@king fisher I have learned that you can’t really set the hook too fast with top water - try faster! 😎😉

Here are a few:

1) We self “respecting” bass anglers don’t use sissy spinning reels. Nope, no sirree bob.  😂

 

2) We are not supposed to use those old school tried and true lures like inline spinners and spoons to catch bass. Too simplistic, lol. Why, I would rather go home skunked fishing a 5” senko than catch a bass on said old school lures. 😂

 

3) We’re not supposed to use 2-piece rods. Well, I do out of necessity but this one isn’t as insisted upon as it was in the past.

Edited September 23, 2025Sep 23 by islandbass

^ 

I remembered a few more I often do.

 

Fish with multi piece rods for bass.

Adjust  my drag while fighting a bass.

Fish topwater in muddy water.

Fish jigs, spinnerbaits, and bladed jigs without trailers.

Play bass lightly until they are tired before landing them.

Experiment with different lures while the bite is hot.

Fish the same lure color as the primary prey, regardless of water color, or weather conditions.

Use my whole body to cast.  I know all you need to use even for long casts is your wrist, but I was born with two arms, shoulders, elbows, waste, and lower body, and I use every thing I have to backlash my reels.

Drive all night in Mexico to get to the lake.

Drop the Bait Monkey off at my friends house when his wife is away.

 

 

 

 

My last outing was focused on using my new BSF combo on a top water bite.

BSF rods are designed for light weight lures and wonderful to use these very light weight rods- reels- line with the exception of learning how to get high % hook sets. My 1st 5 strikes all jumped off! The strike I was successful with was a Stripe Bass that crushed the lure and they don’t jump just run like a jet propelled Smallmouth and don’t gine up fighting. Fun fish but not a LMB.

Finally learned to do a firmer hook set that loads up the BSF rod keeping the bass hooked. 
For me BSF means I can put away my spinning combos, soon to be in Flea Market forum. As a back setter BSF solves line twist associated with spinning presentations and fighting average size bass is fun again.

Tom

Well a not supposed to do happened yesterday when I took my 12 year son bass fishing.

 

He is just getting back into fishing. We did it when he was 3 and 4 with cane pole and bobbers and zebco 33 type of reels.

 

So lately I have been getting him saltwater tackle and not focusing on bass fishing tackle. And so yesterday we took the boat to an awesome clean clear Florida lake with some heavy cover.

 

Both of his rods were mediums with only 10 pound braid line. I tried to keep him fishing around the edges and clear water. The schoolies were busting up all around us and he wanted to try and chase them down but realized real fast the trolling motor was not as fast as the bass.

 

So on the way back to boat ramp as it got darker, he started casting into the heavy cover. Medium rod and 10lb braid. Sure enough, a bass grabbed his lure and dove down into it. No way to get that fish out. And no way for me to reach that location because the cover piled up in front of trolling motor until I came to a halt still 10 feet from where his line went down into it. So he, lost that fish.

 

Its gone from a 1 pounder to a 3 pounder to a 5 pounder before we ever hit the boat ramp. He was yelling it to a man fishing on dock nearby. He said how big was it? My son hollered "5 pounds!" And I grinned at him thinking you know it could be pure BS! So he blamed me. But dad you said it could have been 5 pounds. Um yeah maybe so, but we will never know now will we?

 

So that was our not supposed to do. Using 10 pound braid in thick heavy cover and a rod just not up to the task. Worked great on schoolies. Time to find him some heavier bass tackle.

 

I knew when he started casting into that heavy cover he was not prepared for it, but I did not say a word about it or discourage him in any way. Cast away kid. And then bam! We both find out the hard way. I knew it.

 

But on another note, it was really cool for him to ask to start learning how to use a baitcast reel today. So on his first day learning and several backlashes later, he is getting the adjustments down and managed to catch his first fish on a baitcast reel all in the same day. Doing better than I did at his age. Plus he has the advantage of having better rods and reels than I ever did at his age too.

We’re not supposed to throw spinnerbaits on calm days. I do it anyway and catch just as many as traditional spinnerbait conditions. 

