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Yay! Finally a 2 bass day, well it was this evening. Almost dark actually. They just love that Ol' Monster worm I keep throwing out there. Went back to the pond that's about a 30-45 minute walk from the house. It was lightly drizzling some of the time I was there. When I first got there I threw that big ole worm out there and about my 4th cast was dragging it across some matted grass and a bass blew up on it and snatched off the tail. So I thought maybe it was time to throw my frog. Tied it on and threw it a few times...nothing. Put the Ol' Monster back on and tried there again, still nothing. I began walking up and down the bank, stopping here and there making some fan casts. Still nothing but a few little bites. It was almost dark and I decided to hit the spot I first tried. I noticed a boat in the pond, in a spot that I couldn't get around to, that was almost completely sunk. I cast towards it and bam a 1lber smashed that Ol' Monster. Got it reeled in, took a pic then unhooked and released it. Very next cast, right back to the same spot, and bam again. A much bigger bass slammed it. That one had to be at least 2lbs, I'm guessing a little more. Took pics and let it go. They both swam off quickly and ok. I really need a new scale. The one I have doesn't work. Below are the pics. 1 of the one pounder and 3 of the 2lber+(maybe). Hard to take selfies in the dark...lol. There's some big uns out there in this pond. I could hear the big splashes they were making. I'm guessing at least 5lbers. Definitely gonna try to get me one of those another day/night. It was getting too dark to see and I was getting hungry. So I went on home a happy beginner angler. I'm gonna keep throwing that Ol' Monster until it stops getting bit. Then I guess I'll have to figure out another lure/bait...lol!

Unseasonably cool weather had the fish acting funny . They were just nipping worms and close mouthing crankbaits . I hit the banks with a homemade buzzbait and they would just sucki it under . No explosions . Caught 8 keepers over 15 inches . 7 came on the buzzbait .

I think the fish will swim, look for food, some may have eclipse parties but doubtful. I think most will just hang out. Lures to use....depends if there's a big group it might be an eclipse party. If that's the case Doritos (cool ranch of course) would be a good bet. Anything on a Miller Lite bobber. If it isn't an eclipse party a Senko is a safe bet. I'll be working like I am now. ?

90% of the time im wondering why people are concerned with the success and failures of others. The other 10% of time im enjoying a cocktail

It's been a slow summer for me, I admit, I've been doing more saltwater fishing recently but finally caught a decent fish (decent for this little pond atleast). I'm loving this combo for worms, it's all I've been able to catch fish on recently.

Got the yak out to explore a new lake that just opened a few weeks ago and had a pretty decent couple hours.

The "Lucky" part of my August binge (huge discount)...

The other 90% buy 99% 0f the tackle

I have stalked these forums for a while. I have learned a lot. The following seem to be consistent themes 1. Rage tail yamamoto, keitech and zoom soft baits 2. Gamakatsu, owner, trokar hooks 3. People have very strong opinions about hook shape. 4. Natural or tranlucent colors in clear water (up north, out west), dark or bright colors down south in stained or muddy. 5. Jig fishing approaches a cult like status 6. Most people prefer to either fish fast or slow. Not both. Fast with spinners, hard baits, toads, and slow with worms or jigs. It is the rare and great fisherman who is good with both. 7. Braid requires heavy hoooks, 8. Seibert or Northstar jigs 9. Senkos might be all I need to buy, but that seems boring 10. Snell, palomar, improved clinch, San Diego, Albright, Alberto knots 11. Braid in dirty water, fluro in clear. Mono? Do I need mono? 12. GP, watermellom red flake, june bug, black plastics 13. Sexy shad, chrome black back, gold black/blue back, fire tiger, citrus shad, crawfish in hard baits 14 . Pay attention when Catt, Tom, Mike S, Big O talk. I also enjoy Sir Snook alot and Big Bill for different perspectives. Many others also, but these stand out. 15. Nearly everyone has too much stuff and has trouble organizing 16. Jerkbaits and cranks seemed straight forward, but now I realize they are technical to understand and use to their full potential! 17. Whopper plopper 18. Structure, cover 19. Big baits equal big bass except when they don't 20. Don't let Elastec touch any other baits. What am I missing?

