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Haven't been out for 2 weeks, until this morning. Went to "Lake 6", perennially one of my better spots -- a murky, 30-acre hole-in-the-ground, out in the middle of nowhere: The locals, i have heard, are not super-enthusiastic about the place and claim it has a problem with parasites. But the bass here have always seemed plenty healthy to me, and there are a lot of them. Although I'm not sure where they all were today. Here i am with one of five, all "meh"-sized: Of course, what would have been big fish of the day got away due to user error. Might be able to go out again next week. We'll see.

I don't always get these picture sorted by the day, and often I'll fish it several days close, so forgive me if you notice the lighting is off. Sometimes I'll hit this lake a bit before bible study, and then again after. The boy entices them somehow, with is his furious retreives! Learning split shot rigging... Working too.. now just to find the hawgs. I rigged this up for the wife, gave it a test cast and caught this little fighter. I often give her or the boys rig a test cast to make sure things are in order, and often connect. I think this is the first bass I've ever caught on a roostertail. I don't fish inline spinners much. It twisted my line Got my first jig, albeit a swim jig, bass. Yum FF Sonar minnow on a Carolina rig seems to work pretty good. These are red because they were in my catchall bag with a red lure a few days. Worked at the river too! She had a knob on her nose, and another angler there mentioned catching one like that, upon seeing the pictures, he said he'd caught her the other day. Back to the private lake. Where the brim are energetic. Couple days later. Split shotting is working good and I have a good feel for it with a #3 weight and 10lb line. I am going to go to 8lb line and see if I can get the weight down some and still keep my distance reasonable. I don't particularly like these worms, but I have a bag of them. Not sure if this classic color works or is just nostalgic, which is why everyone fishes it. The boy wanted a white grub, this was my test cast. I don't use that suncatcher line for stuff normally. I do have it on a rod that I've been throwing topwaters on, but I just generally don't have any confidence in it. The next day. Watermelon with red flecks is working just fine. Eat anything that don't eat him first is his motto! I was trying this color out... eh... I still don't have much confidence in it. Probably lose it at the river anyways.

Went out today for a few hours. Didn’t much want to drive to a bigger bass fishery or deal with the logistics of night fishing. Went to the old reservoir and braved the midday heat. Water was down a bit and the water has cleared up a lot. Caught 6 burning the UV speed worm along weed lines and over grass beds. Nothing special but I still had a good time.

“reaction bite” and “finesse” are two of the most overused, inconsequential terms in bass fishing

I think your current perception of what finesse fishing is not accurate. Finesse fishing isn’t a do-nothing style. Far from it. To me, finesse fishing usually involves going down in bait size, line strength or both. Bass aren’t as active as you described 100% of the time. They can be inactive or less active or could be a skittish, cautious state or so pressured by power fishing that they might not be willing to bite on those bigger baits. This is where finesse just might work. We’re offering something different (smaller in scale/size) than recent things they might have grown to be reluctant to bite or snatch. And from that old rap song whose title I have forgotten but there’s that line, “And please don’t knock it, until you try it.” 😎

My idea of finesse fishing (which is my preferred way of fishing) is more along the lines of downsized baits and lighter tackle. Technically, I'll fish a 4 inch worm the same way I would fish a 10 inch worm. Weightless, weedless, maybe a split shot rig if I don't get any bites weightless. M rod, 6-8lb test line, spinning reel. Works well for me year round. The slow fall of a weightless finesse worm just screams easy meal to a fish. In winter, where they don't want to move around too much, it's very productive. When you cast and then don't do anything but wait- that's called "dead sticking". I cannot fish that way. I get bored way too easy. I'll do it for catfishing but not for bass. Others have good luck with it.

I've seen it go both ways in practice but overall if the angler lacks experience or skill with a given technique - it doesn't matter how good that bite has been at all - better off fishing something YOU'RE good at fishing and hoping the fish like it in that situation. I have also seen situations where it's basically a perfect opportunity to gain confidence in a technique because of how good that bite has been. I think if local knowledge gives you more confidence than your own logic - go with that because confidence is king.

