Carolina Pines

@Captain Phil That looks like a good open water spinnerbait, but the trailer seems a bit small to me IMO. Maybe a bigger trailer would help them zero in on it and get more hook ups? If I tried to throw that up shallow where I usually fish them, I'd get hung up every other cast. I know it because I've tried it. Last trip I was catching them in 8-10 fow close to the bottom, a trailer hook would have probably worked then. I'll try one next time I'm getting SB bites in open water and see if I like it.

I make my own spinnerbaits with single Colorado blades, free swinging jig heads, 3/0 and 4/0 hooks with no skirts. I like to match the hook size to the size of the trailer, too small of a hook and you won't have enough gap to get consistent hook sets. I like a big 4.5" or 5" trailer on my spinnerbaits. I never use trailer hooks, I throw them in shallow cover a lot. I've never had a problem with short strikes or hook sets, and I've landed some big fish on them including my 9-10 PB. Sometimes I'll use a trailer hook on a buzzbait, but it's rare for me and only in open water.

Another NC member here... like y'all I catch most of my biggest fish during the winter. We get a lot of mild overcast days mixed in with the cold windy days. Those days are when the fishing really turns on. I've had a couple of 100+ fish days during the winter, it seemed like almost every cast you could expect a bite. It's absolutely awesome until you wake up the next day with a sore back from reeling them all in! One of my most memorable winter fishing trips happened last year, my buddy and I found a massive school of 3-5 pounders and they stayed in the same place all afternoon. We caught fish after fish, they were hitting topwater like nothing I've ever seen before. The lake was like a war zone. We both caught over 50 fish each. We were wondering who would be the first to get a giant but neither of us did somehow, nothing we caught was over 5 that day. In my area they're still transitioning out of the fall pattern. I haven't gotten a ton of jerkbait action yet, but I can feel it coming... Spinnerbaits have been producing good numbers of fish but nothing of much size yet. That will likely change as we get closer to December.

I have an electric anchor winch on my 12' V-hull, I use it a few times almost every trip. My boat is small and light enough that it doesn't take much wind to push me around. I'll usually keep moving until I start catching them and find a good spot, then I'll anchor for a little while until the fish move. The winch makes it effortless so I take advantage of it whenever I feel like it. Just push and hold a button for a few seconds. It cost me around $100 on amazon, it would be nice to have spot lock but I can't justify it for my small tin boat. Talons / power poles would be awesome in shallow water, but the anchor works in any depth I'll ever be fishing in.

I have a 12 foot V-hull aluminum boat with a Minn Kota Endura Max 45, along with a weedless wedge prop (the prop makes a huge difference, gets me through thick lily pad fields with relative ease). The Endura Max 45 is on sale for $230 at Academy, that's where I got mine. I highly recommend a TM with the digital maximizer circuit. https://www.academy.com/p/minn-kota®-endura-max-45-freshwater-transom-mount-trolling-motor If I remember correctly, one big reason I went with the 45 is the smaller diameter & weight of the motor itself compared to the 55. I think the 55 is bigger and heavier, but you only get an extra 10 pounds of thrust out of it. I have a 50 amp hour LiFePO4 battery that weighs only 11 pounds! Before I upgraded to lithium I used to run 2 lead acid batteries that were 35ah each, and almost 50lbs combined weight. The 50ah lithium performs better and is so much lighter. I can get 2 or more trips out of it before recharging it, though I usually recharge it after every outing. $140 on amazon right now, I think the price has come down some. Lithium is well worth it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BQRF4N7/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I can attest to the Power Queen customer service... I couldn't get mine to charge at first, so I contacted them and they were very responsive and helpful. I needed to use the Power Queen charger instead of a cheap off-brand Lithium battery charger. Their charger was like $80 but it's pretty nice, and it also charges my other 30ah LiFePO4 battery that I use for my anchor winch. I also have a 6hp outboard for my "big" (lol) motor. If I was using a TM for my primary source of power I might have gone with a 55lb or bigger... but honestly I've been really impressed with the 45lb, it moves both me (190lbs) and my buddy (210+lbs) around very well. I don't fire up the outboard too much unless we need to get to the other end of the lake. I think y'all would probably be just fine with a 50ah lithium battery, but you'd definitely be good with a 100ah.

