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A couple of fish from this week.

To me that indicates that you had long followers that weren't committing until they had their "eat or leave" moment upon your straight retrieve. I have many a fish hit the jerkbait near the boat the moment I decided the cast was over and lifted the rod and started to reel quickly. FFS sonar has taught us the upward lifting of the bait toward the surface triggers a feed response because the fish know the bait will be trapped by the surface. Many times you can get those fish to commit without the straight retrieve by changing something in the cadence. Or you could have got those fish to eat the bait sooner with a straight retrieve the whole cast which I do fairly often. To me the half the fun of a jerkbait is getting that incredible slack line hit on a jerk/pause retrieve. Your theory is just as valid as mine, the Bass aren't gonna say 😁

Finally a topic that I excel at. When it comes to catching bass, I am just an average angler. When it comes to backlashing reels, I am a real pro. I have backlashed so bad, I lost a rod and reel over board.

Many of you probably have gone down this road ahead of me, but this came as something of a surprise today: Farmpond with 52 degrees and using a Stunna jerk with “traditional” jerk-jerk-pause cadence. Nothing forc30 minutes even though water was super clear. Then I decided to just do a slow wind on my reel after the lure was halfway back to shore, like a crankbait retrieve and….Bam! 3 nice bass on 3 consecutive casts, and 2 more after a couple empty retrieves in between. So in 10 minutes just totally re-wrote how to work a jerk. First half of retrieval jerk-jerk-pause to pique their interest then making it look like the minnow is recovering and slowly swimming off, and they couldn’t handle that scenario. Anyone else do it like that????

I don't buy Megabass for the same reason I don't take recreational drugs. I don't want to be living on the street begging for money.

A couple of years ago, I had a decent jerkbait bite going and I was pretty excited about it. I was in some deeper water and my rig was blowing around a bit. Rather than reposition the boat, I stepped to the stern to cast at the fish. Reared back to launch my favorite (at the time) Vision 110+1 into orbit, and the bait clipped one of the Talons. Both my reel and the bait blew up. Made no attempt to pick out the backlash, simply retired the rig to the rod locker. Ended up taking the snips to it later and and re-spooling with fresh 10 FC. As a reminder, I kept the busted up bait. Still use it as a $25 casting plug in the yard. Morale of this story is, stay on the bow. A-Jay

I understand your situation. The only suggestions I can offer are to switch to a light wire hook, which will penetrate easier than a standard worm hook, and stick with short casts to help compensate for the line stretch (less line, less stretch).

Not ground breaking, but I cobbed this together. I fish from a yak and in shallow water. Hopefully I won't need to use it but I rarely get snagged where I fish. That said, I don't want to be tossing 110's and not have a method of retrieving one that might get snagged. I used a dive finger spool reel that connects to the weight. I PlastiDipped the weight.

Ended up AOY for a 4 tournament fishing club in Florida this winter. The unique thing is that I was the only one out of 32 boaters in a kayak. Sometimes the tortoise still beats the hare - and takes their "gas" money (what's that?) in winnings lol...

Back in the 90s when I was still living in South Florida, my son and I decided to try our hand at bone fishing. We didn't know what to expect and we sure didn't know what we were doing. We took some plastic grubs and ran out to Biscayne Bay where there were some tidal channels running through sand bars. Not knowing any better, we fished them with an Ambassador 5500C round reel and 10 pound mono. We must have hit it right because it didn't take long before we hooked up. The first run of that fish was so strong and fast, it backlashed the reel running against the drag. It was like hooking a speeding semi truck while fishing off a highway overpass. Needless to say, we had to cut off the line and start over. Lesson learned! 😉

I haven't "boycotted" any fishing tackle companies but I'll quit using a product in a heartbeat for political reasons. Attach the 2nd Amendment and a company won't get another penny from me. I never bought much from Dicks Sporting Goods but I wouldn't even consider anything from them now.

