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Went out this past weekend with a friend to fish O.H. Ivie and had a pretty good weekend. I ended up catching a new personal best and my first double digit bass weighing in at 10.75 lbs. Caught her on a Siebert Outdoors storm series jig, 1/2oz brush in the series with a big bite yodaddy in easy money as a trailer. She was sitting at the base of a small tree in 3-4 FOW. I figured I would share it with yall.

Has she mentioned that she wants to go fishing? Shown any interest? If not get her a Pandora bracelet with a couple charms representing the kids. Then go to town for Father's Day

Siebert Outdoors has made our first donation as promised from the Storm Series jig during the Bass Resource Road Trip. The total of this was 183.00 dollars donated to Tackle the Storm through the Storm Series jig sales. As the owner of Siebert Outdoors I want to personally thank every member that has supported and the continued support of this great Series of Jigs and Tackle the Storm.

I think many of the adds are based on your internet history, and are targeted to those who might be...interested.

Here is another observation. I've never caught a fish on the lures/baits that just sit in my tackle box and don't get used with some regularity. Imagine that!!

Your math is not accurate, it may be an estimate. As line is added to the spool when retrieving the spool becomes thicker and the IPT changes with each revolution. I believe when manufacturers list IPT it's with a full spool, casting say 30 yds your IPT will be less than 31" increasing with each crank. My suggestion, forgot the math and just go fishing and don't worry about distance.

Bass see a wider color spectrum then we see and can see these colors in very low light. Bass also have the ability to see fast moving objects in detailed slow motion instead of a blurred motion Forget the black and white vision, it's a myth. However black and white are both high contrasting colors that are often good lure choice. Tom

Road Trip Chronicles Get there Wednesday morning and meet bassinisaddicting. We get on the water at 8. Make a short run to the dam and immediately start catching fish on a jig. Wind kinda blew us out and I was still jittery. Make a short run to a creek catch fish, and a gar. We replicated this throughout the day. Met up with 00mod and fished a windy bluff to knock some out on shakeyheads………the pattern begins. Total fish: 19 with several 2#s and big fish of 3 ½ # Highlight of the day: Jon catching his 1st ever jig fish (he’s hooked now) Quote: “don’t let there be a jig bite up in here…..” Thursday Fished with 00mod. We start at dam again and knock out 23 fish in 2 hours. Ran some creeks and points but got on some bluff walls with current breaks and started to find quality. Bite dies down so we run to a big open bay and catch more fish…..pattern getting stronger. Graph deep fish on points but wind too much…. Total fish: 49 lots of 2#ers and a few 2 ½# smally big fish 3 ½ Highlight of the day: jeff catching his PB drop shot fish. Quote: "these buck bass are just cruising these shallow, looking to munch on my drop shot." Friday I fish alone, as there is a strong chance of rain and I didn’t want to pair up and then not fish. I decided to head out later….run the history spots from the last 2 days and pick up 4 fish. On the way in I notice a point in the protected marina cove the depth I was looking for. I sidescanned the flat/hump/point and saw bait and predator fish. I dropped a buoy, turned around and caught 3 out of the first 5 cast all solid 2#ers. I saw swabby and Jon idling by and told them to drop trolling motor cause I felt like we were going to knock their lights out, as these fish seemed more active and bit harder…..naturally the bite goes cold….I follow the pod down a ways and catch another one. Only fished for 3.5-4 hours Total fish: 8, all pretty good ones. I feel now we got a solid pattern if the weather will help. Highlight of the day: catching my 1st “offshore structure” fish. Finding them, marking them, and turning around to catch them was an awesome feeling. Regret of the day: Not running more water and staying out to fish longer. I needed a nap. Saturday I fish with Glenn. I really felt confident we could catch offshore today, as the FLW boys were knocking out lights on blackbass. I ran to some spots I caught earlier in the week and other spots I wanted to check….. never really found what I wanted, and I got impatient really quick…. Thank goodness Glen had a solid shallow fish pattern. We run to his spot and Glenn quickly starts kicking my head with a senko. He figured out with a quickness that they wanted a subtle do nothing fall, and color didn’t matter. Total fish about 40 with Glenn catching at least 25 of those, with plenty of 2#ers mixed in. Highlight of the day: Hearing lots of great info from Glenn and getting a senko lesson. I feel confident on how to fish a senko now. THANKS GLEN!!! Quote of the day: “Needham, I wish you knew what this felt like.” As he was outfishing me by at least 8-1 at the time. I quickly rigged up a senko. (edit: change "some" to "plenty" of 2#ers, since I know how to judge tn river fish now) Sunday I fished with Kerri. Started off slower, as I was trying to fish deeper fish. We started to flip trees and picked up some fish in the next few hours. We ran into Gene and Jon and asked why I couldn’t see fish on the graph. Gene informed me with so much current they were flat on the bottom and you had to trust they were there. We looped around them and headed back into a cove. Flipped more trees and bush and caught some fish albeit slower. Coming out of the cove I threw across a rock point I just “hunched” had a quick drop…..then it happened. Rock, rock, rock……..THUNK, rod load! 3 ¾ in the boat!!! Few mintues later another, then Kerri boats a 2 ½ . I really thought we had found a school of 3#ers. We beat that point up for an hour until we had to go. It was really a classic textbook spot, a point with 2 rock ledges with milfoil on one side. TOTAL BLAST and great feeling to know they are there but more importantly to understand WHY they were there. Those fish either just came off the bed or waiting to go back in, either way they were looking to chomp on a ¾ ounce jig. Total fish: about 25 Highlight of the day: finding the big bite and understanding why Quote: “get the net, I got a SEA BEAST!” Regret: having to leave. I really think we had them pegged from that last spot and given the chance I REALLY think we could have put the beatdown on some big fish.