I catch an amazing percentage of my bass at the very end of my longest casts. If bass are tucked under heavy cover, you can catch them feet from your boat, but if you're fishing clear, shallow water, as I often do and as @The Baron always does, as he fishes the Canadian Shield, it's best to stay as far from them as your casts allow. I think a lot about bass being here for 3,000,000 years. That's ten times as long as us. So, they've been tweaked and refined for ten times longer than us. They're complex, refined animals, continually moving and constantly wary. Preach it. The senator noted yesterday that I don't park on a spot. I don't even carry an anchor. Heck, I'd be pulling it up two minutes after I'd drop it. FWIW, I had a first yesterday evening. I often see a line in the water as a shallow water bass charges my lure. Well, yesterday, I saw three lines for the first time, i.e. three bass going for my lure. When I reached the spot, the water was sooooooo skinny, but my long cast didn't tip my hand. A couple from yesterday evening. I didn't measure the first one, but the second one was 19.75".

I’m still battling a bit of a slump, not smart enough to take a break from it. I’ve been wanting to figure out a fairly large local lake, a very popular fishing destination but all new to me. After looking at contour maps I went out one afternoon and graphed over a very long rocky flat/point that falls fairly sharply on 2 sides from 4-5ft. to 15-25ft. with weeds then to much deeper water (eventually to over 90ft). The wind was blowing onto the point so I figured current, weeds, and a drop off it’s got to be good. Plan was to throw my new love Carolina rig and feel it out. I caught a 2.5lb. lmb on my first cast and thought “oh man, I’m learning!”. We all know how that story ends… 🙄 I couldn’t buy another bite so switched gears and just casted along the shore. I found lots of logs in the water so a good area to work. I did catch a couple along there, including a 3#. I tried the lake another day and caught a couple smallmouth on the rocky flat, and saw others cruising. I then tried for largemouth and although I saw some in the very clear water (visibly about 15ft. thanks to the zebra mussels), they wouldn’t bite anything I tried. I was frustrated by those two outings, so went to a different lake another afternoon. I don’t know the lake much better and caught zero for 3 hours in the afternoon heat. I was downright dejected after that. But I dragged myself out of bed at 3:30am to fish a lake I know much better yesterday morning. Only one swipe at my popper so I switched from topwater to a flashy swimmer and caught a decent smallmouth. Then I just picked up a dropshot and eventually caught 1/2 dozen, a couple pike, and another smallmouth and a snakehead on a white spinnerbait. I also fished a frog in some scattered slop with zero bites, so went back to the dropshot for a couple more. So my luck is on the upswing but I’m struggling to catch more than one fish at a time and long breaks between. Hopefully the upswing will continue. I’m wanting to get a friends two young sons out this week, but the fishing has been so slow I’m hesitant to risk it.

Not this one……

Finesse fishing means downsizing. Downsizing works because smaller lines and lures look more natural to fish. From my experience, it works best in clear water. It can also get more bites in highly pressured waters or when fish are inactive. When I was tournament fishing, along with my regular tackle I always carried a spinning outfit loaded with 8 pound line. Close to 30% of the tournaments I won were won finesse fishing when everyone else was throwing big stuff. Except for flipping, it's probably the most all around effective way to catch bass. Two lures come to my mind when I think about my days of finesse fishing, Zoom 4 inch worms and 4 inch lizards. If you really want to get good at finesse fishing, Google Mojo Rig. It's a downsized Carolina Rig and it's deadly on bass.

Disclaimer: I'm an ASE Master Tech, and former GM World Class Tech with 42 years experience. During many of these years I specialized in transmission repairs. Drop the pan, or use a evacuation machine to suck the fluid out and replace it. I like to do this 3 times on the GM 8 speeds. (I'm assuming yours is an 8 speed since you got upgraded fluid) I'm not against flushing but there's 2 problems. Your transmission has a thermostat that controls fluid flow to the cooler. This hinders the flushing process. The biggest problem I have with flushes is the snake oil chemicals most put in when they do a flush. No ones transmission needs any additives beyond the correct quality brand fluid. If yours in an 8 speed you need to use Mobil 1 Dexron HP LV

You go eat a great meal, you’re stuffed, then you walk past a candy dish that has some peanut butter cups, you know you don’t need it, you may even pause a second….but just one little one won’t hurt right To me, this is finesse fishing. Oh, add in a bunch of pricey dishes to hold the goodies too. lol

Bass are not always real aggressive. They don't chase after everything you throw. Finesse is usually downsizing baits, lines, and fishing slower. And yes it works.

