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[ September 18, 2015 ] Where do I begin? It is now the middle of September... the weather is getting worse, the water is cooling down, and the Fall Season is in full swing. The fishing has been great the past few weeks as I have caught great numbers of fish in a short amount of time. I have seen bass schooled up in numbers roaming around in the shallows and have been able to catch them on almost every cast. It didn't matter if it was calm, windy, sunny, rainy, early, or late... they have been biting. That was until a few days ago where it seemed like most of my fish came during the day and then the bite seemed to slow down during the evening. I took note of this and have been trying to fish as much as I can, as early as I can - which for me would be the afternoon. Well today I got off work early at 2:00pm and started making my way out to the lake. I have been consistent catching bass for the past 85 days that I have fished, and today I was starting to feel a little burnt out. Since I had extra time to fish, I planned to spend a few hours at the marina, then possibly head out in the boat for the rest of the day... I arrived at the lake around 2:30pm, grabbed two of my combos (first with a Tube softbait, other with a LiveTarget Blueback Herring Swimbait) and started fishing. The sky was mostly cloudy, with little to no wind. The water has about 10+ ft clarity with a bit of color to it, and the temperature is 62F. The lake is also currently over a foot low, and seems to be slowly falling as the days progress. I made only 2 or 3 casts, then dropped the tube next to a piling in about ~25ft of water. I was watching the line as it was starting to sink and when it got down about 5-7ft deep, I saw the line stop. I immediately dropped the rod, reeled up the slack, and set the hook hard. First impression was I thought I just had a decent one on... then a few seconds later I knew I had a good one on... and when I got it near the surface and it started going crazy I knew I had a great one on (but I didn't think it was a PB). That was until I put it on the scale and learned that it was... 5lb 1oz, 21 & 1/2'' I will point out that my digital scale which I believe to be fairly accurate said 5lb 01oz (and I double checked the weight and even re-zeroed it). However my BogaGrip which is a $100+ fish gripper that can be officially certified said it was around 6lb. I don't know if I can believe it was 6lb... so for now I'm going with the lower weight that was on my digital scale. In the future I might decide to invest in a new scale (AccuScale) to be sure. Anyway I continued fishing to catch another 7-10 smaller bass and also hooked into a nice bonus fish. It was a great day, and just what I needed to spark my enthusiasm again. What a way to start my weekend... 86 Days Consistent. WolfyBrandon

A large portion of my career revolved around Training & Instructing Professional, Commercial & Civilian mariners on the proper & effective use of Survival Equipment. My Perspective on Personal Floatation Devices goes like this; The device has to be reasonably comfortable. I say this first because regardless of the type, if you don’t wear it it’s useless. However, there is a tradeoff between “Comfortable” and effectiveness. Generally the lighter, less bulky types / designs are more comfortable but provide less buoyancy which is what the PFD is all about. Learning which types are required by law and how each performs allows one to make an educated decision. Going overboard unexpectedly is always a life threatening event and a shock, regardless of the circumstances. There are several factors that can & will complicate and magnify this emergency. They include but are not limited to Cold ~ both Air & Water temps (regardless of the survival equipment worn), Rough water, meaning wind & waves, operating in current, (like rivers and tidal water), being ALONE, fishing from a smaller craft, being injured on the way over the side, not being able to swim and obviously not wearing a Life Jacket. Other things to think about: going overboard fully dressed is not like swimming at the beach. A cotton hoodie & denim jeans make moving at all in the water very difficult – PFD really helps here. Getting back on board ones vessel in water logged clothes is very difficult; especially when fishing alone. On boats large enough to have one, a boarding ladder is a must. On smaller boats, (canoes, kayaks & smaller john boats) these boats often capsize as part of the event. Depending on a long list of factors, re-righting the boat may or may not be an option. But getting out of cold water ASAP is not an option and needs to happen sooner rather than later. Climbing up onto a capsized hull is even good just to get out of cold water. Your Life Jacket will assist a conscious victim to stay afloat until help arrives (hopefully). Hyperthermia Kills people. Years of searching for victims has proven that it is best to Stay With Your Boat. Whether it is capsized or if it’s up right and you just can’t board it. The craft offers two important benefits; first it makes a much better locating target. A persons head bobbing around in waves in really hard to see & find. Second, your boat provides something to hang on to. Personally, I fish from a 16 ft canoe. The vast majority of the time I’m alone and there’s NO One else on the water with me. In the warmer months, I fish at night. I carry two type III PFD’s in the boat that are laid on the deck up on the bow so that if the canoe capsizes they will float free. I wear an inflatable Mustang HIT type PFD. In my mind the two most important factors that I can control every trip I make are; that my wife knows exactly where I’m going and when I’ll be back; and I’m wearing that life jacket while I’m out there. A-Jay​ ​

