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Hello everyone! I just wanted to share this picture. My son just turned two and I’m beginning to introduce him to the art of fishing. I got him a bass fishing toy and so far he loves it. I can’t thank all of you enough for the information on this site. It has helped me to become a better fisherman and I look forward to passing what I’ve learned on to my son. Tight lines everyone!

This probably isn't much to the Smallmouth fisherman here, but for me, it's awesome. I am a Largemouth fisherman; ponds and lakes usually. I've been figuring this river out recently and catching a bunch of little Smallies. Then this girl comes along. Side Note: Yes, that is the Zebco Bullet down there. Yes, it continues to work. She nailed that WP right after it snagged a leaf too. Kinda think she maybe liked the added bulk.

Gearing up for some epic topwater action ~ A guy can dream can't he ? A-Jay

Pretty much Bass only here. But if a bunch of Stripers start schooling on top, I've been known to cast to them.

Up here, it's not like I target other species exactly. It more like just 'being prepared' for other species . . . A-Jay

Soooo today I got to go out this morning, 5:30 am, slight wind.. sun has barely started to come up.. pick up my new cavitrons and booyah buzzbait and start slinging them.. well I had 3 blow ups and 3 fish all pretty good!(idk what it is about buzzbait but they just produce big fish) .. so I keep following the weedline with this random tree sticking out, of course I cast over and BOOM! I thought a shark hit it.. got hooked up but it buried itself in the weeds and lost it... so I keep tossing the buzzbait and what do you know he strikes again! This time no hookup.. I tried for another 15 minutes but nothing. So I keep fishing, it's been about an hour now and I decide to try once more for that fish.. I changed buzzbaita for a different sound and omg! Came flying out of the water a good foot and smashes back in! This time I know she is hooked up good .. after a few minute battle this 4 1/2 pound beauty comes out.

You are correct that it totally depends on where and what type of water you fish. I fish on Lake St Clair where you can read the date on a dime in 30ft of water most days, to Northern Florida tannic water that looks like black coffee. The key is to be able to adapt on whatever the water clarity is.

106 this year. Missed 4 days since May 10th.

Lots of different crawfish colors

Almost forgot what a bass looks like; so I had to go out and remind myself. Bluebird skies, no wind, fished from 1230-400 pm. It was pretty brutal. 7 dinks, and a 3# fish.

I'd try jewelers polish and a buffing wheel on a Dremel rotary tool. I think the polish/buffer accessory kit comes with the polish. If you were going to sand, I'd be looking at wet sanding in grits closer to 1000.

Absolutely. It's a clear, high-pressured lake erie harbor, so at the time I didn't have the confidence, but she showed me! A couple weeks later was out with my dad, and kicked his butt on her pink worm. I showed her the picture of the 4lber I caught on it, and she yelled at me not to use her worms! EDIT: Found it!

Not much good for towing, putting rods in or putting dogs in either. Epic fail, what were they thinking?

During the early 70's depth of light was something considered important to catching bass. It was thought we should use lures that run at the depth the light dissapeared. We used sechhi disk, 1/2 black and 1/2 white painted disk, tied to a cord to lower down and measure the water clarity or depth of light. Back then nearly all our local reserviors had about 8' to 10' depth of light so that became our target depth and the water clarity hasn't changed in most local lakes without quagga mussels. I would say anywhere you can see the bottom over 8' is clear water for bass fishing. Today we use sonar to deterime the life zone depth. Tom

Water clarity is relative to each individual body of water! One of the marshes I fish has 2' water clarity but it's maximum depth is 2' so how clear is it? I don't get to excited over water clarity, bass have to live in the water clarity in which they are born. Bass in off colored waters tend to be lateral line feeders so I adjust my presentations to fit those conditions.

Ned Kehde refers to any water clear enough to see the trolling motor head "Kansas Clear". 2-3 feet visibility is pretty clear around here. Go south a ways to Beaver or Bull Shoals and you might be looking at the bottom in 30'. I prefer a foot or two of visibility unless the water is cold, then I'd like to have 5' or so.