The Steez 'Real Control' rod I ordered from japan Lure Shop showed up yesterday. I ordered it on July 4th, so got here quick via UPS. It is light for a 7-3"H @ 107g's, and I like the taper. I was disappointed in 2 areas...the lack of an exposed blank reel seat like is on the steez bottom contact rod. Also the lack of a butt cap is a head scratcher. It did come with 2 rod socks...a nice full zip, and then a light duty slip on deal.

If you throw a ball, your dog chases after it. That's because your dog is a predator and it's in its instinct to chase down prey that is trying to escape. If you drop down a plate of food, the dog eats it. That's because it's a predator and it's also in its instinct to conserve energy and eat an easy meal when it's available. Most predators have two modes, lie around and conserve energy and actively hunt. Same with fish. Sometimes they have to be coaxed into eating, by the sight of fleeing prey that triggers their instincts to hunt. Sometimes, they're not in the mood to chase, but will still eat something that's look delicious and easy. If a big bass wants to eat, it will probably find food pretty quickly. Just about anyone can catch fish when the fish are out looking for food. What makes a good angler a good angler, is that they can convince the bass to eat when they weren't actively looking for food. And sometimes that's done by appealing to their instincts to hunt, and making them hunt when they weren't already in the mood to do so, and sometimes that's done by appealing to their instincts to conserve energy and eat an easy meal.

I'd love to catch all my bass with an aggressive, power fishing technique. Chuck and wind with wrist-jarring strikes. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way all the time so you have to slow and down size with a slower, more-finesse type presentation. Not every bass in the lake is willing to chase food either. Some are more patient, ambush-type predators.

"Finesse" sure muddles me. I think this is because I use spinning rods 99% of the time and throw all my lures with them. I do think that reaction bite is a real thing. Sometimes I'll cast a lure and land it on a bass and the bass immediately hits. It's as if my lure landed in an open mouth. That's a reaction bite because the bass had no time to consider my lure. For about the 57,000th time, I agree with Pat.

How can I overthink things when I can barely think at all?

The advancements in glass technology have opened some doors A Jay. I get it. Thanks Mike. Fantastic jigs.

Been absent from this forum for a while but figured I’d pop back on to share some news. Been fishing decently over the past year or so but stuck my new pb today at a random pond in Plymouth. 6.67 #. Wacky rigged green pumpkin senko in deep ish water. Crushed my old pb of 3.7. Hoping for state pin even tho I don’t have exact length. Would like to everyone for the tips and updates over the years that have gotten me to this moment!

Logical answer-Local knowledge Yes Sir 😉 Y'all ever tie a buzzbait to your truck antenna just to get that perfect squeal?

Yes, bowfin but we use the name snakehead interchangeably up here (I’ve also heard them called dogfish). This one was maybe 4# and did give me an excellent fight - was wishing it was a monster largemouth when it whacked my spinner bait on a weed edge. I do appreciate the input @ol'crickety I know the clear water is an issue on my new nemesis lake, so am re-rigging some stuff - more fluorocarbon and less straight braid. There’s a lot more rock that my usual places so may also try some cranking, which I’ve never done because everywhere else I fish is just weedy enough to make that impossible. I struggle with early morning fishing - I love it, but like my early morning turkey hunts it puts me totally out of sync with the rest of the family. My son and I might try for the evening bite today, but those trips mess up family dinner which is something we value. If I was away from home I’d gladly fish the early morning and late evening, with a quality nap in between. 😊