I was going to take my kayak to my normal lake but was getting a late start so I headed to the little suburban 5 acre pond behind my daughters house in a suburban subdivision. Surrounded by houses but filled with bass.......boy was that the right decision. The pond is basically an oval shaped bowl, Mostly flat bottomed 5-6 feet deep with a quick rise to the bank. A lot of weeds within 15 feet of shore, a few thick lily pad patches. When I got there the water level was down about 6-8 inches with almost zero visibility due to an algae bloom. After a few casts in the usual spots I headed to the far end. A street runs along that end and the shoreline is rock that runs down to the bottom. In the middle is a grated inlet with a metal grate. Drainage from the subdivision runs into the pond there. I figured, lack of weeds and some fresh, cooler water may make it a good spot. So I started throwing wacky rigged Senko's. I went through about 7-8 Senko's of various colors, apparently color didn't matter as in the next couple of hours I caught around 25 bass. Probably a few more but I literally lost count. They ranged from 12 inches to 21 inches. Other than the 12 inch fish the rest were all over 15 inches. At one point on consecutive casts it went 21, 19, 18, 19! Here's the 21".

The hopper bite was on at our pond this morning!

I can't get my photos to post.

It's never operator error, it's always the wrong rod, reel, line, or lure!

Can't fix stupid!

Went fishing with my buddy on my old but new boat to me today, started at 6am finished at noon.. I've been DYING to catch a fish with a frog, or with a topwater for that matter, never have.. and also catch a good bass with a jig !! never have.. and catch a bass with a baitcaster, never have.. let alone my 2 new ones I just got !! WELL TODAY SIR's.. 8 Complete blowups, monster fish, amazing.. so sad they all missed !!! hookup ratio is straight crap.. but .. I stayed w/ it and low and behold, big splash, big set hook, 40lb braided, Lews Tourney MG, and a little kid spirit set the hook right in its upper lip yo !! fought hard and reeled him in. then.. shortly after I moved down a bit, saw I went over a little ridge exiting a small cove back into the main channel and thought, "hmm that looks like a small school on a ledge, let me turn around and jig it".. 10 casts, lift and drop technique... BAAAAAAAAAAM!!!! DESTROYED it on the fall, I never had it happen so flawlessly, I used to doubt the lift and drop technique but wow.. reeled him in, great fight, both were 3lber's !!!! that was on my Powell Diesel rod, and my abu garcia sx reel, 10lb mono. what a ***** day man, I am thrilled, brought my spirit back after getting skunked at the resevoir 4x in a row. absolutely... UGH----FREAKING-----MAZING. Had to share my day haha with people that understand the feeling !!! Who ever is down to fish and can make it to the resevoir hmu !! let's run that bish !!!

Feathering the line on a spin cast reel is rather easy, and I first remember learning how reading an article by Stan Fagerstrom, legendary trick caster, back in the 80s. The technique hasn't changed. Granted, the majority of persons on this board would likely never purchase such a reel, but if you've ever hung out on a general fishing message board where anglers from all walks of life come and post pics, I could certainly see a market for these. Heck, just from all the negative comments alone, I'm tempted to buy one and post a video using it on the water and catching bass

I mounted one on an old trolling motor that no longer functioned .

I would say there's two factors. If you can make a reel that is as fast as a baitcaster and can throw the light lures of a spinning reel, without the backlash or line twist, that's remarkable. Add to it that it can be spooled with mono, fluoro or braid. It's your all in one reel that takes the headache of line issues away. Also, they're probably trying to get their brand and their iconic closed faced reel out in the spotlight. If this reel doesn't eat line, doesn't knot up inside, doesn't have garbage drag, and yet can be a baitcaster or a spinner essentially, there's no reason to not be interested for reasons other than pride and ego in my opinion. Closed face reels are so taboo in bass fishing that nobody is interested in the fact that it appears they are very very close to being a better option with new technology. I'm not gonna say the Bullet is necessarily a better option, but if this is phase one of making them baitcaster level, I cant wait to see what's next.

- Fluorocarbon sucks - Braid is great, with or without a leader - Gliss is bliss - Yozuri Hybrid is better than all of them - Only Catt still throws mono - Problem is, there is no such thing as monofilament anymore. It's either a monomer, polymer, hybrid, copolymer or some other technical variation. Don't worry if you get them confused and use the wrong term; you will be corrected - Everybody fishes or throws at structure these days even though nobody can agree on its definition - You're either a practitioner of Midwest Finesse or a Ned Rig thrower, but likely not both - Everybody wants to know what the best " " is, but it turns out opinions suggest that everything is the best to someone - Everyone likes to know what your 1, 3, 5, 10 best lures (or models within a lure type) are, but in reality, nobody asking or answering the question has that few lures, or could ever live with such limited options; but it's always fun to dream anyway - Could someone please explain the relationship between IPT, gear ratio, leverage, and bicycles again? - Reel drags are the greatest modern innovation since channel lock pliers

Here's a 3 minute video I put together yesterday. I thought you guys might enjoy it. If you don't, it's free and short. It shows bass and walleye, sturgeon, and muskies, along with some baitfish. I will check back and try to answer any questions you might have as best I can.