I’m not suppose to crank my jerkbaits, but I do about half the time.  With age and arthritis, I can’t twitch it all the way back to the boat if I am paralleling the bank like I use to.  A steady retrieve can still get bit. 

I didn't know that were so many "we're not supposed to" rules. I've broken some of these not knowing I was breaking them, like spinnerbaits on calm days. 

Not supposed to use jerkbaits in dirty, hot water.  What BS!

Not supposed to use deep diving crankbaits in shallow water.  More BS!

We're not supposed to put a rod down with a lure dangling in the water when there is a wolfpack of smallmouth around , but I did, a couple of days ago... Gone is a nice Expride 7'6'' ML and a Vanford 2500.  

I'm sorry, @Reel. Quite a loss.

13 hours ago, WRB-2.0 said:

My last outing was focused on using my new BSF combo on a top water bite.

BSF rods are designed for light weight lures and wonderful to use these very light weight rods- reels- line with the exception of learning how to get high % hook sets. My 1st 5 strikes all jumped off! The strike I was successful with was a Stripe Bass that crushed the lure and they don’t jump just run like a jet propelled Smallmouth and don’t gine up fighting. Fun fish but not a LMB.

Finally learned to do a firmer hook set that loads up the BSF rod keeping the bass hooked. 
For me BSF means I can put away my spinning combos, soon to be in Flea Market forum. As a back setter BSF solves line twist associated with spinning presentations and fighting average size bass is fun again.

Tom

I want to do this because I have an older light action rod that belonged to my dad. I have never found a use for it because where I fish most of the time there are some bruisers and a lot of grass. The bass know how to take advantage.

fall out of the boat when I set the hook...........it happens.....

56 minutes ago, crypt said:

fall out of the boat when I set the hook...........it happens.....

 

Is your first name Bill and last name Dance?

I know we're not supposed to cut the tag off of a mattress "under penalty of law", but sometimes I wait until no one is looking and I do it anyway.

 

Even worse than that, I know I am not supposed to use old monofilament, but I have a couple of quarter pound spools of Ande 6 lbs mono that are older than I can remember. And even though I feel the warm wash of shame as I type this, and I know there ought to be a law against it, I still continue to spool some of my BFS reels with it. . . . . And, even though I can feel the disdain coming through the fiber-optic cable of my internet provider after coming clean about using ancient monofilament, I feel further compelled to admit that I even tie on Megabass lures with it. 

I use ancient mono too.

All 2025 I’d been stuck catching nothing but dinks—until August 31st at 8:32 AM. I tied on a bubblegum soft jerkbait, gave it two twitches, and BAM! The hit was so strong I set the hook and that bass launched straight out of the water like it was riding a bull. I couldn’t help but grin and yell, ‘HELLA YEAH, ABOUT TIME" 

 

 

Not suppose to enjoy the slight  tap of a bass inhaling a worm or jig than a top water explosion but feeling a tap that some people might miss and setting the hook on a solid fish is just as exciting to me as a bass jumping all over a top water.

14 minutes ago, scaleface said:

Not suppost to enjoy the slight  tap of a bass inhaling a worm or jig than a top water explosion but feeling a tap that some people might miss and setting the hook on a solid fish is just as exciting to me as a bass jumping all over a top water.

 

I agree, Scaleface. I love surface fishing, but fishing soft plastic and detecting those tiny taps is an exhilarating challenge.

My takeaway from this thread is that Bass Resource is a gang of outlaws, doing all kinds of tomfooleery that we're not supposed to do. Yee-haw!

 

the color yellow, and bananas.   that's all I'm willing to say.

My friend once pulled out a lure to use and inside I just kinda said, "Pfft, that won't work". Well, it caught a fish and I said I'll never say that again because, "We're not supposed to, but..." catches a lot of fish!

 

 

We’re not supposed to run over kayaks. I don’t see the problem.

CC, I was kayaking the Ohio River when a pleasure boat was bearing down on me. I don't know if they didn't see me or were trying to scare me. I kept waving my kayak paddle, but they kept coming. Then a commercial jonboat roared up next to me and the pleasure boat veered. 

 

The old man in the jonboat chuckled and said, "I figured they wouldn't want to mess with me."