Leaderboard

I know this isn't as big as some of you guys, but it's my PB at 6.74 lbs. I think it turned out awesome, opinions welcome..

Caught my personal best this weekend thanks to the help I got on this forum. Been fishing my entire life but for trout and salmon. Got some advice on here about bass fishing and tackle. Landed this 4.1 pound beautiful fish on Sunday morning. Caught her with a Yum Dinger Bama Magic color rigged whacky style. Thank you guys for being so welcoming to a newbie!

Caught about thirty today with seven over 15 inches . Nothing huge . This was the best one caught on an 8 inch jelly Worm .

First time he opened his eyes! My little guy is doing better and better. I really appreciate all the kind words and thoughts. He's a spitfire and a lady killer already

The art of feeling a worm/jig bite is a fine combination of watching your line and feeling for unnatural sensations of what your lure shouldn’t feel like. Sometimes you will feel that classic “Tap”, sometimes you’ll only see line movement, sometimes your line will simply go slack, but sometimes there will only be a feeling of heaviness that is almost like your lure will not move. The bites where the bass moves after inhaling your lure are the easy ones to feel because there is line movement, the bites where the bass simply inhales your lure and just sits there are the hardest to feel. Feeling a worm/jig bite requires keeping a certain amount of tension on your line while at the same time keeping a certain amount of slackness in your line. To the average angler this makes no sense at all but the worm/jig angler it makes total sense. Maintain contact with your lure at all times, allow the lure to free-fall unrestricted, but without letting slack form in the line; follow your lures down with your rod tip. Pay close attention to the depth you're fishing, any sudden change in the amount of line you're using could mean you’ve been bit. For instance, if you're fishing 6 feet of water and the lure suddenly stops at the 3 depth, it's possible a bass has taken the lure. If you're fishing 3 feet of water and 6 feet of line sinks chances are good a bass is traveling with the lure. This is extremely true on the initial drop and no line movement maybe noticed. What I’ll use to help my students is to take them out night fishing during a new moon!

A T-rigged Strike King Rage Twin Tail Menace Grub came through for me again today. The fish were aggressive this evening, after today's cooling, aerating downpour.

Well, I may have only caught one bass but i'm proud of myself. I caught it on a frog i never used before, on mono line i never used before and i'm still new to bait casting. I had my ups and downs with bait casting and even wanted to give up but i stuck with it. A few bird nest here and there but not as bad as before and i can throw as far as i could with my spinning rig and no bird nest. Improvement feels great. My sister caught a bass, some rainbows and sunfish and even a catfish on real worms, I wanted to keep using my frog lol.

There was an interesting bit on BassLive Friday afternoon with Jason Christie. Jason had a small limit and came upon a grassy area and he was flipping it. He culled out his whole livewell in a matter of 15 minutes in this one area. They commented that they noticed he was using a very heavy sinker in some not so heavy grass. So the cameraman asked Christie what size sinker he was using and why so big? Jason's response was along the lines of "I'm using straight braid right now, so I'm using a 1.25oz tungsten sinker so that the fall rate is so fast that the fish don't even have time to focus on the braid in the water. They're just going to see this bait falling so quickly that they react to it and bite."

Three Tap Theory as explained to me by Shaw Grigsby The first tap the bass has inhaled your lure The second tap the bass has expelled your lure The third tap is me tapping you on the shoulder asking way you didn't set hook!

I'm still stuck in the 50s. My newest reel is over 35 years old and several of mine are over 60 years old and they still work like new. I grew up at my grandfather's Three Rivers Boat Dock & Resturant at the confluence of the Holston, French Broad and Tennessee Rivers in Knoxville, TN back in the 50s and 60s. Seemed like most everyone used Mitchell's back in those days. These are the Mitchell's that I've inherited and purchased and salvaged from the garbage dump over the years. My first reel was an Airex Bache Brown Model 3 that my grandpa gave me. I didn't get a Mitchell 300 until about 1960 when I saved up enough money to buy one. This is a picture of me and my old half bail Airex back in '57. Boat races at Three Rivers Boat Dock summer of 1959.

