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Well it's been a couple weeks or so since I've caught anything a pound or more. I've caught some major dinks, we're talking not even an ounce. Didn't bother with taking any pics of those. Since the daytime bite has been almost nonexistent, I desided to risk encounters with snakes and fished the smaller pond by my house tonight with my headlamp on. Took both my Lew's baitcaster with a 3/8oz black and blue chatter bait/watermelon red flake Super Fluke trailer tied on and my Lew's spinning rod with a 12" blackberry Mann's jelly worm tied on. Nothing doing with the chatter bait, but I did catch this 1lb 1oz 14g keeper size on the 12" jelly worm. First one I've caught on that worm. I pitched it at the ponds pump and almost immediately he hit it. Being as dark as it was, with the exception of the almost full moon, it was kinda hard to take a selfie. I managed these two pics. I guess they turned out ok. I know I say this alot, but I'm sure ready for some cooler weather and more active bass. ?

Just had to share my last outing with you guys...Yesterday I pull up to a ''regular spot'' some place i often fish and its always a decent spot... but yesterday was different... I pull up to the spot wich is a 1' to 3' deep sand flat next to shore with a very steep drop off to about 35'... it was dead calm, very little wind, but were flying around and diving to grad baitfish... i casted my craw where they were diving and BOOM... 5.05lbs smallie.... I fished this same spot for four hours and caught about 40-50 smallies with my new PB of 5.75lbs! just an insane day! https://imgur.com/a/ZrmEN[/IMG]

Got out twice in the last 2 weeks, including last monday pm..Total of 20 fish caught,18 on some variety of plastic worm.Caught the most on a 4 inch lucky strike tequila worm ,including the pictured fish. Theyre biting better than the summer, but not as good as true fall. They seem to be hungry for nothing but worms. I did get a couple today on the small zoom fluke . Had one fish break off when I had a backlash and was trying to pick it out. Tried to hand line the fish in but he broke it.

This 6 pounder isn't my PB but I caught it about 30 seconds after my Ned-rig-hating friend declared that Ned doesn't produce big fish. He was at BPS the next day buying Ned rig tackle.

So I haven't gone out for smallmouth in a very long time and it was way overdo. We took off on the Niagara river today.. was super slow at first with 3 hours with no bites then finally started hooking up.. 2cnd fish of the day was this hog.. or hog to me. 4 lb 1 oz dark beauty.

didn't catch many but all bites on a jig. Around 11 o'clock I left the other rods alone and practiced skipping the jig with the BC. getting pretty good as long as my thumb complies. This is a 3# with a 4# head, as you can tell they haven't really started feeding up yet.

The problem with trying to disect a fish eye and break it down scientifically into rods and cones to determine what a fish see's is we don't know how the brain processes the light waves. What everyone tends to do is use our brains and eye as a baseline. Humans don't live underwater, we live above water with totally different survival needs and evolved to to take advantage of our environment. We know from observation and testing that some animals can see a broader spectrum of light and colors then we can. The human eye/brain aren't all equal, some of us are color blind, some have excellent color separation, some are night blind and some have good night vision. A few humans see auoras, energy produced by the brain. Some birds and fish can see ultra violet or infrared color spectrum. We don't know what we don't know applies to how bass see, they obliviously can see in very low light better than we give them credit. The more time you spend on the water the more questions you will have. Tom

I was treated to an epic battled with this finned freak of a sturgeon this afternoon ~ Very Cool. A-Jay

Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I have finally figured out that when fishing super dense emergent pads a flipping jig gets in and out much better than a t-rigged worm or a standard flipping rig (pegged weight, snelled flipping hook, plastic creature). The weed guard pretty reliably allows the jig to glide out past the treacherous vee in the pad, where the stem meets the leaf, the point where my usual set up always got stuck. Of course, the hardest part is getting a fish out of that stuff, but that's no more difficult with a jig than with anything else. This theory doesn't apply to other types of heavy cover. The bite was slow tonight but I managed to catch this 2 pound puppy out of some nearly impossible pads, using a 3/4 oz jig.

I've been melting old plastics down and using open pour molds to make some of my own plastics but decided to get a couple molds and try the injection style since the baits look a little nicer. Went with the Pitboss and 6.8 Fat Impact molds and they both turned out pretty good for my first tries I think.

Electronics just help me paint a mental picture of what's under the boat. I'm a structure guy, and I don't care if I don't see fish. So often, I find the right stuff, and low and behold, I will watch them literally come out of nowhere, to my bait, and it's on. To answer an earlier question, fish deeper and slower than you usually fish to find the big girls. It sounds general, but it's true.

Caught a bucketload of dinks walking the banks under the midday sun. Who needs neds lol? Mama, just killed a bass. RIP.

This one is growing on me. Got my lil guy some new fishing clothes and gear last week. Here he is hard at work with his Tatula flippin combo.

