WRB-2.0

Sounds like you are fishing for Smallmouths in a river from the bank. Lots of dangerous critters out at night and we can't see well without light. Get yourself a hat or head lamp, a flash light and use caution around the river, maybe wear suspender type life vest. Smallies love single spin spinnerbaits at night and with moving water should work for you. Tom

You have a wide range of colors to choose from, good luck. Tom

Catt, your PD was a crankbait fish, red trap as I recall. Tom

A catchy product name is the last thing he needs to establish, it's a competitive business.Tom

The sun was setting, the bait fish are hiding in cover and crawdads are on the move and you are fishing a pond, not a lake and casting from shore, not a boat. 2 choices, noisy top water like a buzzer or Jitterbug and going to the bottom with a T-rig imitating crawdads. Numbers with the top water, size with the T-rig, your choice. Tom

Siebert, NorthStar, Skinny Bear, etc., etc., how about Keep Your Day Job. Good luck. Tom

Just go with the MH 7' Bionic combo. Tom

The difference between blue and green guide wraps is the blank isn't coated on the blue series, both have the same handles. The plumbers Teflon tape will aid in tightening, may not prevent backing off, give it try. Hand tighten to snug, then turn another 1/8 turn and you should be good. If you break the fore grip seating the reel it will cost you $100 to replace the rod. Tom

The jewel in the original Bantoms was the 1000 SG, wonderful casting reels that I have fished for years until the anti reverse bearing reels came out. Still have 2 of 1000 SG's. Tom

The thing you would think would be accurate in bass fishing would be the weight of a jig. How hard is it to weigh a jig!! Pick up your favorite 3/8 or 1/2 jig and weigh it, chances are it's 50% heavier without a skirt than marked on the package. Amazing! When I designed my jig back in '71, the hook was Eagle Claw # 570, 4/0, a heavy wire hook and my plain jig weighed slightly less than a 1/2 oz, with a skirt, almost 1/2 oz my target weight. Today the same jig with Gamakatsu #114, 5/0 weighs an honest 7/16 oz. I fish anywhere from 1' to 40' with my 7/16 oz jig, deer hair skirt and pork trailer about 75% of the time because it works for me. The other 25% is using several different jig types and weights from 1/4 to 1 oz depending on wind, cover, depth and what the bass want regarding fall speed. Why make an issue over actual jig weight and advertised jig weight, fall rate...you should know what you are fishing with because details matter. Tom

Bassmaster came out with a new 100 top bass lake list and #1 is.....Sturgeon Bay WI. Tom

The problem you have is the rod and baitcasting reel isn't made to cast light weight lures. You can use a sliding sinker rig OK, but the leader strength at 1or 2 lbs is too weak for the reels drag and the rods power. Try using 3 or 4 lb leader material, should work for a sliding sinker rig or a slip bobber rig. Looks like a spinning outfit is in your future. Tom

Jealous, the wind blowing 25-70 the past few days here...enjoy your time sticking those jig fish. We don't have perch out here, unless you mean crappie. The bass grabs them by the head, being a flat shape they lay flat and gulps them down head first.Tom PS, you know this as well as I do, enjoy yourself and catch a few big bass.

Working at a boat landing, today called marinas, as a teenager I have witnessed some strange things, not necessarily funny. When you see a new rig being towed by new vehicles it's almost a guaranteed disaster about to unfold. Backing down the ramp with several people shouting directions sometimes ends up the the rig and vehicle underwater. Arguments are common, especially on holidays. The strangest launch that I watched was a guy with a runabout outdrive back rig down, unhook the trailer and push the boat attached to the trailer into the water and park the car. He returned, the family got into the boat via the trailer tongue, the guy started up the engine back up with the trailer still attached and motored away. I didn't see them return and have no idea what happened to them. We rented boats with and without outboard motors and some guys rent the boat and have their own motors. I usually help them looking for tip. One morning I rented a boat without a motor, the guy didn't want any help. Normally we side tie the boat to the dock, this guy untied the back pulling the bow next to the dock, picked up the motor, a heavy 25 hp Johnson and put it on hid shoulder, step into the boat front seat and walked towards the stern with the motor on his shoulder. The guy got to the stern about the same time the bow rope went tight, he step off the backend of the boat and disappeared underwater. I ran jumped into the boat and couldn't see him until he walked out of the lake up the shore with the motor still on his shoulder, then slipped and fell down. The customer went home, changed cloths and rented the boat with a motor. Tom PS, the guy brought the wet motor back to try to start, left it to dry out. I removed the plugs, blew out the carb and mag, got it running. When the customer returned from fishing all he said was thanks and took his motor....no tip!