Shimano or Daiwa.. Why anyone would use a abu or lews is beyond me, however, don't get mad.. It's your Cash & your Credit..lol

In my last report, we were crushing largies in the deep weeds. Since then, that bite has died off a bit, but not before my buddy smoked a 6+ pounder, his biggest of the year. On Sunday we had a club tournament on a smaller lake and the weather was nuts. It was 8C (46F) with 40kmh winds and pouring rain. I could not figure the fish out. I tried fishing smallies, I tried largies in milfoil, on rocks. I fished slow, I fished fast. I had 1 small fish at 1pm. Then I punched a mat and got a fish over 4. I kept going. In the next 2 hours, I landed 12 more keepers and managed a 3rd place finish. Punching mats in 1-2 ft of water. I spent this past week exploring a bunch of smaller lakes in the Haliburtons. I went looking for big fish, but was instead rewarded with numbers. Big numbers. Over 2 days I landed close to 100 fish, mostly on jerkbaits in 18-45 feet of water. So much fun. Had a trip out to the main lake Simcoe yesterday, Found lots, but with high pressure and lack of wind, it was a tough bite. Still managed some good ones though.

The Single Most Reliable way for me to know what's going on at the lake - is to get out on it. Everything else is guess work. Btw - on any given day, the "Catching" might be poor, But the Fishing is Always Excellent. A-Jay

I was fishing a small pond today that I have always had trouble finding and catching bass at. The bass I have caught here in the past have been very fat and healthy. Today I tried all kinds of finesse lures: jigs, senkos, shakey heads and wacky rigs. I managed to get a few dinks on the shakey head with a zoom trick worm. Around sunset, I tied on a lunker city salad spoon and began to swim it slowly on the surface and some really really fat bass decided to show up. This lure was a game changer for me. Try it out sometime, the bass cannot resist. Biggest one went 3 lbs flat... at 17 inches long! what a fatty !!!

Should of gotten a shimano Just kidding but my new citicas are a lot better than my concept and my revo and my lews speed spool

God gave man two heads, but only enough blood to run one of them at a time.

It seems like I've seen more topics about the potential results of not wearing PFDs here lately. I just wanted to share the results of a little unscientific testing of the PFDs I've been carrying on my boat, which to some extent was prompted by what I've read here. I've been carrying 3 outfits. Two class III vests, and an inflatable (manual) that I bought years ago. I've been saying for a year or so that I was gonna see how they actually performed. I did that last weekend. I basically wanted to see how they would float me if I was knocked out. I figure there is a good chance that if I get tossed, its going to be at interstate speed so there's a good chance I'm either going to be out cold, injured, or at the very least extremely disoriented. None of those three options are ok in the water. All three vests floated me. The two type IIIs flipped me on my face if I remained limp every single time. One much faster than the other. The inflatable held me face up. Even if I tried to get my face in the water I couldn't. The fact that its manual makes it even more ineffective in a high speed or knock out situation than the others, but its flotation characteristics were far superior. One of the vests probably wouldn't even stay on me in a high impact situation. All would work in a slightly less than ideal situation but not if I was out cold. I'm absolutely NOT saying that you shouldn't wear a PFD of any kind. I'm saying that you should take the time to know what you're actually trusting your life to. When I did MX, I wore over a grand worth of protective gear and didn't blink an eye buying that but I've skimped on marine safety. I'm not trying to lecture or down talk any available equipment, I just don't want anyone else to have the false sense of security that I have had, and make informed decisions when purchasing that equipment.