Those are some fat, healthy bass @ol'crickety, it looks like you had an incredible year! You're inspiring me to get back in my Old Town Appalachian canoe and explore some new waters. I found my local honey hole with my canoe, and I've been focusing almost entirely on that one body of water for a couple of years now because of all the big fish in there. However, there are lots of other local waters around me that have the potential to hold double digit fish. I love the mystique and adventure that comes from finding and exploring a new lake, especially ones that get very little fishing pressure. I can't imagine having a list of 40 different bodies of water to explore! My list has around 15 different spots, several of which I still need to figure out how to access. Your season may be shorter, but it sounds like you have a lot more places to explore in Maine. I hope you get to fish them all!

@BazooNot yet, I still have the 10lb plate weight that weighed 9-10 on my scale, and thanks for reminding me that I need to bring it to the grocery store. Side note, 2023 has been a hell of a roller coaster of a year for me. I caught that big girl in February, and then on March 3rd I got laid off my job after a bigger corporation bought us out. I worked there almost 10 years. Then April 15th a drunk driver ran off the road, drove all the way through our front yard, and crashed into our dining room. Made front page of the local news. THANK GOD we are all OK, but all 5 of us have been displaced from our home ever since. We still haven't moved back in yet, but the remodel is underway, and I'm finally starting to get excited seeing all the changes we're making to the house start to take shape. I got a new job with a promotion and better pay in late June, around the same time my old lab passed away after almost 15 years raising him since he was a puppy. That was really hard. Finally now after a couple of months I'm starting to settle in and feel good about life again. Our GC says we could potentially move back home by Christmas or even possibly by Thanksgiving if everything goes as planned. I kind of doubt it but we'll wait and see. I'm getting really tired of living in a subdivision with a postage stamp yard. I keep telling myself it's temporary. So in case anyone has been wondering where I went, I had to take a little time off from bass fishing to deal with all that ****. But now I'm back at it chasing that 10 pounder!

I caught my PB largemouth 9lbs 10oz on a custom spinnerbait that I bent myself from .040 stainless wire. I used a single #4 Hildebrandt Colorado blade in gold with a Sampo swivel. 1/4 oz jig head, 4.5" paddle tail trailer with glass rattle chamber. @Zcoker, @LrgmouthShad I also agree with y'all I like a big trailer and I've been catching a lot of nice bass ever since I started making and experimenting with my own spinnerbaits. I've gotten to where I prefer a single colorado blade most of the time, unless I'm burning them in really fast.

My hookup ratio improved significantly after I made a few changes. My brother in law has always been a good frog fisherman, and a couple years ago he bought me a Lews Mach Smash 6'10" combo that has become my frogging rod. The shorter rod helps a lot working the frog in the thicker sections of lily pads. I like the standard Pad Crasher frogs. I use 50 pound braid no leader. I always bend the hooks slightly, and trim the legs back to around 2" long. You don't want to bend them too much, but a little bit of bend definitely helped me. As others have stated definitely lock down your drag. Biggest difference for me was when I changed my hookset. I used to try to count 1,2,3 then set the hook but that only resulted in maybe 2/10 hooked fish. Now I set the hook as soon as I reel down the slack. I also use a fast, vertical hookset straight up in the air. My worm hookset is more of a sideways sweeping hookset... I quickly found out that wasn't working for me when frogging. Now I usually hook around 6/10 fish that blow up on the frog.

I'm fishing for largemouth in mostly shallow conditions, and I like to be able to work the bait with the rod down... so I prefer a shorter rod. My jerkbait setup is a 6'4" Ike Delay rod, Curado DC reel with 20lb braid and a 15lb FC leader. I like the Ike Delay rod a lot. It's a glass rod designed for jerkbaits. In years past I rarely threw them. Since I optimized my setup they have become one of my confidence baits and I enjoy throwing them much more. The Ike Delay is the perfect action, with just the right tip to move the bait, but enough flex to keep the fish pinned. I throw mostly pointer 100s and vision 110s, and the occasional pointer 112. Smaller pointers I'll throw on spinning gear. Sometimes I drop down to a 10lb leader if I'm fishing open water... but most of the time I'm fishing around a lot of thick vegetation and cover so the heavier leader is preferred. We catch a lot of pickerel in the colder months too and the fluoro leader keeps my expensive jerkbaits from getting bitten off. My opinion is that if you have a good rod designed for jerkbaits, braid is the best choice because it will impart a better action to the bait versus mono. I'd rather have the rod provide the cushion for the fish instead of the line. Mono's stretch will let you get away with a heavier rod with a faster action, so some people prefer that route.