Well I was finally able to get out on a boat with a good friend and had a GREAT time. Lake Guntersville had a fast current and was very muddy but we found fish and was able to get a few in the boat. I had the infamous "one that got away" story as I had a 5lb 'er (witnessed and guestimated by a VERY reputable source) but didn't get her to the boat. It was my fault I lost her but that's OK, lesson learned. I was able to pull in quite a few 1-2 lb'ers including some spotted bass as well. The biggest of the day was a new PB at about 3.5 lbs which is fantastic for me and only stoked the fire more. I think one of the funniest thing was pulling up next to boats that weren't having too much luck and pulling fish out. The lessons I learned were numerous and it changed my entire perspective on how to fish better. Also there is no doubt I need a boat.

Thanks for the info!! Just ordered 15 packs of rage.

Exactly. Thinner diameter lines let lures run deeper than thicker lines. The resistance of the water pushes up on the line keeping the bait from going deeper. Go from 12 pound test to 10 pound line (mono or fluoro) and your bait will run up to about 1 foot deeper on average. Braided line being so much thinner, has less resistance so baits run even deeper. If braid were as buoyant as a bobber, your baits would not be able to dive. But braid just barely floats. It takes very little to get it to sink. It is not much more buoyant than Fluoro which does sink but it is not so heavy that it will drag down a floating bait. Most of the crankbaits you use float, but they will still dive down deep.

They are up cruising look for a place to make a bed for the females to come up and spawn. I was seeing the same thing all day yesterday, was able to get a few of them to bite. Trick is being well away from them and making longer casts. Sight fishing is fun, but it often doesn't work unless they are on the bed and only pick up your lure to move it. If you can see them, they can see you, and are VERY easily spooked. If you visit the same place often, you'll notice beds start popping up soon. Make sure to hang back and look around for a little bit, see if you can't see a sandy or bare spot on the bottom, and look closely for a fish or two to be hovering around it. If you keep back or stay low, cast past the bed. Bring the bait into the bed slowly and just shake it in place for a little bit. You'll probably be able to pick up a couple of females on their bed before too long.

Wake that kid up and stick a rod in his hands!

Ideally the stripper guide of a spinning rod will be about 1/2 the diameter of the spool lip. This tames the coils without hindering line flow.

Maybe they are doing you a favor by not biting? LOL, go look for the 18-22" fish.

I see a lot of this in cowardly fish.

Not entirely true. Braid does float that is true, however the much smaller line diameter will allow additional depth.`

Yep, color. Don't forget they don't see in air, so what looks red (or whatever) to us might not look red to them, depending on the depth.