Fished LaCygne Sunday- I started up lake and noticed quite a few boats in the river section. I pitched flooded brush and water willows for a while ending up with one fish about 2lbs. Came back down lake and picked up a shakeyhead. I found a couple nice fish over 20". All in all, spent about 7 hours on the lake for five bites one of which was a drum, one of which was a dink. A few good ones make everything better. -Jared

I always use a leader when possible, theres no downside and you don't have to worry about whether your leader matters or not

Just one more cast.... (2 hours later) Just one more cast.....

I use 2 retrieves when fishing a Texas Rig, letting the bass tell me which the prefer on a given day. The first is what A-Jay described & this one that was taught to me by Larry Nixon. Short Stroking! After my lure has sat on the bottom for 20-30 seconds I'll stroke upwards 2-3', let it fall back down, I do this 3 times quickly before pausing for 20-30 seconds. I do this all the way back to the boat. If I'm casting in 10' of water or less the height of the strokes are not as high. When a bass attacks a school of shad, minnows, perch, ect, does it try to run down the healthiest, fastest, the one out front? No it targets the slowest, the one swimming erratically, the one drawing attention to itself. When a crawfish senses danger does it nonchalantly walk away? No it makes 3 quick hops up off the bottom, pauses briefly, and makes 3 more quick hops until it feels it's reached a safe distance. I want my lure to draw the bass's attention; I want that bass to say "I can catch that one!".

Hello and Welcome to Bass Resource ~ Hooksets are free so - I say get your money's worth whenever the mood strikes you. Smaller than bass fish, like panfish, are notorious for 'tasting' soft plastics with little chance of getting hooked. Finally you mentioned two taps - if it were indeed a bass, the first one might have been the fish picking up the bait and the second one was the fish rejecting the bait. If @Catt had been fishing with you, there would have been a Third tap. A-Jay

Most excellent explanation On any given day, almost any of the suggestions given so far work. I've never thought of a Texas rigged worm as a "Reaction" bait, so I don't routinely fish it like one. However, one could look at it from the stand point of the Predator & Prey relationship. Most anything a bass eats is probably trying really hard to avoid that scenario. So doing anything that would draw attention to itself is undesirable and could lead to it's demise. Rather than hopping & popping the bait, there is a time & place where sneaking the bait along every so gingerly works well. Try to move it while imagining that your actually attempting to toss your bait out there and get it back without getting bit. Sounds kind of backwards I know but the bait is in the bass's world, and she knows it's there; without the extra action. You'll find yourself fishing spots slower and more thoroughly while at the same time affording your bait the time it needs to work it's magic. On a side note - this is not a bad approach for a jig either. @A-Jay

I spent a good 8 hours at El Capitan Reservoir today and was rewarded with around 10 or 11 bass total. About 8 of em were off the Dirty Jig and Sweet Beaver combo. I fished the 3/8oz pitching jig in The Go To color with a Dirty Wizard colored Sweet Beaver and nailed em today. They were eating up these trailers. I think I'll start keep some smallie beavers as well. Can't believe how great of a day I had. These were all caught after 12pm, some were right after another.

I fish whenever I can, as long as I can. Quitting is never my choice, I don't even consider it until I have to leave.

I'd say on average I'm on the water at 6am, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. If I don't get a single bite, I'll usually leave around 12 unless there's some sort of weather change that I think could get things going. If I'm seeing some activity but just can't get on a good pattern I might stay until 2 or 3 before running myself out of things to try. If I'm catching them good I stay until they stop biting. I've had 15 hour days before. Of course this all assumes I have nothing else planned for the day. The only time weather is usually a deterrent is thunderstorms or when it gets really cold. This spring I had to call it quits because I didn't wear warm enough clothes, my forearms got chilled (it was also raining), and as a result, so did the nerves running to my hands. I decided it was enough when I had to use two hands to disengage the thumb bar....

