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After redoing the transom, painting trailer and outside, scrapping the inside, re-riveting the leaks... Finished-ish Boat First 5+lb Bass in the Boat...no smiling allowed

First ever fish on a glide bait. Skinny fella but still pretty awesome.

Gotta love the footballs of fall...

Back at it today, had some sleet and lots of wind but overcast and 65 degree water. The bottom fish was healthy and fought like crazy, had to backreel a whole bunch. It came in just shy of 21". The Top fish was in rough shape and barely fought. We lost a few more of the same ilk

I believe that is a Jackall Gantarel Jr. in the Spawn Gill color. You see, I was around the corner from you and had just made a cast when I noticed you eyeballing my glide bait. You didn't grab it, but later on I caught a 5 year old child and a Great Blue Heron using the same technique.

I'll start by saying, it wasnt me, but oh so d**n close. Yesterday was the Jack Link's Simcoe Open on Lake Simcoe in Ontario. It is a one day shootout tournament and among the most anticipated of the year. I havent entered for a number of years but decided that I was going to do it this year. I committed hard and for the last month, almost every day off work has been spent on the water following these fish as they transition to their fall feeding grounds. The last two weeks were a grind. The weather and water has been unseasonably warm and they fish have been scattered from 4 feet to 60 feet of water with no rhyme or reason to it. It has made it extremely tough to pattern as they have not "set up" for the fall bite. Going into the tournament, we had 3 spots that we were going to die on, all within a relatively close distance of each other. We just had to get there. The night before the tournament brought strong wind gusts and the lake was pretty blown up. 4 and 5 foot rollers put a beating on us, making the 27 mile run to our first spot. The first fish in the boat was a 13 incher, not a good start for a tournament that regularly takes 27-30 pounds to win. We grinded and grinded and came up with one 5+ and decided to move on to our next area. We graphed a small shoal super quick on our way there and marked 1 loner fish, but decided to move on. We got to spot #2 and made a couple passes to no avail. Decided to make a bait change and voila, fish on. We still had to grind, but we were getting bit almost every pass, and they were all decent fish including 1 over 6. Eventually, these fish scattered and the bite died. We had about 3 hours to weigh in, and decided to try for the loner fish on that little shoal, since it looked like a good one. As soon as we dropped the trolling motor, the screen was lit up with smallies and we pulled another 4 quality fish off that shoal. It was ticking rain the entire day, gusting and cold. We bundled up for our long, wet, cold run back to weigh in and made it with 30 mins to spare, so lets fish by the ramp for a bit. The launch is in Lake Couchiching, which is attached to Simcoe and known for plentiful, but smaller fish. Somehow, we were actually able to make a quick upgrade in that spot. Weigh in time comes and one of my best friends has the lead with a 30.86lbs bag of smallies, insane. Up we go and drop 30.13 on the scale. Bittersweet moment. We finally broke 30, but this year it wasnt enough. It wasnt even good enough for 2nd as another team dropped 31.89lbs on the scale to break the previous record of 31.50 lbs. Insane day and an incredible fishery, where over 30lbs of smallies isnt safe!

Dude...you gotta break the pills in half. Just kidding, good luck on your new venture.

I was fishing a small lake with 2 friends about 30 years ago during a warm summer day. There was a hump with a brush pile on it about 20 yards from the shore in a cove & it was loaded with bass. So that all three of us would not be on top of each fishing the same spot, I walked around the side of the cove and waded out a bit in order to make my casts at a 90 degree angle to theirs. I was about waist deep in the water and had caught a couple of fish on a Texas rigged plastic worm. I made another cast and immediately the line began to move off. I reeled down, reared back and had completely forgot that my hands were still wet from the previous fish I caught. The rod slipped right out of my grip as the bass pulled it toward deeper water. Instinctively, I dove under the water. Visibility was about 2 feet as I swam forward looking around. After about 20 seconds underwater, I saw the bright yellow fluorescent Stren Line and grabbed it. I surfaced, and followed the line back to the Diawa Millionaire combo. As I reeled in the slack, I found that the bass was still on the line. As I landed the fish, my buddies on the shoreline were busting up laughing and gave me a standing ovation.

