My flip would be trying to catch a SMB. Although I lived in the north when I was younger I never caught one. Now I live in the deep south and we do not have any.

I know they like bright colors, are mostly found in deep, clear, cool water. That is about all I got. I would definately like to try it, but I do not travel much anymore. I will leave the smallies to you guys in the more northern climates.

I would like to flip from daydreaming about bass fishing every day, and going fishing only when time allows, to someone who bass fishes everyday and daydreams about work, only when time allows.

I'm going to find out this year.

Friend of mine bought a jet boat and plans to fish the Susquehanna for smallmouth quite a bit.

I'm mainly a lake fisherman for LM so I'll be " flipping " to brownies this spring.

3 minutes ago, Bird said:

Friend of mine bought a jet boat and plans to fish the Susquehanna for smallmouth quite a bit.

Sounds exciting. It's a beautiful river and fishing current is a lot of fun.

Most the freshwater fishing Ive done has been in Florida. And salt for that matter. I have fished shoreline structure mostly, but do fish offshore in my small lake some. I have fished all kinds of waters from remote to urban. So for me to flip it’d be fishing offshore in waters where I haven’t, and more at night. Ive done some night fishing but not much.

I would also have to switch from largely fishing plastics to everything else.

And I’m with katy on the electronics. It ain’t happening at this point.

Boats? To flip I’d have to go back to a bass boat, which won’t happen either, unless it belongs to someone else. 🤠

I'm trying to think a scenario that fits me, as I target largemouth and smallmouth.

I could flip and the only thing that comes to mind is time a day. I'm not much of a morning person, and the fact that I don't sleep at all some days from back pain makes it even harder, but if I fished mornings, that would certainly be beneficial.

On 1/9/2026 at 4:55 PM, Swamp Girl said:

I watch Old Lady Angler of YouTube fish the Everglades and it looks pretty similar to how I fish northern bogs.

Got a laugh out of that one! She is great though! Love her determination and willingness to travel to new waters.

When you say "flip" on fishing I see it being used for how to fish and what to fish for.

Here in Florida the flip is not necessarily us fishermen but the flip in the weather that turns everything upside down and backwards.

We flip from boats to bank fishing. Heck we got bass fishing jet skiis and bass fishing paddleboards now with trolling motors. Some jet powered too. So people in Florida do more flipping than many other places will allow or accommodate. Still looking for a jet ski with trolling motor installed on it. We have air boats with trolling motors on them now.

We also let weather dictate how we flip around here. Like when a cold front moves in and bass get lockjaw and run deep and won't bite, some fishermen simply flip on over to saltwater fishing because some will tell you the coldest days in Florida are among some of the best saltwater fishing days.

And then we have the in between half flips.

Like the state of Florida creates a fake fish in a laboratory somewhere and dumps some 3.5 million of them into Florida waters every year. They call them sunshine bass. A blend between female white bass and male striper.

This laboratory created frankenfish is designed to let us bass fishermen keep on fishing the same way we fish for LGM bass and when the weather flips on us now we can start catching the sunshine bass without missing a beat or really changing anything we do. A clever trick but it works!

Down here in Florida we don't even know what a smallie is. We keep hearing about them, but never see one. Our sunshines fill the flip gap just fine and dandy. They pull like a freight train.

Here is a former customer of mine catching one in a location he says he wants to keep secret but the white channel marker pole gives his location away to within 100 feet or less. He is using a Shimano reel I serviced when working at the rod and reel shop. Captain Tom Van Horn catching a 9 pound sunshine in St. Johns river in central Florida area. Lake Harney to be specific. Named after Col Harney U.S. Army's Seminole Indian chaser who moved through this lake pushing them Southward into Everglades.

So I guess that about describes our primary flips. From bass to saltwater and back. And from bass to sunshines and back.

And here is the FWC fish flipping stocking locater we use...

https://gis.myfwc.com/FishStock/

We follow the general rule of letting 3 years pass from a stocking year before the fish are large enough to target for fishing. So we go back to 2022 and earlier to gather our fish flipping intel.

It would be a total flip for me to be fishing at all at the moment. But I like to power fish. I don't enjoy finesse and won't resort to it unless I must to catch anything. So I would probably do OK flipping the script in that respect. I know I would probably get more bites. They would probably be smaller on average with some larger ones mixed in. It would keep me busy.

On 1/9/2026 at 4:55 PM, Swamp Girl said:

I watch Old Lady Angler of YouTube fish the Everglades and it looks pretty similar to how I fish northern bogs.

I enjoy her content as well. FL looks like heaven.

Florida boy here.

I’ve done as much saltwater as I’ve done freshwater down here so nothing to see here. I’ve fished all over the state of Florida from the keys and glades to the panhandle for salt and fresh and have been fortunate enough to have been successful most places.

I’ve fished for smallmouth once in Dale Hollow and caught a few including a 4# fish.

I’ve fished for trout in Montana and have caught some but mostly small.

So I’d have to say that I’ve flipped already.