X2 on SirSnookalot's suggestion. Just BTW, under test circumstances on a representative group of fishermen, the authors of Precision Casting found that an "average cast" was 70 ft and a "long cast" was 100 ft. So they used those distances to test the dive profiles of the crankbaits available in 2000. The important point here: hogwash you hear about guys casting 100 YARDS is exactly that unless we're talking international casting competitions with specialized saltwater gear. But this is really beside the point. OK, we're guys so it's inevitable that some of us idiots are gonna compare sizes one way or the other. But if you're a bass fisherman, you're not in a distance casting competition - you're there to catch fish. The right cast is the distance it takes to hit your target accurately. And the shorter the cast you have to make, the more chance you have of detecting a bite, hooking, and boating a fish. So if your reel is operating smoothly and you aren't backlashing every 5 minutes, you're good to go. Be happy and just go fishing.

So I am just curious to see what everyone thinks about this. What technique do you feel is just the best way to consistently catch fish? I have a feeling most will agree with what I think but who knows. It could be anything like even a way of working a bait or a whole setup. Drop Shot is hands down the clear winner for me.

Fishing a tourney in Lee Mills area tomorrow...

I'm going to help you out here, I'm a PA resident and when I was just getting into bass fishing 30 years ago I read the magazines and watched everything on T.V. and I thought I was doing something wrong or the tactics just didn't apply to the fish in my waters. Well the truth is you really have to adapt techniques to where you use them as the forage base is different. Milfoil to me means lipless crankbaits, also going away from the bank until you get to the weed edge, that edge is a great place for a medium diving crank and a square bill can be killer when fished over top of a weed bed just as a hollow body swimbait fished over weeds. You have confidence in fishing soft plastics and that is good but expanding your bait choices could make the difference between a good day and a great day, especially if you fish tournaments at all. The only thing you lack is confidence, and a good day on cranks or swimbaits or jigs will change your mind but you have to be willing to use them enough to get bit and that is the hard part.

Consider this, Robert: a 1000 size reel will have a very small diameter spool. This will lead to line management problems if you plan to use anything over 6lb test mono, and, depending on brand, flouro over 4lb test. A smaller spool will result in more line twist and memory. I would recommend a 20 or 25 size reel if you're planning to use mono over 6 or flouro over 4.

I'd be looking for a welding shop that can do aluminum welding.

You're not wrong. We worked VERY hard hammering our elected officials a few years back, and we were heard. Just this year, we got Oneida Lake added to the C&R fishing as well. Now we just have to get Region 6 on board with the program.

I think this could also be said of Burley. They both made things more interesting though. Life happens, and priorities change. I wish them both well.

I would flip more been fishing since I had the perfect cast the first time.Its not a matter of one over the other but rather a simpler approach. With a flip you have the distance figured out correctly and can slide a bait in very slow and slow. I normally flip after I make a pitch if I want to hit a stump multple times.

I can't say I have a "most effective" technique. For me it varies by season. Shakey Heads, swimbaits, jigs, jerkbaits, and crankbaits all catch me a lot of bass.

Braid is not so buoyant that it has any effect on the depth a crankbait will run. A single hook causes braid to sink. I use braid on my suspending jerkbaits and they suspend perfectly. If the "floating" braid was that buoyant, It would cause the baits to rise up, but it doesn't. If you are using braid in the smaller diameters, your baits will run much deeper than mono or fluoro because the smaller line has less resistance in the water. The increased sensitivity and no stretch of braid will also let you feel your bites much better. Use a snap for your big crankbaits. Even with a palomar, there will be very little waste.

Shaw Grigsby knot for everything, With 40 pound braid, I can almost flatten a 3x 30 degree round bend hook with it before the line breaks. I have not had the knot fail yet. Line breaks before the knot.

I would tie direct myself and I don't have to much line twist when I throw spinnerbaits.

Here some that I have of you:

Fishing away from shorelines efficiently requires sonar. You can attempt to read the lay of the shoreline topography and probe with a C-rig, football jig, heavy single-spin SB, or CB, but it is slower going.

I am new here as well. 1st post actually. I just moved into New Market and am a member of Lake Linganore. Here are some pics from my first time fishing at Lake Linganore for about 2 hours. Caught about 8 fish ranging from just under a pound to a little over 3 lbs. My godson also caught a decent fish.

