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I started fishing again back in August for the first time in about 20 years. I feel like I've picked things up fairly well. I've caught several 4-4.5lb bass between now and then and honestly it's taken over my life haha. Tonight I was out doing some night fishing and caught my new PB! Super excited when I pulled this guy out of the water, I could tell he was gonna be huge. It was a great fight! I was fishing on a St. Croix Premier MH F with a Curado DC and a super flook look alike I got from a LTB box. ? Came in at just over 6lb, I'd say between 6lb 2oz, 6lb 4oz

I get there as the sun is coming up and fish until late afternoon. My biggest bass of the year was on January 2nd in the morning hours. The temperature on that day? TUE 1/2 Actual Temp 22° /-1°

After a few chilly nights, woke up to 46 degrees here in SE Georgia this morning and almost didn't head out. Was glad I did I after i pulled in a new PB. She weighed in at 8lbs 6oz. Getting closer and closer to double digits!

@Siebert Outdoors Fogy kind of weekend. Caught some on other stuff, but the biggest ten or so were all on Fogy

Friday I caught a new PB at 7.1 lbs. This morning, I braved the cold for a 6 pounder. There was frost on the windshield when I took my daughter to school. I dropped her off and headed on over to the lake. This was a trial run for winter fishing. I put on my thermals and layers. I used muck boots to keep from getting the feet wet. I made a beeline for the area I caught the PB in. I caught a 2 pounder on the same spinnerbait. That cove didn't seem to hold anymore bass so I paddled down the adjacent bank, skipping a @cadman custom black/blue grass jig with a Chigger Craw trailer under the overhanging brush. There's a beaver adding lots of bass habitat. Just a few casts in and BOOM! A 6 pounder. I went on to catch one more 2 pounder on the spinnerbait and a dink on the jig. I was off the water after 2 hours and 45 min because my daughter got out of school early today. Funny, this fish looks half the size of the 7 pounder. It's actually longer with a bigger mouth. But it hadn't had breakfast yet.

Hi all, As our fishing year is over, I thought I would give a review of our new boat experience. As some of you know, disabilities caused me to retire a couple of years ahead of schedule, so my wife and I took a good hard look at our "fishing" future and decided our old boat ( a lund 14' WC Delux tiller steer ) was just no longer suitable for us to comfortably fish out of ( my wife is also disabled), and so we went looking to get a new boat. Boat-- We looked for a while at used boats, but could not find anything that suited us, so we went new. We ended up with a Lund 1625 Fury XL Sport. This is the one with a full windshield. This is not a bass boat but rather a multi species boat, however, this style was the most comfortable for us. Why Lund? Quality of build, layout, storage, but a lot of our decision was based on our local dealer. They took care of us on our first boat and have done well by us on this one. Setup- We ordered this boat with everything we thought would make us more comfortable, air ride seats, tilt steering wheel, but the best thing we got was the full sun top. We can't say enough good things about it. My wife is sensitive to the sun and can only fish for a few minutes at a time ( she has hand issues) so this was a blessing. She can sit in the shade and read or fish off the back of the boat as she chooses. No more wind burn, sun burn, getting wet in the rain, cooler in the summer, warmer in the cold weather, we love it. Motor-- We have a 50 HP Merc on this boat. With both of us and the boat fully loaded we can hit around 30MPH. As most of the lakes we fish are less than 1600 acres this is plenty fast enough for us. I really like the fact we can fish all day and only burn 1-2 gallons of gas. Trolling motor-- We went with the Ulterra. What can I say, we are spoiled. To head to a spot, deploy the TM and hit spot lock with out leaving your seat. Tell it to head in a direction while you fish, what's not to like. sonar-- We went with Garmin echo map chirp in the bow and console. Are they better than other brands, I have no idea, but they work well for us. Conclusion-- this boat is not for everyone, but in our situation it met or exceeded all our expectations. It is comfortable for all day on the water, rides well, easy to tow with our ford edge ( with a tow package) and has plenty of storage. The front casting deck is small but works very well for me. I can fish, reach tackle, tools, net, anything I need without standing up ( most of the time I have to fish sitting down). Did it make us better fishermen? No, but it allowed us to fish longer and more often, and using the I Pilot and spot lock we covered much more area. Our old boat didn't have a TM, and I could only pull up an anchor so many times, so we only fished the most " fishy" places. I Pilot and spot lock opened up the whole lake for us. Here's a few pics showing the boat. The last pic is the largest bass we caught this year. I caught it going thru an area ( using I Pilot) I never would have fished in our old boat. Thanks for looking Jim

Two pages of recommendations.... I guess, you know better. Good luck!