The general rule is bass move out maintaining about the same depth during draw downs and up usually shallower water during raising water levels. Tom

Managed to pull off a win this past weekend on Choke Canyon with tough conditions, fish with Lock-Jaw, and 96 degree temps. Had 17.8 lbs anchored by this 5.43 Florida. Caught all but one on a drop shot in 10-20 fow. Pulled 7 lbs ahead in AOY standings.

For the first time in my life I have been humbled enough to bring me to tears. By my fourteen year old niece, that along with her 2 sisters and mom, is currently living with us. She asked me if I would adopt her last night. Her biological dad is a piece of filth that may talk to her once every 2 years. Her former step father, molested her a year ago, and she called him out on it. The family has no income coming in until her mom finds work. Child support and "justice" are both tied up in the justice system. That is not for discussion on here or at all. I'm just giving background, and honestly could care less to hear any opinions on the justice system or government. If thats all you have to comment about them stay off my post. Cause frankly i DO NOT want to hear it. Anyway. I'm doing all I can to help support them as well as my 4 children and my wife and I. It is difficult, however, I have been extremely successful at it thus far. For her, to ask me this brought me to tears. She said it would be awesome cause she would be my adopted daughter. Then proceeded to explain in a manner in which only a child can and brought me to tears. I am no saint, I am far far from a saint. i am a arrogant, conceded, biker with a loud mouth and very extreme views on various things. I have my vice(s) that keep me going. I am a sinner that is a total mockery of life and society. I live my life on the outskirts of society and subscribe to the laws of my brother bikers. My group of friends are some of the roughest most hardcore people this small country town has ever seen. My appearence is enough to scare most people away. I try to be good. It just doesn't always work out for me. Yet somehow I'm good enough, for this child to ask me to be the father figure in her life? Somehow behind this rough, tatted up exterior, through the beard and piercings, this child has found something that I myself can't see? What have I done that would allow me to have a compliment and honor like this bestowed upon me? Whether, we legally adopt her or not is honestly up in the air. However, I told her that regardless she is family and always will be such. If she wants me in her life as that, then I will happily do so, be it "officially" or not. So I guess my family has grown again. I truly am blessed for reasons that are unknown to me. Also, I'm coming back home next week. I'm dragging up on Friday as of now. I'm staying and partying with my biker brothers at the bike rally at my campground this weekend. (That's my 2 day vacation for the year) Afterwards I shall be back home for a little bit.

Eh, use whatever gives you warm fuzzies inside. I like fluoro for certain things. I like mono for certain things. I like braid for certain things. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to break off that many fish, regardless of line choice.

I use to fish almost every day . I had a Dodge panel van and I put rod racks in it. When I got off work I'd go fishing . I hit a lot of irrigation ditches and lakes formed by levees on the Mississippi river . Lots of big bass in those spots . I had good balance in those days and use to tightrope down concrete culverts , flip a jig and land 5 to 7 lb bass consistently and never fell in . LOL How many days consecutively , I have no idea but it was a lot .

Most of the water in my area is 'clear' - definitely requires a specific type of approach to get bit. This video shows the typical clarity. Sometimes the best move I can make is to go at night. It's a whole different story in the moonless pitch blackness. A-Jay

Zebco Bullet, Bone colored Whopper Plopper. Nice combo and awesome Smallie. Makes me think of the Golden Earring song, Twilight Zone, when the bullet hits the bone.

Around here, most lakes only have 1-2' of clarity. Having lots of farmland and mountains, means there's lots of runoff going into our lakes, making them very dirty. It's not uncommon to have water with less than 6" of visibility. So if I find water that has 3-5' of clarity, I consider that clear for around here. We have one lake around 300 acres in size that's on top of a mountain, so it doesn't get any runoff, and the clarity in that lake is around 6-8', so that's crystal clear for around here. However, up in Canada where I go, 3-5' of visibility is common, and I've seen area's where you can see rocks on the bottom in 10-12' of water. However, the water is more of an off color tea color, so it's a different kind of clarity. So like you said, it's all relative to the area you're in.

