SpellCaster

1. Zoom Salty Super Fluke 2. Zoom Trick Worm Honorable Mention: Strike King Rage Tail Ned Craw

I know I'm way late to this, but the OP very much describes how I fish year round, so I can't resist. My go-to is a 7'1" Medium Fast spinning, 15lb braid to 10lb mono leader (but lately I've been moving to 10lb braid with 8lb mono leader). 90% percent of the time I'm throwing a weightless fluke (Zoom Salty Super Fluke) on 2/0 Gama round bend offset worm hook. In my fanny pack (Topo Designs Mini Quick Pack) I can fit a small box for terminal tackle - packed with hooks, a few bullet weights, rubber bobber stops, maybe a Zara Puppy or popper, or a spoon. I can also fit a few packs of soft plastics, which will be flukes, some kind of worm, and maybe some kind of craw depending on the season. In the front pocket I keep pliers. Tied onto the front of the pack is my spool of leader (sometimes two different leaders if I feel I need to switch to fluoro). And I keep a pair of line cutters on a carabiner clipped to my pack or belt loop. I love fishing this way more and more. When I first started out I was hauling a huge tackle box filled with everything I owned and I would sit in one spot and just run through every lure/technique in the box, without catching fish, and I was mentally exhausted from trying to figure out what other combination of weight/color/profile I hadn't thrown yet. Over time I learned that I just needed to pick a reasonably versatile lure and run and gun the banks. Far more enjoyable because I almost always catch more fish, I don't overthink anything, and even if I'm not catching fish I still feel like I'm getting something done just by progressing along the bank.

Aw man, I prefer the feel of the fairy wand. I use left handed baitcasters so I can keep the reelin' hand the same as with my fairy wands, haha! Regarding live bait I castnet for shad if I can find them. Just nose hook them on a decent sized circle hook or kahle hook under a slip bobber and let them go find me a big fish. Caught my first flathead and wiper that way. It's so much fun because any fish will take live bait, and big ones at that. My PB smallie was caught on a shiner in Feb this year. 3.99lb... can't actually say I caught a 4 pounder; must be my punishment for using live bait 😁

New member, but I've scoped out the forums a few times for tips or answers to questions I've had. I'm from North AL, on the TN River. Hardcore bank fisher, but I just got a kayak this year, so looking forward to being out on the water more. Also love to wade when it's warm enough. If a spinning rod is a fairy wand then I'm the Fairy King. I have a couple baitcasters, but spinning gear just butters my bread. I like to catch and release (into Lake Crisco). My favorite ways to fish are topwaters and big live bait. Smallies are the most fun. And my current belief is the Zoom Salty Super Fluke is the greatest lure of all time.

Where in North AL? I'm in Florence.

Randomly at a thrift store I found an unopened spool of 10# Sufix Tritanium mono for a couple bucks and it has been AWESOME for leader. It really takes a lot of abuse. Other than that if you want to stick with Berkley and similar price there's Trilene XL Smooth Casting

My goals for 2024: - Start fishing toads - Catch a bass with a frog - Learn to fly fish (for bass) - Top my total catches for the year (2022 was 214; 2023 so far I'm at 232) - Fish more from my kayak which I just got this year - There's a local park in town that has two nice sized ponds filled with bass and bream and it's only open for fishing 4-5 days out of the year. Since the bass aren't pressured and are used to plenty of people jogging/playing around the ponds they aren't very skittish, so they bite lures easily. Think I hauled in 5 bass in a row one of the mornings and ended up with 26 within 1 1/2 hours. The only thing that would make those days better would be if the bass were bigger. I didn't catch one even breaking 2lbs, though one kid caught an 11lb there this year. Since the park officials encourage anglers to keep what they catch I've been doing exactly that in hopes of culling out some of the smaller bass so the rest fatten up to DDs. Planning to do more of that for 2024 and, while it's still probably too early to see much difference, I hope to see some bigger bass caught out of there. - Get skunked less

Caught a bass with: - Spinnerbait - Lipless - Squarebill - Hard jerkbait - A-Rig - Vibrating jig - Ned Rig - Frog Understood: - the difference between damiki rig and fishing with a jighead Bought: - Googan brand anything