WRB-2.0

Imo Fins Spin5 is an excellent small diameter briad and mage in Georgia USA. 15# Spin 5 is .006 dia or 25% smaller and stronger then 10# 832. Hanging your braid up on the bottom is angler error as braid floats, you need to learn better lure control. Try using a mono leader to help reduce snagging, FC line sinks. I use standard spools and smaller size reels. Tom

4” Little Creepers Trash Fish or 4 3/4” Jumbo Minnow. Roboworms 4” Sculpin. Kietech Swing Impact 4.8 Fat . Tom

MH try 4 lbs of drag Good luck, you always add more drag momentarily on a casting reel with your thumb or spinning reel with a finger tip. Tom

What do you consider “deep water”? Line type and diameter directly impacts ROF or rate of fall the bullet weight provides soft plastics. The shape of the soft plastic appendages etc affects ROF, difficult to isolate the weight. Where I fish 90% of my bullet weight T-rigged worms is 3/16 oz using worms 6” to 9” to depths about 20’. I use painted lead, painted brass and plain tungsten. Only use tungsten for 3/8 oz because prefer the size and use it in the wind. Deep then 20’ I use drop shot, slip shot or jigs. Tom

Welcome Bass Resource is a bass fishing venue, are you interest in multiple species or mostly bass? Any boat offers the opportunity to fish nearly anywhere but isn’t typically considered a bass boat. I suggest using trolling technique to locate bass/other fish species. Diving lures are very effective when trolled at a slow walking speed at depth a few feet near the bottom. The 1st tool bass anglers look for is a sonar unit to determine how deep the water is and how deep any fish maybe. Sonar unit range from Under $100 to over a $1,000’s. For the pontoon boat trolling you only need to determine depth. Tom

Number 1 goal is to get the to strike and sometimes that takes light line finesse presentation. 2 lb drag is all the line and tackle can withstand, it’s more then most realize. Try putting 1 pint plastic water bottle ( weigh 1 pound each) in a plastic grocery bag and lift it with your rod/reel/ line. Add bottle until the drag starts to slip. My guess 4 lbs (bottles) fully loads up your rod. Learned a long time ago bass pull hard against higher pressure and fight harder against lighter pressure. I use 10# & 12# FC or mono jig fishing for big bass, my casting rods max out with 4 lbs drag. Tom

I was fishing a few weeks ago now using 5# mono & 7# FC on spinning tackle. The bass were eating Shad on the out edge of thick tule reed walls. The trick to keeping those 4lb + bass out of the reeds and cover was not trying to force them to turn and run into the cover. Just reel and rod sweep hook set and keeping the rod loaded with 2 lbs of drag. The jumped and fought hard alone the reed wall. Pulling the rod only increases slack line and you lose control of the bass, a few degrees of line angle makes zero difference in keeping bass from jumping. The more force you add causes the bass to want to run the opposite direction pulling against the pressure. good solid hook set and keep enough pressure to control the bass is all anyone can do. Tom

Getting up at O dark 30 is what bass anglers do. Flash Light is essential at nigh, don’t leave home without it. At least you don’t need that sweater now?

Instead of believing what diameter equivalent is look at what diameter the line actually is. Who knows what mono line is being referred to ? Plus at what spool fill is Full? Most anglers only fill the spool to within 1/8” of full, add another 1/16” from the rim and line starts to fall off the spool. .004 is 50% smaller the .008 or 50% more line. Tom

The late Dee Thomas always said shallow bass are biting bass and proved it with his flipping technique. The old saying 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish rings as true today as it ever did. During the less informative decades structure away from a casting distance from shore was nearly virgin water as the vast majority of angler fished the bank. I wasn’t a fan of Buck Perry and considered him a salesman pushing his Spoon Plugs back in the 60’s. If I had read his books that would have been different. My only conversation with Mr. Perry was at a local Sportsman's show where he presented his lures and discussed his theories. Intrigued I tried to ask about sonars units to help find structure and he said they were worthless. End of conversation and never gave Buck Perry another thought. Tom

The easy fishing during the spawn cycle is over, now it’s mid summer and a lot harder to locate the big girls. Flipping, pitching, punching heavy cover or froggin it’s all about bubba power bass fishing now. The 20 lb + bags are now during night events on the Delta. Tom

Owner 4107 Cover Shot hook is excellent strong medium wire hook with keeper. I use this hook for T-rigged worms. Tom

Sheffield was DQ’d as a result of weighing a bass hooked outside the mouth. Tom

10# Suffix braid is .008 dia, Fins Spin5 10# braid is .004 dia, problem solved! Tom

The best method to learn to fish a diving crank bait (plug) is trolling. This technique keeps the lure in the strike zone as long as you are moving the boat. Using trolling you can determine which crank bait out fishes the others of the same type and colors by fishing productive areas and changing lures. Back in the day I bought 6 each of every diving bait of interest and tested them by trolling. The lure the caught bass was a keeper, the others returned or sold. After a few years you have a box full of pet crank baits that you know work. Bass anglers don’t troll because tournament bass angler anglers can’t, it’s forbidden. I know several pro anglers that troll to select fish catching pet lures, on their own time fun fishing. Tom

