JHoss

I'm probably close to 2:1 rods:reels. I find myself upgrading the rod first- generally looking for increased sensitivity or decreased weight. Reels don't make as much of a difference to me. As long as I have reel in the right gear ratio that's not on a dedicated combo, I don't feel the need for a new one. I've still got plenty of reels I paid less than $60 for that are in the regular rotation. I don't think I can say the same for rods.

I've seen similar with spooks. Almost seems like that rear-feathered treble settling into position as the bait comes to rest is what draws the strike. Do you think it was size, profile, or sound that made a popper work when a spook wouldn't? I guess it would make sense to use a popper instead of a popping frog if you're in smallmouth country. Maybe an open water, clear water situation where you're worried about braid being too visible. I have not tried the MB Popmax yet. Figured I'd see if I could find some confidence with poppers before I spent on the Megabass version. I only threw 6th Sense Splashbacks and Lobina Ricos the other day. All the fish came on the Splashback, but I think the Ricos would've worked if I'd had a feathered rear treble. I have a ton of confidence in a popping frog. Which is kinda what triggered this thread. I'm debating if it's even worth the tackle box space to carry a few poppers if I can cover that niche with my popping frogs and spooks. When NOTHING is working, I tend to go looking for an active population instead of cycling through every bait in my box looking for the right one.

But how is that any different than a popping frog? Is the sound that much different? This is about the only thing I can figure. But on the flip side, when I get a frog hook in a fish it's coming in the boat every time. When I get trebles in a fish, it's probably coming in the boat, but no guarantees. So a popper is more of an open water bait for you? I've always thought of them as more cover/target oriented. The Showerblows is my favorite spook and I can make it splash in a similar way. That's what I'm getting at I think- can everything a popper does be done just as well by another genre of bait? For instance, that Showerblows can spit like a popper or walk like a spook. Having that tied on gives me the advantages of a popper and spook without having to retie or pick up another rod.

As the title states, when is a popper better than all other topwaters? Or what can a popper do that other topwaters can't? I went out Saturday for a couple hours with the sole intent of practicing 2 baits I have low confidence in- a popper and a jig. I brought a box of jigs, my topwater (non frog) box, 2 rods with jigs, and 2 rods with poppers. Caught about a dozen bass evenly mixed between a jig, popper, and plopper. The only reason a plopper got tied on was to cover water and locate some fish, but then I started experimenting. All of the popper fish were smaller than the plopper and jig fish. I had to really work it fast like a spook to get bit until they started setting up in more predictable spots. So what I'm really getting at is when is a popper better than a frog, spook, plopper or buzz? Seems like if they want a topwater worked relatively in place, a frog is better because I never have to worry about snagging cover with trebles. If they want a walk-the-dog action, a spook excels. If they want a steady retrieve then a plopper or buzz would be best. So when is a popper just a better choice than these others? Or is it just a confidence deal?

No. My PB is 8 lbs 1 oz and 23.5" long. I caught it on November 6th, 2022. She was a very healthy fish over relative weight. I'd guess with a full load of eggs she probably would've been around 9.

I picked up 2 Carbonlite 2.0 rods and a Carbonlite 2.0 reel this year. I love them for the price point.

Haha funny you say that. I recently was given a Calcutta 400B, which only comes in RH retrieve. I rigged it up for throwing big bucktails and stuff to cobia, but absolutely hate the feel. I think I may try to sell or trade it instead of trying to get used to it. I used the Goat Toadz as a trailer for a while. They worked and the fish ate em, but the legs are too flexible and kept hanging the hook. Got sick of making a perfect cast only to hang a leg and wonk up the retrieve, so I went back to ol trusty zooms. I'm with you on braid. I'll use copolymer or mono in a pinch, but braid would be a last resort.

I usually go with 10lb for my neds and drop shots. I believe line size has more of an effect on the way a bait falls or behaves more than how easily a fish can see it. A fish's lateral line knows line is there whether it's 4 lb mono or 65 lb braid. Prime example. A lot of the "super scopers" on the pro circuits have started going to shorter and heavier leaders for their minnows. When that trend first came out, everyone went lighter and lighter. Now they're throwing 14-17 lb leaders pretty commonly.

A lot of people would agree, but I know a couple folks who don't prefer it. I'd definitely consider it up there with the best- very firm and flaky meat. I coated some steaks in olive oil and Chef Paul's Seafood Magic and threw it on the charcoal. It was d**n good. It doesn't keep in the freezer as well as some species in my experience.

Got out sight fishing Cobia in the lower Chesapeake Bay last week. Running the redneck tower (ladder ratchet strapped to the T Top) we saw close to 30, got 4 eats, hooked 3, and landed 2. Both fish we landed went 44-45" and the one we lost was about the same size.

Definitely the most pullage of the trip. I was fortunate to be in the canoe with someone else who could keep us above the rapids while I fought it.

I've seen a few pros using them this year. I won't be joining the trend. I hate it when a lip tag slips off and I have to go digging through my livewell for a fish. I can't imagine voluntarily doing that every time I need to cull.

