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Started fishing around 330 today. Man, was it slow at first. Got a couple on a red shad culprit worm, and a small grape lucky strike worm by our island. Drifted across the south end all the way to the farthest point from my house. Found a school and picked off 4 or so with an orange senko and 5 inch watermelon red yum dinger .Started working west into the setting sun along the south shore and decided to pull out the zoom lizard. Immediately began getting blows ups around and across eel grass. I caught 8 or so with the lizard until they quit. I decided to head toward home and maybe the bite would start again when I got closer to home and it did. This time they began clobbering 5 inch senkos, again on eel grass edges.The last fish was 4.14. Got a crappy pic. The fish was bleeding badly, which I didnt realize until I looked at the pic later. Hope she'll make it. She swam off like nothing was wrong anyway. I enjoyed the afternoon very much. Temps were sooo nice, low 70s. Bluebird skies, and nice ripple on the water. Bite Started very slow, but ended very hot ! Ended up with 18.

Man oh man today was strange. Father in law smoked me for about 5 hours and 45 minutes of the day. The last 15 minutes of the day I looked down into my bag at a bait I’ve been wanting to tie on just to see how it looked in the water. It’s a bait I really only purchased for a local private camp with “giant bass” and Toledo Bend. I reached down and grabbed the Savage Gear 5 inch swim bait in baby bass color and tied it on. Second cast got a little 14 incher and let him go. Next cast I felt a subtle thump, then thought my line was running with the current but no....I set the hook and immediately I knew I had a big fish. Father in law about fell out the boat trying to get the net to get this thing in the boat. Beat my personal best by over 2lbs today. Borrowed a scale back at the ramp and weighed in at 4.01lbs and 19 inches long.

Got a mixed bag today bunch of short largemouth and short crappie. One 16” largemouth and one keeper size crappie (10”) . Also got a bluegill and a yellow perch, water temp 60 and windy/cloudy/rainy

Sorry to break this to ya but I might pick a different ....buddy....

Took the boys to a truck or treat Friday night, Ferdinand and a Lion.

The people that have this realization, usually have it later in life and not when they are young and need it the most. This thread evolved to the point where my opinion now is that the OP and his friend are a perfect match.

You go from belly aching about a guy who thinks he’s Van Dam to saying your a natural..since June. I bet you two are a riot to fish with. I’d pay to watch.

So, there is a guy that lives next to a pond. One day there is a knock on the door. There are two less than " bright" looking young men at the door, and they say " we came to ice fish on the pond, but forget to bring anything to cut a hole in the ice with. Do you have anything we could borrow?" The guy says " I have an old axe you could borrow, but I'll need it back."" Of course" the young men said " we'll get it back to you". So off they go with the axe. The day goes on and it's starting to get dark. The guy is beginning to think his axe is gone for good, when there is a knock on the door. The two young men are there and say" here is your axe back, thank you very much". The guy says " no problem, did you catch anything?" " Well to tell you the truth, it took us so long to chop a hole in the ice big enough to put the boat in, we never did get to fish"?

Which of you, do you suppose is happier now?

There is no such thing as "too cold" for bass if you are willing to keep fishing. Last winter I caught them right up until ice. Some days the lake was half frozen over already, and other days it was literally freezing over as I fished, to the point that when I left, I could no longer fish what was a completely open pond just hours before. Then there were the trips in January and Feb. where a couple days of warm weather would open the ponds for a day or two, and I caught bass then, too. In the pic below, you'll see snow on the ground, and the pond edge completely frozen. I had to slide the bass over the ice shelf the last 5-10 feet just to land them, and then give them a good push to slide them back out to open water when released. I think they enjoyed the play time

Another good with with the jerkbait and jig ! To many to take pics of but got a nice photo of the biggen of the day. She swallowed the jig whole , thunk!

Fishing season is just kicking into full gear for me........ Rubbing it in.........

No one wanted to go fishing today. Better for me. Stopped off at Jim's Bait and Tackle to pick up 3 dozen large fatheads (a generous count) and some nightcrawlers. Hit my first area and caught a bunch of small white bass and small largemouth. Didn't want to waste too much bait on fish I couldn't keep. I moved from dock to dock on this 150 acre in the river system catching about a dozen crappies some more largemouth and a couple cats in the 4-5lb range. Even though action was hot, I was disappointed. All the larger crappies I caught came from this spot, but I was hoping for more. I blame it on the lake being overrun with gizzard shad that I was competing with. Next spot was where Jim from Jim's Bait told me to stop by but the river is in drawdown mode and as soon as I hit the mouth of the bay I was in silt so I turned around and hit my last spot of the day. Pulled the rest of the crappies off 2 docks. I used every minnow in the bucket and the 2 dozen crawlers are resting in the fridge. Ended up filleting about 3 dozen crappies 1 gill and 1 white bass

Good read while eating my overpriced salad from Sweet Green.

