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Got this one deadsticking a big gill bait in a windblown pocket. I picked up this technique last year specifically for pressured fish. I cast it out and let it sit without any input, letting any ambient wind or current provide all the action. After about 10 seconds this fish slurped it off the surface. This type of bite is always very subtle and the fish is usually lightly hooked.

As I posted earlier, a buddy and I went on a week long trip to the St Lawrence river fishing both in Canada and New York. We had a mountain of info and waypoints along with stories of big smallmouth and 100 fish days. 4 of our friends had been there 3 weeks before and my buddy had a Canadian pro that was born and raised on the river supplying us with intel. We felt pretty confident we were dialed in on baits and locations. This would be both of our first times on this body of water. We stayed in Alexandria Bay in a nice clean old fashioned double decker style motel right on a creek with docks right outside the front door. It was nice being able to walk to the boat in the morning and cast off for a day of fishing. As a general statement, over the week we traveled 25 miles up river and 20+ miles to the mouth of Lake Ontario downriver. We did not venture out into the lake. Due to a couple of factors, fishing was tough. Very tough. We fished hard sun up to sun down every day. Did we catch fish? Yes we did, but none of them came easy. The weather has been unusually warm and the fish were in a funky pattern. We were hoping to time it to the fall feed up but it was not happening. Second, if you have ever fished there, it is a totally unique style of fishing. I’ve done my fair share of fast moving water smallmouth fishing like on the St Clair and Detroit rivers in Michigan, and I’ve waded fast flowing rocky rivers like the Shenandoah and the headwaters of the Rappahonock but nothing compares to the St Lawrence. While there are many, many, islands and bays to tuck in for some slower water, we found all of our fish on ledges and seams in the main river. I’m going to throw a little shade on my buddy who was in the front of the boat. The best way to catch fish hunkered to ledges and seams is to vertical drift fish. He would set up on a ledge and spotlock, which totally eliminated me from using the massive current in my favor. To give you an idea how fast the current was, the lightest dropshot weight I used was 3/4oz. Sometimes I could use 1/2oz in the seams. The river could go from rock outcroppings above water, to 100ft plus in 20 feet. It was crazy. Will I go back? Absofreakiglutely! I have never had a 5 pound smallmouth pull like these fish did and still go 4 feet in the air multiple times. It wasn’t just the current either, they are a different breed living in that river and every single one we caught was absolutely pot belly full of gobies and perch. Enjoy my picture dump and if you have and questions, feel free to ask. Oh and by the way, every one of my fish came on a Yamamoto bait. Shad Shape Worm, 4” Senko, Yamatanuki, Pro Senko and finally a Scope Shad. All on a dropshot or a Ned. My buddy did catch a couple on a jerkbait. He also used a Berkley Flatworm a lot. Since I don’t like posting pics of others without their permission, I’ll just put up a sample of mine. May take a couple of posts to get them all up. Few more pics….