I'll go for 4 hours without a bite (rare) before going home or to the next body of water. At that point I'm just wasting time. However, something I learned from an old timer, I'll move location after 30 minutes without a bite: "I know when to admit defeat."

Our haul this past week. Yes that is the Potomac, Virginia side. The rest are home in Jersey.

@Catt and everyone else on this one, this is such a good thread I'm going to print it out and give it to my son to read. Thanks for taking the time to give these explanations. I've learned a lot from this. The only thing I could add to @pauldconyers is that one thing that has surprised me as a rookie with plastics is that sometimes, the best presentation is the splashdown/bombing presentation. Forget the weight or use a very light one, cast that T-rigged worm as close as you can to a potential target: a stump, a tree, a break in those weeds. Let it flutter down like a stunned thing that just splashed down out of the sky, and then give it a very gentle pop or swim it up to surface. So often the slam comes within seconds of hitting the water when you happen to get the right target. I find this works well when the bass are active and you see signs of feeding (minnows or other creatures thrashing in the shallows) or groups of 'gills hanging out and breaking surface. So often a bass is lurking nearby and the splash and flutter causes an explosive reaction.

4 colors available Northland Tackle Double Barrel Buck Shot Rattle Claw $2.99 I like this kind they dont get tangled up in the skirt. I sure you can find them cheaper if you look

You're kidding right? There's a billion and one threads dealing with that since the beginning of braid. That has to be the most often cited reason for using a leader. I think in most cases, it's hooey. I use a leader for other reasons, or more often use straight whatever leader I'd use. In most cases, I feel like the "best of both worlds" argument is actually combining the worst traits of both.

The rivers in my area in Northern Illinois have been high and muddy for months. what we've been doing is staying home or fishing lakes. The fish generally find ways to get out of the current so they don't get moved to new territory. If you have to go out, find tributary creeks or streams where the water is clearer and not moving as fast. You could try flooded parking lots and areas where there is little to no flowing water. One of the main reasons we stay home, besides the fishing sucks, is that those flooded rivers are extremely dangerous.

I grew up fishing the super clear, grass filled lakes of upstate NY.. I've always been able to catch bass flipping in those conditions with straight braid (that's the way I fish 90% of the time). I think that Seth thinks it makes a difference but I also doubt he gave straight braid that much of a chance. I bet he saw clear water and thought he needed something the fish couldn't "see." I use 20lb fluoro quite a bit...it's more than visible.

Consider visiting the store to be more of an experience. I mean, where else are you going to go see a big fish tank for free? How about the kids who come who look at and touch all the mounts in the store? We just finished an event where we stocked our pond with trout and a couple of us helped kids catch their very first fish, taught kids about how important it is to clean up our environment, etc...on top of all that we had our pros in to give demos in the tank. As for Daiwa, I know you can purchase some baitcasting reels online from the website. Our in store stuff is limited to line counter reels that are really popular with the downrigging crowd which we also cater to. Our number one selling bait will always be either a Senko or the BPS Sinko simply because they're the easiest way to catch bass. Walleye season opens and its jigs and worm harnesses. I try to show and explain to customers that every lure has its place but people always think I'm there just to sell lures...the biggest part of my job is to educate people. Thing is, most people just don't want to learn...they just want to catch fish on every cast. Back to the Senko aisle I go.... I own a couple of Bass Pro rods and a couple of baitcaster reels and you know what? They're not that bad. I would compare them to the Tatula's that I own any day of the week. So yes, we sell an in house brand; so does every other major box store like a Cabela's, a Home Depot, etc. Don't knock them until you try it. As well, we sell a lot of Pflueger gear and some Mitchell reels as well which we sell a tonne of thanks to their very reliable reputation. And Ugly Stik...can't get enough of those Ugly Stiks!! As a part time job I enjoy it; I get to talk fishing and hopefully impart some knowledge to some youngsters which nobody did for me when I was their age. I see kids coming in with a lot of knowledge now and it's a vast difference from when I was growing up. That's all thanks to the internet. And one last thing...please don't flip out if we don't have something in stock. I get people who come in to the store and say "You're Bass Pro, you should have everything all the time!!" or "If my small store in *insert small town here* has it then you should!!!". Reality is that we get stuff in and it's usually sold out within 24-36 hours and then it takes a while to get more stock in. Not to mention that we have way more foot traffic than the small store in your small town... Only one more thing to add; please, if you're bringing in your reels to be spooled, please take off the line you have on your reels currently. It'll save time and you and those behind you in line won't have to wait as long to have your reels spooled...that's all.

