WRB-2.0

Young man your question is difficult to answer with the thousands off choices we have for bass fishing.I usually do not respond to "best" questions unless it is very specific. Tom

What was the actual weight or did you estimate the weight? That is a big jerk bait bass! Tom

There is a difference between made in the USA and assembled in the USA. With the exception of a few rod blanks being laid up and fabricated in the USA, most of the made in USA rods are assembled from components made off shore. Lamiglas still manufactures rod blanks the USA, reel seats, guides are off shore products, assembled in the USA. Not sure where St. Croix builds their rod blanks, at one time they were a USA rod blank. Loomis is owned by Shimano. Ardent reels are made in the USA, US reels are not. Excellent small business custom rod builder is ALX and the site sponsor DVT builds custom rods. Hand poured soft plastics and most custom jigs are small USA business. Most fishing lines are made off shore, Vicuos bought the old DuPond line plant and produce monofilament line in the USA. Huddleston swimbaits are made in the USA, Basstrix and Roboworms are small business USA products. Higher volume production tackle is usually made off shore due to cost and regulation to manufacture in the USA. It's difficult to locate tackle made in the USA, easier to find products assembled in the USA. Avoid products made in China! Tom

Fish the same type of spinnerbait you would if the water was off color. Bass have exceptional good eye sight and can find whatever prey they want to eat in water we can see well in! The blades should match the prey and the speed and depth you plan to fish. Single Colorado blades made met to be fished slow on the drop regardless of water color or time of day/night. Go fish and give the bass a chance to let you know wht they want, doesn't matter what think. I see KVD has a signature spinnerbait available! Tom

Spare no expense! At least you will know the hooks are sharp.Tokar doesn't make a straight shank style worm hook. Owner 5103 or Gamakatsu 464 are both excellent worm hooks for braid presentations. Good luck. Tom

IF you know there is a decent bass population in the small lake, then fish it at night or very early dawn when there isn't any local fishing pressure. No reason to punish yourself trying to catch bass where few if any live just to prove you can. Tom

Your friends tackle isn't suited for bass fishing, so set him up for a Carolina rig. First things first; new line, have him buy 100 yd spool of 12 lb Big Game, it's inexpensive and strong enough. Replace about 100 yards of the old line. Next have him buy a dozen 1/2 oz egg sinkers, a bag of snap swivel and Eagle Claw or Mustad 3/0 worm hooks. Rig him up a Carolina rig with a 18" -24" leader. Have him buy a bag of inexpensive Berkley 7" Power worms. Teach your friend how to put a weedless worn on his hook and let him cast and drag the C-rigged worm back slowly. He will keep himself busy, learn how to rig a worm and possibly catch a bass. If he gets tired put some night crawlers on the worm hook and let it set on the bottom until a catfish or whatever eats the worms. If he likes fishing, he will know his tackle is too big and want something more suitable. Good luck. Tom

Most of us start out with a generic rod/reel combination. Your Ugly Sticks are what I call slower moderate action rods that are easy to cast however loose feed back to what under water lures are doing. The mono line also dampens lure feed back, so the combination makes a poor choice fishing bottom contact lures because you can't determine strike easily. The ultra lite has little value for bass fishing in general, could be used for tiny crappie jigs. The medium rod could be used for finesse soft plastics like 1/8 oz dart head jigs with 4" curl tail worms, split shot or drop shot worms, etc. The med/hvy is your best choice for general use bass fishing. I would consider changing the line to 30 lb super braid and add a 10 lb FC leader about 5' to 6' long joined with a double Uni knot. You can use this set up for most bass lures between 1/8 to 1/2 oz, including shaky jigs, dart head jigs, most soft plastic worm/creature rigs, top water lures, and crankbait or spinnerbaits. Tom

Not a fan of EWG off set style hooks for worms for a few reasons; 1. Direction of pull, the hook eye is inline with the hook point. This can result in missed hook sets. 2. The larger wide gap bend can act like a bale and rotate between the bass lips and lay flat, this results in missed hook sets. The straight shank hook; the hook point is above the hook eye, the line pulls the hook point into the mouth tissue. The smaller gap doesn't rotate and flatten between the lips as easy as a EWG hook. With worms you usually can take a little longer to make a hook set, bass like the feel of soft plastic and will hang onto it longer than a jig for example. It's always a timing issue, swing too soon or too late and you miss strikes. Tom

