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Fall is finally here in AZ. This 4 lb bass took a Zoom Trick Worm - Candy Bug - tail dipped in Spike It Dip-N-Glow in Chartreuse/Garlic in a foot of water right off the bank. She was busting shad near an inlet Some fun metro pond night fishing!

Holy smokes you guys -- I can count on one hand the number of bass over 4lb I catch per year, and none of my smallmouth make it into that group. Here's my own modest contribution to the Digitally-masked Costume Party and the Smallmouth-Fest going on here (a little under 3lb, from back in July):

Got one about 20.5 inches flipping into brush with good current, water a little stained and 66 degrees

You're just mad because we stopped talking about your boat...

Tough fishing yesterday. Some dinks and a couple 2-2.5# fish.

I'm finally enjoying the payoffs after surviving a miserable summer of 120 degree weather that forced me to remain indoors most of the time. My cabin fever hits hard every summer, but at least you have ice fishing in Michigan during your winters. I miss that stuff.

You poor thing 75-80 must be tough! ? Chance of snow tomorrow here in Michigan.

@slonezp, @Further North , @S Hovanec ~ Get a room . . . . . . . A-Jay

I own several of the 15A long Bombers in black. One of the most deadly lures ever, IMO. I always have at least one in the old "Plano Hydro-flo" frog tackle box.

Sorry for the late report but had to head out to a job site as soon as I got back. Fished TB last Wed-Sun from Housen south to Lows Creek area (Magee Flats?). Underwater points on the main lake with wood and channels near their end. Drop shot was the ticket in 18-27 feet. Redbug, Green Pumpkin, Junebug Red Flake, and Bloodline (red black core) Finesse and Trick Worms. Use electronics to locate bait and bass so you don't waste time on barren water. Friday was our best day. As BF said, bite was weird, but once you got used to it, pull the trigger and a fish was on. One of the best trips we have made in 25+ years fishing The Bend.

A wiring harness and light kit is around $50 at Harbor Frieght. It’s the exact same brand that Autozone and Pep Boys sell for $70. I did my son’s trailer in about an hour and a half. Use the old wires to snake the new ones through.

When I used to be a tournament waterskeri, 5 of us purchased a new boat ever year and split all cost evenly. There were even provisions in the agreement that after the purchase, monthly maintenance was divided by hours used by the members. since the boat was purchased through a pro deal, it was sold every winter and profits went into a down payment on the next. Honorable men can do these things fairly easily

I have my HDS 10 on the pro track on the bow using the plastic Pro-Trak pieces from Lund. My downrigggers are mounted on a piece made by Cisco Fishing Systems to fit in the Lund track. This might be the route you want to take. They also make electronics mounts. They do custom orders and may be able to make you a mount combining the Lund downrigger mount and one of their other products. Give them a call. They're real easy to deal with.

I organize close to the same way. Just on a larger scale. Got one of these walls for plastics, Hardbaits, and spinnerbaits/terminal tackle. Ike gave me the inspiration.

I thought it was common practice to just use the boater's plastics and tell him you'll pay him back next time?

I Found the worms !!? When I cleaned out my work truck lol. I had gone back by Walmart and didnt find them there ,so I went in and bought 2 more packs ! Then cleaned out the truck and.... So now I have five packs. At 1.56 per pack what a deal.

Got on a real good bite yesterday with Booyah One Knocker lipless. Could see shad moving on the surface. As long as I followed the shad I caught fish. I'm curious of your guys experiences with turnover. I thought yesterday's freeze would get it going but obviously not.

Here are some I have used and liked. Yum tube, not the vibra King tube on TW, strike king flipping tube, Strike King 3.5" coffee tube, Bass Pro tender tubes, and Swing Oil J tube just about covers it for me, unless you can find the discontinued Trigger X tube which was very solid for me. For me a tube is pretty generic and I might change up the length depending on the bite, but have never put a lot of thought into the diameter of the tube. As as far as durability, swing oil probably the best, but you can expect multiple fish on pretty much any tube, even the tender tubes which are very soft. Just make sure sure to get a variety of colors. A tube can imitate it all, from craws to baitfish depending on how you fish em.