Spots

In my previous outing summer patterns were still lingering like a bad hangover. Almost no bait balls, much less bass feeding on them. Low activity. Hot temperatures. Then I had to keep the boat in the garage to do some work on the trailer. After two weeks I finally was able to take her out again. What a difference those two weeks made. Water temps dropped from 73 to 67. My graphs, previously lifeless, now showed a ton of activity. Excited to be fishing shallower, I pitched my jig outside a weedline at a cove opening and the rest is history. A friendly kayaker helped take this picture for me: Picture actually makes it look smaller, but I promise you it's a 8.09 lber. Just a tad skinny. If I had caught her with a full belly.... Been fishing in California for 4 years and I could not break 7 lbs. Slightly embarrassed, but sometimes people think huge bass just jump in your boat out here. Lakes here get a lot of pressure. On to double digits! Some areas in the country have people already winterizing boats. Quite the opposite here. We're at the end of the fall transition into fully fledged "fall" fishing. Bass are getting more active and I managed to pull out some 3s and a 4 in addition to the 8. Can't wait to capitalize again.

Caught a couple of these in The Gulf not very big but a cool catch!

First light to dark thirty ?

I cant imagine live , green weeds not holding bait . There are minnows , crawdads , insects , frogs ...

If you cannot cast a Abu Garcia Black Max ya might wanna consider taking up knitting!

I almost decided not to go this morning because I wasn't feeling great. We just got our first cold snap and turned the heat on. I decided you never know if you don't go. It paid off. I got his big mama in a couple feet of water on a stump flat. She killed it soon as it hit the water. I caught her on a War Eagle Gold Shiner spinnerbait. This is my first in the 7 lb range (7.1). Odd considering how long I've been fishing. It bumps me up to 7-8 lb PB. This is the 2nd time I've caught a PB at this place on a spinnerbait in the fall. I'm starting to see a pattern. Check out the gut. It looks like she has a pound in the stomach. The last PB I caught looked exactly like this except .2 lbs less. It could be the same bass, but not likely since this is about a 30 acre private lake. I know there are 8 pounders in here and I'll keep on trying for more PB's.

Had a staycation this week. Mother Nature is bi-polar this time of year around here. I had days of fishing in 3 layers to days fishing in a t-shirt. River Smallmouth fishing was tough as the water temps have really dropped. I was finally able to figure that the crankbait is what they wanted. Here are some of the better catches.

Is this a spotted bass? When I caught it, it looked like a largemouth to me and was in an area where I was catching mostly largemouth. But after reviewing the picture, it looks alot more like a spot. I still suck at telling the difference.

Just got out of the hospital after a little bout of pneumonia. I know, I'm supposed to take it easy. But isn't taking a leisurely 1 hour stroll along a nearby golf course pond -- just me and my T-rig -- taking it easy? (My wife didn't think so, but that's her opinion.) Anyway, my little Rage grubs were gobbled down by some really nice bass tonight. One of them had a pointy belly due to a massive bluegill in her gut, the tail of which was still in her mouth. She was awfully greedy to want my grub for desert before she could swallow its predecessor. Also, I was blessed by the appearance of a great blue heron, wood storks, a rare (for me) roseate spoonbill, and a beautiful sunset. Now it's time to kick my feet up and relax with a gulp of Robitussin, peruse the pages of BR, and try to burn tonight's little adventure deep into memory.

After a slow start today i decided to go shallow in the creek and throw a lipless Crankbait around the pads and then it was game on. Here’s the two biggest of the day.

In 23 days it will be Veterans Day. Honor them, honor each other.