Buzzbaits are my most confident top-water. I've experimented with quite a few baits and setups over the last few years. I used to throw the KVD Toad Buzz almost exclusively and it catches a lot of fish. I didn't like the lack of variety in blade selection so now I use a few others. 3 or 4 different baits will cover almost any situation I'm in. My go to baits these day are the Buckeye G Buzz, Brazolo's Mag Whacker, or the Brazalo's Wee Whacker. I've got a few Jamaican boas and no clacker versions of the Brazalo's but they don't see a ton of action. I use a zoom horny toad trailer in bone or black 99% of the time on the full size buzz baits and a Z Craw Jr on the Wee Whacker. Sometimes in the fall, I've found a minnow profile to work better. The smaller buzz also tends to work better for me in the fall. I like a 7' rod in MH F for full size buzzers and a 7' MH MF or M F for the smaller buzzers. A high gear ratio reel is a must for me as I often have the trolling motor on high when I'm throwing a buzz- 8:1 seems to be the sweet spot. I've tried mono, braid, and fluoro. Fluoro is hands down my favorite. The lack of stretch is critical on long casts and the fluoro doesn't bite into wood like braid does. Speaking of wood, my absolute favorite way to fish is slinging a buzz back into cypress and winding it through the knees. I'll fish them anywhere somewhat shallow, though. I would agree that generally speaking buzz baits produce better-than-average fish, but I've also caught plenty of rats on them. @casts_by_fly is right about having to start your retrieve before the bait hits the water. I cast right and reel left, so I think it's probably easier for me than someone who has to switch hands. There's a lot of talk about slowing down a buzz, but I find that speeding it up works more often than slowing it down. Especially on highly pressured waters. I think not having a chance to really study the bait goes a long way.

I am no expert on Nekos or FFS, but I remember listening to Gill or Fothergill on a podcast talking about the versatility of a Neko worm. They said sometimes they would fish it the way you describe, but other times they would want to erratically shake it over the fishes head. I think if I saw multiple fish follow but not eat, I'd start experimenting with the action I'm imparting on the bait. I'd for sure be trying a drop shot if they were following it down and not eating a neko.

I would think so. We didn't see any on this trip, but it there were spots that certainly looked prime for musky. We've picked up a couple while smallmouth fishing the James before, but never on an actual musky rod when one gets brought.

I use Jackhammers a lot and have only had a couple issues with snaps opening or becoming deformed. None have ever cost me a fish, though. I've always chalked it up to me doing something wrong. I would think a different snap might affect the action? For those of you who switch them out, has anyone noticed a difference in action?

A few weeks back, a few buddies and I were supposed to spend a couple days floating the James River for smallmouth and camping. We do this trip most years and usually have decent numbers but not much size. Even worse than the size class, the last few years the spotted bass have really started to invade this stretch. The trip was set to run Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning. I'm fortunate that one of the offices I manage is in Richmond, VA (a 2 hour head start compared to home) so I planned to work there for the day and then head on to meet the outfitter and get keys to the campsite. Well, about lunchtime he called my buddy who had set things up and informed us that he wouldn't be sending out any canoes due to a forecasted increased in water level come Saturday- we could camp but there would be no floating. We had a couple hours to scramble and find a plan B. We ended up connecting with an outfitter on the Shenandoah who could fit us in and felt good about the water levels. It turned out to be the biggest blessing. I got to the campground around 6 and got the tent and some other basics set up before I went down to the river for a few casts. I threw a micro buzz and a tube for a bit with no bites before I eased out to a false rapid closer to the far side and switched to a small spinnerbait. It didn't take long to hook up. The only issue was that the fish got in the current and got down river of me. I couldn't move him back up against the current and I couldn't get down the river to give myself an angle. I finally decided the only chance was to get him to the surface and ski it back to me. The 12 lb invisx held up and I landed a nice 17" class smallmouth- bigger than anything I'd caught on the James in quite a few years. I fished that hole a bit longer with nothing before working back to shore where I picked up 4 more 12 inchers that had moved up shallow chasing bait. Figured that was good enough and headed back to camp to get a fire going and have some dinner. We couldn't get the shuttle until 9:30 the next morning, so we didn't get on the water until around 10. With a 15 mile float to get back to camp, we had to keep it moving to make it before dark. I wish we would've had more time because the fishing was incredible. I landed over 30 myself and my canoe partner had another 20. Not only did we catch numbers, but the average size was much better than the James. I'd guess that 60% of our fish were over 14"- we'd be lucky to have 10% exceed that threshold on our usual stretch. Jerk baits and ned rigs caught the most, but we also managed a few on hair jigs, cranks, vibrating jigs, and wacky worms. It wasn't uncommon to pull over below a nice rapid and pull 5 or 6 good fish from one hole. I caught these 17" inchers within a few feet of each other and lost another the same size while the other guys in our group also landed a couple fish a piece out of this hole. As the skies in the background show, we had some bad weather rolling in on us. Mid-afternoon one of the guys pulled out his phone to check the weather and reported a tornado "warning". We quickly pulled to the side and found an area to take shelter from the storms while we stressed about a tornado being sited in the area. I texted the wife and kid to tell them I loved them just in case things really went sideways, but it wouldn't go through due to lack of cell service. In the end, it was for the best I didn't worry her as it turned out to just be a tornado watch as opposed to a warning, and that buddy was banned from reporting the weather again. We ended up spending an hour on the bank waiting for the storms to pass. When we got back on the water, we had to hurry to make time. The last few miles were supposed to be the best fishing according to the shuttle driver, but we didn't get to spend much time picking it apart. We pulled into camp as the last bit of light disappeared from the sky. The next morning the river had come up a half a foot or so, but more importantly, it really dirtied up the water. Some of the rapids became borderline sketchy and we had to bail water on a few occasions. As a group we caught far fewer fish on day two, but we the size class was even better than the day before. My canoe partner ended up with a 19", 18", and 17" on this day. He found an obnoxiously bright jerk bait that drove them nuts and out fished the rest of us by 5:1. I was dying when he came up with the analogy that he must be Bill Belichick and the lucky jerkbait must be Tom Brady, because there was no way he was that good of an angler (coach) without the lucky bait. I must've cycled through 15 jerkbaits trying to replicate his and never found one that worked near as well. I lost count of the number of times we paddled up stream to save that lucky jerk from a snag, though. In the end, I wound up with another 15-20 fish and he had close to 30. The other canoe had 20-30 between them. This 18" my buddy caught had gnarly gash on it's back where it had survived some sort of attack. I ended up finding a decent groove with a Baby vibrating jig and the trusty ned rig that day and picked up some nice smallmouth plus an eating sized channel cat to fry up for dinner. We got to the ramp around 4 feeling decent about the day we'd had. About the same time a group of city slickers from DC pulled up and started gushing to the outfitter how great the fishing was for them- 10 fish between 3 kayaks. That made us feel a little better about how we did compared to our Day 1. My one buddy may have summed it up best around the camp fire the last night when he said, "I guess we're Shenandoah river people now." The fishing was incredible and the sights were just as good, if not better than the James. We're already planning a trip back in the fall.