In this episode of Bassresource.com, the thread starter complains about about the Stormwater Senko Sleuth and his excessive bragging before bragging about his own impressive bass snatching skills. I prescribe a Facebook argument followed by, "fite me tho bro!" before you both block each other.

Set and trust your drag. Bass anglers tend to set drags too high, the "lock it down" mind set. If you ever fish for really fast swimming big strong fish you would learn to use and trust a reels drag system. Lot of engineering goes into todays highly effective drags to reduce over heating and smooth pressure. If you lock down or leave tightened a spinning or bait casting reel drag components take a set and damage results, the drag becomes unreliable and jerky. Try locking down down a drag on powerful fish like tuna or any salt water Jack family, if the line doesn't break your rod will. Try back reeling on a fast big fish it will rip the handle out of your hand. I don't back reel, never have. Set the drag at 1/3rd the mono/FC line break strength and use your finger tip on the spinning reel spool to add any extra drag that may be needed. I have caught LMB over 10 lbs using 6 lb line with spinning reels without back reeling. Tom

Seriously, who cares what he uses or says?

Bass will bite at 50F, and below. But you most often have to s-l-o-w down. Jigs, Chatters/SBs, jerks will work, but... you've REALLY got to S--L--O--W down. Slower than you might realize. A bit too fast and the lake will seem dead. It's not, it's just now in slo-mo. Below 50F is when bladebaits, and lipless fished the same -yo-yoing- work really well. The trick is to minimize horizontal (forward) speed. That's why the yo-yoing. Locations may change too. In large waters, where bass may have to cover some distance to get to winter quarters, they may start heading out when water temps hit 50F. Many bass though, esp in natural lakes and ponds, may not have to move far. I commonly see bass in very shallow in low 40'sF water. In the small waters I fish, I find the bass are still surface oriented, as that's where the heat still is. By the time the water hits 40F though, my fish move away from the shoreline out to deeper, now the warmer, water. They like "inside turns" in structure or cover, that create a bowl shape. They do not like to fight current at this time. In my dishpan-shaped more cover-free waters, bass will collect up near any object, sometimes just a single cover piece. Bass are still interested in food, but they eat much less, and tend to shift to small prey items. For me, the Ned grubs, and hair jigs, are all need when the water is that cold. You don't have to throw in the towel. It's just a different playing field.

Kistler H3 7'1" MH/XF

What a beautiful morning

Matt Anderson, Jumpmaster for the WWII Airborne Demonstration Team, stands in front of the "That's All Brother," a restored C-47. The plane is based in Frederick, Oklahoma. On June 6, 1944, this very plane carried soldiers of Headquarters Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment into France during the Normandy Invasion. "That's All Brother," will soon be flying back to Europe to participate in the 75th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion next year.

If that bothers you you are a tiny bit sensitive, if it bothers you enough to rant in a forum about it, yes you are way too sensitive. LOL

Now your friend is just plain funny. If he is doing well with Senkos in a retention pond then let him have his fun. I bet he knows he would phloch if he went fishing in a real boat and had to use other baits when the Senko bite is turned off. I would pepper him with questions about what colors he uses, the sizes, presentations, length of his rod, line test, hooks, how he rigs the Senko, has he tasted the salt in them, does he use any weights, where does he buy them, how does he store them, does he use any scent, has he used any coloring, like JJ's Magic, how long does he let the dinks run before he sets the hook, has he had any problems with the dinks swallowing the Senkos, and anything else you can think of to drive him nuts. He will either continue to brag or run away when he sees you.

My three best friends and fishing buddy's never complain.

Fishing is what I do to avoid stress....if something this simple annoys you, fish by yourself. 3/4 of the time, I am my best friend.

