CastingClinic

I've spent some time going through this thread and was a bit surprised at the offense taken by many. To answer why I don't fish tournaments the answer is simple, I don't really have the time to. I'm blessed to be a weekday morning fisherman and don't have enough weekends to spare to make tournament fishing viable and I don't see that changing any time soon. I keep an eye on the local clubs and have thought about joining but it just doesn't make sense though I'll give it a shot one day. Now that's not really the question you asked. What you asked is why I fish for bass and that is a question I've asked myself. When I pass a boat trolling, maybe for lake trout, hybrids, walleye, or salmon, or perhaps I pass a perfectly splayed set of rods in search of crappie, or a guy with a hefty broomstick rigged up for catfish, I ask myself, "why am I doing this instead of that." I was maybe three or four when I started heading out with my dad and company on the Great South Bay of Long Island in search of, mostly fluke and flounder. Squid strips or spearing with big heavy weights dragged across sandy bottom are my earliest fishing memories. We always played for keeps and having to throw one back because it didn't quite make length was always a cruel ritual. It wasn't always fluke and we would run into a wide variety of fish which was always an exciting affair but as much fun as it was it could be oppressively boring and our little skiff offered no reprieve from the brutal summer sun or a rough windy day. Fishing was an exhausting activity. My dad worked six days a week more often than not and this type of fishing wasn't a convenient thing and so when a day to fish came up it would be quiet the adventure, dawn till dusk. This is what fishing was to me. I left Long Island for collage and my dad moved away to Texas shortly after so our saltwater trips became far and few, relegated to charters or party boats. In my mid-twenties I was living across the street from a small pond in New Jersey and a noticed the trout stocking postings one day so I bought my license and a cheap Walmart spinning rod and had a blast cleaning up trout and bluegill like I had on the handful of trips to my great aunts pond in Indiana during my childhood but it got old fast. It was unbelievably easy fishing. I'd pond hop with friends on occasion and fish for whatever would bite, bass included, but a few years ago I was invited on a week long men's fishing trip to Black Lake in upstate New York. It was family and friends of a friend and there was a good group of us younger guys and plenty of old timers. Some were better fishermen than others but everyone was there to wet a line and relax. The weather was hot and the water was very low and full of weeds. The fishing wasn't very good but we managed a decent haul of panfish, bass, and pike over that week. One guy even pulled up a decent sized walleye. That trip really rekindled the desire to go fishing, freshwater in particular, but more so it made me realize that I really didn't like fishing from shore. I don't hate it but I find it tedious and quickly bore of it but fishing from a boat is what I grew up on and a fishing trip from dawn till dusk wouldn't phase me one bit if I was out on the lake rather than hiking through brush. So I went on the hunt for a boat but needed something relatively cheap that I could cartop myself. I looked at kayak options but I'm a big guy and want to stand so I wasn't sure. I ended up see some pictures of guys fishing from canoes with outriggers and trolling motors online and found a 17ft aluminum canoe that would become my winter project. As spring approached, another buddy of mine had expressed an interest in getting back into fishing. With his daughter now in preschool he was in need of a hobby that would get him out of the house for a bit and a YouTube rabbit hole sent him pond hopping, for bass in particular. With my canoe not quite seaworthy I would accompany him and get my fishing itch scratched. When the canoe was ready he came along for the maiden fishing trip. We headed out on a lake neither of us had been before and started fishing. We caught a bunch of fish that day, mostly bluegill, but the biggest fish were all largemouth. None could've been over two pounds but it was the best day of fishing we had up to that point and beat scratching our heads as we hiked around ponds. We spent that night texting back and forth, linking videos, all in a quest to better understand what we could do to catch more, bigger, bass. That trip was three years ago now. My canoe has since morphed from a slightly rickety, diy contraption, to a lean mean fishing machine and my buddy has long since left my front seat for his own kayak rig. I often talk about taking a day to go hunt down crappie for a fish fry, or try my hand at trolling for monster lake trout, and I still get out saltwater fishing from time to time but mostly you'll find me hunting bass. I've never truly felt like I've known what I'm doing while fishing until I started really trying to decode bass and its the first time I realized that fishing is something you can get really good at with enough effort. The goal is simple; more bass, bigger bass, and with the least time between them, and so, in a way, every trip is a tournament day for me. So that's why I fish for bass, because its what I'm good at but I can still always get better.

“Father Christmas” by the Kinks “Snoopy’s Christmas” by the Royal Guardsman Two solid Xmas songs that usually fly under the radar.

