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I really like the fall bass fishing season. When it's on, it's such a great time to get on both numbers and size; some Real Gorillas too. But in my excitement I often fish presentations that the bass aren't quite ready to get on. So, I'll struggle a while until the deal I'm going with is right. Sort of dumb when I think about it. This excerpt from a recent article by B.A.S.S. Elite Tournament Pro Greg Hackney, has me paying a little bit more attention to what's going on. It was dated 01 Sept 2016. "I’ve been reading about fall, and how it’s just around the corner. That might be true but here’s the deal: It’s not fall yet. It’s the end of summer. That’s not the same thing, not even close. These are what I call the blah days. It’s the end of summer. That means the air is starting to cool, but not by much. The days are getting shorter, but only by a few minutes. The water temperatures are high, but levels are mostly low. The fish are scattered and aren’t doing much of anything. This is typically the time of the year when you’ll catch less weight than at any other time. The late summer approach that I’ve developed over the years is to fish with smaller lures and to target isolated pieces of cover. I try to catch numbers rather than big fish. My thinking is that if I can get enough of them into the boat some of them will be respectable. Typically I throw baits like a 1/8-ounce buzzbait, a tiny spinnerbait or a Strike King 1.0 crankbait. Any of them will come pretty close to what they’re eating. Despite what you hear and read, most of the shad and other baitfish at this time of the year are small. If they were born in April or May, they just don’t get that big by August and September. I do flip and pitch some. My first, and usually my only, choice is a 4-inch tube weighted with a 3/16 or 1/4-ounce sinker. I want something that’s about the right size and not too intrusive. That’s the thing about late summer. Most of the bass are not aggressive right now. They’ll eat something if it looks good, but they won’t go to any great lengths to get it. You have to go slow and easy to catch them. In another month or so when things really start to change that won’t be the case." Makes perfect sense to me, especially considering what has worked and not worked for me the past couple of weeks. A-Jay

And all I can say is I am beyond pleased! I'm not so sure I want to use them, as they're literal works of art! They fit perfectly into a Plano 3700 Spinnerbait box. I went a little nuts and ordered a bunch of colors. Pictures truly don't do these frogs justice. Some of the finishes are supposed to represent Brazilian poisonous frogs, there are also some that represent local varieties as well. Then there's the Pinkie Frog, which I asked him to make one specifically for my wife. They are all exceptionally well made! As they are all hand made, I sent Ken a picture of my boat, he made a frog to match!

I may be old school, or maybe just old, but when speaking of beer, good and light do not belong in the same sentence.

Thanks, I have not bought a house since 1999 and things have changed a lot. Will be going from a small townhouse in the middle of way to many people, to a custom cape cod on 6 acres with a 3 stall horse barn with very few people around. Cannot wait to sit on the porch in the morning with a cup of coffee and listen to nothing....

Hi. My name is Robert and I have a problem. ?

2017 nitro

-when you spend half of your work-day on bassresource.com. -when you read the transcript on fishing videos because you have to have the volume off on your computer or your boss will yell at you to get back to work.

A few years ago, after watching Denny Brauer and his son Chad's tv show "Ardent Bass Battles" my dad and I both got the idea to do the same thing with one another for fun. For those not familiar with the show, Denny and his son Chad would fish against one another for a given amount of time. At the end they would weigh in what they caught just like a normal tournament. Their show was sponsored by Ardent because they were both sponored by them. Since my dad and I both run Ranger's we decided to give ours and official title of the Ranger Bass Battles. We're always fishing with one another, so it's nice to fish against one another every once in a while. We did make a few changes to the original format. We made it into a small tournament series where we go head to head the best out of 5. The amount of time we fish in each battle isn't always equal as we just try to fit them in after our regular tournament season. The rules stay the same though as we each try to search out a 5 bass limit in our allotted amount of time. Round one took place on Miller Dam, a 2366 acre impoundment located in Taylor county WI. In it's hay day during the mid 90's it was regarded as one of the best bass lakes in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, due to it's shallow nature, our harsh Wisconsin winter, the introduction of invasive species, and bass loosing importance with the WI DNR it has suffered greatly. After a huge winter kill in the spring of 2012 it hit an all-time low, but it has slowly been making a comeback. Our family cabin is located on this lake, which has given us both a ton of experience on this lake so we are pretty evenly matched. When all was said and done, dad had landed 8 bass and two northerns and I had only put 5 in the boat 3 of which were keepers. As it turns out none of dad's made it into the livewell. The winning pattern was fishing cribs in 8-14' with a jig. I had made a quick pass through with a crankbait as you can usually pick off one or two with that even on a slow day, but that particular evening you had to physically bump the cribs with a jig and then hop it slightly. It produced some nice quality fish. I wish there were a few more cribs to try, but in the end it was enough to get the job done. Bass Battle Round 1 Results Dad - 0 fish for 0 lbs Me - 3 fish for 9 lbs 3 oz Not the greatest picture, my 91 year old grandma doesn't have the greatest cell phone photography skills but I give her credit for giving it a shot!

