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Got into a dinkfest today, caught eight in about an hour and a half. Nothing big. But also the lake was busy and I caught more than anyone. And sometimes that's the real five pounder

One reason the Rat-L-Trap became more popular down here at least was availability. I could buys Traps out of Bill's station wagon, local stores around Toledo & Rayburn carried them. Bayou Boogie & Pico Perch we had to wait for tackle shops to receive their monthly allotment.

Rather slow day at the ol Stillhousy. I got 2 bites on a jig in timber in pretty quick succession and then nothing. One of these jig fish wrapped me up in a tree and came off. It felt pretty heavy. I beat the skunk at least!

The weather finally agreed with me, above 55 with little wind, so I went fishing in the afternoon. Caught 3, one dink and a couple 15 to 16" Alabama bass. A good one came unbuttoned. All on T/R worms in 5-15' near brush piles. Water temp was 50*, down 5* from the last time I fished. There's a window early next week where I'll try it again.

Recently I mentioned in the 'Winter Projects' thread, that I was in the process of converting the remaining split grip rods I fish into what I'm going to call a "Hybrid Full Grip". Both spinning & casting rods were getting the treatment. I've had this 'idea' bouncing around in my head for a while now but was somewhat hesitant to make it happen. To reiterate, I am NOT a fan of Split grip sticks and felt like I have tolerated them long enough. I'm a two hand caster and really like something substantial to hold onto. Initially, I was just going to re-home many of these sticks, but there are way too many memories wrapped up in them at this point, so I went to plan B. Finally took the plunge, purchased 'the supplies' and went to work. The supplies included a Super basic heat gun, a few packs of Accu-Cull Rod Grips, and some cork tape for a base layer under the grip. While hiding in my basement from the excessive winter, I finished this deal up today. Came out a bit better than I actually expected, which rarely happens and without burning my fingers or melting a rod in half. #nosplitgrips A-Jay

I have a friend and customer who is adamant about having all the same reels to eliminate adjustments in technique from one to the next. I don’t do that personally but can see the logic. Each brand has models that shine in certain applications so there’s a good argument for an eclectic collection which is how I lean. For serious tournament angling I stress the importance of bullet proof workhorse reels over anything more refined and “pleasurable “ to fish.

Stillhouse was strutting its stuff yesterday. Have to share a couple of pics

Had a cold NC day with wind so didn't want to mess with the kayak. Hit up @Pat Brown to see if he wanted to try a new pond with me at a city park. Ended up getting our families together which was fun! We explored the ponds which feed each other in a chain. Pretty cool place with a variety of cover. I ended up deciding to try a blade bait as a few of you have inspired me but I'd never thrown one. I had a pretty small chartreuse one and threw it for an hour. Slow day and I varies the retrieve, ended up catching one good one on it. Both pics are same fish. Felt good to catch one on a new bait in a new place. Now I want to try a larger one on the lake. Looking forward to further exploring these ponds and possibly adding to our rotation of pressured ponds with a few big fish in them!

Big game today! Bills/Lions Two great QBs and two beat up defenses. Should be a shootout. I have to give the nod to my Bills. Go Bills!

My first entry into the 7 lb club came on 12 Sept 2017. She choked a big Biovex Spinnerbait on a vast grass flat. Got the video running just in time to capture the last part of the fight, the net job and the jubilation that ensued. https://youtu.be/IsGq2UNY_K8?feature=shared My second entry into this most prestigious club, came this spring, 6 years, 7 months and 11 days later, on 22 Apr 24. Sunny but super windy afternoon but the bite was nuts. She clobbered a Megabass Vision 110 Jerkbait in 10 feet of water. I had already released several 5 lb fish and a beast of a 6 lber. But 'this one' felt different right from the start. I dream about an 8 lber just about every night. A-Jay

I was going through some of my old stuff last weekend, and found a shad colored Heddon Bayou Boogie. I'm pretty sure I bought this one in the early eighties. I remember it being a good lure, and catching quite a few fish with it. These were 2" long, and came in several colors. They're easy to recognize because of the slant or angle cut face, which is usually painted red. At some point, the Whopper Stopper company became involved with these lures, and I've seen some new in package with both Whopper Stopper and Heddon logos on them. There were other slant face lures. The only one I know of was the Pico Pearch bait. It looked almost identical to Heddons Bayou Boogie. I've never fished a Pico Pearch. I think this slant face style of lure was very popular from the 1950s- 60s clear up into the early eighties. The fact that they made them in different sizes and so many colors says there was a good market for them. I think they lost popularity when the Bill Lewis Rattletrap hit the scene. I wish they would bring them back. Does anyone remember fishing the Bayou Boogie, or the Pico Pearch?