I've never seen them "go back" but I think maybe for some reason they have this year. I've caught 3 LM's over 5, and several Spots over 3 earlier this month 7 feet or less deep. Maybe it's a different group of fish but I caught 9 today (all spots) and they were all at least 15 feet deep. After struggling yesterday I decided to use my electronics. The shallowest Bass I caught today was 15 feet deep at the end of a dock. It was the biggest, but only 16". (pictured). The others were toward and off the ends of points 15 to 25 feet deep. 6 of the others were between 14" and 15" with a couple "micro bass". Not what I was wanting, but it was nice to catch a "limit" that was legal length. (even though there's no limit on Spots here) I stopped by and talked to a friend of mine (who's a retired pro Bass fisherman) today. He said this weather has the Bass scattered. It's not been cold but the water temperature is 3 to 4 degrees cooler than it was 2 weeks ago. I suppose, in addition to the crazy weather there's a diverse bunch of spawners. A couple years ago I caught a Bass with a bloody tail (near the Nuclear plant discharge) in January. Last year I caught one that was fat and full of eggs in late June. Katie, I had some "Hot Hands" hand warmers. They just hadn't warmed up for the first picture. My hands weren't cold and wet for long.

A very good evening BFS fishing, caught 4! All keepers! 🎣🦈 Used a UL glide bait lure in money green color for the win!💰🟩 Too bad it's the end of season for McFishing😉😁😄🤭🤭🤭

Hit a family pond today. Put my nephew on a beetlespin on my 30 yr old zebco ultralight ugly stick I just cleaned up and he caught this one on second cast. Now he's interested in fishing 😎 my work here is done. Definitely the highlight of family Easter, for me at least.

I picked up another Prorex rod. This one makes #6. I've been very impressed with them so far. Went with the 9'5" XXH this time around for throwing big rubber and big blades. I swore when I started this muskie thing that there was no way I was gonna be throwing pounders, but... here we are. Sorry tendinitis afflicted elbows and old broken wrists. We're all just gonna have to put our big girl panties on and suck it up together.

Almost any retrieve can lead to success when using a jerk bait. I always incorporate a slow pull then pause then another slow pull when fishing with jerk baits. That slow pull has added a lot of extra bites for me. A straight retrieve will also trigger them. The more you fish & think about what is happening or not the better you get.

I see you're in NC. I have an Abu black max combo that's well used but still works fine I'll sell you for $20 if you'll meet me to get it. Hard to beat that but it's baitcast, are you comfortable throwing that? It's mh, not very sensitive but will set the hook without issue. Basically the opposite rod of an ugly stick noodle. I was going to use it for a catfish rod but am happy to set you up if you're interested. FB marketplace has fishing equipment regularly at good prices as well in Raleigh market and Winston and Charlotte, not sure what you're close to. Shoot me a message if you want to discuss it. Otherwise, definitely agree on light wire hook and not burying it in plastic.

Watson was gonna be out after this year anyway. He makes most of his money in real estate. Not much to lose, may as well torch that bridge and have some fun at Boyd's expense on the way out the door.

I had some of those concerns prior to my purchase. I needed something easily stored, exceedingly stable..and able to stand. I settled on a Scout 365 and couldn't be happier! Sets up in 15 minutes and packs down into a single bag. 60lbs. I run a 2.5 Suzuki, so all in weight is 100lbs. Fits in the hatch of my car, too. It runs 10MPH and sips the fuel. The casting bar is an excellent grab rail..and you lean into it (facing front or back) to fish. Absolutely stable. Thus far, extremely durable too. This isn't a toy and is a "real" boat. Just thought I'd share.

Frog mating call I reckon?

Never have, but I suspect I will now.

@Leon162: I fish Cheshire Reservoir, Buckley Dutton, Onota, and a few other local lakes. At 75, balance and flexibility aren’t great. I added stabilizers to my kayak. They ain’t pretty but they allowed me to add a raised swivel seat so I can get in and out without mishaps. Also great for casting at different angles without having to reposition the yak. Just a thought. I use swim jigs, Texas-rigged critters and worms, and a lot of flukes because Cheshire in particular is a weed-infested salad bowl.

Somehow the bait monkey found out that I've started collecting SSBs. I've been doing pretty good keeping it on the down low, but I think he hired a Private detective monkey to take a deep dive into my finances. Either way, he finally nailed me . . . Daiwa Tatula MQ LT Spinning Reel 3000D-CXH Qty: 3 St. Croix Avid Series Spinning Rod 7' Medium Qty: 3 Tackle Warehouse Spinning Rod Sleeve Black Qty: 3 FREE Tackle Warehouse Sticker Orders Over $50 Qty: 1 $0.00 Seaguar Smackdown Braid Stealth Gray 15lb 150yd Qty: 3 At least he got me next day air shipping, A-Jay

Caught about 300 yards from one two years ago (today's I'm wearing orange pants) This is a 35 acre lake. And this time of year, I see hogs laid up against the bank (on beds?). Also, wanna take a guess at the weight? View from the other side. Link to thread of fish from 3 years ago

Anybody ever catch one like this? https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/08/extremely_rare_orange_bass_cau.html "Xanthism", according to the biologist quoted in this story.