Couple rods that left the shop last month. 3S68MXF-F acrylic butt grip and winding check Blue burl cork grip. Sage One 10' 5wt Spalted maple fighting butt and reel seat insert (finished with Tru-oil and polished to 12k micromesh) Lemke solid titanium seat hardware.

You don't need to go much bigger - the boat doesn't weigh a ton, but you want some measure of control.

Not bad for a Yankee!

Definitely, The Rig.

Ended up a solo trip so decided to give Gardner a chance. I spent a lot of time on the trolling motor exploring and "junk fishing with intent"- ended up finding fish in and around where coontail patches met other cover with square bills and senkos. In retrospect I probably needed to slow down and fish those spots harder with a senko split shot/swimming senko. Really wanted to find fish on a buzzbait, but only caught one short on a buzz. Given the weather and it being a new lake to me, it was very hard to put down a winding bait.WT ~78-79.

Rapala Countdown CD7 1/4oz black/silver. This bait is a work-horse.

Light beer is the equivalent of mild hot sauce. It makes no sense to me.

You can barely spell, but Yamamoto and Gamakatsu are no problem.

Spent the week on HHI again and got out with my guide buddy, as I tend to do The wind made it tricky to get to the good tarpon spots so we chose Plan B, which was targeting schools of monster Jack Crevalles with surface presentations. I'd caught Jacks before but not like this. Someone really needs to explain to my why people look down on this fish. They roam in voracious packs, they eat both live bait and artificials, you can target them on light tackle, watching them eat is an adrenaline rush, and they fight like crazy. What's not to like? And it's much cheaper to target these guys than to fly halfway around the world to target Giant Trevally We went 3 for 4 after I pulled the hook on one of them. The big boy was 33 lbs, the other two were 24-25 lbs each. Not a bad consolation prize after the silver king didn't cooperate!

I like a green pumpkin chatterbait in that color water. Also you will probably find very healthy fish if the water has that color to it

I'm from KY, my favorite fall month is November. The rec boats are gone....a lot of guys are hunting and the fishing is usually on fire until December.

Dan is an old Indy area native who grew up just a couple miles from me. Used to read about him in the local paper all the time. He helped form one of the earliest bass clubs in the area, the Indianapolis Bassmasters. Another really large private collection belongs to a man named Karl White. His personal collection is valued around $4 million and includes some old boats in addition to old lures. Wife and I just got back from a visit to the Branson area where he recently opened up a museum in order to showcase his collection and make it available to the public (for a fee). It's called the "History of Fishing Museum" and you can Google up a lot of info on it easily. Worth visiting if you're ever in the area. -T9

There is a fellow from the Chicago area named Dan Basore who has one of the worlds largest fishing lure collections. It requires a warehouse to store it all. Dan has a large collection of antique lures some of which date back several hundred years. He often has a large display of the antique lures at many of the large outdoor shows every year. Back in the day, Dan was one of the original fishermen on the BassMaster Trail having been invited to join by Ray Scott himself.

I hear ya on that. Cant stay away from this forum. I have a tough time not thinking about fishing, and looking online for the next small hidden gem of a pond holding a big ol girl. Goes to show how great this forum is and how popular it is with the constant posting of new comments. Its a blessing and a curse at the same time. it it were slower and not so informative we would spend less time on here. Thankfully even during the busy times, people still come on here spreading their knowledge. Thats priceless in my book!

t-rigged worm,punchin rig,bomber long-a jerkbait. not in that order.

Excellent video. Thanks for re-posting that, I needed that!

Your tow vehicle will last longer (brakes, transmission, not to mention fuel economy) if you are towing comfortably in it's weght range vs maxing it out.

Joe, it's about 9", if memory serves. And, this is a light bait rod. These light power rods are where the spiral wrap shines, in my opinion. To see why I say that, take your lightest power rod, with reel mounted, and line running through all the guides like you're getting ready to tie on a bait. Put the butt of the rod in something to hold it, and use the line to flex the rod, just like a fish would. Take it to 90 degrees, like a big fish would. You will see the tip guide has twisted around so it is on the bottom. the blank will be twisted 180 degrees at the tip. You can also see guides at various degrees of rotation, depending on how far from the tip they are located. Visual proof of what happens when a rod is under load, with the guides on top. The blank twists. This torque on the wrist really doesn't bother me. Maybe it will as I age. What bothers me is the idea of extra wear and tear on the blank due to the twist. This is the reason I spiral wrap my rods. Particularly my lighter power rods.