At your price point Shimano Stratic Ci4 2500 would be my choice. With braid or bass fishing you don't need a deep spool high line capacity spinning reel. I have 3 Stratic reels for 10 years without any issues and thinking about updating to Ci4's but it's hard to change when the reels perform so good. I had the same problem when changing from Daiwa TD SS1300 spinning reels, after changing the shaft bushing to a bearing the old SS1300's still run smooth and are bullet proof. I would aviod Abu reels today. When fishing with my son he uses my Stradics and I use my old SS1300, feels a little heavy now but no spinning reel cast better or has a smoother more reliable drag. Tom

Hola Maherme! I was fishing Cijara a couple of weeks ago, fantastic lake. Living in the UK I always have to travel for bass fishing and I love the fishing at Cijara. Do you ever get over to Extremadura to fish?

Honestly in my personal experience the only thing you do by waiting until later in the day is losing time on the water when you could be learning and saving yourself the discomfort of the chilly weather. How ever contrary to most people if i know that we have a high pressure system where it is going to be sunny and cloudless most of the i am going to be out when the sun first rises in the morning. something about the winter time and first sun is magical, but that is just my experience. I will note however that both of my last personal bests 5lb 12oz. and 6lb 10oz respectively came on a sunny January day about 2 pm on a weightless wacky rig fishing about a 12 foot deep rocky point. It was frustratingly slow but just letting that worm shimmy down slowly put around 7 fish in the boat in 30 mins. Hope I helped!!

It's location and timing then the right lure at the right depth. It's a rare day that dinks or small bass and big bass share the same water at the same time. Tom

It should be "bienvenido" but it doesn`t matter.

October 18th this year I went fishing. On the water at 7am fished till noon. Air temps around that time were 35-38 degrees with 15 MPH winds. I had on three layers that day. Got this girl at 10:15 am Made braving the temps and wind worth it. Despite the temps I like to be out at first light. My bait choices change as the day progresses and the water has a chance to warm. Started out slow with jigs and deadsticking senkos to swimbaits and crankbaits in the early afternoon.

Jig, shaky head, c-rig and drop shot.

I go from first light to noon almost all year. Since my kids are in their teens, they will sleep in on the weekends so I'm not missing out. This way I have all afternoon and the evening for family and responsibilities. I love being on the water as the sun comes up, however the wind is my enemy in the winter. No matter how many layers under my 100MPH gear that wind still cuts a chill right thru me

It looks like most of the responses that you have received so far are from northerners and not from southern guys as you requested. I happen to be from SC, so I'll throw in my two cents. BTW, I fish from the bank, not a boat. The first thing that I consider is personal comfort. If it's too cold or too windy I just don't want to be out there. But if it's not too cold or if I really just need to get out and fish for a while my first choice is to fish the smaller lagoons in the colder weather. With the smaller body of water the shallows seem to warm up sooner. In the winter months, if I fish a lagoon two or more times and have no luck I usually cross that lagoon off my list for the winter. Why? First off, I cover every square inch of the lagoons that I can reach with my casts. If the fish are sitting in a spot I can't reach then odds are I won't be fishing the few times a day that they bass are cruising to the shoreline to feed. The other reason is that in my area most of the lagoons are interconnected via the stormwater inlets and the bass may have simply moved to another lagoon for the winter. There are almost 300 lagoons in the community where I fish, so I cover a lot of ground and have a lot to choose from.

I love the sun rises and sets all times of the year. Sometimes it's not about the catching but the experience. I do real well early on cold days....usually fish are deeper on the smallie lakes so temp I don't believe is a big issue....they like the shadows too. Not to say you can't catch them on sunny banks...I do. But it's an all day thing. Have fished some brutal days where you dip the rod every other cast and the wind is blowing but they still eat.

I’ve been on the road for 3 days straight so it’s been tough to keep up with this post. This all makes perfect sense to me now. I greatly appreciate the help.

You’d be ice fishing in March!

@Bluebasser86 And this is why I asked. A lot of people catch their biggest bass ever in the cold months and a lot of people miss out on the opportunity because it's not comfortable.

I'm trying to talk my better half into letting me flood the basement for a couple months...