Caught my second biggest ever smallie yesterday, from a lake that doesn't have a fishable population of smallmouth. I've only caught five so far this year from this lake, but the one I got yesterday weighed 4.04 pounds! It measured 20 1/2 inches, and would have been longer if it hadn't had a pug face and a lower jaw that was over half an inch shorter than the upper jaw. Caught her on a 1/2 ounce rattle trap cranked medium speed with a few pauses mixed into the retrieve, on a main lake point. Also caught 21 other bass in 2 hours, with a decent 11.4 pound limit (I weighed all the keepers).

I will add one thing to Francho's sage advice. If your trailer doesn't have rubber grommets where the wires pass through the trailer's frame, go to the hardware store and get some. They come in various sizes. Measure the diameter of the hole the wires pass through, and get the size that will fit the holes. Put the grommets in before you run the wires. For those who have the wires run, you can cut the grommet to get it over the wire, then install it into the hole.

I can top that. Had my tackle bag on the seat of my boat when fishing at Lake Pickwick. The water was choppy, and at some point, the bag bounced onto the rear deck and ended up in the drink. I did a one eighty and followed the track on my sounder. No luck. A few hours later I got a call from my wife. She asked if I had lost something. An honest fellow had found the bag where the wind had blown it onto the shore. Made arrangements for him to ship the bag and its contents to my home. What are the odds against such a thing? But wait, there is more. I'm a slow learner. A year later I'm fishing Pickwick, and once again I tempted fate, and fate bit me. Once more the tackle bag ended in the drink. A few hours later I get a call from my wife asking me if I lost something................................................ A fellow who was in a sailing regatta saw it floating in the middle of the lake and picked it up. I called him at the number he gave to my wife and told him to keep it. The bag obviously did not love me as it had twice abandoned ship. Maybe it would prefer being with him.

Fished yesterday mid lake area and caught some on drop shot but most were small. Left and went looking in creeks for shad and found a creek with a bunch of shad a caught 20 or so with most of the fish coming on a series 5 shad crankbait. These fronts are starting to get the fish on the move and feeding. Only going to get better !! FOLLOW THE SHAD !!

just in a nick of time...almost got something productive done today

Have you priced live bait recently? Lures are a steal.

Grubs, to me the 2nd most versatile bait next to a tube. For me Kalins 5" grub is the #1 grub out there. It is very tough and will hold up to many fish and can be fished on a ballhead jig, swim jig, slider head, texas rigged, sure there is more. Next to being tough as nails, the tail has the best action at slow speeds of any grubs I have fished and I have tried quite a few. They have great colors, Ron's Craw is one in particular that has worked in clear and muddy water. Grubs also catch big bass and even got my PB Musky on one. The grub is a bait a lot have forgotten about or isn't sexy enough, but man do they catch em.

Was able to finish out the regular tournament season on a hot streak with two wins and 3rd. No pictures from a win on the Potomac since the fishing was tough and I didn't expect to win with a small limit. Took 1st on Conowingo with a decent limit of smallies on spinnerbaits. Finished up with a 2-day tourny on Deep Creek...Got 3rd with a mixed bag of SM/LM, mostly on jerkbaits.

Reverse fishing?

For sure take a dowel or something and mock up the rod handle and see how it feels to "cast" it sitting. I fish out if a kayak as well and I haven't even bothered to bring the Irod onboard. But I do have a preference for shorter than norm butts in general.