My son and I got out for a few hours today. The wind was supposed to be very gusty so the frog rods stayed at home, but it was almost calm. We ended up working some offshore weed beds with chatterbait and I threw a Tokyo Rig for the first time. We caught a few pike on chatterbait, which was fun but I put that down to try the Tokyo Rig. I caught my first 5 fish ever on that - 3 bass and 2 pike. The first bass was maybe 1#, so it and the pike were released with no photos. The last bass was about 3.5#, but our scale refused to participate. Both the decent bass picked up the bait and swam toward me, and it was all I could do even with an 8.2:1 reel to catch up to them. The fishing was “ok” but doing it with my son made the few hours great. He drove the boat, which made him quite happy. 😊

The. Midwest* style of finesse bass pre dates the western techniques but wasn’t called finesse bass fishing until Micheal Jones used it. The difference is the lake types being fished where western lakes are deep structure highland vs Midwest being shallower hill land type lakes. Charlie Brewer slider jig/worm and Ned Kehde Beatle Spin and currently Ned rig are examples of Midwest finesse. What both Midwest and West have in common is light line presentations. Tom * The Midwest members can dive deep into this style of finesse bass fishing.

Or this one.

Here in Mexico, the only finesse technique I use is finessing my wife in to thinking instead of doing chores, I should go fishing for the weekend. In that regards, finesse works way better than any power technique.

@Bazoo sounds like there should be some good fishing for fish that have rarely seen a lure then.

Caiden24, I suggest you Google Charlie Brewer, Billy Westmoreland, Guido Hibdon, and Don Iovino. There are more. Look these guys up and read about how they fished finesse style. You can learn how finesse fishing got started and, the how and why of it all. Learning about these guys can help you get a better understanding of finesse bass fishing. The term different meanings to different folks these days.

Current Sergeant First Class active duty stationed at Fort Cavazos here 🤯

It's been said here on BR that we can't force feed the fish. It's 100 percent true. We have to give the fish what works, and, it can change day to day. Depending on things, a smaller bait can work well. Examples are clear water, fronts passing through etc.

Actually no. Not for a few months. I agreed with Matt Allen? I take that back entirely

I think there's a lot of times where subtlety wins and a lot of times where smashing the door open with guns blazing works. There are tons of factors that determine what kind of presentation is going to appeal to a population of fish and it's important to be in tune with all of them! Water temperature, water clarity, wind, flowing water, cover, forage, fishing pressure etc. etc.

Bass love baits that are sitting still, check out some underwater footage . A senko has caught a few bass

A wise man once said you only truly understand something when it confuses you

Neither. Treble hooks and weeds equal frustration. I might suggest a spinner bait or a senko

Great Video Glenn. Lots of sound advice, but you didn't really confront the elephant in the room. The best and most traditional way to end a slump is to buy more tackle. This has been a reliable answer to slumps since Heddon carved his first lure. The next time I am in a slump I will try and take your advice, but I'm afraid I a will go back to my old ways, and invite the Monkey over for beers.

I fish a lake where the locals including the guides all fish small paddle tail swimbaits, finesse spinnerbaits, and weightless 5 inch Senkos. These lures work well for them, and I have seen times when the only way to catch a bass there is to downsize. The baitfish are small so many times a small profile is what gets bit. I went there one day and the wind was blowing, big waves, the water clarity was under a foot, and the bass were in scattered weeds and reads. I thought the conditions screamed big spinnerbaits, and chatterbaits. The guy I was with said those don't work here, that I should fish small baits. I had been with him before and knew he might be right, but wanted to try some power fishing first. He was shocked to find out bass love 3/4 0Z spinnerbaits in those conditions. I didn't try any chaterbaits, becasue I didn't want to risk loosing a Jack Hammer to a gill net, but I'm sure they would have worked. I'm convinced there are no lures that will not work under all conditions in any lake. Some lakes have certain lures that work most of the time, and people start believing nothing else works. Especially when it comes to finesse presentations. A person doesn't get bit one day so they downsize line and baits. They start getting bit every cast. Do they try to upsize and see if that will work later or the next day, No they keep using the finesse tactics. The next time they don't get bit they downsize more, this goes on until they are convinced larger power fishing lures don't work ever. Bass are bass no matter where you find them. I start off fishing the conditions, and will change to the local favorite if that fails. Sometimes I get a told you so, and other times I get told I can't believe what just happened I must be very lucky. I rarely get told that what I tried makes sense. Like most things in life, logic will take a back seat to beliefs every time.