The KVD line conditioner requires several hours to work and I don't like it, prefer using a wet conditioner called TangleFree and apply as need while fishing. The Super Sniper in green may be a better choice and I don't think you will have any problems using a 2500 size reel with 10 lb that has the same diameter as other brands 8 lb. I use the 10 Super Sniper green on my baitcasters, very strong line and doesn't have a lot of memory, however more than mono. Tom

The little jig being defined as a bucktail doesn't look like deer hair to me. Without a scale to determine size it looks like a 1/8 oz bullet or dart head with fiber skirt used for smallmouth under a bobber; float n fly, but not worth saving. The modern version, look up Phat Fly, Bill Siemantel video. You may need heavier tackle to fish the spinnerbaits and buzzer, depending on how much they weigh, if your tackle is spinning used for inline spinners. Go to a local tackle shop and buy a few pearl white silicone skirts for the spinnerbaits and buzzer. The buzz bait is fished on the surface, the spinnerbaits like you fish the inline spinner. Good luck. Tom

The traditional bass jig is known as a pig & jig, Arkie style weedless jig, various skirt materials and pork rind trailer "pig". Today this same jig usually has a soft plastic trailer in lieu of the "pig". Site sponsor RageTail is very popular and Yamamoto a distant second, both offer excellent soft plastic jig trailers. Some "jigs" are fished without a trailer, usually smaller hair jigs under a bobber called a "float &. Fly" by bass anglers. Some jigs are used without skirts like shaky and dart heads with a soft plastic worm. There are dozens of jig types, so it's a good idea to define the type of jig when discussing them. Tom

This may be a sonar question more than a general bass location question. I see you have a Hummingbird, not an expert on these but sonar is sonar. When you say yelling the first thing that comes to mind is auto settings and fish alarm, if you use those features that is more than likely your problem, false single returns. If you have the know how to set up your sonar mantua and fine tune the sensitivity settings and know the returns are correct, please disregard my assumption about auto settings. Air suspended in the water via the fish air bladder is what the sonar returns as fish. Any air or gas underwater looks the same to sonar, gas bubbles seeping out of decaying mater, it's the air bladder that see most of the time and every fish the same size looks the same. Suspended fish could be any species that suspend or swim. What we look for are signs of active bass near structure or under baitfish. Baitfish being smaller size and close together look like a cloud of tiny dots, larger fish look like arks or banana shape marks on tradition sonar, bright dots on HD units. Active bass tend to very close to the structure or cover, inactive bass tend to suspend away from structure. You mentioned trying a Kadtmaster spoon without success, nearly every game fish will strike a small structure spoon! Good choice. The only advice I can give you is keep checking and fishing those isolate trees, active bass should show up if baitfish are in the area. Tom

We just bantered this topic around a few weeks ago, see Keeping Bass in the livewell, April 21. Tom

Both Gene Gilliland and Keith Jones are well known biologist in the bass fishing community because they publish articles in Bassmaster and quoted a lot, this doesn't mean they are well respected with their peers. We as bass anglers read what is published and take from it what fits our experience on the water. Marlin were long thought to be color blind based on color receptors missing in their eye. Research by biologist discovered that marlin have good color vision confirming what anglers experience when using a wide variety of colors in lures. What Australian biologist discovered was marlin see what they described as blue shift allowing the predator to clearly distinguish a wide range of colors of baitfish the billfish feed on. The primary colors; red, yellow, green make up the base the human eye and brain see as a color spectrum. Applying the same science to fish living and evolving underwater to human vision may lead to false assumptions. Tom

Where the hook ends up in the basses mouth after you land it can give you some good feedback. Jig hooked in the back crunchers on the roof of it's mouth indicates the bass wanted to eat it aggressively. Jig hooked inside corner usually indicates the bass wasn't as aggressive could be moving or spitting it when you stuck it. The only way anyone knows the basses position when it struck is seeing the bass strike or seeing the direction the line is moving before getting a hook set. Flat eye or standard eye what counts is putting the bass in the boat or landing it. Flat eye jig hooks are new, maybe 10 years, compared to standard eye jig hooks that have been around before any of us started bass fishing. Time will tell which eye type prevails. Tom

The only reason I didn't reference a 1/4 oz weight is you are short lining hook set in shallow water and a 1/4 oz weight can become painful if you swing and miss! Be careful hook setting the heavier weights. Wide brim hat, good polarized sunglasses, sun at you back if possible and calm water. Tom

When everything else is equal, profile, action, speed etc., etc., and a specific color is the only difference, color matters. Slight variation in soft plastics colors can make a big difference, some pros will buy up specific batches of worms believing that batch out fishes the current production. A 3"reaper being split shot basically dead stick slow has very little action or profile however bass find it and target specific colors, if you don't the right color no strikes, right color game on in deep structured lakes with clear water. UV lures, try web searching; Tightlines UV lures for example. Keith Jones works for Berkley and his data is biased towards Berkley products. Good book but not the last word on bass vision. Tom

Try drop shot the tube nose hooked with a 4" short drop,to the 1/8 oz weight. Use a tube you can see easily like white/chartreuse. Cast to the bed fish and let the tube sink and rest, then lift a few inches without moving the weight. Tom

I consider making a long cast and retrieving along the bottom as horizontal. When the line angle gets to be 45 degrees or less down to 90 degrees from horizontal, then it's vertical. Hooks with the line less than 45 degrees, say 15 degrees, the line pulls the jig nearly straight out of the basses mouth when the bass is facing you. If a bass strikes the jig and turns sideways or is facing way from you, very common, you get a side of the upper mouth corner hook set. Tom PS, I know anything less than 180 degrees is down.