Back in the 70s when I started tournament fishing heavily I had an old guide on Toledo Bend tell me, "for every bass you catch near the bank there's 5 behind you waiting to be caught."

My new Lund. Very happy with it. Mercury 115 Pro XS Fourstroke and a fortrex 80 that move it along great. A couple HDS units coming next and a shallow water anchor. I haven't decided on talon or blade yet, any suggestions?

Here's my final take. No matter what brand you go with you're going to get great tools to aid in your fishing adventures. There's things you'll get with a Humminbird unit that Garmin won't have and vise versa. Same goes for Lowrance and don't forget Raymarine (though both of those seem to be a little steeper in price). My advise is to read, read, and read some more to better educate yourself on what 2d,SI,DI, mapping, and record your own maps do. I've been reading, asking questions, and watching videos for 8 months or so and I still haven't purchased any units. I won't be making a boat purchase and electronics purchase until spring. One thing I can assure you is when I do make these purchases I'll know my boat well and I'll know my fish finders well. There will still be a learning curve for both, but I'll know what I have and at the end of the day the only regret I'll have is that my budget wasn't bigger. Good luck, and if you have anymore questions just ask.

The Miyagi swimmer with the flashy swimmer owner hook has quickly become my favorite. I was catching between 10-15 fish per bait, and the action is killer for such a durable bait. Tough to beat the Owner Beast hooks and their flashy swimmer swimbait hooks. Haven't bent one out yet.

Here is mine.

Possum. I can see the ad now... "One time I was out fishin at night and I heard some scratchin in the brush. I turn my headlamp and there was a baby possum. It couldn't see well and crawled right into the lake. Within seconds a monster largemouth devoured the possum! That got me to thinking about the how I could create my own possum style bait. The new Savage Gear "Rabid Possum" is the culmination of a year of research and development. We brought together top possum experts from around the globe to get the action just right. It wiggles and crawls the same way a baby possum does in distress and the fish go absolutely crazy for it. It's just too good a meal for them to pass up! The Savage Gear "Rabid Possum" coming February 2020, ($23.99).

Simply put, a bass has bass eyes. You have human eyes. They aren't the same.

Light is absorbed by water, but it penetrates deeper than you can see. The limit of depth you can see is actually the limit of distance light can travel down into the water and back before it is all absorbed. If you can see 6 feet down, for instance, that means you are seeing light that penetrates into the water 6 feet, and is reflected BACK through 6 more feet of water to your eyes. Even if the limit of visibility was 6 feet, light would still reach a bass 8 feet down...it just may not reach back to your eyes when reflected off the bass.

Much better week this week than last. The cooler nights are finally starting to get them moving a bit a seems. Not great, but much better. Had a couple nice ones and a bunch of solid fish.

Stop and think for a minute and ask yourself how can a bass find it's prey? The small bait fish are camouflage to help them hide, they don't make any audible sounds and the bass can find them at night! If a bass can't find food it starves. Study bass behavior and learn about thier sensory ability, how they see, hear, feel and taste. Bass have big eyes located near the top of thier head, nostrils to detect odors at the front of the head, lateral line nerves exposed along the lateral line via pore scales making both side sensitive to water pressure waves similar to sound waves. Bass use all their senses to detect prey. Tom

Their lateral line. They feel it.

So I recently won this raffle of a Vision 110 lot and I plan on jerkbait fishing a lot this fall. I recently got a setup for these lures and plan to really work on my jerkbait fishing. I haven't even caught a fish with this technique yet. I have read the jerkbait thread stickied at the top but I am just looking at starting a specific thread for fall jerkbait fishing. I usually cast it out and work it back with a variation of jerks, 1 jerk, 2 jerk, 3 jerk. I pause and count and then jerk again, sometimes I burn it back with jerks. I just haven't been throwing them enough to catch my first one and figure out what I like to do. How do you like to work your bait? What areas are you keying in on? What is your favorite color?

B.A.S.S. HAS A NEW OWNER Anderson Media Nets ‘Prize Catch,’ Becomes Majority Owner Of B.A.S.S. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Anderson Media Corp., a 100-year-old family business founded in Alabama, has acquired a majority interest in B.A.S.S., LLC. Hope they are in it for the money and don't start making changes to the organization that would weaken it and our interest in it. You all can look up this on the Internet and read about it.

The thing about looking yourself if you are using realtor.com or zillow.com type sites you are days behind the listings in the realtor search page. Only realtor have access to it, but they can setup searches to email you when something matches. This happens as soon as it's listed. In a sellers market this can be the difference between getting a place or missing it.

Did some fishing early this morning and this afternoon. Within the first 30 mins of being there, throwing my black and blue 3/8oz chatter bait with a watermelon red flake super fluke trailer, I got a massive hit. Bam! Set the hook! Oh wow it's a big un! I was pulling and reeling and it didn't seem to put up any fight but the weight felt like 8lbs or better. Kept pulling and reeling and finally it surfaced and I was like "you've got to be kidding me!" It was a freakin' big turtle...lol! First turtle I've ever caught. I did catch a little dink later on. Things just haven't been working out the greatest for me lately.