Bait color is such an interesting topic. One that has been debated here ad nauseam. When it comes to soft plastics, with the exception of perhaps swimbaits, they are presented by and large at, on or at least close to the bottom, my first, simplest and by far most effective method of choosing color is to come as close as I can to matching the color of the bottom. Second is to use a bait color where the top of the bait is close to the bottom color and the belly or bottom of the bait does not, but instead has ‘some flash’. This usually means some type of brighter / contrasting color; ie, chartreuse, white etc. A Spik-It bait color pen comes in handy right here. Breaking down the browns & greens, or any other color for that matter, besides being way to complicated for this simple minded Basshead, IMO is not necessary. If the fish are there, and they are going to eat, size, shape and presentation have all proven at least for me, to be more of a causative factor than color – most days. YMMV A-Jay

Aiden when I ask if he wants to go fishing!

in a situation like that I will usually throw a weightless fluke and fish it painfully slow. just jerking it once in awhile and then let it sink naturally.

The small pond I fish mainly at 7am. It was like 31 degrees this morning.

Compared to the cost of bullets......my other hobby........lures are cheap!

Have spent the past year working on restoring an old jon boat. This is your typical jon boat to bass boat. It took a very long time and there were so many times where I needed help for a 5 minute thing, but ended up taking an hour just to do. The boat and trailer itself are probably from the 70s? I sanded it down to bare aluminum, did self-etching primer, regular primer, than top coat. My wife gave me permission for this project since i needed a boat, and gave me an excuse to buy tools. Most importantly, i have no idea what i am doing so this was a challenge that i, without fully knowing what i was getting myself into, started. I chose to do all aluminum bracing. Towards the end, i started to get the hang of it all and would have changed several things structurally to improve it all around, but it is what it is. I tell myself that i will know what to do next time to improve it even more, but after the amount of crap i went through with this project, i don't foresee a next time. It ended up costing twice the amount i anticipated, which could be due to various aspects, but mainly, i didn't know what i was doing the first half of the build. I really tried not to take any shortcuts. The build is still not fully done, but it was good enough to fish from and catch my first batch of 5+ pound bass. Boat's old look prior to renovation.

Simple...I completely miss-read your post...Getting old isn't for the faint of heart...

This topic comes up from time to time and there's one thing I notice more times than not. There are folks that will not pay what they think Is too much and there are folks that don't care about price. I have always been of the opinion If you want a $25.00 bait and have the means then buy it. What others buy or don't buy doesn't affect me at all. If you put In the time you can find many of the high dollar baits on sale. If you have to buy wisely and Inexpensively you can do that too. In the end If you have confidence In a bait, whether It's high dollar or Inexpensive, then you have won half the battle. I'm like many folks In that I want a deal but If I have a high amount of confidence In a particular bait that goes North of $20.00 I will buy it. I'm sure there are folks out there that think a high dollar bait will out fish a bargain bait and In some cases that might be true but the fisherman I know well couldn't care less what others are throwing and not a soul on this site should ever care what others think of their equipment, PERIOD. If you are having fun, catching fish, and staying within your budget, then you are a rich man already.

No braid or Flouro....I'd use YZ Hybrid. I'll use mono only to hang pictures on a wall. Mike

Dicks is running a 1-hour online-only sale today, Noon-1pm CST. 40% off 1 item, maximum credit of $50. One hour only, or until 50,000 orders have been processed.

Yeah it freaking did. I'm freezing my butt off today. 30 degrees in Alabama in October! Mother Nature has lost her freaking mind. No reason to bring my Raiders into this. Besides, ill be working on their new stadium this upcoming year. Making me some bank. Between there and Kentucky it shall be a very prosperous year.

