BucksBasser

What is interesting is that when HR production dropped off after the steroid crackdown MLB decided to juice up the ball and add other rule changes to increase offensive production.

I'd be looking to baits that cover water. Chatter baits, spinner baits, swimming jigs, jerk baits, flukes.

Presque Isle Bay, 2003. I had bought a new boat, at 17' Alumicraft, so my brother, son and I planned a week long fishing trip to western PA to hit a few highly touted lakes. This was in late June. The first two lakes, Arthur and Wilhelm were duds. We caught a few largemouth but nothing of note. It was hard to understand why these were always highly rated in PA fishing articles. Last stop was Erie. We had two days to fish. A heat wave moved in temps in Erie in the upper 90s. This caused a strong wind out of the west and high waves. Even in the bay they were three feet or more. Impossible to stand on the casting deck. Completely unsafe for this small boat to venture out on the main lake. I was a bit perplexed as I had done a lot of rep for this part of the trip having exchanged a lot of Emails with a friend's relative who won a few Erie tournaments. We truck out the first morning and then over lunch I hit on a idea. Carolina rigs. We didn't have heavy rods but a quick trip to Dick's (they were outdoor oriented in those days) we picked up three 7'6" heavy casting rods and returned to the water. We tried Kalin's twister tail grubs in subdued colors and dragged them over humps. We would set up up wind and let it blow us across a hump. Each pass resulted in a 4 to 6 lb smallie. It would take us close to half an hour to land the fish and then run back upwind for another pass. We repeated this the next day until we had to load the boat and head homeward. I ended the trip with 5 bass over 6 lbs and probably another 10 in the 4 lb range. These still rank as my PB smallmouth.

On the Haycock arm I like the two east pointing fingers. One is about 2/3 of the way south to the dam and the other south at the junction of the Haycock arm and main lake. Fish the weedlines in both. I've caught tiger muskies in these arms while targeting bass. Catching one makes it a special day. I also like the west bank all the way down the Haycock arm. I haven't been on the Haycock arm yet this year but it has plenty to explore on it's own. It's a great spot for launching yaks but only has one slot for boats at the dock. Make sure you go on the state site and download a fishing structure map for the lake. The section above the bridge is a large, shallow flat with acres of Lilly pads. I've seen bass in there but never had much success catching them there. Almost sank my boat there last year at that launch. Had a double Murphy and just got back to dock and pulled out with boat half full of water. I had the boat engine repaired at a local shop and they failed to hook up the shifting lever. At the same time my bilge pump housing split. So I backed out of the ramp and when I tried to shift into forward the arm fell apart leaving the boat in neutral. All the while water pouring in from the busted pump. I quickly hooked up the trolling motor and flagged the guys on shore to clear the ramp for me. By the time I got the truck/trailer around and pulled it out the boat probably had 500 lbs of water in it. Was way down on the trailer springs and it took almost half an hour to drain all the water. Took it home and did all the repairs myself. I added a second bilge pump. Best I could figure is that the pump still had water in it when I stored for winter and it froze and split. Make sure you post a trip report afterwards. If I get up on that arm in the next two weeks I'll let you know. I might go up next week before I go on vacation. I had been launching out of main marina this year since it has more ramps and easy access since I was doing a lot of engine repairs. But it's now running better than new and shouldn't be an issue on the smaller launch areas.

I had something similar with a number of locations that I triangulated off shoreline trees. The hurricane Sandy came along and wiped out the whole row. To top it off they didn't fall in the water, which would have at least been some consolation.

I'm going to Marburg for a week late this month. Looking forward to it.

A lot of that money is going for large screens. They even have 21" screens for mapping. Some boats have 5 large screens. I don't see very many boats on the Nock with FFS. I did see a kayak on Peace Valley with FFS. You need it there as there are only two bass in the lake. 😄 I don't have FFS but I buy $20 in plastics for every $1 in hard baits. Lot's of innovation and new materials in soft baits. Not so much in hard baits.

Simple solution is for NC to adjust size and catch limits.

Great job. As I reported in the Eastern PA fishing reports I took my 7yo grandson out Friday. He had never caught a bass before. He landed a nice on I estimate between 3 and 4 lbs on an unweighted shad colored Senko. It was on a dropoff that had submerged timber that I notice on the side finder sonar.

A couple of Osprey sitting in a tall shoreline tree is a sure sign.

After a two week hiatus where I put a new carb, new fuel pump, and all new fuel lines on the boat my grandson (7) and I got out on Nockamixon yesterday. He had never caught a bass so that was the main goal. I had him fishing an unweighted Senko over a tree I found on the bottom in about 15 feet of water. (Never would have found this without the new sidefinder). He caught one I estimated at 3 to 4 lbs. That was our only fish as shortly later the wind kicked up. Even building some white caps mid lake. After an hour of that we had enough wind and sun and called it a day. I think he's now turned on to bass fishing.