Because the wife doesn't care.... Alphas Ito T3 1016

Sounds like your observations are consistent with your location, and the water type you describe. Fish size: What weights do you need to win? What are other people catching? In tropical waters, outside of bass normal geographic range, they can grow quickly but die young. If water temps are too high they can be very thin, indicating poor growth. The fish in your avatar looks this way. Or... you are fishing too shallow and catching males guarding beds and fry, or just catching juveniles. Might need to get further off the shorelines. And/or... the population of small bass is very high and the Slider's are just right for them. Big bass do appreciate a mouthful, so up-sizing some can help both attract larger bass and discourage smalls. But you will have to suffer the lowered catch rate. Numbers or size is not always the same game. Your lake: As you describe, "...its a very clear lake ... NO weeds and steep shores. A lot of rocky areas and red clay" sounds like finesse water to me. This doesn't mean larger things won't work, but in clear cover free water, finesse tends to make catching bass easier. Spinnerbaits being effective only under low light is very common, esp in clear water. You could fish them faster, using light translucent skirt/trailers, which doesn't let the fish see them as well. Other tactics for clear open water could be crankbaits, lipless cranks, drop-shot, skirted jigs/trailer (swim jigs, football jigs, brush jigs). Yes, it looks like you might want to start diversifying your capabilities. But first, answer my first questions above. Is your lake mostly full of little bass to begin with? If you have to spend all day to eek out 12-15lbs of bass, you might need to find a different lake, or just realize this lake's limitations and be happy with your success there. Hope this gives you some further direction.

kotg is the best tourny to get your feet wet. you will be competing against the top anglers from lake okeechobe to miami. sam and fishy fingers nailed it. just be respectful and follow the rules. this is my 6th kotg and my partner and i qualified for the classic all 6 years. i still get that butterfly feeling everytime we take off. go for it bro! just to give you a heads up though----once you start tournament fishing, you WILL be addicted. BTW-piscicidal got big fish on sunday in the last round of the kotg! way to go mike! i believe it was a 7+pounder.

got this one tonight,... No good bass yet. Got this one yesterday that was ok, but a day early and prob not quite a winner....

Good news guys, i went out today and didn't miss even one hookset. looks like i was setting the hook way too early. thanks for all the help! it helped me land a couple of nice fat ones today.

That's a nice pickerel you got there!

Sometimes if it is producing right off the bat. I prefer to call it my favorite bait rather than go-to bait because of what the latter implies. But whatever you call them, favorite or go-to, they're worthless if you're not on fish.

No it should be fine. I was using a heavy in some nasty grass. Exposed dead grass was just above the water with some new sprouting up. I missed my first fish. It blew up. I felt pressure and set the hook. I knew I was supposed the wait a second or two. I think I was just surprised that I actually got a strike. lol The next 2 fish I caught. They both missed the bait the first time around. After they missed, I paused the frog and twitched it a little. I then retrieved it back and casted out again. Needless to say they both didn't miss. I counted a long 2 count and crossed their eyes! From what I have read a MH rod is better to walk the dog. I worked the frog like it was scarred and fleeing an attack. As with any lure let the fish tell you what they want. The reason I say this the next day I didn't get bit at all. . . . except the first place that I missed the one in the above paragraph. Guess what? I missed it again about the same time, the same place, worked in the same direction, at approximately the same time! Anyways just don't give up. I was using an Iobee frog. Spro makes a good one as well. I haven't heard much about the KVD but I'm sure it catches fish. As far as the jig. . . . I placed a $125 order. In my next tournament I will catch a bass on a jig or I won't weigh an d**n thing! lol

Lakes with good waiter clarity are usually the better night fishing lakes. Catt, a member who fishes Toledo Bend a lot at night for decades always recommends to fish night with the same lures and colors you fish during the day. If all you fish with is black, then black will work for you, however other colors and lures may have worked better....keep an open mind! Dark color surface lures create a dark silhouette against the night sky is the traditional thinking and they work well at night. However bass have no problems finding live prey at night that are light colored: frogs have light colored bellies for example. My own experiences is using darker colors like black/red deep diving crank baits, black jigs and worms and they caught a lot of bass. Fishing a night tournament that started at 6 PM we used our standard day time colors and caught a lot of bass, the bite continued well after 10 PM on a very dark night and we never changed to darker colors and kept catching bass. The bite died off, when changed to the traditional black with blue or red highlites and didn't carch anything for for an hour. Picked up the shad colored crank bait and started catching bass agian. Everything will work in the dark, you just need to try it. Tom

I wouldn't like any one telling me how to raise my children. My own common sense tells me a fishing rod for a 5 year old is one thing, a rifle is a totally different issue, I'd be waiting a few years. What some one else does with their kids is their business not mine, I don't see a trip to the backwoods of Alabama for me any time in the near future......lol.