A_Jay that is the best answer to the question I have seen! There are times when the lunar stage is significant in my opinion, but catching fish is not the only reason many of us fish. For some of us it is not even the primary reason! Enjoy the process and leave the charts to fortunetellers, politicians, and other disreputable types.

I'd rather discuss the best rod for $100

My hands down favorite is Green Pumpkin with a chartreuse tip.

honestly you can fill in the blank here. most stuff in the tackle box works at dawn/dusk. it's my favorite time to fish just for that reason. i rarely get to say this sentence when bass fishing but it seems like i can do no wrong

You collected an outstanding trio !

Yes - weightless and rigged weedless. I fish, depending on what I want to do, Zoom Fat Alberts, Kalins (in the photo), and Gander Mountain 5" grubs - they all sink. Zoom is sorta the standard. I fish Kalins when I want a bit more weight than a Fat Albert (usually when tossing it with a BC rod/reel) and the Kalins is still fairly soft to enable a light-power BC rod to pull through the plastic on the hookset. The Gander Mountain grubs are just about identical in size/form to the Kalins but are harder and as such they skip very well. How do I fish them? Every way I can. I usually cast, let them sink for a second, then start a twitching retrieve. The retrieve can be either underwater, or on top, depending on what I think will get bit. Since they're rigged weedless, you can toss them into slop, grass, etc. and retrieve them on top, letting them sink into holes in the vegetation. The bass in the photo was 7.4lb, and is my largest grub fish. I targeted some mid-lake emergent grass with the grub and she must have been holding on, or patrolling along, that weedline. She nailed the grub on splashdown - just inhaled it. In the photo below, you can see the grub all the way at the back of her throat...

Completed the '12 Antares, '13 Metanium, and '14 Conquest trinity. Shimano makes a nice reel. Not sure what it's going to ride yet.

Hello my name is Michael and I am new to this forum. I'm 32 and live in the Tampa area. I love to fish and have read a lot of useful information on this forum. Thanks.

(photo from bassmaster)

I'd really like to turn this video into a sticky

I like a 1/2oz for a majority of my jig fishing but will go down to 3/16 or up to 1oz if needed.

Smoke no flake Yamamoto 4" single tail grub "scrubbing a grub", at Table Rock catches lots of fish. I use to split shot rig them too and did really well.

Great fish and congrats!

I totally agree with the unrealistic expectations. I probably did, but did not intend to sound like I felt that any of what I tried performed at a level less than was promised by the manufacturer. The type III PFDs did exactly what they promised to do. I just kind of feel that people make uneducated assumptions that they're "safe" when maybe they're not as much so as they assume. Myself included at times. Anything is better than nothing for sure and its on the end user to understand what they're dealing with. I'm going to check out those links. I hope others do as well. I think that I speak for all of us when I say that we appreciate your service and your advice.

sounds like the moral of the story is don't go buy fishing equipment without Dad

Send it to Mike @ DVT for a tuning and whatever upgrades he might suggest. He's done great work on nearly all of my reels, Lews included.

I don't think I could back reel but I have done the thumb bar thing with a baitcaster many times. I've never really given any thought as to why. I guess I feel like it gives me more control when I've got a good size fish that has a lot of attitude close to the boat.

As a Pats fan, I really hope the Bills become relevant again. I hope the whole AFC East becomes more competitive again. Some of the best football games I watched growing up have been AFC East match-ups. Say what you want about Rex Ryan, I personally think he's great for the game and provides real entertainment, especially during the week leading up to a Pats game. Sit back and enjoy a great game folks! I know I will.

It's the standard Antares - 5.6:1 ratio (26IPT). I have it on a St. Croix MH-Mod cranking rod and mostly use it for shallow to mid-depth cranks from 3/8 to 3/4 ounce. It's good for lipless cranks as well. Smooooooth...!

I'm too uncoordinated with my left hand to back reel. Jimmy Houston will disengage his BC reel's spool to avoid a line-stretching surge at the boat. I had to do this once, but it was because the fish was taking too much drag and I needed to slow him down.

Thanks Goose. What do you use your Antares '12 for?

If you fish out of a bass boat here you go.