Buckle up for a long winded story, I was fishing Thursday-Sunday this past week. Saturday and Sunday was the combo 2 day championship for the Kansas Kayak Anglers and Kansas Bass Nation Kayak Series on Melvern Lake, the winner of the KBN qualifies for the Bassmaster Kayak Classic on Lake Fork in March. I prefished on Thursday in brutally calm conditions. I stayed in the dirtier water thinking it would help. Turned out, it didn't really matter where I went. I caught a few small largemouth, and then a carp on a dropshot right by the ramp, so I headed out and east towards some areas I thought would be good, they weren't. I found carp everywhere, and stumbled onto one nice smallmouth that was sitting in inches of water and smashed a 6th Sense Speed Glide. I fished from 11AM until 7PM and every bite was a surprise and very far between. Finally, at the end of the day I started getting some bites on a Zara Puppy in the slick calm conditions. I had one pretty decent smallmouth to the boat, when out of nowhere a 30ish pound blue catfish tried to eat him right next to the kayak! It was wild! He made it unscathed for a picture though. The next day, there was much more wind and the fish were a lot more cooperative. I launched near the dam and got bites immediately. The fish were so much healthier than they have been in past years with the explosion of the shad population. How do these stupid things catch up with a bait burning along above their heads? I picked fish up pretty steady but was wondering where the big ones where. Fishing a Duo Realis Rozante 77 when it stopped hard. The biggest smallmouth I've seen from the lake in quite a while cleared the water and after a hard fight, was in the net. Would have rather seen her in the tournament, but it was good to see it either way. The hardest fight of the day, on a Ned rig of course. And then there's this guy. I didn't feel great about my practice, but I'd found something at least. That night while I was rigging up my rods at the campsite and cooking my food, I had my catfish rods out and caught a couple nice blues, always a good time. Day 1 of the tournament, I opted to start right at the ramp, and so did 2 others including my buddy Deric. Him and I both started fast at the 7AM first cast, my first fish was an 18" smallmouth just 7 minutes into the morning and he was fighting one while I was unhooking mine. Just 6 minutes later, I added a 16" fish to my total off the same spot. Then it took over a hour to get my next bite, while I watched Deric catch his limit just 50 yards away. It was at least another solid fish at 16.25". Just a couple cast later, I added my first smaller fish of the morning, a 14.75" fish. I was really struggling fighting these fish. Not only were they fighting extremely hard, but I'd had a mishap in practice. At some point, I'd broken my AR switch off my Ned rig reel and could no longer backreel. I don't know how anyone feels like they have more control with the drag than they do backreeling, that was horrible having to use my drag. The big fish from the day before was calling for me. With 4 fish in my bag, I only needed one more bite, and a fish like that would really make for a huge day 1, but it was a gamble. I caught it off the dam, which is a vast riprap bank that takes a couple hours to cover, even fishing fast. After covering the entire thing, I had 3 dinks and 1 14.75" fish that filled out my limit to show for it. The wind was howling, I was eating wave after wave. I needed to cull the 2 small fish to stay in it. I put my nose into the waves and pounded back to the north, all the way back across the dam towards a shallow rockpile that I hoped was hidden enough that nobody was messing with. It took several cast and a lot of fighting snags, but I finally plucked another 16" fish from the rocks at almost 1PM. I had 2 hours left, and I still needed 1 more bite. I tried to go back to the ramp area, but it was packed with kayaks and boats and I couldn't get any bites on the few spots that were open, so I headed north along that shoreline. I was running out of time, running out of hope. My wife called, she tends to be somewhat of my good luck charm when she calls. The sunfish were mauling my Ned rig while I gave her a recap of my day. One was tappity tapping away at my bait, when suddenly, it just got heavy and started moving slowly. The hookset was solid and a good smallmouth was instantly airborne next to the kayak. A couple quick surges and it was in the net. A 2" cull with a 16.75" fish just after 2PM. I started getting bites after the call. Picking off small ones off each secondary point I'd hit. I fished quickly. I came to one point and got a weird bite but the line moved off. The hookset was extremely heavy but the fish was fast and not rolling. I had a monster smallmouth, I knew it, I'd caught them here before. I saw the bronze/brown in the water, then I saw the orange. It was a gut punch, but at least I already had a solid bag at that point. I didn't cull anymore that day, and ended in 2nd for KKA with 83", 2" out of first behind Deric. I was leading the KBN, 1.75" ahead of second place. Deric wasn't going to be able to fish the National tournament, so he didn't enter the KBN so he wouldn't take that spot from someone if he won. To be continued!

Fished the municipal pond today. Caught a handful of dinks on the drop shot. While I was there I met a gentleman who told me about a strip pit near by. I decided to check it out. When I got here it wa shallow and weedy, just like I like it. I deployed the floating worm and caught a quick couple fish before I ran out of time. Bigger than the ones at the municipal park but not impressive by any means. Hoping I can explore this place more thoroughly soon.