My new boat is a Lund Fury XL Sport with a 50 hp . Looking at all the specs and figuring all the gear It should come in at just under 2000lb. I'd like to tow it with a vehicle rated for at least 2500lb (3500lb would be better). I don't like towing right at the edge of capacity. Jim

Around here where most lakes are abundant with perch I tend to use a Rapala Husky Jerk with green back and copper or gold colored sides. The cadence of the lure depends on the water temp. Now water temps are in the 60's and fish are feeding for winter so it would be a quicker retrieve. When the water temps drop below 60 then I slow the retrieve and pay more attention to the pauses. When the water temp is above 60 the retrieve might be twitch, twitch, pause, when the water temp is below 60 it might be twitch, paaaaaaaause, twitch, paaaaaaaause.

Trick worm for extra length and weight.

I guess I have yet to encounter that situation. It looks great, with fine detail, but I've not yet seen a single fish on it, mostly just weeds Thanks everyone for their comments , sorry I hi-jacked the thread. I'll be more careful in the future.

There's always some big fish shallow, but by and large, outside of a a few seasonal windows there are more, bigger fish deeper.

Trick Worm ? The longer length allows for more action

I fish them with a jerk, jerk, pause cadence most of the time. I use several different baits but the Lucky Craft Slender pointer and flash pointer have been really good to me. Also do well with 78 pointer, Berkley Skinny Cutter 110+, Luck-E-Strike STX, and some custom painted Predator 110's.

I've got old and older technology. 1198 at the helm, 1199 on the trolling motor Minn Kota Terrova with Ipilot Link all connected thru the ethernet box. You do not need side imaging units to control Ipilot Link. The graph(s) just need to be equipped with GPS and ethernet capable. Also you do not need more than one graph to utilize the Minn Kota Link feature. I know the newest units are bluetooth capable but haven't looked into them enough to know whether or not they still need to be connected thru ethernet. If you want to limit yourself to $1500, You could get 2 Helix 9's, one with side imaging and one without. Mind you this is also "old" technology, as the newest technology Helix units have Mega imaging and currently sell for a premium. I don't use it. I'll stick with SI and 2D sonar

I know you asked sloanzp, but I'll answer too, hope it's helpful. I run a Helix 12 G2N SI "MEGA" unit at my console with a transducer off the back of the boat, and a Helix 10 G2N DI unit at the bow with a transducer on the bottom of the trolling motor. The newer G2N units allow sharing of SI data even if the unit is not SI itself, so I found I could save a ton of money by going to the DI unit up front. The Helix 9 units are significantly less expensive than my 10" and 12" ones. 7" units get a small for this old guy's eyes, particualarly with th emappong ans SI screens.

Got my first snakehead today! I was surprised he hit a Ned, I was way undergunned for the marsh I was fishing, I was pitching to open water right up next to the bank and he grabbed it.

One day... it might be March, but one day it will happen.

Teckel Sprinker low.

My 23 1/2" 6 pounder. I've caught a 7 lb but I don't have any goods pics since it was at night and I was by myself.

My thoughts are that once I quit blaming the reel, things got better....maybe not better, but at least less 'emotional'...lol "I can't seem to establish enough of a consistent success pattern to definitively say, "If I backlash I need to adjust ME_."" Point being that if it happens once every few dozen casts...or whatever....then it almost always is because I put a hitch in my swing; or didn't account for wind;....or tried to reach the green in two on a par 5...

Yesterday was brutal...was out at dawn and the air temp was 32F on the button hence the jacket in my picture. Hit my first stop, a saddle between a mainland point and island and the fog was rolling off the lake. Wind was blowing in from the east... Once the fog cleared I caught a few on a jerkbait though nothing of any size. The frustrating part was that I could see 3 and 4 pound fish sitting in the 2-3ft water right in front of me but they wouldn't bite on anything...argh!

Let's take predictions on next years. I say a penguin!

I don't visit Facebook much anymore. It's just a bunch of gossiping housewives making up stories and rumors just to get somebody to say "OMG!!!" Just garbage. People desperately looking for attention will say anything. And the lack of basic knowledge...wow! Earlier this week, I read somebody's post saying America sends help to "third world countries like Puerto Rico when nobody sends help to the U.S. for hurricanes." Ummmm...... And then there's the endless fighting and drama. You post something, and it's open season for personal attacks. The lack of respect is appalling. So....I gotta think people in other countries love FB for it's entertainment value. "Just look at the dumb Americans bickering amongst each other!" Well, not here. Fishing is an escape and a form of relaxation for most people. And so too is this site.

The kind of places that they know you won't find them

I just picked up a brand new curado 71hg with free shipping for $139 from Kames in OH. Those are excellent reels.

Hahaha. Man, rough!

ARMY 70's