Almost never. But then, every gamefish species here like my jerkbaits. So I do take an occasional break.

I used to dread fishing weeds until I tried a weightless Zoom Trick Worm (candy bug). I like slowly dragging it along the bottom and discovered that it hovers effortlessly above vegetation. When dragging along sometimes, often you encounter a vertical patch of grass; you just finesse tug it through and that's when you also get a lot of bites too. I fished a swimjig with a paddle tail trailer for the very first time last Sunday and caught a nice bass within 15 minutes. I was surprised how well that cut thru vegetation and will use that more as a search bait for weedy Ponds ditch the weight on your TX rigged worms and see if you get similar results. Bonus feature of the weightless trick worm is the initial deadly fall too!

I use to fish 300+ days a year before I was married with kids. Now it's probably closer to 100 days a year. I keep rods in my car and have a 45 minute drive back and forth to work each day, and I drive past several bodies of water in doing so. Combine that with the fact that I work nights, so I'm driving past these bodies of water in the morning when the bite is often at it's best, I do a lot of quick 15-30 minute stops to try the high percentage areas.

"I'm looking for the right emoji to insert here, but I can't quite find it in the available list..." How about this oldie...

It is not a liberty because not all drivers are created equal.

We have a event every year since 1958 that promotes hunting, fishing, camping, boating, hiking and other family outdoor recreational activities call the Fred Hall Show. Several fishing related events are sponsored by various fishing tackle companies like casting contest and knot tying contest. Back in 1960 I won the fresh water fishing line contest by tying a knot called the Indian knot, today known as the Palomar knot. All knots had to be 100% line strength to submit your entry. They take the top 10 entries and each contestant gets to tie a sample to be tested in front of the judges. Fred Hall show is ongoing every year in SoCal. I have been teaching new anglers to tie knots when I worked on a boat landing at Big Bear lake, mostly lake 2 hook rigs using 3 lb test mono and started doing this as a teenager. You can consider yourself good at knot tying when you learn a Binimi twist. Tom

Aventador SV cruising around at 5AM. Quite the sound.

I tried shrink tubing but still lost quite a few Senkos. Rubber tubing worked better for me.

and I thought Michigan winters were long . . . . . A-Jay

My new favorite: I was fishing a swim jig and it wasn't working so I put it up. She says, "I guess you could say the jig is up *laugh, snort, laugh, snort*." Externally I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Internally I'm laughing and wouldn't have it any other way.

If it makes you feel better, I looked back in my records and found 2 breakoffs for you. One was on August 11, 2013 on a hookset. The other was the week of June 23, same year when a bass got on the back side of a metal culvert and eventually sawed off my fluoro - honestly. I don't count hang ups in the mix because those likely get broken off no matter what line you're using if the lure retriever fails to come through. I will also admit I have broken off a time or three this year on my fluoro leader after failing to retie after catching 20-30 bass on a bait, but I chalk that up to stupidity on my part and not a fault of the fluoro. Beyond that, I would have remembered breaking off any big bass or expensive baits - we don't see a lot of the former around here, and i don't buy a lot of the latter. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a couple more breakoffs I don't remember, but when you catch 2,000+ bass a year, the random anomaly becomes easy to overlook.

It's also important to note they don't just imitate crayfish. They can also imitate bluegill, shad, etc.

I am willing to bet that most of the jig bass I caught this summer were actually hunting bluegills and green sunfish. Despite my repeated attempts to interrogate them at boat side they would not admit so. Probably were too embarrassed to admit they had been fooled. If you feel some red will generate more bites just stick a red trailer on your jig. Trailers and skirts do not need to match. A green pumpkin skirt with a black/blue trailer caught my largest bass of the season.