I struggled again today. I got 4 Bass in the boat, all spots. One "micro bass" and 3 cookie cutters. I also got a Blue Cat that would have been around 10 pounds. I took my pliers and shook it off next to the boat. I didn't want slime all over my boat. All , including the cat were on a shaky head.

So i was randomly checking the prices on the standard Alphas on Japanese sites, cuz you know, low JPY and all, and stumbled on this. PLAT has the Alphas Air SV TW 50% off, making this reel cost $141USD. Like what the hell are those prices😁Ordered an Aldebaran MGL 30 for $160 two days ago, and i don't even need one lol. If not, i would've grabbed this alphas air just to compare it with my custom Pixy.

By this time of the season, I have the bite dialed in pretty good. I don't carry a huge amount of stuff because I won't end up using it. I've thrown the wrong lure of course, and my plan won't work every time, but I'll switch to something that's works after a short time.

Not to the antenna, but yes

I'm not an expert, and I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn last night. In many cases I think fishing pressure .......not just pressure but what the other anglers are using can make lure selection "different". The lake I fish most of the time has quite a big of fishing pressure. For the past few years pretty much EVERYONE was throwing Spinnerbaits and jerkbaits. I caught quite a few decent Bass on everything except spinnerbaits and jerkbaits. Now, this year "they" are still fishing jerkbaits, but they've switched from spinnerbaits to soft plastic swim baits on tungsten jig heads. I've been catching quite a few on spinnerbaits lately.

Love your vids. You have a knack of presenting info in a simple to the point way. Thanks so much!

@MN Fisher: Take a look into my tackle box and you would shudder. You'd be like Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now," whispering, "The horror, the horror." 😁

I just went 7 days without catching a fish. Yesterday I watched that video. This morning I caught a four pound largemouth. Just sayin’.

I used it today with a variety of small baits. A Rebel Wee Craw, an inline spinner I make and a BooYah Pond Magic Spinbait. It was a learning curve though, I am use to grabbing a 7’ or so rod and putting some oomph (technical term) into it and doing my thing. While you can still do that with this rod, the best results came from just slowing down, letting the rod correctly load and being smooth with it. Once I figured that out, it was game on and my casting accuracy came together. By the end of the day, my accuracy and hooking ability with this rod is off the charts. I can’t really say anything negative about this rod. If I had to nit pick, the trigger finger rest could be just a tad bigger but we are really reaching for something here at this point. I caught a bunch of small fish today and going with BFS style presentations puts you into sunny territory so you have to weed through some of them but I also caught a couple of nicer ones today too on the BooYah. While the Booyah is small itself, it keeps the sunnies at bay.

Quite honestly I enjoyed purchasing stuff as much as fishing Notice I didn't say fishing or catching fish with it 95% of my fishing stuff is new and hasn't touched the water I don't need hundreds of lures to catch fish and for years I pretty much fished with the same lures over and over again and caught a ton of fish of course you will have to purchase stuff every now and then, hooks, sinkers and soft plastic baits mostly, a novelty every now and then the BaitMonkey is still siting on my shoulder the only difference is that now it demands other things instead of fishing stuff My 29" Sony Trinitron CRT started acting goofy, took it to the TV repair guy ( man that thing is heavy ! ), let's hope it can be fixed but meanwhile the sneaky little critter is trying to convince me in getting a 51" he saw in FB market place because WE NEED a 51" to hook up all the retro consoles I have hooked to the 29".

Well, it’s been adding things piecemeal gradually for 3 years… but since I sold my bass boat and have decided to keep my Autopilot Kayak for awhile - maybe indefinitely, I finally completed my electronics. I added a Garmin 9 inch and Livescope Plus previously, and this week I added a larger Helix and 360 Imaging. Once I got used to both technologies on my boat, I always felt I was missing something until now. We’ll see if I can catch fish now lol…