My home lake actually has better water quality than it did 30 years ago. The government forced a town treatment plant to adhere to pollution laws and that went a long way towards improving things. The Susquehanna is a different story with much degraded water quality from 20 years ago. Just when the mine acid started to decline a mass of pig and chicken farms were built in much of central PA. Very few of these follow the law in handling the mass amounts of manure.

Works well on Lake Erie. I had a day I landed 6 5lb SM or better using Kalins twistertail grub in translucent salt and pepper. My experience you don't have to keep speed down that low. I wind drift and often am around 5 mph. You want a stout rod and 35 tp 50 lb line at those speeds. BTW, I also frequent Hall's Marine.

I'm convinced color does matter for slow moving baits. Especially plastics. My brother, son, and I would often fish the same plastics but different colors. Usually Senkos. We would start with one guy fishing watermellon, one guy fishing shad, and one pink. When someone started catching at a higher rate than the others we would all switch to that color and soon we all started catching bass. This happened often enough to convince me and if one color isn't working I'll change.

Was on Erie on time when the wind kicked up and we couldn't stand up in the boat. I decide to drift while dragging a Carolina Rig with Kalin salt and pepper curly tails. We caught a load of smallies all in the 5 to 6 lb range. That made me a believer in both the rig and curly tails for smallies. Closer to home I often use Carolina rigs to fish larger flat expanses on lakes from shore. I'll use craw shaped plastics, floating worms, or small flukes depending on what I see in the shallows.

I'm below 50% and most of those are close to the boat. I think I'm getting lazy on my hook sets and maintaining pressure. Gotta work on that.

I'm 69 and have an inner ear disease that is destroying my balance. As your ears lose ability to help you balance your eyes start to take over. But poorly. On a good day I can stand on the casting deck. On a bad day I can't get off the floor. As Dirty Harry said "a man has to know his limitations." I never used to heed that but now I do. If I don't feel great I won't stand on the casting deck. I did get a nice seat that can be plugged into the casting deck for days I have issues or there is high wind/waves.

Got out on Lake Nockamixon Wednesday. Caught two about 2 lbs each on weightless shad colored stickbait. Took my 7 yo grandson. His first time on the boat. I asked him if he wanted to fish for crappies but he wanted to try for a bass.

That's why a ball bearing swivel is used.

If your on land tie a ball bearing swivel to a tree or post, walk the line out. Respool under moderate tension. Another thing that causes problems is when people break off a hang-up by simply pulling against the reel. This can damage and even cut line. Especially braid. I carry a short wooden dowel in my bag to wrap line around for pulling hang-ups. Just don't overlap the line wraps on the dowel.

Made a quick trip to Peace Valley to fish the shoreline. Landed one about 2 lbs in half hour of fishing. Weightless stickbait in shad color. Lots of shallow baitfish and crayfish.

I bought a Garmin echomap ultra 106sv and mounted to the stern of the boat. Decided to hold off on FFS because I may have an offer on some land I'm selling. If the land sells I'll probably upscale my bow system beyond what I had intended. It will be a Garmin.

I was delinquent in reporting my outing on Nockamixon on May 6th. Weather on the low 70s, bright sun. Launched at 9:00 AM. My main purpose was to shakedown the changes I made on the boat his year. LiFePo batteries for trolling and electronics. New wiring for electronics. Garmin Echomap Ultra106sv on the stern and Garmin Striker 7sv on the bow. Both sensors on new mounts. I was out for three hours and 2 1/2 of that working out sonar settings, testing trolling motor, and getting a good run on the engine. Only fished about 30 minutes. Surface water was 60 deg with very little fish activity seen. Most bait balls and larger fish spotted via sonar suspended about 15 - 20 feet down over deeper water. I didn't have any strikes. All in all I hadn't expected to fish much or have much success. But I was happy with all the equipment changes. I should get out several days next week as the weather looks to be great after rounds of chilly rain this week.

You should hike around the shoreline trails. Sometimes you can retrieve $50 in Rapalas cast into the bushes. I've even found large salt lures worth $25 apiece. I can only imagine these coming from kids who raid dad's tackle box.

Yes, the boat ramp is one. Last year I waited over 20 minutes while some guy and his family packed up all their stuff and stowed it in compartments while the boat was on the trailer on the ramp. In the middle of it the guy and his wife had a big argument about how some stuff was stored. Single lane ramp.