Strike king and Stanley usually does ok off me this time of year. The SK bitsy bug jig and Stanley's 1/8 oz vibrashaft wedge spinnerbait are staples for me. I'll "start" by buying a dozen or 2 of each, and "tweak" them the way I do. Handtie on the custom skirts I painstakingly make 1 strand at a time, touch up the hook by bending it upward just a touch, and sharpen it to the point its almost surgical. clean up the weedguard on the jig (no paint allowed ty Mark B.) then acquire the proper color trailers for both. Usually zooms salty chunk jr for the jig, which I trim to give a smaller profile,..or a 101 pork rind (again trimmed), and a 3 inch curly tail grub for the tiny spinnerbait. These 2 and a certain 1/8 ounce Yo-zuri pins minnow are my main baits for this "tough" time of year. But, using them you wouldnt think it is a "tough" time. It takes light (8 or 10#) line, and a 6'6" or 7' med lite spinning rod to throw the spinnerbait and minnow. And I use a old 5'9"shimano med heavy xl spinning rod paired with a old semytre 4000 reel spooled with stren 12# for the jig. And do they work? OMG! you'd think it was late fall, and your tossing "the magic lure" while they're feeding up for the freeze. Smallies really go bananas for them, but buckets like them too. These are lures that those "blah days"??? I use to put some fish in the boat. Its taken a awful long time for me to come up with these gems. They kick butt up here, when nothing else seems to work, and I know its the size of the smelt/shad/herring right now thats the key. But, I cant help but wish I had them when I was tourney angler. I know things would be different, as it was those "tough" days back then that really stumped me, and forced these solutions. I got tired of being a "contributor" and sought out articles on this time of year and read, and read, and read.... Everything pointed towards smaller offerings so I did so, and these are what I ended up with. Did my grub/jighead work? yeah but sketchy like, I wasnt cashing any checks with it. But by the time I found these 3 I was done with tournies. This "blah days" scenerio seems to be a fickle thing though. Some years its early, some late, some even seemingly non-existent. Maybe its a yankee thing as our temps are generally cooler than say Texas, or Florida. And the upper atmospheres jet stream plays a varing "game" with us up here. But I imagine that you southern anglers are faced with this as well, just maybe in a different manner, like maybe a longer period, or a higher degree of figuring out those finicky bass. I cant be sure as I only fished wilson and pickwick one spring. So, I can only imagine what you deal with this time of year. Some year I will get down there to fish the fall season, and I actually look forward to it. But this year? I will hopefully get out on the boat and be fishing these three "light solutions". Its a gratifying feeling when you end your day, and at the ramp you get that famous question. "How'd ya do?",... years ago?,..I learned to just say "I did ok,.you?" as I didnt want to give away my secrets. But nowadays?,... I'd just as soon offer them to you all here, they have done good by me, and hopefully one of them may just turn someone's "tough day" into a day to remember. And trust me, when you're out all day, burnt out from the sun, exhausted from tossing huge deep diving cranks. Stumped by a few hits, but no takes. Switching over to these lighter options, is a godsend. But keep in mind,..it takes "Light Line" no hauling them over the gunnel type fishing. Much like the dog days finesse fishing, but different

A little late with this report but the night bite was on again last weekend. Same pattern as before main lake points near deep water. If you find some brush piles or structure on these points in 15' - 25' there will be fish there. Most fish caught on ole monster worms in black or june bug/ red flake. Caught several bass with two biggest weighing 5-1/4 and 5-3/4. A few four pound plus as well. I think the day time bite will start improving big time real soon. They are jammed up pretty good right now though in 20 -25 feet in some big schools. Just have to do a ton of graphing to find them.

I just purchased a bluetooth remote shutter button for my phone. I plan on making a monopod to go in my rear seat post to hold my phone while fishing alone! Jeff

You will need to mount the tripod in a place where you can leave it set up the whole time you are fishing. If you have to get it out, and set it up every time you want to use it, your fish will be dead by the time you get your photo. Practice using it at home so you'll know what to do to get good shots quickly. I have a selfie stick mounted on a Ram mount on my boat that I leave my camera attached to all the time. All I do is turn the camera on and hit the auto time button. I know where to stand to get the best shot.

Just a basic 14 footer with a 7.5hp and trolling motor, but she gets the job done. I catch the same fish in my uncle's $20,000 boat lol.

Nice start for the Broncos. Cam still can't play right when pressured. He did not get better.

I can't catch bass worth a darn here: ...but I can catch some trout that'll stop your heart... a

A long time ago...early 80s...I foul hooked a king salmon on Lake Michigan that went about 18 1/2 lbs...about dead center in its side...it was a better fight than a 50" musky, or a 15 pound bass...or about anything we can imagine...it was a solid 40 minute battle (I was on shore, not in a charter boat)...that ran me down to seeing my spool on a saltwater spinning rig twice....and with 30 years perspective...I'd have rather had a short fight where I let it go... ...but it sure was tasty smoked...