Never been to any grand opening for anything, so I've been anticipating Bass Pro Shops opening in Orange County, CA. Before the new Bass Pro Shops opened, the closest one to me was an hour away. I arrived 3 hours before the grand opening and ribbon cutting at 6:30pm. So glad I did, I was only less than a 100' from the entrance. So, I was one of the first 50 people to get inside the new store. There was a huge crowd behind me prior to opening. Bass Pro Shops and Johnny Morris did an outstanding job with the inside. This used to be a super Walmart. It's not as big a store as the Rancho Cucamonga, CA Bass Pro Shops; but what space they had, they used adequately, IMO. I'm bringing my wife back to Bass Pro Shops Irvine this weekend so she can see the store, and for me to see what I missed not seeing. By the evening, it was beyond crowded inside with so much body heat, ick. The line to the cashiers to pay was way long, it went to the back end of the store! I had the opportunity to meet some current Bass pro's and legends. Shook their hands and had selfies taken . Met Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston, Skeet Reese, Chris Zaldain and Josh Bertrand. All the guys were cool to talk to and all down to earth dudes. Check out the great white shark: I don't want to brag or anything...but I think my mouth is bigger!🦈🫨🫨🫨 I reckon power BFS setup with a Megabass X-80 JR BFS jerkbait oughta get this guppy's interest.🦈😁 And... Leaving Bass Pro Shops, well looky who I ran into, walking out of Bass Pro Shops Irvine, at night... The Jack Links beef jerky - BIGFOOT🦶 😯🫨🫨🫨 He said he likes BFS fishing 🎣 I gotta say that was a fun experience and worth waiting 3 hours. Met some nice people in the crowd and talked about fishing and hunting and loads of laughs!

Today I caught my first 8" hudd fish... after over 100 hours fishing it over the years. I've caught fish on bigger baits but for some reason I could never get them on the traditional slow bottom crawl. I was retrieving it mid column and watched this fish engulf it near the end of my cast. A new personal best!

I've never been to Memphis. But it does sound like the beginning of a beautiful song. 😎

Send me the GPS coordinates, I'll get to the bottom of this for you in no time 🤣

My friend after losing several hits in a row, got mad and his next cast he got a major nest. He was so mad he started to wack his fishing rod on the water and it broke in half. I think I laughed for 10 minutes.

I don't know if it counts or not? I was fishing with Penn 14/0 and sent the bait with drone to the ocean and middle of fly, someone called my friend mobile and that disconnect the drone with phone and drone crashed in ocean and same time gave me worst backlash of my life which I need to respool, 2200 yards of braid and top shot , And I paid like $300 plus a day before go shark fishing.Plus the drone and ETC... you get the idea, We almost fired that guy for making that call on Sunday 6:30AM LOL.

I just think hes just repeating randys nonsense. after all he did say "I listen to randy blauket and I agree with him" and randy came out with a video a couple weeks ago saying that ffs is responsible for mom and pop tackle shops closing down because they dont sell enough lures anymore. the hypocrisy in that is that in every video he encourages his followers to shop at tackle warehouse and use his link and thanks them for doing so.

Snagging something during the back cast is a disaster during a long cast that blows up a bait caster. Had a few that couldn’t be saved and cut out down to the spool arbor. Braid is worst for unbelievable birds nest. Tom

Nice. They get bigger but you must use a bigger glide bait.

This is probably the writing on the wall for MLF. You can endanger lives or lie and cheat and still fish but you (validly) poo poo the boss and you're on the street. Hmmmmmm....makes sense.

Are you speaking from experience?

When I first started texas rigging it was with a 5'6'" MH rod . Thats what everybody used. Spool it with heavier line. 15 lb Big Game will work and cross their eyes with big hooksets.