Day 2 exploring the strip pit pond. Started out throwing the Ned and the floating worm. They wanted the floating worm, and a caught a quick pair of fish hiding under the duck weed. I moved down the bank but was unable to get anymore bites on the end where the terrain was flat and level. I got back on the old dirt road that paralleled the bank and found a spot where I could make my way down to the water’s edge if I was careful. After getting settled in I noticed the water was a bit deeper here so I tied on my mayor and proceeded to catch another 4 fish all about this size. I had another fish hit my mayor but he was too big for my M/F and buried himself in a lay down and broke me off before I could horse him in. I still had my ML rod with Ned tied on so I started throwing that and my and hooked another big one on my first cast. Of course this one made a beeline for the lay down on my other side. I thought if I shook the branches it may spook it and cause it to run out on its own. To my surprise the lay down wasn’t very heavy (it was more like a big branch) and I was able to move it out of the way while simultaneously manipulating my rod to untangle my line and land it. After the protracted struggle I decided just to get the pic and throw it back. So I’m not sure about the weight. After that I added another smaller fish to the day’s tally and headed home since I was being dive bombed by a cloud of mosquitoes.

Got this one on a watermelon seed super fluke…

Got some blowups this morning and finally stuck a little bit better fish. Nothing big but at least enough to bend the rod a bit, 3.5lb. Missed a couple better ones but this morning is the first time I've seen the larger ones out. I love fall surface fishing

I have a unique view on stitching as a original Picese bass club member with Bill Murphy during that time. Stitching began as a retrieve technique using nose hooked live crawdads. The technique was borrowed from fly fishing retrieve line over the index finger under the pinky finger alternating back and forth. This allows you to feel the line and slowly walk the crawdad along the bottom. I used a small bucket with water in it to drop the stitched line into to prevent tangling when the crawdad acted up indicating a bass was about to eat it. During the strike have time you reel up the slack line and set the hook. The item that is essential is a stationary platform like anchored boat or standing on shore. Stitching is very slow requiring patients, it’s a saturation presentation. When semi buoyant hand poured worms became available we stitched a split shot worm because they worked and didn’t crawl into brush like a crawdad did. Today’s bass anglers don’t have the patients needed to stitch or double anchoring system. We do have hydraulic anchoring today but few if anyone stitch today….it’s too slow! Tom

I am an A-Rig fan. Late summer and into fall it gets me some big brown bass bites. The strike is like a lightning bolt up the line making it easy to get addicted to. Like any technique, there's a learning curve and you'll get out of it pretty much what you put into it. One thing's for sure, it's not like fishing a ned rig. Got this freak on it in August. Good Luck A'Jay

That’s some beautiful scenery @Swamp Girl 😎 I’ve been so uninspired about anything lately, it was a toss up whether we’d fish at all this weekend (didn’t fish last weekend either 😕). But I felt guilty at the thought of “wasting” a beautiful early fall day, so Wes and I went after smallmouth. There’s a particular stretch of shoreline that has produced a few for me on a whopper plopper/Choppo in the fall so that was my plan. Water temps were about 67 degrees. We started in about 6-8ft. of water with sparse coontail, and I caught a chunky pike on about my 5th cast. Not long after we’d moved to a deeper shoreline I caught a 2.60# smallmouth near a rock sea wall between two docks in about 5-10ft. of water (it’s a steep shoreline, dropping from 5 to 35+ ft. in a casting length. The pattern along that steep shoreline was my El Choppo 105 around docks, and I weighed four 2-2.5# smb. But it wasn’t a barn burner with a fish every 20-30min. and Wes blanking with his flashy swimmer (we’ve got several other ploppers, but he didn’t want to change). So, I suggested we try a long underwater point that rises steeply from 30ft. of water to a narrow flat 8-10ft. deep. I think we stumbled into a feed and Wes caught a 3.72# on his 2nd cast with a buzzbait (was trying for a largemouth) and I landed a 3.35# and a 4.01# about 5 minutes apart. My 4# was very cool because I had just cast when a good smallmouth swirled 10ft. in front of the boat with a bunch of minnows spraying ahead, then my plopper got whacked about 1 second later. I had one other miss on the plopper, then we lost track of the school, We did see some bait busting again a couple times and trolling motored over there quickly with no luck. So after 1/2 hour with no more bites, we called it a great afternoon and headed home for dinner. 🙂