Frogs, frogs, and frogs

You know when I was a bank fisherman I actually liked fishing the Carolina rig better than the Texas rig. I feel like the Carolina rig just gives you so many options you can use a small weight and kind of Mojo it through the grass Or you can use a bigger weight and drag it along. You also have the ability to adjust your leader length so you're bait kind of slithers through the grass and the fish really never feel the weight so you'll get used to feeling bites and have time to still set the hook. It also allowed me to slow down and really work areas from the bank and I thought I caught a lot more fish that way. I know the Carolina rig is supposed to be a deep-water presentation but I think it's awesome in shallower water as well. You can also just use bobber stops on both sides of your weight and adjust it from a Carolina rig to a Texas Rig to suit whatever cover your fishing.

Buzzbaits and fishing frogs in the slop, there is nothing like having a bass blow up threw matted grass and slamming the hook into them. Buzzbaits get the favorite nod in tournaments cause the hooking percentage is better though. And here's something for the blasphemy thread, my absolute least favorite technique is jig fishing.

That sounds like me. It's funny how all the guys talk about there wives to. I'm new to fishing , only a year or so in and I notice it's usually the wife who gets you back from fishing the fastest hah. And today I stayed longer than usual and I got my first nothern pike!! Couldn't say it better

Lots of action chasing crappie this afternoon. Kept a few for a meal, then enjoyed just swinging on them the rest of the afternoon.

I got a positive ID from The New York State DEC Bureau of Fisheries: "They’re both pumpkinseeds. The two main identifying characteristics that set them apart from bluegills are the red spot on the gill cover and the turquoise wavy bands on the head. Bluegills lack the red spot and tend to have more of a dark vertical banding down their bodies."

I also have the video of the catch. She drug me around quite a bit lol

Might not be as ultra light with 8 as it would be with 6 or 4lb test. Additionally, an ultra light rod is routinely designed to cast very, very light baits - something 8lb test might not excel at. But if you keep a real low profile and most always fish after dark, The Line Police might never be the wiser . . . . A-Jay

Top water by far. Frogs, buzz baits and spooks. Once the conditions tell me I have to break the surface I die a little inside.

Depends on the day. If they're up against the bank feeding, bank angler will crush a boater. Much more stealthy approach. If it's hot and they're hunkered down in the middle, the boater is going to outfish the guy on the bank. Read something funny a while back and it's so true. Boaters are always wishing they could get closer to the bank, and bank anglers are always wishing they could be casting out further into the middle. The grass is always greener on the other side, or so we think.

OK here's what ya wanna do! Pinch your line between your thumb & forefinger about 2" above your weigh & cut it with a pair of scissors. Put the 1/2 oz weight & 4/0 hook up for later use on a Carolina Rig. Re-rig with a 1/8 oz bullet weight & a 2/0-3/0 hook of your choice & repeat the retrieves you were using. I will give you this much if you're dragging a 1/2 oz weight through grass you're a head of most guys!