I think most of us have a revelation on this type of scenario. one day I got super angry fishing it slow and so I started a cadence of pop pop pop pause pop pause pop pop that eventually made me angry bc I felt they should be where I was. It went from pops to aggressive F-it F-it F-it repeatedly like 5-7 times In row before the pause and all fish that day would rip the rod out of my hand.

I made one from an old chalk line. Its compact works well. It doesn’t help if you throw it in the trees on the bank though. Or so I’ve heard.

I like @GrumpyOlPhartte's rig. The position of your pontoons wouldn't keep you from netting bass, plus the swivel seat is clever. My problem is that after five hours of paddling and casting, I'm so stiff that I half stumble ashore.

Boyd is arguably the most unlikeable pro in the history of Bass fishing. Badge of honor for Watson.

Went to the Science Museum of MN with my family. Saw a documentary at the Omnitheatre, checked out some dinosaur bones, and overloaded my brain with plenty of information.

I've been managing to catch a few but no big ones lately and not big numbers. Most all I've been catching have been on the main lake. Bass should be up the creeks and in coves this time of year. I haven't been able to find them anywhere but on the main lake this year, I committed to fishing up the creeks today. I was "rewarded" with 2 Bass in 6 hours. I caught the first one, (a 17 inch Spot) on my second cast. I cruised up a creek looking at my side scan. I saw 4 fish ~10 feet deep on a secondary point. I turned the boat around and was able to catch one. I didn't get a good picture, my hands were wet, cold and slippery. I was afraid I'd drop my phone. It's the first Bass I've caught this year that appeared to have been spawning. It had a worn/bloody tail. It still appears to have some eggs. As I said earlier it was near the bottom in 10 feet of water. I don't know if it was spawning there, had spawned somewhere else, or just had a bloody tail. Morning water temp, after yesterdays rain was only 57 degrees. So I was hopeful to catch one so quickly, but they disappeared. I stayed in the creeks. I couldn't find them on sonar, and I tried quite a bit of "search casting" too. I caught my second, and last one ~6 hours later. It was suspended under a floating dock. I slipped a wacky in the space between 2 floats and it took it. It was a nice healthy small Largemouth. I didn't measure it, but it was small. Look at my hand in the picture. After than I called it a day, came home and took Mrs B out for Supper. So why aren't Bass in the creeks, and why do they seem to be so scattered? We've had record rainfall the past few months. I wonder if "bad stuff" has washed into the creeks and something just isn't right with the water. I'm sure a bunch of swampy stagnant water got washed into the lake via the creeks but the rain started several months ago. There's some baitfish up the creeks, but not like years past. There's a BUNCH of turtles up the creeks. Do oxygen levels vary from one part of the lake to another? I would think the levels in 57-60 degree water would be pretty stable. I was going to go to another lake one day this week (Monticello Reservoir SC) but it's been really windy. Monticello is way smaller that Wylie but is basically a big round bowl. It turns into the ocean in strong winds. The wind was straight out of the North today, strong enough for big whitecaps. I know where to go, and where to not go on Wylie in my smallish boat and strong winds.

Don't wanna post up the Andrew Upshaw video as it might get removed, but it's easy to find on youtube. Then you can see Bryan New's hot take on his Facebook page. Long story short Bryan New according to 4 witnesses intentionally blew out a bedding fish area so others in the area didn't have a shot at the 6lb fish after he left without catching it. Upshaw was in the same creek along with another angler and their co anglers. Upshaw reported the event to Hank the derby director, and some are calling him a snitch. My take is good for Upshaw and it's actually in the BASS rules that if an angler sees a fellow angler commit an infraction, they're obligated to report it.

