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When I worked at Cabela's we'd do demos dragging the hot new bait back and forth in front of the fish through the glass. The bass would crowd and snap at the bait on the other side of the glass and we'd sell out of that color bait almost without fail. Thing is, you could do the same thing with a bell sinker and the fish reacted the same.

I wonder if they make a laser in pumpkin .

It's a good bait and has been a fairly popular subject lately.

I use firetiger in stained to dirty water most of the time. Don't get too hung up on color. The right bait in the right place at the right time is going to be a much bigger factor than the color of bait you're throwing. I'd highly suggest keeping it simple while you're learning.

Alphas SV 105. Spool it up with some 8 or 10 # line and let the shakey heads start flying. It is a superb casting reel that fits the "small" reel profile in terms of frame size, weight, and ability to cast lighter to normal sized baits. Plus the reel is forgiving for a new user but able to get some really nice distance when dialed in.

So I sell mostly Lew's and Shimano at work. I've found, from listening to customers and personal experience that Shimano is the best. But only if you are spending over $200. If you want to spend $100, the Speed Spool is the way to go. Lew's makes the best under $200, and Shimano makes the best over $200.

You could get by almost any situation that calls for a jig if you have green pumpkin and black and blue, but where's the fun in that?

Been a terrific week on The Delaware, wading every day, fishing flats in Bucks County. Thought I'd include a few of my better fish from this week thus far. Smallies have been very active under mid day bluebird skies. Best numbers have been on soft paddletail swimbaits on a light weighted hook. During overcast periods or when the wind has made finesse less effective, walking baits have gotten big blow ups worked nearly as fast as I can retrieve on a 7:1 baitcaster. Short strikes or slaps mean I go into hyper-speed and burn, burn, burn - they come back for it ticked off. First cast of the day on Tuesday, I just about jumped outta my shoes when this channel cat whacked my swimbait. Fun fight on 6lb fluoro. Caught several more channels on swimbaits while casting for smallies. Striper have been blistering walking baits on breaklines beside flats all week. I like the Strike King Sexy Dawg, again - fast as I can burn it. Lots on large paddletails and four on a Lucky Craft Pointer 100sp, always on the pause. All fish released as always. Hope you guys are hammering them wherever you’re at!

It's almost to the point that we need a pinned WP thread

I have nothing to add to this topic except that I want a pet bass!

pretty disappointed. I wanted to see a pic of the 3lb crappie!

Here's my go to. Custom crappie color from a small company I've been working with and an easy shiner trailer.

abu garcia's old 1600 promax or black max.they haven't been made in 20 years but I still have 6 that I use every time I fish. bulletproof. not the lightest thing, but really not heavy. can throw 8 lb. mono with one all day long.

I don't fly fish but, my fishing partner does. I attended an annual event in Annapolis, MD called TIEFEST. The lengendary Lefty Kreh was there doing a talk and casting demonstrations. 92 years old. These fly fisherman have a passion for this fishing "art" I know a number of customers that love to fly fish for bass and it dawned on me that on BR, fly fishing for bass is never really mentioned. Do any of you fly fish for bass?

A buddy of mine has a koi pond in which he added a keeper bass to a few years ago. The fish has grown well, is near 4 lbs and and because of the ponds orientation to the sun, is currently in full autumn mode of eating everything he (she) can get his (her) mouth on. Last week, I watched as 10 large goldfish were devoured as soon as they entered the water - the feedbag is on!! So I was over at his place this afternoon and saw something I had never seen before. From inside the house, my friend shot a laser pointer through the slider window onto a rock in the pond in about 6 inches of water. Immediately the bass shot across the pond striking at the red light. The fish didn't just mosey over to inspect the light, it was in full on attack mode splashing water out of the pond. When he moved the light to another position, the bass attacked it there. He only did it for a minute or so, he didn't want the fish to possibly injure itself trying to eat something that wasn't there. I don't think this experience is useful as to lure selection, unless I decided to throw a super miniaturized Ned Rig in red. Also, while this could be useful to help locate fish that are either cruising or spread out on an area like a shallow flat, I think a fish aggressive to show itself like this would also strike most of the presentations we throw. What I did learn is how aggressive a feeding bass can be and that they will often try to eat something before they figure out what it is.

for something to reflect as white it must be struck with all wavelengths of light, something that probably will not happen in most fishing waters especially at any depth. Fire tiger color typically uses greens and purples two of the shortest wavelength colors that the human eye can see and will have the best opportunity to reflect their color at depth.

Nice fresh salmon from the weekend.

When it comes to 8 month old mushelle... you ARE the father!.. And the mother. Easy to understand the morel of the story.

Only managed one decent picture worthy fish yesterday. I caught her on a Rapala Shadow Rap Deep in the molten copper color.