For what you want I think the NRX 873 or 894 are the rods you want. Only downside would be the length if that is of any concern. The 895 NRX is very heavy in weight and tip heavy and rod that just is not very popular. The 894 will be more powerful then and 873 CRR. The 873 is closer to a 4 powered rod as it is a Carolina Rig Rod and not a BCR or Bottom Contact Rod. You want a custom that will be similar to a NRX - Probably run you $400 - $500. I love customs (This is coming from a guy with 4 custom rods) but they are not for everyone. You want a warranty? Sure on the blank but what custom rod builders will warranty your rod? Some may repair the rod if they can and some may offer you free labor on the building of a 2nd rod. Plus you will be waiting goodness knows how long. Why, because many custom builders have other customer orders in place so they will either have to work you in or get to in when they can. Most builders do this on the side in addition to regular job so it is not like they have tons of time on their hands. If I ask my builder for a custom the entire process is usually a minimum of 3 weeks to a month on the short end. Talk/email the builder what you want. Go over components and options for a day or 2. Then order all the parts for the build. It may take a week or so to get them if they have everthing in stock. Then the build process starts and you have all the fitment to do, and waiting for things to dry and setup. Lastly you have to have it shipped which can take a few days to a week to get to. Take your high end blank for around $150 -$200. Add in $50 -$75 guide set, then your trim pieces, grips and the rest and you can have another $30 - $50 there. Your builder will probably want a minimum of $75-$100 in labor, then $25 or so to ship. Add it all up an you are easily in it for around $350 to $400 on the low end. That price buys you a rep sample NRX give or take a few bucks. Unless you are picky about the asthetics, want a specific reel to balance the rod at a certain point, or have strong prefernces for full or split, cork or foam, and the reel seat you are probably better off with a shelf rod. Some folks could care less about these things but others are very particular. My opinion would be to buy a NRX and fish it for a bit. Say you pay $400 for the rod. I am confident you could sell it for $350. With you paying $25 for shipping you would be out $75 and you could spend the money to try something else like a custom. There is no perfect rod out there but if you have fairly deep pockets, the willingness to wait some time for it to be built and want something different then maybe give a custom a try. Good luck either route you go...

Top water by far is my favorite style... especially with the Popmax!

Had some grubs and pro senkos in green pumpkin/black flake.... did the dye test on them with JJ's chartreuse, dipped for 7-8 seconds. I dipped both ends of each bait to show the thinner, the bait the more chartreuse you see. I also just happened to have the exact dinger you are looking to replicate and included that in the last pic Hope it helps!

Haha, yea. I wouldn't be pulling those 15 hour days if i was married that's for sure. It's something I'll enjoy while I can.

I finally got my first pike today!! Wasn't rly sure how to get a good pic so don't mind the first time awkwardness hah

When I get to go fishing I could stay out there forever, whether I'm getting bites or not. Because the way I see it is, being a beginner bass fisherman, it's practice, time on the water, learning how to use the different lures I have and very enjoyable being there. I usually don't get to stay out there near as long as I would like. My girlfriend can't handle when it's hot out there and she almost has to drag me away from the water. Most of the time, here lately anyways, it's the rain we been getting. Always seems to rain on the days I can go fishing. I just wish I could have one good day to do nothing but fish. I am greatful for the time I do get to go though.

Casting-Daiwa Tatula CT/Dobyns Fury Spinning- Pfluger President with any $100 rod and your set for under $400

15 hours minimum. Just kidding It all depends. If you know how the fishing normally should be, then you can base it off of your prior experience. As a general rule of thumb though I usually fish for a solid 4-5 hours before quitting. If I get the slightest bit of action such as a hooked fish that pops off, then I'll keep at it for a while. The key to fishing success is largely based on your time spent fishing.

Not a fan of Loomis rods anymore so my advice is look at DX745C Dobyns pitching rod and compare price, warranty, customer service and reviews. Tom

Skeeters older then the early 90's could have glassed over wood transum and stringers subject to dry rot. The Delta is a big area that is mostly river width, some large open water areas that get very windy with big white caps. You need a reliable boat with good GPS, average running speed is usually around 35 mph to be safe on a narrow rivers or sloughs, open water you can run faster if it isn't too rough. Remember this is a tidal influenced waterway, the depth changes hourly. I would book a guide trip with "Cooch", he has a wealth of delta knowledge and will give you honest advice. Tom

What bass lures are most effective for fishing the outside edges of deep, visible grass lines? Hank Parker tells you!

I'll stay until I question my physical ability to walk back to the truck... or until the wife sends that text message, the one where you can almost hear her voice in your head? Yeah, that one...