I had a broken buzz bait and a spinner bait that I hated, so I took a pair of needle nose and made something similar to this the other day- https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/catpage-VMFISHING.html?from=basres Even on the water, took me less than 10 minutes. Got a few blow ups on it, too!

Not sure if you want to count what we have down here as winter, but if the morning temps are 45 or below I wait until the afternoon. If the afternoon temp is 40 to 45, but sunny with no wind I'll go for an hour or two. Any colder than that, cloudy, windy, or rainy I'll probably stay home. I've never had much luck on those days so I don't see any reason to stand outside in those conditions.

I typically fish in the afternoons/evenings when the water temps peak. If I get three days of consistent, and unseasonably warm weather, I’ll fish before noon. But ultimately the later half of the day is the ticket. But for right now, even though the temps are touching the 30’s at night, I suspect the mornings to still be productive on my local water. Once December rolls around and and the real winter pattern has set in, that’s when I shift to strictly afternoon fishing.

I bass fish to catch bass. If I catch a bunch of small ones I am happy or if I catch a big one I am happy. Really I am just happy to be out on the water.

Boater and I won our cub's tournament on the Chickahominy River this past Saturday, October 20th. I was a nonboater due to a medical issue (inner ear infection and the doctor was worried I would get dizzy on the water) and had three of the five keepers for 11.8 pounds. The boater had the tournament's big fish (3.5 pounds) and the last one I caught about 10 minutes before the tournament ended put us over the top to beat the second place team by 4 ounces. Chick was high and dirty, with a lot of wind that messed up the tides. Never did find clean water, even in the back of the creeks. And the wind held up the incoming tide so we did not enjoy the outgoing tide, which is what we wanted to fish, as it never went out. The water was choppy and we were in the rain from 7 AM to around 2 PM, with excellent topwater water conditions. Only problem was that the bass did not want any topwaters. We threw poppers, buzzbaits and Whopper Ploppers with no strikes. I chucked a Chatterbait, too. Same went for all the other guys in the tournament. I guess the bass missed the "How to Fish Topwater" articles in Bassmaster Magazine. We nailed all of our keepers, except one on a spinnerbait that we later culled, on plastics. 100% plastics. That is all they wanted. Green pumpkin with black flake; moccasin blue; Carablue; and Junebug. We also had some drama at blast off, during the tournament, and at weigh-in. At blast off, there was a very nice young man in a beautiful Triton who was wearing a red fishing jersey with "Roll Tide" scrolled across the lower back in large letters. Of course, I could not help my self and told him to yell "Geaux Tigers" when he set the hook. He did see the humor in it and we had a nice conversation about college football. Then, as he tried to start his Mercury motor and move out for his 39 boat Hookers Tackle Shop Classic tournament, his motor would not start. We got my boater's Ranger ready to go and left the ramp to join our other club boats in the creek for blastoff so I have no idea if he got the motor fired up. What a bummer. All the planning; getting up and driving to the Route 5 ramp in the dark; paying the launch fee; launching the boat by himself; paying his entry fee; and the motor would not start on a beautiful boat. Don't want that to happen to anyone. Hope he got going and had a good tournament. During the tournament one of our club guys in another Ranger in the early morning got his bait snagged and he stepped from the deck onto the Ranger's gunnel rail to look down for the snag. Just then, the boater moved the boat via the trolling motor so the nonboater could try to get unsnagged and the nonboater slipped and went into the drink. He did admit that he hit bottom. Of course, no one brings a second set of clothes with them or a towel other than for winter tournaments, so he had to fish the rest of the day in windy 50* temperatures. At weigh-in, I noticed one of our guys who is a little on the heavy side sitting next to his parked Bass Cat boat and trailer on the road's shoulder. Knowing that he had medical problems and was scheduled for shoulder surgery, I thought he was stretching. But them my friend and I who were watching the weigh-in decided to go over a make sure all was OK when he did not move for about two minutes. No, it wasn't good. He had stepped on the trailer's upper step, slipped, and fell onto the ground. He could not get up. So me and two other guys lifted him onto his feet. He said he was OK but I bet he is hurting today. I thought he may have broken his hip shoulder, ankle or leg. He seemed to be OK after we got him up and he joined us for the final few guys at our weigh-in. This is my second tournament in a row that I won. I skipped the last one due to an inner ear infection and the guy I was going to fish with finished second. But two firsts in a row is pretty good. One more to go on the Historic James River. Would like to make it three in a row. Only negative for me was the big one that got away. She clobbered the plastic and I missed the hook set. I guess I can add her to list of "The Ones That Got Away" which is pretty long. All in all, had a great tournament and learned a few new places to fish the Chickahominy River in future years.