Lake water fluctuation during the spawn can have a catastrophic impact on that year class. Very low survival rates occurr that can eliminate a recruitment class of bass fingerlings. This is a common problem with reservoirs that draw water down during the spawning cycle or raise the water level quickly, leaving the nest site high and dry or under cold water, both kill off that spawn. Bass are resilient fish and usually spawn in more then one cycle....they don't put all their eggs in one nest so to speak. Some nest sites will produce some fingerlings. Without good cover the fingerlings tend to become a food source, resulting in very low recruitment of that year class. Tom

A little lazy and didn't read through this thread. In your region the bass are in pre spawn, meaning the big bass are very catchable. 8+ acre pond 12' bowl shaped, the few large bass will be wary of anyone walking around the shoreline. I can only guess that your pond has a bluegill population and no idea of what else the larger bass have for prey? So lets focus on bluegill and young bass under 6" as a food source. Crawdads are more than likely a prey source, but they are going to be hidden during day light. My first choices would be a Matt's lure soft 5" bluegill and 6" baby bass swimbaits. You will need tackle capable of casting lures 1 to 2 oz; med/hvy swimbait rod and reel that can handle 15 lb premium mono. If you don't have swimbait tackle, then your choice change to big worms, jigs, buzz baits or wake baits. These require at a minimum medium/hvy standard bass rod capable of casting lures 1/2 to 1 oz and 12 lb premium mono. I would imagine the big soft plastic worm would be your best choice; 8" to 10" worm, 3/16 to 1/4 oz bullet weight, 4/0 Owner #5100 worm hook, Texas rigged. Fish the big T-rigged worm 1 hour before sunrise to about 9A, then again 1 hour before sundown for about 2 hours. When you start to see beds in about 1 month, then fish around the beds with the worm. Let us know what type of tackle you fish with and we can offer some specific lure options suited for your tackle. Tom

You may have read that in my post!Tom

Sounds to me like you are bed fishing...right? Based on we could see the fish. Bed bass strike to kill intruders, this means they are not eating your offering. The hook must be inside the mouth, back into the crunchers to be able to get a good hook set, you can't hook the lips very easily. Wait too long and they spit the lure out, swing too early and you miss altogether. Use an exposed hook point rig. Tom

You have what I would call a generic trout rod designed to use light line and lures with hooks that are much smaller then we use for bass. Your rod is about a 2 power medium light moderate action. The generic bass spinning rod is a 3 power or medium fast action rod. The next stronger spinning rod is a 4 power or medium heavy fast action rod. It's really the line size and hook size/ hook wire diameter that determine how much power you need to properly get a hook set into the bases hard mouth. For general purposes the 3 power or medium fast rod works well with 6 to 10 lbs mono or FC line with lures 1/8 to 1/2 oz. the 4 power or medium/ heavy rod can handle heavier line up to 15 lb for spinning reels, lure between 1/4 to 3/4 oz. since you are used to the lower power rod, the 3 power or medium fast with 8 lb line could work well for you. The medium/ heavy would be a better choice for small jigs and Texas rigged worms with 10 lb FC line. Tom

Bass, LMB, SMB and Spotted bass, in most lakes spawn in cycles and in different locations around the lakes protected areas suitable for successfully spawning. Some bass prefer to make nest sites in very shallow water, others in water deeper than 8 feet, depending on the depth the sunlight effectively warms the water. Male bass select bed sites and do all the work cleaning the bed area from silt that can smother eggs, female may do some house cleaning. Not all the males are successful at bed making. Not all females are successful at egg laying. Few eggs survive compared to the billions laid. Egg eaters like sunfish, bluegill, a wide variety of minnows, salamders, crawdads, carp, catfish and other egg predators feast on bass eggs.....it's survival of the fittest. Add man to the predator list and survival rates drop with every bed bass caught. Bream, sunfish, bluegill and crappie are all egg eaters, only the crappie spawn before bass, bluegill, red ears and green sunfishes spawn later as the water warms above 67 degrees. The smaller super dish size beds close together are bream beds, not bass beds. Bass beds are spaced far enough apart so they can't see each other. Beds silt over or fill in each year and are made fresh each year. The bream have the same problem with egg eaters as bass, except the bass eat the bream, not the eggs. Female bass do not stay around the bed sites for more than a few days, however they may return to lay eggs in more than one bed. There can be up to 3 waves of spawner's in larger lakes, small lakes and ponds usually have one cycle. Hope that helps a little. Tom

Sight fishing requires a good pair of polarized sunglasses to see the bass better. Use soft plastics with high visible colors like white/ chartreuse or chartreuse tail so you can see it easily. The bass isn't interested in eating your lure, they want it out of the bed, so they strike to kill, not eat, hook sets takes practice to time right. Tom