I took my first bass fishing trip of the year on Saturday the 23rd of March. I hit the Columbia river since it was a the perfect alignment of not too much wind, decent clarity and no family obligations. That is a rare trifecta in the spring in Oregon I started fishing a little after daybreak with no idea whether the fish would be in 5 or 50 feet of water. I figured I would fish shallow first and work deeper until I figured something out. I started out throwing one of my favorite springtime lures. A 1/2oz white-ish Jackhammer stealthblade. The smallmouth around here love that thing in the spring! I fished a first small point with nothing to show for it. I moved to a second longer point that is usually good for at least a few bites. I fished shallow with the jackhammer with no bites so I kept changing lures and moving deeper and deeper. I went all the way out to the end without a sniff. I was starting to not feel too good about the day at that point. I was getting ready to leave when I decided to dust off the shallows of the point one last time with the jackhammer. On my 2nd or 3rd cast with it I felt soft hit and struck back. Fish on! I played that little guy with all the care you give a trophy fish. I needed to get that skunk off! Fortunately, he agreed and I landed my first fish of 2024. Just a little guy but I was really pumped. I fished that spot for a while longer but that fish was the only one dumb enough to bite my lure. I figured I would cover some more shallow water (fish was in about 6') and try to figure out if that fish was telling me something useful or was just a liar fish I moved to another spot that seems to hold fish pretty consistently in the early spring. It is not very different from the surrounding water (just a 6-8' deep flat) but the bass seem to like it in the spring. On my second cast I hooked a fish and lost. Next cast I had two hits and missed both. I was both excited to have found them and frustrated to not be hooking up. On my next cast I had another solid thump on the jackhammer and landed fish number two. A decent 2lb 9oz fish. A couple more casts with the jackhammer and picked up another 2+lb fish fish. It was on baby! (Narrator's voice, "it was not on"). Well after a half dozen casts without a hit I switched to a rattletrap and on the first cast I hooked up again and land a nice little guy. A few casts later I picked up number 5 on the rattletrap. Once again the bite died. So after a half dozen casts I went back to the jackhammer and hooked up almost right away but lost it on the way in. That was my last bite from that spot but I was really pumped. I was not expecting much on this first trip and it was already better than I had hoped for. After that flurry I hit a pretty long lull while fishing similar spots to the that flat that was holding them. I could not buy a bite on the next handful of spots I tried so I figured that maybe I just ran into one errant school and that most of the fish were still holding a bit deeper. The day had started calm but now there was a decent amount of wind out of the East. I went to a spot that my one friend loves in the spring. It is a small ridge in 12-15'of water that barely sticks up but the bass seem to like it in the sprint. I tossed the drop shot around and missed a few fish (it is a little difficult to fish a drop shot in the wind and current in the kayak) but I was encouraged by once again knowing that I was around fish. I kept at it and was able to finally get the hook to stick in a nice 2lb 10oz bass (my biggest of the day up to that point). I kept at it with the drop shot, missing some bites, when I finally struck paydirt again. Right away I could tell that this was a better fish. I kept good pressure on the fish and let it pull drag when it wanted to. After not too long of a fight in the the 46F degree water I was able to slide my net under a beautiful 4lb 3oz bass!!! The day was just getting better and better. I was really stoked. I went back to the drop shot but after missing another fish I thought I would try a Ned rig to see if they would eat that better. That turned out to be the right call because on my first cast with the Ned rig I caught a nice 3lb 2oz smallmouth! A short while later I caught another 2+lb bass on the Ned but then the wind shifted directions on me and between having difficulty holding the kayak in place and perhaps the fish changing how they were set up I could not get another bite. I figured I would move to another spot and maybe revisit this spot again later. So I decided at that point that since I had caught fish in ~6' of water and in 12-15' of water the different groups were in different stages of moving up. I went to another spot that has a nice little flat in the 6' range and some nice 10-20' water right next to it. I figured one of the two spots should have some fish. I started out tossing the jackhammer on the flat and picked up two more nice smallmouth in pretty short order. However, I could not coax a 3rd bass of the flat and I could not find any in the deeper adjacent water. By then it was getting late in the day so I figured I would head back to the ramp and only stop at the 6' flat where I had caught 4 bass in the morning. The wind was 180 degrees from where it was in the morning and I was pretty tired and not expecting much as I tossed the jackhamer around when I was surprised by a hard hit and some good weight. I was really stoked when I was able to slip my net under a 3lb 5oz beauty! That was my last fish of the day. I ended up with 13 bass, over half of them were over 2lbs and the best 5 went 15lb 13oz. A respectable bag - especially given that my only goal was to not get skunked Here is some video from what turned out to be a pretty good day!

We're talking about mlf here. Rules are merely suggestions for some.

Thank you @gimruis and @A-Jay.....I have ordered a 110 GP Pro Perch and an FX 110 Pumpkin Seed.....my hope is that these will pull more fish....yet I fully understand that there is more to it than just throwing a lure in to the water

Way to go DAD!!!! Congratulations!! Bringing along a new BR member in a few years.