I let my daughter shoot my S&W 915 9mm a few months back. I've also been teaching her how to shoot with my .22. I caught heat from a few relatives, but I basically did what you are doing. I will raise my daughter to shoot if I want to. And I will teach her properly. If you supervise your child and teach them right from wrong then they will be fine. This stigma that has been cast over guns is ridiculous.

Cool stuff, Tom. There's been a bunch of relatively recent research into UV vision in fishes, and bass just aren't one of them. They just don't have the equipment, nor in the infrared {EDIT: There is new research that has begun to focus on diff sections of the retina in some fishes, so ... never say never}. Many freshwater fishes have UV vision when very young, but lose it by adulthood. And yes, bass have a high flicker fusion frequency (FFF), high enough to be able to see individual rotations on a spinner blade -something we humans assume is a "blur". It's not to bass. Our FFF is below 60cyc/sec, which is why TV sets run at 60 cycles, just fast enough that we see a fused image. Interestingly, "out of the corners of our eyes" (as it's said) we can see the flicker -why TV sets in houses we drive past after dark appear to create that bluish flicker. That's bc our rod vision (night sensitive visual cells) have a higher FFF, being more sensitive to movement. Yes, fish see differently than we do. Add to this the fact that its the brain that actually "sees" -makes sense of light input- makes the whole deal really complicated. So, it's not just how fish eyes are constructed, but how the brain operates and makes sense of the world. Cool stuff.

The highly skilled anglers that pursue giant trophy size fish of all species focus on details and color is at the top of the list. Long range tuna anglers are very particular about the color of the live bait they select: lime green verses olive green for example and avoid any live bait with red scales or red noses that indicate that bait isn't as healthy as others in the bait tank. Spent a few years fishing with live crawdads in the late 60's and learned to avoid dark reddish brown that indicated a hard shell crawdad that bass avoided where I was fishing and selected only the brownish green shell crawdads. Color is a Myth; when you get bit 10 to 1 you learn what works and what doesn't. The colors that matters is the color the bass prefer. Butch Brown for example paints his hooks to match the color of the swimbait to better blend with the lure, hard to debate success. When fishing hair jigs I take a lot of time to match the pork rind color to the hair colors, waste of time? The proof is in the pudding. The bottom line on how bass see colors hasn't been written yet, a lot of conflicting science. Tom

Not sure about the fitz rods, but dobyns is well respected. Powell Endurance, St. Croix Avid, St. Croix Rage, Duckett, Shimano Crucial, are all well respected rods that are going to give you a high level of performance.

Here's a way to instantly relieve the pain of an abcessed tooth. Ice water. No, I'm not kidding. The pain is caused by the pressure of the abcess at the root. Sometimes a blister will form on the gum and break, relieving the pressure, and thus the pain. Ice water, applied to the tooth causes the infection fluid to contract, relieving the pressure. The relief is short lived however. When the ice water warms, the infection expands and the pain returns. You'll need to take another swig of ice water. The trick is to spit out the water. You can only drink so much. My experience has been that once the dentist opens up the tooth, allowing the abcess to drain, the pain stops. It has for me. I've had probably ten root canals, and I recently had one retreated, so I speak from experience. You might think the cold water would make the pain worse, but that is not the case with an abcess. The nerve in the tooth is already dead, so technically, it's not a tooth ache. It's pressure in the gum on surrounding nerves.

I am just begging to watching the Classic and it’s interesting to see the pattern Cliff Pace was on, deeper water, warmer water with a jig, different than the rest of the anglers, I know there can be multiple patterns but what I like about his pattern is how it highlights yet another pattern a big fish pattern not just a getting bit pattern, which are two very different things. Like my pond example I was on a pattern for a small pond, 7 or so fish isn’t bad on a single lure, but I knew without ever being at this pond before I could do better just by reading the fish. I am just curious how the pros break down a pattern, really how most people try to break a pattern down, maybe improve the way I read the fish.. Most animals even Humans are opportunistic, fish are certainly no exception, however we know they don’t bite just to feed. Yes, calories expended verses calories gained is a major player but the not the only one and if it’s the only one you choose to exploit you will catch fish for sure, but you can catch then playing to other factors as well, especially the big ones. By the way thanks for all the insight and posts, we should have a pattern subtopic where we can post the pattern of the day for that person's fishing experience.