Unless you are a bass looking at colors the rest of us humans don't know what colors look like to a bass. Color preferences can and do change hourly on some lakes and don't seem to matter on other lakes, both with similar water clarity. What matters is what works and to determine that it's a trail and error process. KIS keep it simple sounds like the best concept until it doesn't work. Hard baits like crank baits are not easy to keep it simple. You want a colors similar to the primary baitfish where you fish like Threadfin Shad, baby bass, fire tiger that represents perch and a crawdad color. Soft plastics are another story and can represent a wider variety of critters so more choices that seem to never end. Popular soft plastics are green pumpkin with red flake, black with blue flake, dark purple with green flake, amber or oxblood with red flake and smoke with black-silver-gold flake covers most conditions. Spinner baits and chatter baits you can get by with white/chartruese with gold and silver blades. Surface lures bone works nearly everywhere. Don't get too hung up on water clarity the bass find a way to eat prey that are nearly camouflage to their surrounds, the bass will find your lure, getting them to strike it is another matter. Tom

Fly fishing for bass is great. Not as difficult as trout in my opinion. I spent 5 days fishing streams in north Georgia earlier this year. Threw thousands of casts to catch 5 rainbows and would do it again in a heartbeat. Give it a shot brother. Very satifying to catch a fish on the fly.

What I can't believe is that on a FISHING site nobody plays GO FISH!!!

That's it right there! We make color choices based on what we like! Fire Tiger works in off colored water because that's what we throw in off colored water. We claim Fire Tiger works because it represents Bluegill...do Bluegill not live in clear water?

I think what people misinterpret about deep water is bass don't follow the bottom to move out into "deeper" water, they stay at whatever depth thier air ladders are adjusted to neutral bouyancy and suspend over deep water. Bass have only a few choices to seek sanctuary, hide under cover or suspend over deep water. Hiding along a shoreline is risk from predators like Ospery, Eagles or great blue herons, shoreline animals and man. If the bass is acclimated to 8' depth in a small lake it can suspend at that depth safely and move into shallower water easily or go deeper if needed. 8' depth is wherecI would start looking for bigger bass in small lakes. Tom

Especially in small waters I'd all but ignore the idea that "deepest water is the home of the fish". Not true in probably the majority of my small waters. Two things draw bass during most of the year: cover and food. Cover offers both security and food. Food is not available or most vulnerable everywhere. There's other stuff -always- but these are primary. The annual exceptions are the spawn where substrate and environmental stability take precedence, and during winter when temperature stability takes a front seat, esp during periods of extreme weather. One part of your description stands out for me: "a lot of tall trees along shore". In small waters, shoreline vegetation -the taller the better- act as security cover as surely as weed walls and drop-offs.

Spent about 14 hours with my new rod in the kayak this weekend. I absolutely love it. It is exactly what I was looking for. Was able to sling a 1/16oz head a good distance -- maneuver the bait through the jungle and then manage to work this guy out from lily pads and hydrilla without too much trouble.....firm finesse...

True but just like Dick's sporting goods Cabela's could never order the right product for us bass fishermen they always ordered the junk stuff and ran out of the good stuff. at least bass pro they were always full. But I really miss northern bass supply.

I certainly am Shimmy. My personal Quest for a Home State Six Pound Plus Smallie continues. Sadly, I think I actually had her on & up to the boat 2nd week of September, only to have her come unpinned boatside & break my heart. Did offer optimism that they are there and showed me where she at least visited to eat occasionally. As for my favorite Quiver - (good word btw) It changes as the water temps continue to drop. A Tube, A Blade Bait & maybe even a U-Rig. Honorable mention may go to a spybait and a small swimbait. The next 3 or 4 weeks are going to see me fishing hard but regardless of the results - enjoying every minute of it. A-Jay

Hold em, 5 or 7 Card Stud and/or Draw, and Spades. We would play hold em every other weekend with a $20 buyin and a $10 buy back till midnight. We would start about 8pm with loads of whisky and usually 10 to 15 players. I had friends crashed out all over the place. Was great fun when your young.

Got out both days this past weekend on Conesus. Fishing, for me, was pretty slow. Nothing doing on top water, which had been pretty reliable the last few weekends, and almost nothing on moving baits (two pike bite offs). I did have some luck bouncing a jig and pig on the bottom, including this guy, my new personal best at 5.95LBs. The scale bounced on 5.99 a couple of times before settling at 5.95. Would've loved for her to go 6, but haven't cracked that yet.

I've been having success on spinnerbaits, shallow cranks, jerk baits, and buzzbaits. The baits that I was killing them on just a month ago - senkos (both T-rigged and wacky), soft swimbaits, Ned rig, Neko rig - have completely died.