This past weekend was the end of the year tournament for our little Thursday night group. It was scheduled to be at Milford Lake near Junction City, KS which is one of the best smallmouth bass lakes in the state. Mother Nature had other plans, dumping nearly a foot of cold rain and even some snow in the area a week before we arrived, raising the lake over 9' and turning the water to coffee with cream color, dropping the water temp over 10* in the process. To say the bite was trying in practice was an understatement. @gardnerjigman and I got there Thursday morning full of excitement and hope. Those feelings died and were nearly gone by the end of the day, having boated 2 drum, 1 small wiper, and 1 non-keeper smallmouth. Being the tournament director of sorts for our group, I broke the bad news, but 3 more boats were arriving the next day and we were hoping that something would be found and at least show that some fish could be caught. By noon the next day, with all of our combined efforts, a drum and 1 white bass had been caught, I'd caught both of them on back to back cast on a deep crankbait and only one other boat had even seen a fish. An emergency meeting was called for lunch at the cabins and we all decided to eat our money we'd spent on the cabins (which was relatively little), and fish a couple lakes closer to home in hopes of better fishing (it couldn't have been much worse). Day one we fished Lake Shawnee in Topeka, KS, a 400 acre lake with big largemouth and smallmouth but lots of pressure. This day was no exception as there was another small club fishing and several weekend anglers in boats and kayaks, close to 20 total on the water fishing. At take off, everyone zoomed down the lake while GJM and I idled 100 yards to the back of the launch cove and started fishing the shallow water in the back of the cove. The water temp was showing to be in the high 50's and I'd noticed lots of shad in the back of the cove. The bitter cold air temps said slow down and fish main lake, my instincts and Garmin was telling me to find shad eaters up shallow. 5 minutes into the morning as I was fishing my homemade shad colored bladed jig around shallow clumps of grass, a fish blew up on a shad inside a broken pond dam that use to be a water park on the lake. I fired a cast into less than a foot of water, the wake of my bait was intercepted by a much larger wake and I quickly had our first solid keeper of the morning in the boat. We caught 2 more small keepers in the back of the cove, and I missed solid feeling fish in the middle of a big laid down tree on a jig. The next back end of a cove produced 2 more small keepers to give us a limit in the first 1.5 hours. That really let us relax and just fish. I had one spot in the back of a big, flat cove that everyone overlooks, but it's very hit or miss. We had a limit so we thought it was alright to try it and see what happened. We ended up culling out all 4 of our small fish in that cove, first with a jig fish in a lay down. Then 3 more in the very back on bladed jigs, only one ended up still in our bag by the end of the day. We bounced around a lot from there, catching quite a few fish but all small. For some reason the east side of the lake seemed to be the better side for quality bites. The missed jig bite from the morning was bugging me, so we ran back to the tree. First pitch, almost the exact same result, thump and nothing on the hookset. I flipped right back in and pinned her this time. Kind of a big head, skinny body fish, but still our biggest of the day and the overall big bass of the day. Only about 45 minutes left at that point, we thought we might as well bounce around to a few more lay downs and try to cull one more time. There's not many lay downs, so it's kind of a rough pattern for the guy in the back, so GJM tried to make the best of it and picked up a Ned rig to try to win the big trash fish pot for the day. One of his first cast he set the hook, but instead of the slow thump of a big drum, there was instantly a solid smallmouth streaking across the top. The last minute Ned rig miracle culled out our last fish under 2 pounds and gave us 11.12 pounds for what turned out to be a brutally tough day. We were the only team with a limit, and in the lead by 4.5 pounds going into the second day. Day 2 was on a much bigger lake, Clinton Reservoir in Lawrence, KS, which is about 7,000 acres. It's not well known for it's bass fishing but the population is doing pretty well, both largemouth and smallmouth and good sized versions of both. Knowing we had a good lead, our number 1 concern was to get 5 fish before we worried about getting anything bigger. With that in mind, marinas are great places to catch bass so we started right in the marina to fish a few places I'd caught them before. This morning started much like the day before, maybe 5 minutes into the day, I ran my spinnerbait down a wave breaker dock and caught our first solid keeper of the morning before the other guys were even to their spots. A few cast later, I really shocked myself by catching another small keeper on a crankbait. Further back in the marina, on what was really a nothing bank, GJM got his first bite of the morning and put #3 in the boat on a spinnerbait. 50' more we were in the very back and I caught #4 on a beaver next to a stump, which would prove to be our only bite on a slow moving bait of the day. As we rounded the secondary point, I caught our smallest keeper of the morning, but we had #5 in the boat just over an hour into the morning. We hopped across the cove and GJM culled out that little one with a slightly larger fish before we jumped out into the already churning main lake, that's when I knew we had really made the right call. I was hoping to find some of the quality smallmouth I'd be finding in small numbers down the lake, but those banks were crawling with big, hungry white bass that would not leave our spinnerbaits alone. As we worked down a usual flyover bank that I decided to fish because it has a few lay downs and stumps with a channel swing, I pitched my spinnerbait next to a lay down and thought I had hung up instantly but had actually thrown it right on top of a hungry fish. It tried hard to get back in the tree but quickly had a nice cull in the boat. Just around the point from there are 2 boat ramps with slide in docks that I love fishing on all our lakes because the fish seem to love hiding by and under them. First pitch with my spinnerbait next to them, I caught the twin to my last fish that fought like it was twice it's size. It was about 11AM at this point, and this would prove to be one of the last bass I would catch for the day. It seemed the white bass hit the banks in mass and I could catch nothing else. I did finally catch my first ever wiper from Clinton a spinnerbait which won us the big trash fish pot for the second day in a row. The next little boat ramp launch area we stopped at produced two fish, GJM caught both of them, one was a dink, the other was our last cull of the day. I was nervous at weigh in, knowing how tough this lake is, it still has the potential to produce 25+ pound bags. As it turned out, there had been a total of 2 bass caught by the other boats. One was a very nice 4.96 pound fish, which was funny because we were motoring to the spot with 20 minutes left when they came around a corner and were obviously going to get there first so we left it to them, and that's when they caught it. So as it turned out, all my worrying was for nothing as we could have stayed home and still won, but we ended up with 22.97 pounds over 2 days and won by over 13 pounds. Sometimes you just make all the right calls and then fish clean on top of it, and I feel like we really did that both days. Felt really good to end the tournament season on a high note.