Those are not the only spawner's in the pond, there should a lot more! Stand back and cast into the center of the bed with a drop shot worm and don't more. The bass will return and wait until one checks out the worm, then shake it slightly, not a lot and the bass should strike it....takes patients! Tom

As you may recall Al Gore promised that global warming by the year 2010 would create the oceans to rise flooding low laying coastal communities. The facts proved the climate actually cooled world wide between 1998-2008 on average. Global warming then became Climate Change. The science is divided on this issue. Our tenure on this planet is a tiny moment in time, man can't cause catastrophic climate change during the entire period man has occupied the earth. We can however pollute our ground water that directly affects our sport of fishing. We can harvest all the trees and that would have an impact on mans comfort level. Be aware, not alarmed. Back to fishing, this is way too emotional for common sense. Tom

What you are not taught is what affects our astomsphere far more than man made air pollution is volcanic eruptions. We can't control the earth itself from altering the planets ecosystem, we can do tiny part to improve our local waterways, in regards to fishing. The African Rift Valley volcanic activity puts more airborne pollution in the atmosphere in 1 month than all man made pollution since 1900. Our current climate change has more to do with the Iceland and Pacific volcano eruptions 4 years ago, than any other factor for the northern hemisphere. It's good to become aware of how we all can do our part, however we living in America can only affect our own destiny, unless the major world polluters do their part. Tom PS; source National Geographic magazine article.

Web search; fluorocarbon knotYou will get dizzy with all the FC knots being touted as the best knot. Shaw Grigsby has promoted the same (double San Diego jam knot) under at least 3 different names the past 2 years. The problem with FC knots is deforming the line while clinching the knot tight, this reduces the knot strength about 25% on impact or sudden pulling force. The key is practice tying whatever knot you prefer until you can do it with ease and have good results every time. Retying knots under fishing conditions; controlling the boat in windy, cold, waves, poor light is very important. Never leave FC knots tied over night or longer than 24 hours. Tom

The reason I took the time to post measuring lengths 1, 2, & 3 was to point out the legit measuring techniques! As anyone can see by the replies, knowone tells how they "measured" their catch. Most measure bass with the mouth open hanging down and this adds about 10% ; 30" method 2 = 33" for example. Method 4 is unlimited; 8'2" and 562 lb bass was officially recorded in California (giant Black Sea bass). I know lots of bass anglers who can not only tell you the length, but the weight of bass that they broke off on the hook set and never got to see it, I call this method 5. Then there always method 6; the "photo" where some bass look bigger than the angler holding it or their hands could wrap around a basketball like it was a baseball and claim the 4 lb bass was 12 lbs.......that is bass fishing! Tom

Anyone who has fished with FC line will have major knot issues and lose bass directly due to line failures. If this wasn't a problem, then there wouldn't be so many knot suggestions and forum threads dedicated to FC line issues. It's a love hate line; when it's good it's really good and when it's bad it's horrible! Sunline is the premier FC line, however I believe Blackwater is another exceptional FC line. I have been using Solaroam Bass Hi-Class FC, about $13 for 87 yard spools, like Sunline Shooter it's not inexpensive. Tom

ReelEx is located in CA and specializes in Shamano reels, look them up.Factory reels, depending on the quality, use production tolerance components that can vary greatly. A good reel technition will check every component for flaws, clean out the factory lubricant, upgrade bearings so the reel performs smoothly and cast maximum distance. Tom

Doug Hannon deserves being recognized for his contributions to our sport of bass fishing, his dedication to improving proper bass handling to reduce stress and increase survival rates and by educating anglers to use proper livewell management. Doug Hannon believed he could make a difference and improve our sport through design and innovation. His sharing his passion for trophy bass inspired generations of bass anglers. My prayers go out to the Hannon family. Tom

Length measurements depend on how the bass length is measured. Laid on the flat surface, mouth closed; Method 1. IGFA; the length is measured from the tip of the lower jaw to the center of the tail V down the lateral line. Method 2. Bass tournament; same as 1, except to the longest length of the tail, imaginary line from tail end tips, not the slight V depression. Method 3. Fish biologist; similar to method 1, except to the start of the tail base. Bass are not measured hanging downward with mouth open to the tip of the tail, as was more than likely how the George Perry bass was measured! The fact remains no authentic photo of George Perry holding his bass has ever been published. There was a photo of someone unidentified holding a big bass along side a young boy from that era, however the basses body mass doen't come close to a 22 lb 3 oz LMB. With 32" length and 26" girth reported for the Perry bass. Dottie was 29.25" long. The Kurita bass, current WR is 29" long (method 2). My maximum length measure to method 1 = 30" Tom