Whopper Stopper is the company that made the original Bayou Boogie. At that time Heddon's number one lipless lure was the Sonic, and larger Super Sonic. The summer of 1976 was when I started bass fishing, with lures which everyone I new referred to as bass plugs. Up until that summer the only bass I caught were while fishing for trout with night crawlers under a bobbers. I bought my first pass plug which was a Heddon Sonic in June, and by July I had a new friend the Bass Monkey. Everyone fisherman I new swore by the Sonic, and I also had great success on the lure. By the summer of 1977 I had acquired a half dozen plugs, and the sonic was still my number one plug. Then the Bait Monkey convinced me to order a Rattletrap out of the new Bass Pro Shops catalogue. A friend of mine who swore by the Super Sonic had turned 16 got his drivers license and his dad let him take their small boat to lake by himself. He invited me to go, and I couldn't wait. His dad always insisted on fishing for crappie, and now we were going to be able to fish solely for bass all day. I tied on my new Rattle trap the 1/4 oz version in baby bass color. My friend started with a Super Sonic. I caught bass on almost every cast, while my friend tried every lure in his box and couldn't get a bite. That was the end to my Heddon Sonic addiction, and the Bait Monkey made best friend for ever status on that memorable day. I always wanted to buy a Bayou Boogie but at that time every tackle purchase was agonized over for day's, and the Sonic always ended up in my box, and after my discovery of the fishing catching power of the Rattle Trap I never even looked at another lipless for 35 years. The Whopper Stopper Bayou Boogie and Hellbender are probably the only two popular bass lures of the 70,s that I never tried. I always wanted to buy one, but my local hardware store didn't carry that brand and I always ordered some other lures from Bass Pro. I may have to buy one and give it a try simply to satisfy my curiosity after all these years.

I’ve tried Yozuri rattle baits and Luckycraft LV rattle baits and none of those can even get close to the effectiveness of the OG rattletrap and I’ll buy them 10 at a time. My only gripe is they’ve moved up to about $10 bucks a piece. Nonetheless I’ll buy em as I see them 😂 They are that good. They may not look like those pretty JDM models but I’m not caring about that at all. Fish destroy OG traps!

Blade baits, jigs and spoons

I still have a few bayou boogies. I remember they dropped like a rock and you had to fish them fast. if you can keep them in the middle of the water column they were great for stop - n - go. They weren’t bad on a lift drop either.

MAN DOWN!!! Hang on...I have another. Code 4. Stand down.

I used both of them . Pico Perch shallower in emergent timber. Bayou Boogies deeper , yoyoing them off the bottom.

I’m in NE Kansas and fished a tournament here yesterday . I caught all my fish on a jerkbait and Ned rig. Normally would mix in a flat sided crank but the rock snot was too bad.

I have a couple of Bayou Boogies and one or two Pico Perch baits that belonged to my dad. I don't remember ever fishing with them. I do remember fishing with a Heddon Sonic back in the late '70s. Those sonics were killer baits.

NED

I do not pay attention to daytime temperatures, instead I pay attention to nighttime temperatures. Until nighttime temperatures are above the water temperatures you will not get any sanificant increase in temperatures. What is gained during the daytime will be lost over night.

So far when it's that cold a Jig n Pig and a Jerkbait have been pretty solid this year! Lipless crankbait/spinnerbait/chatterbait all work good when it's super cold. Blade baits and spoons. Ned rig/shaky head/drop shot.

Single blade spinnerbait ... Think big blade for a slow roll. My PB came just after ice out Jigs and back in the day an uncle josh pork rind ,,,, anything that move subtle Can't go wrong with a jerkbait as mentioned Lipless crankbait and find grass/weed patches and rip thru EDIT If you can fish more vertical, then drop shot is productive

Flat sided crankbait like Rapala OG slim 6 , or OG tiny. Or a lipless crankbaits are my go to. Or a ned rig

I'm not qualified to answer. I have 10 brands of reels from $30-$300 (on closeouts). Like them all.

We have a whole library of articles here: https://www.bassresource.com/seasonal-fishing-articles/Winter And a big library of winter videos here: https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/bass-fishing-winter Enjoy!

I'm going to be Mr Pragmatic Debbie Downer... stick with the SLX and Zillions. I've fished a lot of tournaments and the ratio of boost in performance over what you have/know vs the money spent isn't great. Rods? Totally different beast, go nuts with what suits your needs and desires but reels I'd be perfectly fine running SLX and zillions, Stradics and Kages. Save money for fees, line, terminal and (oddly my favorite) storage that works for you.