Yup and the sad part is with proper technique that rod will deadlift probably 4x the weight of that fish. If you must lift with your rod swing the fish to the side of the boat, reel down and lift holding the rod parallel to the water. That way the tip won't be beyond 90* to the butt

You are overthinking, I am a professional multiple champion of purchasing and hoarding tackle, I have several hundreds of soft plastic bait bags that are DECADES OLD and bass still bite them with gusto. One button is enough for a sample: See that worm in the hook ? Culprit 7.5 Black Shad Ribbontail worm, the day I hooked that fish those worms were more than 10 years old.

Went and fished a grub today, after not getting anything on topwater all morning I tried the grub and started catching fish. If it weren't for this thread I would have forgotten those grubs in my bag and they would have been trailers.

Won't be long until their prostaffers find this thread, not read any of our the forum rules, start spamming this thread, and then wonder why they got kicked off the site. Wait for it. Waaaaait for it....

Hollow body frog? Can you get away with it? Depends on your experience with a frog. An experienced frog fisherman may be able to pull it off, but honestly you will be better served with a 7ft MH rod, and utilizing braid for a better, secure hookset. That's just my .02 .

from now on, all I'm buying are Siebert wire tied jigs.

Here's how I rig them. Most of the time it's with a 1/8th ounce weight. A drop of super glue at the nose keeps the bait buttoned up to the weight. The bait is upside down in the photo. A good jig head is the Keitech Super Round Tungsten jig head. I use the 1/8th ounce with a 2/0 hook. But I also have 1/16th ounce, 3/16th ounce and 1/4 ounce hooks for experimentation. The bait in the image is a Rage Tail Craw. But Zoom craws and the grand daddy Mister Twister also work well. You can catch several fish on a single bait, unless the pickerel or other toothy critters are after them. There is no right or wrong way to fish 'em. Vary your retrieve, and let the fish tell you what they want. Our most common practice is to wait five to ten seconds after splash down depending on the depth we are fishing. From there you can twitch and jerk and let it settle after each "jump". You can also swim it.

PIcked up some new shiny things today. Megabass Vision magnum, 110+1s, and 110s (10) Luck E Strike RCSTX (8) Megabass XPOD Megabass Giant X DOG Bomber Fat Free Shad deep Squarebills (2) Spro Little John (2)

Good job. That second picture just helps prove that bass can feed with with their lateral line when their eyes can not contribute.

Mend-It is already paying off fixing some plastics, why the heck did I wait so long I'll never know. Posted in an earlier post I bought some skirts and 24g cooper wire for when (not if) the Zman chatterbaits skirts come off (as well as other skirted baits I have).

I have had braid slip on me if I'm using a smooth, solid spool. If you have a wiffle spool with holes in it where you can tie the braid directly to the spool, you shouldn't have any slippage issues. But regardless, it's more economical to put some cheap mono backing on the reel and then top it off with the last 70 yards or so of braid.

A month ago I said the same thing!

Before I sold off all my muskie gear, I had a 2' piece of Tyger wire tied to every bait with a swivel on the other end. Made changing baits easy. Snip the braid from the swivel, tie onto the swivel on the new bait, wrapped the wire around the old bait and stow it away. I used a 1 1/2 turn clinch knot to tie the wire to the bait and the swivel. Never had one come loose.

Tyger wire or American Fishing Wire Surflon.

A few years ago.......... Your impeller needs replacing. You leave something like that sit, that long, here in Florida and it will dry rot. Also, mud dabbers will put mud nests in any hole they can get into. That whole system may need flushing out by a mechanic.

There is no need to fill anything in the buttcap, IMHO. There is no defect. Filling a natural dark line in the cork is sort of like working dry wall too long, and everything you do makes it worse. I've received premium cork that looked great at first, then found it was highly filled. Which is so phony. Better to have cork like this, which has a few lines in it, but they are small and tight, and are not really gaps. They are honest, high quality, cork. Leave it alone.

Not really a monster, but not bad! There's no getting off that deep throat hook, either.

By referencing "canals", I'm assuming you're in Florida? I know they are here in Virginia. I haven't caught many but here's a 9.5 lb snakehead I caught off of a white on white bleeding spinner bait in early July.

The lighter spool starts up easier. Just back off the umph a little bit. A nice easy roll cast will get better results than horsing it.