Planning to use the Hobbywing 880 but haven’t settled on wireless or a wired yet. The idea of a wireless controller sounds great but I’ve used an electric skateboard remote before and understand how it might not be that practical. I’ve also seen remotes with, essentially, a plus/minus where you incrementally increase/decrease power but those also seem imprecise. The PWM setup I was using worked off a potentiometer and I was able to really fine tune the power so without having tested anything yet I think I’m leaning towards a wired setup but will probably experiment with both. And yes, I’m still planning to control direction by hand. I’ve seen that video but that design seems a bit much. The hobbywing 880 can support two motors and so, in theory, I could mount a simpler 12V linear actuator and rig up a collar on the trolling motor to control direction but still be able to connect/disconnect easily on the water and still control direction by hand. There are videos of setups like this and they seem to work well enough. It’s something I’d be able to add on at a later date if I wanted. In fact, I’ve thought about some ways to include relays and footswitches into the circuit to create a completely hands free setup but at this point I’m probably over complicating things and getting away from the real project which is just upgrading the trolling motor switch to a more functional throttle. I'm very much a DIY tinkerer so a lot of the time I’ll overcomplicate things just for the fun of it.

I’m not the expert and have to brush up on it myself. This video is a good one on the subject. https://youtu.be/d1gT2n0BvbQ?si=obEmk-uYp_FjLdpa Here’s the short of it. The problem for me with a basic trolling motor like the ones from Newport vessels is that it runs off a switch and on my aluminum canoe setting 1, the slowest, is still too fast. In calm conditions I’m moving almost 2mph which isn’t practical for just putting along pitching a weed line and so I’m stuck constantly switching the motor on and off. Without getting into the details of how the circuits work a PWM (pulse width modulator) and ESC (electronic speed controller) are both placed between the motor and battery and create, essentially, a throttle allowing for speed control that goes 0-100%. You can dial the speed down until the prop barely moves and fine tune to your liking. Each are different in function but have the same results. A PWM is analog and simpler but larger, generally built cheaply, and more susceptible to current fluctuations. I blew one up plunging it in backwards and another by overworking it through thick weeds. An ESC is what RC cars/boats/planes and electric skateboards use. It’s digital, smaller, can be setup with a wireless controller like some expensive trolling motors, and more protected from the electrical current but a bit more expensive and complicated to setup.

Crafting spinnerbaits on top the usually cleaning, re-spooling, and organizing. I also have a project planned to add an ESC to my Newport 55lb trolling motor. I started the year using a PWM but that proved not to be robust enough and I burned through two before setting it all aside for winter. Being able to throttle my motor down until the prop barely moves was unbelievably helpful on my canoe.

Wayne

Noticed the same today and I am even more grateful for the timing. The weather seems to be making up for the mild fall. My gears packed up for winter but I’m with you in hoping for an early spring. @Fishlegs Thants the plan. I’ve probably got a couple more years before fishing with my son but plenty of time for getting out in nature with him.

There’s only one advantage and disadvantage I can think of. Advantage: Most of the time I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve only been seriously bass fishing off my canoe for the past three years and so I am still very much learning the ropes. I find myself throwing baits I have little experience throwing, into places I shouldn’t throw them, on days I shouldn’t have even tied them on and I’ve caught nice fish and learned a ton doing it. I read and watch all the orthodox tactics and techniques but prefer to experience it myself and will purposefully do the “wrong thing” over and over just to see what it feels like. Sometimes the “wrong thing” isn’t wrong at all. Disadvantage: Most of the time I don’t really know what I’m doing. Things can get brutally frustrating and some days I’ll find myself tying on new baits every few minutes or wasting tons of time moving from spot to spot, back and forth, with no idea what the plan is. Most of the fish I catch feel like luck of the draw because the odds that I had tied on a different bait and thrown it somewhere else are so high. My last trip was the best day of fishing in my life but the truth is I caught every bass on a blade bait and I had never caught on that bait before. In fact, I had never caught a fish on a lipless crank of any kind and only brought the blade bait because it’s a “cold water bait” or so I’ve read. I know next year I’ll find myself once again hopelessly frustrated by the blade bait because a few hours fishing on one cold December day may have been a ton of fun but I learned only a tiny bit. I didn’t head out and hunt those bass down I just kind of stumbled upon them with a bait I know little about.

