you have access to black salties they work well too. Also big goldfish make good bait, which is what ablack salty is except bot gold, but may not be legal in some places

Here's a comment from a renowned NC catfisherman, Mac B: Bro., for some reason we go thru this every year. The NC Fishing Regulations says that you can not use a live game fish for bait that has a limit set on it, same goes for catching then in a throw net. You can use the side meat of a game fish if you keep the carcass intact, so that the Wildlife Officer can inspect it if he happens to stop you. Every other year we have a Wildlife Officers to come and talk to the cat fishermen in this area and they go thru the Regulations with us and this issue comes up at each session and what the Wildlife Officers tell us is what I have stated previously. Falls lake does not have a limit on crappie, and I dont think theres a limit on bluegill, so they would be okay to use, but probably dont use bass. But this pond is so overrun with dinks, nobody eats them, so what to do about the overpopulation

What if it meant catching the biggest bass of your life? Im in NC, fortunately we can still use sunfish as bait, but its kind of a grey line when you read it: It is unlawful to unnecessarily destroy any inland game fish taken from public fishing waters. Inland game fish may be used as bait if they are legally taken and meet the size and creel limits of the waters being fished and other regulations. So it says we can use bass as bait, but also says unlawful to unneccessarily destroy inland game fish, so idk, ill probably stick with bluegills

What are the thoughts on using bass to catch bass? Saw a post on here from a person from S Florida that said this: TRUE STORY. I grew up in S. Florida and have caught hundred's and hundred's of bass on wild shiners in may of different lakes and ponds. I currently fish a private, closed down rock pit that is about 75 acres. I bought 4 dozen wild, large shiners at a 1.50 a piece and caught 4 bass on'em. I was in total shock at how unproductive the shiners were and figured it had to be the weather or some strange phenomina(sp) that I tried the shinewrs again about 2 months later. This time the result were even worse than before. I decided to use bream and couldn't keep'em in the water long enough to take a leak before they got crushed by 5-10 pound bass. Now here's the funny part... I caught a couple small infant bass, 3/4 - 1 pound, and they got SLAMMED faster than the bream. Now hold on to your horses before you slam me for using bass to catch bass. I had caught the smaller bass on Senkos/lures and they got sucked up reeling'em in. Even the 3-4 pound bass would try annd eat the 1 pound bass and at times tried eating bass up to two pounds. Never in my fishing career have I been skunked on shiners until I fished them in the rock pit. There were huge bass busting top under a dock today, Idk what they were eating but there were a ton of small fish in the shallows, maybe baby bass. Here's one I caught today, maybe a good size to try using Theres also crappie in there that would make good bait

Savage Gear 3D Line Thru Bluegill OG | Savage Gear https://share.google/zQz2tucPDwNLew06W Just found these, they look good, pricey though