I have a Irod "Freds Magic Stick" that I bought for frogs but have used like 90% of the time for small swimbaits. I love it but for one thing, the butt is way too long for my tastes. Otherwise I have really liked it for hard and soft swimbaits in the 1-2.5oz range. I will say that the rod is pretty true to it's rating and say a 3oz wakebait was too much for it and was really touch-n-go when it came to making accurate casts. I am hooked on the Spro rat so I am going to move to a heavier rod with a shorter butt, but within it's limits I liked the Fred's and would look at the swimbait rod from that line but for the long butt.

Right now is the seasonal period when jigging spoons shine. Lakes that have threadfin Shad or similar baitfish school up and migrate. Threadfin are school fish that tend to hide in cover at night ant feed on phytoplankton during sunlight periods. As the sunlight time reduces and night time increase the Shad leave cover to feed on plankton being pushed by winds into coves, the bass stage on deeper structure and wait for the big migrating shad schools. I am not talking about the summer school size bass that chase Shad schools, in fall big bass are feeding on Shad. A few years ago I wa fun fishing a local lake during a TOC tournament by mistake, I try to avoid tournament anglers. The tournament anglers were weighing in at the marina dock as I approach and noticed a big Shad school balled up at the log boom entrance and stopped to fish this bait ball. I am about 200 yards from the weigh in dock and start catching big bass between 7 lbs to 9 lbs*, hard to keep a low profile fighting big bass that close to 50 other anglers! The bite lasted about 20 minutes and several boats came out to watch and join in. None of the anglers had any spoons and couldn't get bit. The spoon was Megabait 3/4 oz black back Shad, still my favorite all time big bass spoon. I believe P-Lines Laser Minnow looks like a remake and will buy a few to determine it's the same spoon. My point is these bass were on the 30' thermocline feeding on Shad all day, I was looking for a Shad school when approaching the marina because this was the success pattern and not a single tournament angler was on this. Don't over look structure spoons in the fall and winter. Tom * the 9 lb bass is my largest ever on a spoon and had a lot of witnesses.

FYI trailer lights only work in the driveway ? Don't difficult at all

I really don't think you can go wrong with any of the major brands. I happen to like Humminbird, the menus make sense to me and the new MEGA SI is just nuts...but I don't see it making any real difference in how I fish or how successful I am. It was just time to update after 4 seasons. Lowrance, Garmin, Raymarine (I think I got 'em all) all work great...I really think it's important to go play around with the units in-store to see what you like best...the "features" are just decorations on top of rock-solid basics for all the top brands and - IMO - won't make a bit of difference on the water over time.

Good one. There was an older guy at my church who would always fall asleep during the service, one day his wife nudged him awake and said "Dave they asked you to pray". So he stands up and starts to pray right in the middle of preaching. Everyone turns around confused and then all just bow their heads to go along with it. Including the preacher. He doesn't fall asleep anymore

Good catch Sam. You are correct that is an option. I never paid for parking there but the VDGIF may charge now. IT is not so much of an undiscovered gem anymore and does get some moderate pressure. I usually fished it on my way home from wading on the Shenandoah. There is also the pond on the Phelps WMR in Remington. Too small to Kayak but bank fishing is allowed.

Horrible fishing on Monday for the first few hours before the wind blew and I got called off the lake. Only one fish even worth catching and it was the wrong kind.

Cavitron is by far the best lure I’ve used in almost any situation. I pond fish a lot, and anymore that’s all I throw in the red blade black skirt variety. I once went out on the canoe with two others, all of us using buzzbaits. I had the red black cavitron and they cycled between different other brands they had and out of the 30ish bass we caught I caught 90% of them. They went for the cavitron every time lol

I think if ya find a jig with an arkie style head you can't go wrong. Flat eye. 3/8ounce.

You don't select a jig by brand, you select a jig by the hook it incorporates and the head design to perform where you fish it. Thr site sponsor offers you premium hooks with a wide verity of head designs plus wire or collar tied skirts. Trailers you have nearly unlimited selection depending on where you and how you jig fish. Tom

I have a personal preference for the Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Swim Jig even though I generally don't swim it. It just works for me. I get a great hookup ratio with it. I can skip it, too. I just use black/blue and green pumpkin in 1/2 oz. I put a Rage Craw or Menace Grub on the back.