@T-Billy beat me to it ! Yes. In my mind nothing else displays the same 'little vunerable school of bait' better than the rig. I also do not discount the magic of all the vibration made by 5 smimbaits, not to mention the visual appeal. I would use four 3.3 inch dummies and a 3.8 or 4.2 inch Hooked bait in the middle. Finally, I fish SEVERAL DIFFERENT BAITS for brown bass. The A-Rig Is The ONLY bait the bigger bass will follow All The way to my boat and often still eat it. So there must be something to it's hypnotic power. YMMV A-Jay

I would. I'd run four smaller dummies and a bigger bait on the center wire. It's the best thing going around schooling baitfish. By going with the bigger and probably different color bait on the center wire, you can get a high percentage of bites on that bait.

You watch your mouth Tim Walz

How about a triple willow? Just arrived: The "Fall Fry" from Bizz Baits.

Well, this morning reminded me a day last fall where I managed to catch some fish, but never managed to find their pulse. I caught 25 total, all on a Dobyns spinnerbait with an orange Mayor and my Yo-Zuri popper, but nothing over 18 inches and eight of them came in two flurries. The first flurry happened when I was paddling across a rocky flat and a couple bass bolted from two reeds. "Hmmm," I thought, "so that's where you hang." So, I cast my popper to five other tiny stands of reeds and caught five smallies. The other flurry happened when I was paddling back and saw two loons diving and diving. "Hmmm," I thought, "bait." Yep, I hooked four lmb in four casts, but only landed three, each about 17 inches, all on the spinnerbait. All my other bass came here and there. No pattern, no pulse. My stupid, old camera stopped working (AGAIN!), so I used my cell phone, which takes much better photos. See? Then the Sun rose. To take a photo, I had to remove my cell phone from its waterproof pouch, rouse it, and then shoot, all while the bass was drowning in air, so I only took two bass pics, the first a typical fat bass and the second, a longer, skinny one that I caught in weeds. ^See^ my stupid, old camera? I shouldn't complain. I've used it for about 35 years. However, it is a slacker compared to my bike, which I've ridden for 53 years.

I'll second A-Jay on the three hook deal. I rig mine the same way. I also downsize the top two dummy baits. I've had ONE dummy hit in a few years of throwing them. The three with hooks are the same size, but I usually run a different (generally brighter) color on the center bait. That gets it bit more, and saves wear and tear on the outside arms, getting me more fish per rig.

How many home runs have you hit with one at bat ? A-Jay

California has had a 3 hook max and no snagging fresh water fish for decades. You need a dedicated rod/reel for A-rigs. Picasso Flash mob jr w/ Kietech swimmers works everyehere. Tom

The Yumbrella ones are the easy button, they come with everything you need, are the most affordable, and ulitmately work great. Just play around with the actual swimbaits. I like a finesse A Rig as well, and Piscasso makes great ones. They banned it for no good reason, remember FFS is still allowed so it clearly doesn't matter if a piece of tech makes catching fish that much easier. Fish have become conditioned to it over the years, but once the water gets below about 55d it becomes a major player at least down here in the south. I've never seen a bait more dependent on the water temp to work than the A-Rig. When they're eating an A-Rig, it's pretty much unbeatable. I often catch 2 and 3 fish on a single cast, and have got 5 fish limits on 2 casts. It's a huge pain to rig, cast, and keep from getting stuck, but again it's an invaluable winter time staple. Very fun bite to get on as well.

Funny you should ask. A while back (OK 11 years ago) I went all in on the Stitching Thing. And I do mean all in. Never could make it work for me and eventually abandoned the technique all together. One reason might be that I was fishing in predominantly Brown bass water. Just did 't know it at the time. Either way, here's some light reading regarding my personal experience with it. A-Jay

Let’s keep things civil here everyone. Carry on.

What a great game last night! From the opening kickoff, I don’t think there was a dull moment the entire game.