This ^^ is how I happen to use mine, right or wrong. I have a Curado I 200 I use for 3/8oz and larger baits. I tried it with lighter baits and didn't like it. When I got a dedicated rod for lighter baits (ML power) I put a Curado 70 on it and like it a lot.

The Curado K 200/201 is a bigger reel than the 70/71, so the Curado K holds more line.

24.5" inshore red, biggest out of 11 my friend and I caught yesterday.

Man, some nice brown fish going this last week. Need to even the photos out with some green ones. ? Got out on the water yesterday for a few hours before the Vikings game. Ended up having my best day of the year, size wise. Ended up with my best 5 going just over 20lbs, anchored by these two 5.5lb and 4.4lb studs. The 5.5 is my biggest of the year so far. All bit on a bluegill pattern Chatterbait that I made myself with a Yamamoto Zako trailer. Slow rolling the chatterbait over weeds in 4-5 feet of water right near a steep break line. Was windy out, but it was worth fighting the wind for sure. Water was 46-47 degrees. I think I may be "coming down with something" on Thursday as the wind is supposed to be minimal. May need to make one last Mille Lacs run for the year.

When I first started to fish live crawdads as a kid we tail hooked them, that was how it was done. When joined the Pisces Bass club in '69 to learn how to catch Florida strain LMB in San Diego I learned how to nose or beak hook a crawdad. Hooking the craw just in front of it's eyes the bug could swim backwards quickly down to the bottom after casting it, then with "stitched" the line back slowly pulling the walking craw along to prevent it getting into brush or under rocks. When you felt the craw trying to kick backwards you knew a strike was coming! Just a little history for you. Tom

I don't know how old you are, or anything about your life experiences, @LuffDaddy, so please don't be insulted by my offer of unsolicited advice....but, it took me a lot of years to fully learn and understand, but probably around my mid-30's I came to a stark realization....hit me like a ton of bricks and affected my outlook for the past 20+ years: I do not and will not expend angst, nor energy worrying about the opinions that someone has of me....IF I don't generally respect their opinions. -- It was a bit of a challenge at first, but if I don't like, nor respect someone generally....well, I really don't care much about what they have to say and won't ever get my skivvies bunched about it

Finding them is the hard part. A number of years ago I launched the boat and fished the docks on a 300 acre lake with marginal success. Before getting back to the ramp i tried a downed tree no more than 10 yards from the ramp. I pulled 45 crappies off the tree. I was in view of every shore angler and none of them were happy i found it first.

Ditto that. Here are 2 videos I made last winter that you might find helpful for understanding just what's going on for bass during winter...

Cape Update: Spin Cycle Rather than battle perfect storm conditions offshore in the salt, a buddy of mine and I dropped the bassin' tub into Long Pond on Sunday afternoon to fight the good fight against white-caps and gusts to >20mph (SW). Surface water temp was 55-degrees, down from 60-degrees 3-weeks ago. The initial plan of fishing deeper humps and drop-offs with blade-baits in 25-35ft immediately went out the window as my TM couldn't keep us in place (in need of an Ultrex upgrade...), so we were limited to fishing drift-style and in areas not directly in the prevailing gust. Plan B wasn't exactly scientific but where we found the confluence of rock, weed and bait, the fish weren't too far removed. We did a bit of idling, but as soon as we saw the screen lit up (like below), we would fan cast an assortment of smallie favorites. Biggest fish (a hair over 3.5lb) came on a dead-sticked tube in 6ft near a mooring anchor. Over the course of 5hrs, this pretty random process got us 7 bites with our limit just north of 12lbs. Not too bad (all things considered) for a windy late season outing, with plenty of time to spare to watch the SOX win the series!!