I logged on last night intending on writing up a depressing report detailing how, despite having a great year overall, I haven’t seen a bass since early October. Zero bass all November and the last trip out my fishing buddy pulled up a nice two pounder on a Ned rig in 30ft but I had no such luck. A handful of pickerel and a rock bass was all I had to show for almost two months of effort. While cruising the site I started looking into cold water tactics and found a Mike Bucca article about float n’ fly rigs and thought maybe I could piece something together and get out one last time. I really just wanted one more bass to close out a great year on a high note. I woke up this morning to 23 degrees and quickly changed my mind, accepting that the season was over and I’d be better off using the day to start packing up my fishing gear for winter. I don’t know why by right around noon while pulling out tackle boxes something inside told me this was my last chance and to just suck it up and go catch one more bass. So I got permission from my wife who thought I was crazy, told my fishing buddy who also thought I was crazy, grabbed some gear, and made for a favorite spot that I know well. I was on the water around 1:30pm with water temps 40-41 degrees, air temp a balmy 35 and a stiff 12mph wind. I had with me a piecemeal float n’ fly rig that never touched the water because my other rod had a blade bait and it turns out that’s all I needed. I fished for just shy of three hours before sunset timed me out but in that time I had the best fishing of my entire life. I ended with 11 largemouth totaling 31.68lbs and a new personal best 4.38lbs. Two over 4lbs and three over 3lbs. I started the day throwing the blade bait into deep water off a point and jigging it back but had no luck. However, as I was quickly blown towards shore I tossed it shallow to a spot I’d been successful with spinnerbaits earlier in the year and that’s when I hooked up my first. I spent the rest of the day fishing that blade bait the same way I had been throwing spinnerbaits all year and into the same spots, throwing shallow and pulling it back out deep with a medium/slow straight retrieve that just ticked the bottom. I can’t believe how successful I was today. At times I was hooking up to bass one cast after another and they just seemed to keep getting bigger. I thought I had to be dreaming. I’ve had an incredible year and started 2024 at this same lake back in early March and caught a personal best 3.31lb largemouth only to beat that three more times and end in the same place I started, and to think that less than 24hrs ago I was ready to pack up and admit defeat. The wife and I have our second due late May so I know next year won’t be the same, in fact it’ll be quite some time before I spend as much time on the water as I did this past year making today even more special.

@Swamp Girl Fingerless wool gloves are exactly what I'm wearing. They make up the base layer for my hands and almost never come off. I carry a pair of full wool gloves I can slip on an off over them as I see fit and a couple hand warmers to stuff onto the back of my hands if things get dire completes the system and I have no worries of my hand getting cold. I'm a big fan of wool and would dress myself with it completely if I could afford to do so. My hands, head, and feet, however, are wool covered before the leaves are off, no exceptions.

One good fish for my efforts yesterday morning. It was 33 degrees when I launched at sunrise and I’ve once again said hello to my cold weather gear. My year long contemplation of the spinnerbait continues. This guy was hunting in less than three feet of water, tucked into a downwind corner of a shallow flat. Gold blades and perch skirt.

Little guy and a three pounder both on spinnerbaits. Buddy of mine pulled up a largemouth a bit bigger than mine and a handful of perch on a beautiful fall day.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I walked into MVC to register my canoe so I could put a motor on it. Look at me being a good little citizen and registering my canoe in accordance to the law despite knowing that, in reality, it probably didn't matter. The phrase, "it's just an old canoe, I want to put a motor on it, the State says I need to see you to register it", was repeated dozens of times to at least five different clerks and the gears would just grind to a halt in their heads. Surely I can't be the first person to do this. I finally got a clerk who retrieved some guy in a suit from a back office. He strolled up and glanced down at my paperwork and I repeated my line again. Without saying a word he just nodded at the clerk and walked back to his office. And that's how I registered my old aluminum canoe in New Jersey.

Caught five out last Thursday at a usual spot of mine. These next two came from a trip to Virginia this weekend. I met up with a buddy of mine from N. Carolina and spent all day Saturday on the water. Rough time fishing but the weather made up for it. All came on some denomination of spinnerbait except for the last, he came on a dropshot.

Close to my setup. I fish from a 17' aluminum canoe that I also car top. I sit in the "front" seat facing the back seat so that I am closer to the center of the canoe. My trolling motor is then mounted about two feet behind me and off the left side. I don't use oars though and simply bring one paddle. I can comfortably run the trolling motor in <2ft of water if need be and so it ends up doing 95-100% of the work on any given fishing trip. When I do want to pull up the motor and paddle somewhere its because i need to get through very shallow, matted, tight spots and the paddle is often used as a push pole in these areas.