I ran into hookup struggles when using a fast action rod and braid for spinnerbaits. When I would hookup, the fish were almost always hooked in the lip, not behind it or farther back in its mouth. I went back to using my old spinnerbait rod which has a Mod action (MH Power) and continued using braid and my hookups increased to what I consider normal. If you want to keep using the same rod, I'd recommend mono. Big Game under 20lb. test and a hookset that takes it from 9:00 to 11:00 with a turn of the reel handle will get you what you need.

22” is a monster!

It’s his tequila!

St Johns river looking south

Doing my best @Bluebasser86 storytelling impression of a tourney with this, so bear with me. Derby number 2 today from 8am - noon. Four fish limit. Pretty tough conditions, pressured metro lake, hot, windy. My partner and I had 4 legal fish by 9:30am but they were all dinks. Like 13-14 inchers. Couldn’t catch anything bigger. At 11am, we went to a patch of deeper weeds I had found pre fishing on Saturday morning. BOOM! I caught a pair of nearly 4 pounders in a 10 minute span and got rid of 2 of the dinks. Got ‘em both on a jig worm along a weed line. Before we pulled up to that spot, my partner said “we’re screwed if we finish with those four dinks. We need to replace 2 of them with quality fish to have a chance.” I agreed with him. We ended up winning by 0.67 pounds. Those two fish I caught in a 10 minute span won it for us. After I caught those two fish, my partner said to me “Did that really just happen? It’s exactly what we asked for and we may win because of it.” Another round of free beer and lunch afterwards. Beer goes down a lot smoother when it’s free.

Great pictures, everyone! I've been having a heck of a time getting anything of decent size lately. Been catching a bunch, but nothing really over 3#. Finally got on some bigger ones my last few trips out. Got this first guy prooobably on my last punch bite of the season. The others have been on jigs. The end of the season is closing in, which makes me incredibly sad. Still have another 1.5 months left or so. Every year at this time I tell myself I'm moving south. 😅

Glenn, please ban this monster from our site!

Just make sure it's legal where you are. Here in MN, we can use it...but only one arm can have a hook, the rest must be hookless.

I have talked to someone at Fenwick twice. Neither time did I think I was speaking with someone who Knew which end of a fishing rod was which. Sucks it happened but in the future I would recommend ordering from American Legacy. They would have taken care of you the same day.

Year 51 without it. Still having a blast. I didn’t realize I was this old till now

Kris passed on today, I guess Willie Nelson is the last man standing. Thanks for all the songs, RIP. You will be missed

I'm generally not fishing unknown lakes, so I can't really help you there. I already kind of have an idea of where to start because I fish the same 8-10 lakes every season and I've come to gauge seasononal movements based on that experience. Maybe someone else can offer some advice on map scouting here.

I would pay you to take all the chain pickerel out of the lakes here in south jersey... so sick of them. They absolutely love spinnerbaits too. Found that out very quickly after moving here.

I believe the OP is in Minnesota, so maybe I can help here. Most waterbodies here do not have shad. Some of the larger river systems in the southern portion of MN have them, but the individual, isolated land of 10,000 lakes do not have them. So the assessment of sunfish being the primary forage in most largemouth lakes is accurate. Obviously they eat more than just sunfish, but that is the main prey source here. I caught about 16 incher on Saturday morning, and while unhooking it, it spit up a 5 inch sunfish on the deck. I have been fishing twice in the past 3 days for largemouth (pre fishing Sat, contest yesterday), and both outings were directly correlated to sunfish being present in an area. If I was fishing with a plastic, I could feel them jack-hammering on the end of it. I also saw several schools of them visually near the surface. But every once in a while, a bass would strike too. If you're fishing in a smallmouth lake, then the main forage is crayfish, followed by perch. My approach is to start with a moving bait and once you get a strike or hook a fish, immediately stop there and slow down with another tactic because there's very likely more bass around. Beat it into a pulp. I caught about 15 fish in one small area on Saturday morning doing exactly this and yesterday in the contest I put two 4 pounders in the boat in 10 minutes.