A shrink's black and silver wet dream

Yozuri Hybrid in appropriate diameters. Some will argue this- but KVD L+L helps tremendously the night before.

Well........good luck

What's the main difference between Big Game and Trilene XL? Thanks.

Yea. I ain't one of those people. I doubt anybody would by a $100 pass to fish with me. Unless they expected $99 bucks back.

Whatever you decide it’s going to have to be a soft plastic and your going to have to fish slow wacky rig senko would also be a good approach. Dead sticking.

What dont you follow. You have black green pumpkin, watermelon and brown i know what colors have black in it but when you get to colors that have green pumpkin watermelon or brown for the main color they start gicing them weird names

Looks like a bluegill to me.

YoZuri hybrid for me..

I doubt it. Must be ranting because the Raiders are doing what they do best....losing. And to think I put points on them

Really... Ande is recognized as the standard for fishing World Records. #6 has the same diameter as Yo-Zuri Hybrid. https://andemonofilament.com/pages/line-specs

If i had braid for my frogging and flipping i would be fine with yo-zuri hybrid and big game on the rest of my reels

Ran out of my 3/0 os and was left with 5/0 widegap os for wacky rigged Senko. This little bass was awfully lucky.

Daiwa Tatula CT 100's can be found new around $90, Walmart has then listed at $89.99 Tom

Way to organized for me. I just throw my gear in a pile in my spare bedroom and hope I can find it the next time I want to go fishing.

It's pretty easy to fish for really cheap. I used to fish with a combo I bought from Wal-Mart and lots of Renegade plastics, jigs, and cranks. Had a pretty good assortment of baits and a couple rod combos, probably 200-300 bucks into all of it. I've got individual baits that cost almost that now. Don't get into swimbaits if a $12 bait is pricey to you. I have swimbaits with almost $12 in hardware on them I also have given up most diving crankbaits, so that's a big chunk of savings there. If you know the websites to looks at, you can get baits for really cheap, as long as you're not real worried about colors or brands.

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

Always surprises me just how much flex even a graphite stick will yield on a decent hurl. A-Jay

I need to do the peg board for plastics too. I hope to do it over the winter. i need a elevator I can’t do stairs.

look for a cap /w a flat head top to it. Should usually need a larger flat head to open the cap. There should be a fill cap near the cylinder area. Don't just dump fluid in and call it good. You're going to have to bleed the lines and fill/bleed fill/bleed a few times. There's dozens of videos on youtube on how to do it.

Here's my latest rig, 2014 Smokercraft Pro Mag 182 with Suzuki 140 fourstroke. Rigged with Humminbird Helix units, Minnkota Terrova and 12' Talon. Awesome rig, motor is whisper quiet and super good on gas but still will hit 50mph. We do everything in it from downrigging salmon and lakers in big swells on Georgian Bay to flipping for largies in 1' of water on smaller inland lakes.

This is a solid choice. Use it on mile lacs and they crush it

No, but I have been tempted to. I have thrown them in the lake out of frustration before.

Yep, The flippin FC works well. I use it on my jig rods. I believe the lightest it comes is in 16lb. test but it handles well and you can see the chartreuse stripe easily.

P-line cx premium

P-line cxx.

I've used it in 10# for weightless senkos. It's pretty awesome line but it isn't high viz or even close to being high viz like you would want to line watch. The green sunline sniper also isn't high viz. It's pretty much the same color as Mccoy mean green. Good line though. The only fluoro that I've ever used that I was very impressed by for line watching was the sunline flippin' FC that has something 12in of high viz yellow and 30 something inches of "clear" fluoro.

Our Lund dealer called and said our boat is in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. They are storing it for the winter for us and installing the electronics etc. so it will be ready for us to pick up in the spring. We just had to take a run over and have a sneak peek. love the new boat smell. here's a few pics

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

My baby picture.