Friend and I caught over 250 crappie on a trip late last week - had a great time. Water temps are starting to cool, trees are near their peak colors, and even saw a few bald eagles ? Love fall fishing!

Although no criminal charges were filed at this time it will go to a major civil trial. The guy that brought the 45 out to the Holey Land was and is totally responsible for the use of the gun and where those bullets go after leaving the barrel. If you want to own a gun, you have to be responsible for the damage caused by irresponsible use. The owner should have been charged regardless of who fired the fatal shot. It could have been any one of us that was killed!

I'm not a local, but I do play one on TV. MD is polluted with bass. Check out any retention pond on google earth, and hit the closests ones to home until you find some consistent action, some will be good with numbers, others with size.

Caught this bow deep nymphing the Roaring Fork in Colorado over the weekend. Caught over 30 viscious pre-spawning browns off streamers from a drift boat on the Upper Colorado River the day before. If I wasn't in AZ, I would probably be more addicted to streamer fishing. Such a fun annual trip!

The 110 catches everything!

A little surprise finding one of these guys in the very back of a cut in 1' of water along a weedline. Thought it was going to be a catfish at first.

Tautog aka Blackfish aka White Chins aka Slipper Bass or simply Tog, has been my target species of late. Hard fighting fish and is blast to catch on my lighter spinning gear. The jig has been killer so far for me this season.

went out to the mudhole for some blues. throwing some chum along with 5 other boats maybe 3 or 4 of them charters. however, fish were rolling through at 130-150' on the fish finder. tied on a wounded herring jig and hooked into this 16 # monster. what fun rod she was landed on

It was a long day, but I gained a newfound respect for the Pre-Rapala Wiggle Warts. After classes I hit one of the local spots for steelies and got the hit I was looking for, but couldn't get the right hookset so no dice. Tried another shore spot and still nothing. Went home, dug through some plugs I had and found one that I'm not even sure where it came from. It's a pre-Rapala Short Wart in the prizm gold shiner color. Never fished it before, but figured it'd be good. Brought it and some of my other lures to a different location that allows for shore fishing over a set of rapids. Basically you fish off a bridge into the rapids downstream from you. Within seconds I hooked into a 5+ lb chromer on the 1 oz spinner. It was unreal. I watched in disbelief as it threw the hooks on the surface. All around I could see steelhead feeding on the surface though. No one else was even fishing, so I realized things could get great. I tied on the short wart and began casting, but it was out of tune so I began making the adjustments for it to run straight. When I finally got it running true, I bombed it where I had seen a steelhead sipping. I started twitching it in fast erratic sweeps back to me when this 5 lb male didn't want any of it. Struck so hard, my drag was screaming before I even realized I had a fish on. Managed to battle it in and get it in the drop net. Came out to be 24.5 inches and an even 5 lbs. Also hooked into another 2-3 lber in the same spot on the same lure, but it popped off as I attempted to land it. Finished the afternoon 1-4 but I'll take it. Looking forward to Sunday's Dinner. Steelhead are in full swing now. Water temps a touch below 59 degrees.

http://dobynsrods.com/store/#!/DC-736CB-GLASS-labeled-DC-735CB-GLASS/p/78078711/category=22175368

asheville is a nice place, i grew up in western nc and then lived in charlotte for about 10 years. i wouldn't put much into lake norman, too far to drive from asheville for the rather lousy fishing it has to offer. lake james isn't too far away and is a very nice scenic lake, it's very clear and was tough fishing when i went, but may be something you're used to coming from WA. a little west of asheville you'll find some incredible mountain lakes like junaluska, bear lake, wolf lake, and glenville is a phenomenal lake that has a healthy population of largemouth and smallmouth.