Hey Catt, 'interesting that the guys with decades of first hand experience and knowledge have such different opinions than the guys "that have heard' or 'have read". I find that comical. I have no axe to grind here and feel you don't either. Oh well, to each his own. Same thing applies to folks from out of state coming here to fish. Sorry, but things are a little different here in Florida and the techniques used out of state, while they will work, are no where near as effective as the local techniques. These guys come here, use their home water techniques, and just don't catch very much. Duh ! Does the same happen in Lousiana ? If someone were to ask a question about ice fishing I would be the last person to offer advice, telling folks what I had heard or read ! I visit several bass fishing forums on a regular basis and this site seems to have more "foreign" experts than the others. Puzzles me. Have often wondered which advice the original poster eventually followed. Oh well.

That was hard

Agreed. Good article. You know... water temps play a big role in "why it's not fall yet". In my mind, water temps nearly define "fall". The last four vids I've cut are about this very thing. "Fall" has started a bit early for me this year with a stretch of back-to-back downright chilly cold fronts. Most years summer just hangs on, pretty much as Hackney describes: hot and low water, resulting in some rather long days on the water. This past month, it's been wonderful here. Same fish as #3 ^^

I tow my Ranger RT178 with a 2010 Ford Escape V6 and it works OK but I will be upgrading to a full size truck in the next month here. I am sick of just trying to pull around the boat with a smaller SUV. It works fine but having a larger size vehicle with a bigger engine would make it so much easier. Hardcore Bassin, I would say that you CAN do it with the Patriot but why would you want to? Don't undersize yourself. Get something big enough and something that you don't have to put any doubts in there about.

Late summer the bait fish can still be small so my favorite drop shot soft plastic is Basstrix Bait Fry and Flashtrix minnows nose hooked. Tom

Anything that imitates a shad I will be throwing my A-rig alot in october

Fall transition everything can work. My go to lure year around is a jig so it's always tied on. Structure spoons and line thru tail spins are my preferred shad school lures. Swimbaits and deep diving crank baits get a lot work. Always fishing soft plastic worms so it's tied. Lots of stuff to choose from, don't get into a rut, be versitile! Tom

Youre driving down a gravel road and notice a culvert in an irrigation ditch . Hmm ,, you wonder. You pull over , select a rod and reel hanging from the rod rack inside your van , tie on a jg n pig and catch and proceed to catch a 7 lber .

Back when I played at golf, the resulting two shots described, all too often ended up looking the same.

You know, quite a bit of people use them interchangeably or use them in place of spinnerbaits, but for me personally I will use a Chatterbait when I want more vibration over flash (IE: stained water). There are others situations as well, (such as crawling, bouncing, ripping, etc. it off the bottom) but for me vibration over flash is the primary reason. Just like spinner baits, its a good idea to have a variety of blade colors and use them interchangeably (brighter blades for more flash, dark blades for a more stealthy approach).

This may help ~ http://www.jeep.com/en/jeep-capabilities/towing/#Patriot3Tab* This chart is meant to serve as a quick and easy reference guide on how to properly equip your Jeep vehicle for towing. For specific details, discuss your plans with your Jeep dealer, who will help you select the right equipment to meet your specifications. A-Jay

I fish it shallow, deep, from shore and on a boat. I prefer to be stationary when fishing the drop shot but when on a boat a slow drift can be a killer way to fish it. I keep it simple. I cast it out and let it hit bottom on a slack line. I then take up line until im still slack but one more turn would start moving the bait. I then shake the rod tip real good for a tiny bit, let it stop for a second or 2 or 10 and then slowly drag it and repeat. A lot of fish hit it right after you stop shaking and pause or you feel them on when you go to drag it. Shake the slack, if you feel weight that means you're moving the sinker, sometimes they'll go for it being moved real aggressively(like bed fish) but usually it's a real subtle presentation that gets bit the best for me.

There's a local brewery, Sante Adairius Rustic Ales, that makes some exceptional 'lighter' beers. Unfortunately, you pretty much have to be a local to buy them as they usually sell out of all of their offerings. If you're ever in the Santa Cruz, CA area and are a beer snob, it is a MUST to try. Oh and by the way it's palate, not pallet....

Fly line means no added weight just the hook, common term when fly lining live bait, no apology needed. Using a single tail grub like GYCB 4" on a plain 1/8-1/4 ball or dart head jig is a good lure for fall bass feeding on Shad. Tom

I married my high school sweetheart.

You have more pics of bass than family in your phone.