This was recently discussed by Dr Steven Bardin on the Serious Angler Podcast. He was reporting another study that examined this. I may be off a bit on the exact numbers, but it was close to this: A fish caught and released in under 2 minutes had a 75-100% chance to return to the bed. A fish kept in the boat for 2-5 minutes had a 50-60% chance to return. A fish kept in the boat for 5-30 minutes had a 25% chance. A fish kept over 30 minutes had an almost 0% chance. He did say that nest predation played a key role. Fish would often sit off their beds and examine how any predators were on it and if it was worth reclaiming. The example was a smallmouth coming back to find a dozen gobies going to town on it's eggs will probably abandon it. A bass that comes back and has one minnow messing around is probably going to run that minnow off and reclaim its bed. He also discussed spawning frequency on that show. The general science says a fish will release about 1/4-1/3 of its eggs in a given spawn and most fish will spawn 3 or 4 times in a season. I don't know if there's evidence of fish using the same bed for all of those spawns, but I know that generally speaking I find beds in the same areas year after year. Could be the same fish going where they're comfortable or it could just be a prime spawning area.

Jinxed myself with this daggon post. Fished a tournament a couple weeks ago and my Bubba had 15.05, but the tournament scale had me at 14.39. I thought the scale was bad until I realized I culled the wrong fish. Nothing's foolproof I suppose.

My favorite polite response when someone asks what I'm catching them on is "little bit of everything." Usually its true and always it protects the bait that's working. Like most, I'm pretty transparent with my "inner circle." That even extends to a couple guys on my trail- we've built enough rapport to trust each other with legit intel on the water and know we're not gonna jump each other's spots. If I don't know you, you're not getting much from me unless its a kid. What gets me is guys lying about their weights in the weigh in line. Saying they have 15 pounds and then weighing 20. I don't get it. Are they worried someone else will be super close and slide a couple weights in a fish? I think people are willing to share info on here vs in person because the chance of one y'all fishing my waters is slim, but the chance of the guy on the same lake fishing my waters is 100%.

This is an awesome rundown. Thank you! Sounds like I have the same mount and transducer as you so I'll play with these settings. The thing about how to adjust the angle based on 5 FOW is a good tip. Do you feel like you tend to see the circular bed or the fish more? I've had no problem seeing brim beds and actual fish swimming around, but I've only seen a couple bass beds. Do you like the TVG, Ghost and Noise Reject turned off when in Forward mode too?

The plastic has enough weight by itself. I go weightless 99.9% of the time with these. Agreed. I feel like it blows out if you jerk it too hard.

I use a bunch of different retrieves. Standard is a couple twitches with a pause in between. You can also burn and pause. The tail action you hear about is when you kill the bait. It kind of backs up on itself and then rocks/shimmys on the fall.

I've tried a bunch and I'm partial to the Mustad KVD Grip Pin in 3/0 or 4/0. Both unweighted. Usually 3/0 unless I want a slightly faster fall, in which case I'll go to 4/0.

SE Virginia. In most lakes I fish, 3.5-5 lbs is a "good" fish and 5+ is a "big" fish. But there are a few rivers around here where a 2 is a "good fish" and anything over 3 is "big".