Back in the States on the last leg of my travel. Hurricane was not an issue. The trip and the especially the fishing was well beyond anything I could have hoped for. Still hard to believe. The numbers, weights, pics and some Insane Video is all coming in a few days. A-Jay

The noise is from the ice expanding. The water movement is just from the pressure releasing at points of least resistance (like a hole).

This may have been the most depressing fall ever. Started off with a bang, For my 70th birthday my wife had saved up her pin money all year and bought me a Pelican Catch 100. Love the wider, sit-on-top style with slightly elevated seat ... although the Old Geezer Strap will have to be lengthened. She also bought me an automatic/manual PFD because it “matched” the yak color. But ... from there things went downhill in a hurry. First, I can attest to the performance of an Onyx A/M | 24 PFD! Through a combination of overconfidence, my natural grace, and a slime-coated rock; I performed an inadvertent yak quick dismount and even though the water was less than knee deep, the resultant rather impressive splash lit that puppy up with no problem!! (Side note: the PFD lists for $160.00 but the local DSG was selling them for $109.00. Spare arming kit lists for $29.99 but DSG sells them for $24.95 and since my kit was hanging on the rack meant for the manual kit, they gave it to me for $19.99.) To sum up, in the only three outings I: 1. Performed my acrobatics (Forgot to mention I managed to break my new TP-1 spinning rod and bend the handle of my Manley baitcaster in the process - although the Manley problem was easily corrected so it adjusts good as new.) 2. Snagged my anchor and lost it along with about 12 feet of anchor line (Note to self: Don’t use commercial heavy grade tie-wraps to rig the anchor. Those little suckers are TOUGH!) 3. Used an S-Waver for the first time. Three casts, two monster pickerel, the second of which fled the scene with my lure. So ... I just stowed the kayak for the winter and now am brooding and already planning for spring. Gonna try to hide from the Bait Monkey and focus on good waterproof footwear, new spinning rod, new S-Wavers, and a BIG bottle of KVD Line and Lure. Winter in Massachusetts is not a happy time.

I eat an apple a day year round. This time of year, can't beat honeycrisp from Door County WI

Honey crisp here too....about one a day. Interesting on how they change flavor at times during the year or the batches they get in different stores. Sometimes they are almost like drinking a glass of juice.

Find banks with deep water nearby. If you can find a topo map, look for the areas with the lines close together near the bank and fish those areas with slow moving baits like a suspending jerkbait or shakyhead. Dams and bluff banks will usually have deep water nearby and the rocks hold heat and a couple degrees makes a big difference during the winter months.

How bout in your rod guides? In case it ever happens to you, know that above about 27F the ice in the guides is still soft enough to fish through. Below that, or with wind chill, you gotta chip that ice out every few casts. I've fished for steelhead in super-cooled rivers in single digit air temps. I had to pop my flies, or bait, in my mouth to thaw them enough to get a few casts in. You make iced tea, we make lemonade up here.

One of just a few available for purchase so far, a Shine Glide 230. Next to it's beat up little brother.

Even my daughter got in the act, before she moves for her new job out of state. Sad day for me, but good fishing for her...

You're being too sensitive . He might just be having fun with you . i have a friend who caught a giant bass out of a privately owned strip pit . He took measurements and had a mount made .I swear this bass had to weigh 12 lbs and i trust he was honest with his lengths . He only lies to stay out of trouble. LOL Any way ,in jest ,I told him it didnt count because he caught it in private water , a place most anglers dont have access to . Boy , did that upset him .

There used to be a Senko commercial where Roland Martin throws a bag to a kid. The kid asks "How do you work these things, mister?" Roland replies "Son, you don't work them, they work for you!" They have to be foolproof with that kind of endorsement wouldn't you think? LOL

A few 19’s and 20’s left in the river. Water temps 44.

You want some cheese with that whine? lol I don't care what baits people throw or how good they think they are because it has zero impact on my skill or fish i catch.

There's all kinds of folks, some who actually fish, and some who fish retention ponds. It's annoying/aggravating when we encounter people who have a lofty veiw of themselves and their said skills. Just keep learning and fishing and let him enjoy his ditch water

"Hurry up and wait." The "Green Ramp," Ft. Bragg, NC.