Do it like Noah did with the Ark. Buy two of every kind

not exactly tackle, but a bait monkey purchase nonetheless....

Look, with just my arm I can't throw a jig way up into a tree so when it happens while fishing it's clearly the rod's fault.

10% of anglers think they catch more than the other 90%. lol And the 90% don't care what that 10% think. And if you really get down to it, that 10% who catch more than the other 90% also spend way more time fishing. I like fishing, but I wouldn't do it all day, 5 days a week. And I think that all day, 5 days a week fisherman who catches more is the 10% guy. It just stands to reason that come tournament time, the guy who has all the time in the world to fish the lakes where the tournaments are is going to know the patterns better, have better locations marked and more knowledge come tournament day than probably 90% of the other anglers there. It aint rocket science, it's just a lot of time invested that gives them that edge on tournament day. So sure, it looks like a handful do that little bit better than most, but how many days do they fish that lake compared to the rest? I don't buy that 10% are just better fisherman, I think it's 10% are way more dedicated and devoted and have time available to devote to it that means they catch consistently more in hard conditions. It's like someone once said, the best baseball pitcher the world has ever seen is driving a garbage truck in Des Moines. He just never had the circumstances in his life to be able to develop his talent.

I've bombed plenty of times, but the good finishes far outnumber those bad days. Nothing makes me want to get back out there as bad as getting beat. Kind of like a slumping baseball player, you got to just keep swinging, stick to the fundamentals, eventually you'll connect. I do a lot of reflecting, looking at what I did wrong and what I did right so I can try to correct it next time around. I've had a pretty poor tournament year this year myself. Let wins that were mine for the taking get away a couple times, made some bad decisions, tried to do some things that weren't my strengths, and lost a lot of fish. This last one I went out and did what I know works at that lake that I'm good at doing. Ended up winning and catching the big bass in the last 15 minutes because I stuck with a bait that I knew was a big fish bait and the conditions were right for it.

Dunno about the whole fishing population, but when I fish with Fishing Rhino, he catches 90% and I catch 10% of the day's yield... ?

Thank you. The walleye seems to be the most social fish, often hanging with other gamefish. You can bet I've seen some strange things and learned that some commonly held beliefs weren't true. I always heard that the musky was a killing machine. Everything else is just bait. An underwater terror. I saw a musky and a walleye laying side by side and thought it strange. We then saw what we think was the same two fish together again. We called them the odd couple. As the years went by, we saw it time and time again with different walleye and muskie. I recorded in Hi 8 tape in those days, and fortunately never taped over , always using fresh tapes. Over the course of many winter evenings, I reviewed all my footage and came up with about a dozen examples, then made a you tube video about it. I actually had an instance where I was filming close in on an 'eye and a musky got in my face about it. Another time , my partner and I decided to split go around a small rock pile. There was a muskie and a walleye on the corners. they didn't like it and decided to swim off. I glided towards the walleye for a close shot when the muskie didn't like my proximity and nudged the walleye with his snout to get him moving. I thought I was going to witness an attack, but it was clearly a friendly nudge. Smallmouth bass give muskies some room, as they are on the menu. A smallie is always uneasy around a muskie. You will never see them resting side by side. I've had 2 bass hit by muskies as I fought them while fishing.