Trying again with the photos https://i.postimg.cc/9XvFwJT5/IMG-5429.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/HLBkJm0B/IMG-5432.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4dyNV0BZ/IMG-5437.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/MTLZDYFB/IMG-5441.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/MHj6rjCF/IMG-5442.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/3Jmpkyk1/IMG-5444.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/tR1FHvyL/IMG-5446.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/CdThyxYL/IMG-5448.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/dQzrQRVD/IMG-5451.jpg [img]https://i.postimg.cc/9XvFwJT5/IMG-5429.jpg[/img]

I'm still trying to direct link to photos, this may or may not work. Went out this past Friday 2/24/23, caught maybe 12-15 small bass. Biggest one was around 2.5 pounds, despite the small fish the weather was very nice so it was a good day to be on the water. Spinnerbait experimentation resulted in several bass, I caught a big pickerel on a 6th sense crankbait, and I caught one bass on a jerkbait. Later in the day they started hitting topwater, I caught one on a Z man Hellraizer, and then I caught 6 or 7 on a new One Knocker Spook. I love that spook, the one knocker sounds much lower pitched and walks differently than a regular spook. They were crushing it hard. I can't wait to try it out this summer in the saltwater for redfish. [img]https://i.postimg.cc/HLBkJm0B/IMG-5432.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/4dyNV0BZ/IMG-5437.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/MTLZDYFB/IMG-5441.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/MHj6rjCF/IMG-5442.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/3Jmpkyk1/IMG-5444.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/tR1FHvyL/IMG-5446.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/CdThyxYL/IMG-5448.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/dQzrQRVD/IMG-5451.jpg[/img]

Same here in NC, low 80s both today and tomorrow with some wind, then high 60s low 70s Friday right before the front arrives. This type of thing gets me chasing the big ones. Friday I'm hauling the boat to work, taking half a day off then headed straight to the honey hole.

Yeah I'm considering it! My 5 year old took the pic of me holding that 7 pounder, she caught her first bass the same day. That was a special trip back in December, but a 9-10 is really something haha...

2-3 feet of visibility which is what I consider to be clear water for this lake. Usually it's around a foot or even less. You're probably fishing much clearer water than that. However I was very surprised how realistic my trailer was moving compared to every other spinnerbait setup I've ever used. It was noticeably better and looked much more alive. I'd bet it would catch fish even in extremely clear water.

I just went down and checked this, it's funny you mentioned that. I have two different 10 lb plates, I weighed both with the scale. One read 9 pounds 10 ounces, the other read 9 pounds 13 ounces. I suppose it's possible I did catch a DD bass! I'm going to see if I can find a better scale and determine exactly what that one plate really weighs in at. Thanks! It was 52 degrees where I caught the big one.

I'm getting so close to a trophy DD fish! I beat my previous 7 pounder from December by over 2 pounds. I changed a few things up for this trip and it payed off big time. First was noise & boat positioning. I kept myself as shallow as I possibly could, positioning the boat in a foot of water or less, and being very mindful of any noises I was making. I didn't fire up the outboard until the end of the trip. I cast toward "deeper" water that was maybe 2 feet deep max, this was where most of the bass were caught this trip. I also cast parallel to the bank toward the shallowest cover I could find. All of this is different than my usual approach (put the boat in the deeper water and cast to shallow water perpendicular to the bank). Second was modifying my spinnerbaits. I've never had a ton of luck with the typical double willow blade. This trip I was throwing one I custom made with a large single Colorado blade and a high quality swivel. I was using a 4.5" paddle tail for a trailer without a skirt. It worked so much better for a slow retrieve and it got hit hard. The big Colorado blade thumps like crazy and I noticed that my trailer looked much more alive and moved with much better action compared to a double willow. Also my hookup ratio improved significantly, and my hooksets were much easier vs. double willow blades. This could be my new favorite spinnerbait configuration. It was kind of funny how I ended up catching the 9-10 big girl. I was catching a few small 1-3 pound bass (along with a bunch of pickerel) when the action died down around lunch time. I told myself "OK 3 more casts then I'm sitting down to eat." I cast twice toward the area where I was catching the small fish. No bites. OK one last cast... for whatever reason I decided to cast toward some very shallow water next to a bush. I begin my retrieve, and when my spinnerbait is maybe 10 yards from the boat all hell breaks loose. I didn't even feel the bass hit the lure, I just saw a huge rush of water, spinnerbait disappeared, then massive headshakes and huge waves of water everywhere. I was fighting this fish in about a foot of water, less than 10 yards from the boat. Thank God I got a good hook set! I managed to work the fish back and forth around the front of the boat until she calmed down and I got her in. I never would have thought a fish that size would be in water so shallow. My guess is maybe she was lounging around in the shallows soaking up some sun? It was warm yesterday (low 70s) and the sun was out when I caught her. My quest for a DD largemouth continues... I've learned so much from y'all reading all the old threads on here, and I can't wait to get another new PB soon!