RIP Professor

In my experience balls of bluegill/shiners/baby bass (much like shad in appearance and behaviour) start popping up around March and don't stop being an important part of LMB diet until the water gets to be less than 50° in shallow water and sunfish and shiners move deep. They suspend on sunny days - usually around some kind of cover for the shade and protection it provides and they swim around more open water on cloudy days and relate to the surface more (usually). I find the largest bass often relate to these extremely tiny baitfish - not to eat them - to eat what's eating them. 😎😉🎣

That's just plain creepy LOL

I’m a proponent of Carbontex drags in general. Replacing felt is a no brainer.

Absolutely nothing wrong with double willows. Choose the correct blades for the correct conditions and desired presentations. I catch 90% of my spinnerbait bass on double willows. And I catch a lot of bass on spinnerbaits in general.

@Bucks Bass and Bourbon I've gone an entire lifetime without FFS and I still get a few. If you'd said that you went a season without Bourbon, now then I'd be impressed. A-Jay

Beat the storms this afternoon. Back to the numbers lake but no wind and heavy cloud cover had the bass suspended high off the bottom and not in a good mood. Was able to piece together 27 today on a combination of cranks and shad-shape soft plastics. Overall quality was up, though I lost the best fish right at the boat, unfortunately.

Found this guy in a local pond...

Got out in light rain today, no wind. Caught only 3 bass but lost a really good one on a Zara Spook. Did put another Snakehead in the live well though.

I took a skunking yesterday. I had ten follows, two of them nipped at the bait in the 8, but didn't hook up. A bit of rain and low cloud cover this morning helped their mood a bit. I caught two ( 33" and 34.5"), lost another about the same size, and had three more follows. September's been tough, I'm happy to have this pair of little slimers.

Got back a couple of days ago from a solo camping trip on the Delaware River. Arrived last Monday and by the time I set up camp didn’t have time to launch the kayak. So fished from shore off the campsite for a hr and was able to land 3 small Smallmouths. Launched the next day on the river and got 14 Smallmouths, took a while to get on them but changed to drifting the current in 7’ of water over gravel with a Nikko Hellgrammite on a 1/8 ned head was the ticket. Next day I headed to a lake I never fished, got a Largemouth and small pickerel right away, and that was it for the day, did lose a good one on a drop shot though. Next day back to the river again, but couldn’t get any kind of consistent bite, wound up with 6 Smallmouths. The last day I wanted to launch at a site that the road to has been closed all year for repairing the road, it was supposed to be opened on Monday, but now they said it would open on Friday, so I waited till after 9am to go there. Well the road was still had the road blocks up so it was now a change of plans. I decided to take a ride to a reservoir I had only fished once a couple of years ago. Wasn’t on the water till 11am, water had a 10’ visibility tried fishing relatively shallow for a while and got nothing. Spoke to a couple different guys on boats and they said it was real slow, they weren’t getting anything either. Fished a little more and couldn’t find anything, so I decided to head back to the ramp fishing along the way. I figured let me check the 28’ to 32’ line on the way back since nothing was happening shallower. Still miffed that the road to the other launch was closed, I probably looked like the kid walking down the dirt road with both hands in his pocket kicking rocks along the way. I finally saw a good size bait ball with some stuff on the bottom, so dropped down a drop shot in a hail Mary attempt. I hook up and it’s a good one, pole bent down into the water and drag going off. Have it on for a good while until I finally able to see it, a big Smallmouth and I even said out loud “don’t jump” I was able to land it and it was the biggest Smallmouth I’ve gotten in many years. Fumbling around for my camera for a quick pic, it shook around and I lost my grip on it and she swam away. Perseverance saved my day, made a great ending to a great trip. Got back to the campsite and spoke with the lady at the office, she said NPS finally opened the road at 1pm Sorry for the long post.

Got my annual Musky Quota checked off this morning. What Brute ! Thanks for the inspiration @T-Billy A-Jay

Always fun on a popper