Nothing like those indeed. My first big bass came that way when I first started fishing. I had a medium light trout rod (didn't know much about fishing in general back then and just went with a cheap "walmart special", as I dubbed my first rod, lol) I tied on a rapala skitter pop, my first topwater bait and I was just trying it out. It was the biggest slam down, take down, shake down. That was over 12 years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Another one is when fishing time is running out, and I still haven't caught a bass or any fish. Much like in a tied or down by two basketball game that is tied with just seconds to go, making that last cast (three point Hail Mary shot) and hook into a fish right (swish) at the buzzer. I've had many experiences like that, as recent as about two weeks ago. Now that is a good feeling. Another good/great feeling is when I am out, and I see a kid or other person fishing and looking at their set up, their chances were going to be next to zero for what they were targeting. If I can sense that they might be receptive, I will offer to help them out and sometimes they catch fish. The smiles on their faces and their joy are reward enough for me. Earlier this summer, I just happened to be fishing with live bait and for some reason just felt like targeting pan fish. I saw a father with his little daughter and son sharing one rod. I was nailing blue gill and rock bass with nearly every cast (love those kind of days) and I know the father noticed from afar. So I asked him what he was fishing for and he said anything that will bite. He had some generic plastic worm on a hook too big and braided line on the spinning reel. Next, I mentioned to him that the fish were onto live bait (worms) right now and if he were willing, I'd be more than happy to help him out and set him up with tackle and bait. They had been fishing for a couple hours before I got there so the father was receptive. So I showed him the ropes to make a drop shot rig. I put the worm on the hook and his little 5 year old girl drop the line into the water and as soon as the weight hit the bottom, the worm got nailed. She shouted, "I got something" and she was right. It's cool how well braid transfers data to our hands? She caught a nice size blue gill for our area. She and her brother took turns fishing and catching fish. Before they left, the father came up to me, shook my hand and said, "Thanks, man. Thanks for making a dad look like hero in his kids' eyes." That says it all and to me, this is also a great fishing moment, even when I'm not the one catching fish.

I know you have 2 styles picked out, but if any of these would work instead, you could have 2 or 3 pairs: https://www.steepandcheap.com/sunglasses?p=brand%3ACosta&nf=1

10% of anglers spend 90% of the total angling hours... oe

Stopped by Cabelas today to look for sales. bought 3 Whopper Ploppers and of course had to have a new baitcasting combo for the whopper Ploppers. ended up costing me $160.00. Living 5 minutes from Cabelas can be expensive.

Some catches from the past couple days. Largest was 3.25, second largest 2.3(bottom right). I had 3 spit the hook, which is always frustrating. The 3lber hit the Senko before I could even close the bail. Just hanging out in about 6 inches of still water.

We had my son's friend come over for the day this past Saturday cause his parents had to work. So I did what every responsible adult would do... we took him fishing. The kid never really been so this was great. Went to a couple of ponds I haven't been to since last year. All I caught was this. They caught these... Those aren't gonna be bait, just for observation... Lol, looks like the Bluegill smacked him in the face. My son's buddy had a great time. Nice to take the kids away from all the tech.

It's the actual presentation and thought process that most just refer to as the Ned rig.

21 Bass taste horrible . Bass are delicious .

pics or it didn't happen... JK...congrats....nice day

We've got our house booked for fall break at the beginning of October. Last two trips have been to a little cove just north of Kites Landing. This time we have a house in a cove on the north side of Negreet. Pumped for my third trip to Toledo Bend.

Thanks @Team9nine. How do you get Cherry Coke off the monitor?

mopeds and hefty gals.....that's all that comes to mind...even with the open mind I bragged about just this morning....I can't get interested

You forgot the age old question that gets asked a dozen times every winter... "If you were stranded with only one lure..."

Honestly this post just shows where you browse the most. Fishing tackle and general bass fishing. There is something on here for everyone . From tackle making to help with your boat. And everything in between.

It is a requirement that ANY threads that reference the Ned rig (poop jig) must be at least 7 pages long! I mean, it's a really complicated technique.

Toss in a little ned, a bit of what rod/reel should I get, and a few stucture/covers, and you're all set

Yes, be careful with those and also tread lightly on ethics of bed fishing This might be one of the best posts I've seen in a while. This pretty much sums up about 70% of the content I see on a daily basis. Haha!

You forgot one more thing. You should never, under any circumstances, ask about weather bass care about line visibility or not. Selective harvest versus strict c&r is a dangerous topic to.

LOL... Dude, you are missing the wacky rig!

I'm guessing 90% of anglers exaggerate how many fish they caught and most of the remaining 10% exaggerate the size. So what? For me it does not matter which percentage I'm in - if I catch a few bass I'm good with my ranking!

Still wanna know who counted all the fish caught in just a single day?

I'd say that's a good number when the fishing is good. Once it's tough like now during the heat of the summer it's probably more like 5% catch 95% of the fish.

Every single jig bite at night ~ And anytime I need my passport to go fishing A-Jay