Whenever I see bass schooling up busting shad in the winter, I pick up my jerkbait rod and it's almost guaranteed I'm getting bit. It makes me excited just thinking about it. If a warm front came through, they'll also hit topwater baits, paddle tail swimbaits, anything that looks like an injured / dying shad. Glenn is right, they're gorging themselves on dying shad because it's the easiest meal for them to get. I've been doing very well in the winter throwing jerkbaits with 7-10 second pauses between twitches. The bass in my profile pic (7lb-7oz) was caught just a month ago under these exact circumstances. Stuffed full of shad, caught on a jerkbait. I went fishing this past Friday and the back 1/3 of the lake was iced over. That's very rare in NC. I still caught 6 fish, 5 on a jerkbait and one on a 68 Huddleston. Slow bite but the fish were pretty decent sized 3 pounders, they were eating in 46 degree water.

I also fished on 12/30 in central NC. I caught 6 fish which I consider a slow bite for this lake. We had some very cold weather here late December, on Friday it finally warmed up some. The air temps Friday were in the 60s but water temps were still in the mid 40s. Water was dark and muddy, visibility maybe 1.5 feet at best. I was at a mid size local lake maybe 50-100 acres, shallow depth less than 15 feet for the most part. On Friday the back third of the lake was iced over, which I have never seen before at this lake. 5 bass came from a LC Pointer 100 in Chartreuse Shad. Two of them were 3 pound fish, one was 3-10 which was the big fish for the day. I also caught my first swimbait fish, a 3-8 on a Huddleston 68. Surprisingly I got several bites on the Huddleston, and I had never fished with one before. Might be worth trying a swimbait retrieved slowly near the bottom. Which swimbait were you throwing? Do you throw jerkbaits a lot? I've been on a jerkbait kick lately and it's been working very well for me in the cold water.

Big crappie can fight hard, I had one around 2 pounds that took drag like a 5 pound bass. I think the time of year (water temp probably?) makes a big difference. I've caught a couple of fairly big LM bass in the 7-8 pound range, one was in the heat of summer, the other one was just a couple weeks ago in December. The summer fish was slightly smaller but fought MUCH harder, jumped several times, and dragged my canoe with two 200lb guys out of the lily pads and maybe 30 yards across the lake. Twice I got it close to the canoe, only to have it take off again and pull more drag. My fishing partner still talks about how hard that fish fought years later. I was lucky to land it. The winter fish fought hard for maybe 30 seconds, then seemed to just give up and came right to the boat. She never jumped once! My BIL got a 7 pounder in the winter too last year that fought pretty much the same way, no jumps and not a lot of fight other than the first few seconds. Winter is a great time to catch a PB down here in the South!

That's a great idea, thanks! That would be especially nice for holidays when the extended family is around. She's definitely hooked, ever since we got home she's been asking "when can we go fishing again?"

Thanks man, yeah it was a special fish for sure! It took her a while to figure it out but she kept at it, and she ended up catching a second smaller bass too a little while later! She's already asking when can we go again. I've got two younger sons as well, 2 and 1/2 years old and 10 months old. Pretty soon my 2 and 1/2 year old will be ready to catch his first bass. He can outcast his sister some days.

That's awesome glad to hear it!! I'm really excited to start using it this spring, the swimming action looks incredible in the videos I've watched. It feels really solid and well made, and the hooks are great, very sharp. My wife can't stand looking at it lol it's been a lot of fun creeping her out.

Thanks, it has been a very enjoyable project for me! My grandfather was alive until I was 20, and he was there for quite a lot of my best times growing up fishing and hunting. He saw me catch my first largemouth bass, was there when I shot my first buck, and I caught my first trout floating down the Smith river with him.