My spinning reels are Shimano and swap spools - my baitcasters are mostly (34-mm) Daiwa and swap spools. The thing about Zilllion, you can set it up to fish 2 grams to 2 ounces. I've never understood try everything and see what sticks. Doesn't what doesn't stick end up in the closet?

The two baits are very different and only share the use of a skirt in common. It’s my belief that bass are initially attracted to a spinnnerbait by flash of the rotating blade or blades and the water displacement signature from the blades. It’s a secondary reaction when a bass focuses on the profile of the head/skirt. A trailer can add to the profile. A Chatterbait or bladed Jig is a jig that has the action of a crankbait. It wags side to side. The blade is like the lip on a squarebill. The skirt gives bulk and some action but it’s minimal. The blade produces minimal flash. The side to side wag is perfect for a trailer that can capitalize on that side to side movement and add profile. That’s why I love a Zako or a Spunk Shad.

We got clobbered with another 20+ inches of snow & I'm pretty sure Miss Kya is loving it ! A-Jay

Nearly 4 inches of rain this week, and now the NW winds and clear skies following the front. Spent 2.5 hours on the water this afternoon, the first hour inside a creek arm hiding from the wind. Searched for crappie but only found carp, so pulled out the bass gear and caught one on jerkbait. Wind finally settled, so looked again for some crappie on the main lake. Only spotted a few, so gave up. Moved to some main lake points during the final 45 minutes and limited out on bass using blade baits. Water 49 deg.

Can we really blame @Tim Kelly? His steering wheel is on the wrong side too.

Crankbait - billed or lipless. A small 1/4oz lipless has been quite productive for me in that water temp. If you can fish a shad rap, that’s a great billed option. Keitech swimbait on a light jig head and light line retrieved as slow as possible Jerkbait I fished these in your area mid Missouri and did okay in the cold water. A couple days there was ice rimming the lake and I still caught them, spinnerbaits included.

Because of this thread, I went and purchased a Deps Buzzjet Jr. Am VERY excited to try it!

You can also ream a poly foam arbor split it and glue in place, giving you a uniform OD to work with, more economical and faster I would think than cork tape.

It has to do with the angle of the trip ramp. Shimano design allows the bail to stay open but it not fully open and locked hence the snap. positioning the bail with roller top dead center for casting should eliminate this problem with any spinning reel designs.

@woolleyfooley I would start with 3/4 & 1 oz in at least 3 colors listed above. You've thrown 3/8 & 1/2, get comfortable with 3/4 & 1.

I can’t even afford to park in Nashville, you can have it

Lame. I thought there was a new red Curado coming or something 🤡

Exactly. I’ve heard his license was expired for 5 months, never mind the fraud part. Too bad his brain isn’t as big as his head.

There are now a few offering shallow-spool fit for Lew's SLP, but you find so much variance in spindles, spool diameter and bearings between different brands and models made at Doyo, you're unlikely to find one. If you can identify a Revo model that swaps spools with your reel, that would improve your chances of finding a match on Express website. This is what sent me five years ago to my first Daiwa since 1978. I did buy a Doyo-built ZPI Alcance for the matching 7-g spool (Mg + Ti), and fish this reel in freshwater BFS, but these spools won't fit any of the Lew's I tried. I'm going to add that lower spinning mass (inertia) needs less brake, not more. Casting lighter needs more mag brake to prevent mid-cast (wind) backlash, but casting light weight on light spool, you almost never need start-up brake.

Every year my family spends the day making ravioli for Christmas dinner. My daughter stopped by today to do just that. Sitting and having a glass now @TnRiver46 and @12poundbass, don’t pee on my cheerios!

I have no problem with cheating. Heck! At any time I expect to be arrested for impersonating a bass fisherman.

Rules for thee but not for me sound familiar! Tom

I have one of those in my canoe, which explains my consistency.

Really messy day of fishing and I made a lot of bad decisions but got lucky with one over 6lbs on a jerkbait. Long fish. About 23”. Windy, cold, rainy. Pardon me if I don’t look more excited, lol. Fun fish to catch

It's part art when I'm picking out soft plastics pallette, and part science when I increase the quantities on my TW cart by the Fibonacci sequence...

Excellent ~ How often do you need to replace it ? Asking for a friend. 🤓 A-Jay

Asking us again why many folks don't fish for money. A-Jay