We have several members that are familiar with the area you mentioned. Senko’s, jerk baits are very popular for both smallmouth and Largemouth bass. The further north you venture the better the Smallmouth fishing gets. Both are located around the Albert and Gut passes. Tom

Strikes happen 90% of the time on the initial sink wacky rigged. I would lift up the Senko and let it sink again, only once then retrieve it and make another cast. Tom

Not familiar with your portable fish finder with cast-able transducer. It maybe you are looking a factory demo display showing fish icons that don’t exist. Any unit that displays icons for target in lieu actual returns is fraught with errors. Anything in the water like air bubbles, debris, any type of fish with a airbladder shows up as a fish icon. Try using live large Canadian night crawler worm weightless nose hooked with a size 1 drop shot style hook. If a bass is nearby it will eat the worm. Second choice is a 5” Senko #301 wacky rigged weightless, like the night crawler bass eat Senko’s. Just cast out by your transducer and watch line for movement that indicates a bass has your lure. Tom

Recovering line fast after making a long cast comes in play getting a good hook set as the reel moves far line then a rod does and keep control of the bass you hooked. Slack line causes more lost bass and undetected strikes then all other factors combined. Tom

The only reason I use Fluorocarbon line is it’s low coefficient of drag going through water and it’s heavier then water. The combination of factors results less line bow therefore better lure feedback with bottom contact lures like worms and jigs. The downside is weaker line with lower knot strength and abrasion resistance compared to mono line of the same diameter. Today I use 7 lb Sniper FC for spinning drop shot and 5 lb Maxima Ultra Green copoly for spinning finesse where I don’t want the line dragging on the bottom like FC does. Casting I use 12 lb Tatsu for worms and jigs and 11 lb Deifier Armilo Nylon Mono for everything else. Bait casting reels I could use Armilo for everything. Tom

Bait Finesse System includes the rod, reel and line. Rods cast lures reels hold the line, the rod is rarely discussed in these threads, yet the key component. My original Langley 340 Target Free spool reel weighs 4 oz and has a light weight drilled aluminum spool made in the late 1940’s. The spool held 50 yards of 8 lb Dacron braid that I could cast all the line to the spool knot...in the 50’s when started to bass fish. The rod was a Connolin Feather Lite 5 1/2’ in today’s rating a Medium Moderate action. BSF from Japan is light to ultra lite trout rods with reels designed for .002/.004 dia braid and lures 1/16 oz or less. We rarely use tackle that light bass fishing. The Americanized BSF is similar to my old Target bait caster using Medium light rods and lures nearer to 1/8 oz., line .006/.008D. I think light tackle bass fishing is more in tune with the average size 1 3/4-2lb bass being caught. Give it try you might like it. Tom

Darker color gel coats may need to be polished to achieve the luster you are looking for. 3M has several marine gel coat polish grades available that require buffing. Not sure if the base color coat wasn’t damaged by the toluene chemical treatment. Polishing should bring back the luster. Tom

An island a few hundred yards is off shore yet has visual shore targets to fish. That same island covered with water isn’t visible and now called a hump that may only be covered with 2’ of shallow water and fished the way as shallow shore water. The difference is the island or hump is off shore. Islands are visible and sometime draws anglers to go out and fish there. The hump isn’t visible and over looked by shore oriented anglers...out of sight out of mind. For decades the outside structure wasn’t fished by modern bass anglers. Old timers who trolled lures fished those areas more often and in fact Buck Perry figured out how to effectively fish structure. I knew bass located off shore from experience and looking at topographic maps to locate those out of sight areas. Sonar was a tool to find these areas easily and very few modern bass anglers looked over their shoulder where off shore structure with bass were being ignored...but not by me?. Today anglers have been educated and sonar units can scan making it very easy to find bass off shore. Tom

Without Gary Yamamoto there wouldn’t be a stick bait. Tom

The only sonar available to the recreational bass anglers for decades was the 20 degree cone 2D that covers about 1/3 the area of the depth. 20’ deep that’s about 7’ diameter at the bottom. Small area as the boat moves forward displaying a history of what was driven over. A very narrow window but important. I would guess 95% of the recreational bass anglers rarely fish deeper then 20’ and use similar sonar units. What we need to know is at what depth the baitfish and bass are using, this eliminates a lot of water. The 2D sonar unit can effectively accomplish this task. My technique for decades was launch the boat and survey the marina/ launch area, both visually looking for bait or bass and using the sonar unit to meter the depth bait or bass are in. There is usually bass in and near the marina area making the search fairly easy. Based on what I see and what seasonal period it is at that moment determines where to start and at water depth to expect bass to be at. Tom