One of my favorites and they usually have a great hook up ratio because of the compact size. A 3/0 EWG with a 1/4oz weight is how I fish them.

I once had rod break look like that. I'd stepped on it prior to the break.

3/0 EWG Offset Worm Hook, T-rigged with a 1/4 oz bullet weight unpegged. Or as a trailer for swim jigs:

Just make sure everything on the back of them is either a keitech swing impact fat or a zoom ultravibe speed craw!

Say what y'all want but you'll be hard pressed to beat Rat-L-Trap. More colors, more sizes, & more models

Yes ~ Where & How your jig is presented will almost always trump color. A-Jay

Not sure how many of you fish these waters--I'm new to the forums--but figured I'd give a quick report on my last float trip down this gorgeous river. We put in about 10 miles north of Port Jervis, NY--a stretch of river that gets very little traffic. Very low water conditions = smallies concentrated along the many rock ledges that line the right side of the river (looking downstream). Caught about 20 bass in four hours, which is frankly a SLOW bite in this river. Usually I get 90% of my fish on Gitzit or Zoom coffee tubes, but this day they turned their noses at those offerings; all they wanted was 4" Senkos wacky rigged. (By the way, VMC weedless wacky hooks had BAD hookup ratio. Switched to Gammy octopus hooks, not weedless, and stuck and landed lots more fish, with very few snags.) None of the fish were very big: 1-2 lbers. All the big boys (girls!?) were visibly stacked on the bottom in deeper drop offs, but I couldn't seem to get my tubes down to them....jig weight (1/8 oz) too light I guess. Switched to a jig/craw combo (1/4) but that didn't get down there either. Current I guess. (I'm not that experienced with river fishing--my third or fourth trip ever--so I look forward to learning more techniques as I get more time on the river. ) A bonus on the day: saw a few bald eagles directly overhead. Awesome birds...wingspan had to be nearly 8 feet across. Had no idea how frigging big those birds are! Pretty effing awesome day.

must be a west coast bait !! don't know if you guys fish stripers , but most guys that do , that's a go to bait ..

Nope. The rod is IM6 so not the most sensitive, but should be very durable. The reel has an aluminum frame and brass gears. I think you should buy your father-in-law a beer......................................or two. I am going to assume this is the combo you have. http://www.sears.com/browning-95674600-fishing-stalker-gold-rod-and-reel/p-SPM7686270603

Thanks! I will take you up on that offer.

Hearts, spades, and gin.

Jon, those buzz baitis look pretty good for snakehead. I have been searching for quite awhile in thailand. It just a balsa wood equit with buzz blade in the front. It can float when stop but makeing a lot of noise when retrieve. on the other hand, I already have a plan to DIY my own buzzbait just like that.

Dang it!! DO NOT RUIN my fantasy, OK. Please let me enjoy it for ONE FRICKIN' DAY!!!

I prefer vanilla over chocolate so does that make it better....

Be very careful, that boat does not have that wide a bottom. This will make it very unstable to stand up on a raised deck. That is why you are not finding anyone else who has done it. I suggest you enjoy it as it is. If you want a boat wide enough to safely do it, trade it in on a wider bass boat that is already done or a extra wide v mod jon, most of them already have a front raised deck.

I use regular old 12# CXX, a graphite (not a glass cranking stick!) medium fast or MH fast rod &' or longer, and a very high speed reel. The best baits are lipless. A floating, billed diver, is different, you kill the retrieve when you feel it first encounter weeds. For a lipless, as soon as you feel it encounter weeds, You snap a hookset while reeling fast. Then return the rod to your normal retrieve position. It shouldn't be pointed at the bait, but it shouldn't be perpendicular either. Just enough to get a good feel for what the bait is doing. This is why you want to use a graphite stick. There is also the "right" grass for this. It's never going to work for weeds that are at or just inches below the surface - a spinnerbait or surface/wake bait is a better tool for this. Lastly, practice! You'll get it.

Just got back yesterday from two weeks in the ADKs spent in the Blue Mountain lake area. Been going up there every year for the past ten years or so and this was the best year. Caught from 20 to 30 each day, casting mostly toward shore. In the deeper lakes, I was using a shakey head set up or weightless t rigged senko type worms, the 4" size worked the best. In the shallower lake, I had good luck using a booyah frog with a trailer hook. This was the first time using this technique for me and it was a lot of fun. I have attached a few pictures . Most fish were around 2#s, some were over 3. I don't use a scale. All fish were released right after landing. The one on the dock was caught right next to it so I set it there for a better picture, as it is hard to take a picture sitting in my hybrid canoe (Hornbeck), and this was a good size fish, so easier to take a picture that way.

Get your phone out, snap pics, and contact the authorities. Crap like that cannot go unpunished.