I've fished both ways. If you want to target big fish mainly, expect your numbers to go down. Bigger bass will hit smaller baits too. Targeting big bass is really knowing where to fish. Location is the key

I was in the Outer Banks chasing salty critters this weekend, but my little brother was back home harassing our green friends as per usual. I had a couple of friends from WV with me, one of them is a big swimbait guy, and he had a couple baits and rods in his truck that we left at my house in VA. He told my little brother he could take the stuff out for a test drive while we were in NC, and he took full advantage of that! Small local body of water, it has giant bass but they are extremely pressured. I have spent countless days on it and have landed 3 big fish, but all were in the 6 pound class. The big fish there definitely eat big shad, so the 8" bull shad did the trick, this fish makes it look small! He was kayak fishing, and I think the lack of trolling motor noise probably contributed to this big fish letting her guard down, because they have trolling motors buzzing over their heads almost every day of the year when the water isn't frozen. 8lbs, 11oz, just under 24"!!!

Just a couple from today’s outing, only had two hours to fish with 15-20 mph winds ina. Canoe.. funny thing is the swimjig destroyed it today. Caught about 15 with 10 being on the swimjig and the others the jackhammer !

Worked my butt off for one bite today. It was a gorgeous fish, but man was it slow out there. Air temps was 35 when we launched, and mid 40s when we got off the water at 2pm, Water temp 64. I definitely would have stayed longer but had to make it to an exam. I fished shallow, deep, and in-between. I am pretty convinced they just weren't eating today, at least not while I was there! However, after fishing tirelessly all day, I missed this fish, made the same cast and had it pegged for at least a full second after it swam my bait away from the log, and it returned to the same spot to eat again on the third cast. I really don't know what was going on out there today

Got out today for what was my first day on the water with the sun shining since sept.6th. The price for that luxury air temp 35 at launch with a cold NW wind gusting to 20+. Managed just 2 ;1 on a spinnerbait and this 3-3 on a buzzbait.

Agree it weather dependant. We bass fish year around and cold water here is around 50 degrees, morning air temps can be close to freezing. Couple of warm days and early morning dawn is usually good, dusk is usually better. Cold windy weather I am not getting up early in the winter! Tom

Down here I prefer to be on the water early when it's "cold" i have a tournament on the St John's River this weekend where the low is expected to be in the high 40's low 50's. As it warms up those fish tend to do so also. However, if it's right after a cold front I'll stay in bed. Mike

Future BR member for sure!

Most important to choose one brand over other on Soft Jerkbait is fall rate. The side to side action is a lot depend on how you twist and how you rig the hook. I have use different type of brand like D-Shad, Zoom, Yum, Big bite bait, and Some Elaztech Fluke. D-Shad is heaviest of the brunch follow by Caffeine Shad, BBB got biggest profile and fall pretty slow good action when fish on top of weed or just below surface, Zoom and Yum are in between when you can do pretty much all of above and shine on shallow water. Am I too crazy about Fluke? For the past two years the first fish I caught was on Fluke and also the last fish I caught last year was also on Fluke.

If you take the boat, get it in writing that the repairs (including the deck and carpeting/ vinyl) are covered under the factory warranty. Those boats have a lifetime warranty on the deck if I remember correctly. I agree with "Toxic" however.

If it bothers you (it would me) I would get another boat from the dealers stock or have him order another one that has not been cut open. Surely he has more than 1 new model on the lot?

Yeah I live like two miles from Lake Thunderbird and must say the only lake that seems to have much access from the bank in our area is Lake Stanley Draper. I am not from the area of the state and got tired of not being able to do much good from the bank so I bought a kayak and have done extremely well and love it. It gets me around great and it’s peaceful, I love how close I can get into tight areas.