The Babies, Stradic Ci4+ 2500 on Falcon JC and Curado 70XG on Falcon LR WW:

Don't feel bad - That's how I learned it. Doing stuff that doesn't work is another way of 'gaining experience'. A-Jay

You gotta put the lure in front of a active big bass and ain't going to happen unless you know where they feed. Some lake the biggest bass prefer 3" crawdads, other lakes they eat 12" trout and you need to know why. Big isn't always the answer, location and timing is. Right lure at the right time in the right place = success. I have fish the same lakes for decades and know nearly every rock, stump, tree, bush and places the big bass prefer to hang out and I don't know what they want to eat and when without keeping in touch with those bass. If presenting a big swimbait and they want a 3" crawdad, my chances of success are low. You just got to try and spend the time and effort, no panacea lure exists. If the big bass is reacting to lures going up hill and you are working it down hill, the bass may not strike it. So many variables it's impossible to claim a 10" widget is the answer. Sounds like this small lake has good potential and at 292 acres it should take you too long to figure it out. Tom

OK! There's a lot of guys on this site that are just as proficient at deep water structure as I am! @A-Jay @WRB @Team9nine @J Francho @deep @WIGuide @scaleface & a ton of others guys! As for the trees themselves, the tops above the waterline has rotted, fell into the lake, & are still there. Deep water structure aint about lure selection... it's about location selection! I listed 7 guys & I would be willing to bet we would probably end up on the same structure.

@Quarry Man everything I fish down here has some type of vegetation, either on the bottom a few inches tall, matted to the surface, or floating on the surface. Even with a drop shot having only the weight in the grass ya still gonna have to finesse it through. Pick your plastics wisely, a ribbon tail is fine for fishing over grass, not so much for fishing through it. Even weightless plastics are gonna hang something & that weedless wonder called a Texas Rig aint so weedless. Ya gonna hung up, ya gonna pull in snot balled up on you weight/jig, ya gonna get ticked off, but ya gonna catch Hawgs! It's a mindset...grass = bass ?

I need to stop repling to these threads... I've been useing flouro for years and have not had the problems most of you keep saying you have. If the knot is tied correctly there is no "poor knot strength" just because you're useing flouro. If your reel isn't adjusted correctly there is no "poor casting performance" just because you're useing flouro.. All I know is I'm convinced that the benefits of useing a quality flouro for presentations that will benefit from it, far out weigh any real or percieved negative. Flouro is not a panacea, but niether is braid, co ploy, or dare I say mono. Now all the Mono Forever guys will jump all over me again, and come up with all the science, testing, polls, and opinions that will prove....Ahh, never mind Mike

Old News. A-Jay

Great weekend! Sept. 15th was my son's 14th birthday and my wife and my 16th wedding anniversary (He was born on my 2 year wedding anniversary, best present ever) I Partied on the 16th and went fishing on the 17th and caught my PB Largemouth Bass of the year, a 3 pound 10 ounce river monster. I was using my Kastking Speed Demon on a Medium/Fast action Daiwa rod to cast weightless 4" green pumpkin Yum Dingers. I found an overhanging tree that was dropping leaves 3 feet off the shoreline. I was about 30' out on my kayak casting towards shore under the tree limbs. I had caught a big Bluegill (I will post in the other species thread) earlier in the day so I came back to the same spot to try again. I kept getting pulls that felt like a sunfish grabbing the end of the worm. Then the Bass hit the Dinger and I knew it was something special. Rod was bent but the Speed Demon burned him out of cover. The drag was perfect and I was able to land the fish. Here is a video of the release. My son and I recently watched the original Clash of the Titan's so I was thinking of him when I recorded and sent him this. That's the reason for the title.

Went fishing with my best friend and his uncle to a spot that t really produce much and this weekend we just started slaying them left and right. One of the funnest days of fishing in a while.

This was worth the walk.

Over nighter on the Upper Potomac