Paul Roberts

Nifty. How is the stitching software to work with?

Yes, think finesse. However, don't overlook deeply overcast days, or night time, with heavier gear and bigger baits. I like the sound of that shallow end, or where it meets deeper water. As usual, cover, and/or objects, will be important.

I was a serious squirreler too, once upon a time, back in NY. Some truly wonderful memories there. I can still easily conjure up the scent of black walnuts, hear the squirrels gnawing on them, and the chips falling onto wet leaves. I also hunted with a dog, who was a wonderful hunting companion. I started with a Marlin/Glenfield 60, and literally wore it out; I think it was the CCI Stingers that I used for chucks and foxes. I started with open sights, and did well. And then bought a 6X scope, which has some real advantages. In fact, that looks like a Weaver D on your 99M1, @scaleface; Mine was a D6. At age 17, I bought a single-shot Mossberg target gun with a 24" barrel (thinking Stingers again). I glass-bedded it, and filed the sear to get that god-awful trigger pull down to just shy of 3lbs, and it shoots single-hole groups with sub-sonics. My brother worked in a woodworking shop at the time and he and I did some custom work on the stock -thinking of the Parker-Hale Super. My son, when he was young, started his hunting on pine squirrels here in Colorado, with a Henry Mini-Bolt. I customized it a bit too, with a squirrel on the grip cap. I now use a Henry lever, although there's precious little squirrel hunting near me, beyond the little pine squirrels. Perfectly tasty little squirrels though, we've found. Abert's Squirrels (Tassel-Eared) are here too, but they are naturally sparse in population. The Henry lever is very accurate, with the ammo it likes. However, for proper fit, I needed to add a cheek riser -nothing fancy there- and to adjust my grip to get a good straight trigger pull, owing to the straight stock. Because of the lack of squirrels I now do more snowshoe hare hunting, on snowshoes over 5 to 8ft of powder in the mountains here. Love hunting those snowshoes. And that compact Henry handles well in those thickets.

Removing the trailer can help too. And... ditto the single-spins.

Well... the lures you describe should do the trick. It sounds like you need to fish more deftly. What this means is: -Right weight lure for water depth, so it doesn't crash or bury. -Right type and diameter line to balance that lure weight. Fluorocarbon lines sink, nylons are buoyant, and braids float. Thin lines will allow the lure to plummet faster. Thicker lines buoy them up. -Know how deep your lure is. Best way to familiarize yourself is to do this where you can see it -clear water so you can see how deep your lure and line combo's get as you fish them. This "knowing where your lure is", sight-unseen, is also how you map out the water in front of you as you work a lure, allowing you to ID where trouble spots are. You can then avoid, or even fish, them. -Maybe the biggest issue can be trying to yank your lure through when you feel or suspect weeds. Frustration will kill you; The weeds will win. If you yank, you're setting the hook into those weeds and will have a mess. Fish deftly through weeds. Walk the bait through. Don't yank, unless you know the coast is clear (see "mapping the water" above). -Lastly, some weeds are easier to fish through than others. Some are solid enough to walk through, even bounce off of, pretty well. Others, are impossible. If you can do these things, you can fish in the weeds, and enjoy it!

Sounds like sight-fishing 101. First, realize that sight-fishing can be tough on the ego. Esp, when it suddenly dawns on us that the same sortof stuff is going on even when we can't see them! Agree with others that being sneaky is likely the way in. "Hitting them on the head" is worth a try, and you'll know right away if it'll work. But it also may put the whole bunch down. They are not waiting for just the right lure. None of them are "food", and become even less so the more alarmed they become from bombing them. After a time, they might become used to your presence, but, IME, you are more apt to simply put them off. Some of my sight-fishing GoTo's are a wacky'd stick-worm, 6" straight-tail worm, tube, or finesse jig. Stay out of sight, cast beyond them, try not to let your line splash down over them (esp if its sunny), gently retrieve in to them, and let it fall. That fall is a major attractor and trigger. How fast a fall can matter. Watch for fish to follow it down... then... kill the bait (on cleaner bottom), or slow the fall with line tension (on vegetated bottoms). Then... watch your line for a twitch. I use braid for this, bc it floats and makes a great strike indicator. Another option, esp for fish that are jaded to killed/twitched baits, is to swim a 6" ribbon-tailed worm above them. This is surprisingly effective, even on edified fish. But first, don't let them know you are there. Hide behind a bush if you have to, and, be careful where and how your line lays down on the water. Again, braid is best for this bc it lands like cotton thread on the water's surface. Good luck, let us know.

My summer "fishing shirts" are long-sleeved. I try to minimize sunblock, but do use it on the backs of my hands, neck, face, and ears. Beats skin cancer, which is easy to get here at altitude. I buy my shirts at thrift stores, looking for mid-tone colors/patterns, in the lightest thinnest cotton I can find. Not too hot. They tend to wear out after a season or so, but at $3 a pop, that's aok. As to gar, their mouths are nearly all teeth and bone -not much tissue to sink a hook into. They will chase, and grab, a minnow imitation, like a Rapala, really well. But, they are nearly impossible to hook. This is why people use rope lures, as bluebasser mentioned. These tangle in the teeth -no hooks needed, or wanted. Also, gar have a peculiar way of catching fish prey. They cannot inhale -use suction- and they cannot bite straight on. Instead, their jaw morphology allows them to slide those long narrow jaws up next to a fish, then grab it with a side-ways snap of the head. So... you need to swim your lure up ahead of them and, if they are in the mood, allow them slide their jaws up beside the lure. Then... whap! Not unlike a mousetrap! But, again, hooks don't help much. I've never tried a rope lure though, so I've never got one in the boat. Cool to see anyway. Nifty critter.

Oh... Tragic. It can be hard to see in front of your speeding boat, esp if one is running far and/or... watching sonar. Not sure a flag will work in all situations. I have one though, and keep my eyes wide open for boats.

Yes! Buy two. I'm old enough now to have seen some great GoTo's disappear! Not made anymore. Can I replace them with something else? Probably... Ok... yes! But, that's only the material point.

Depends... as usual. I still resent that word. We catch fish close under our rods, the boat, the surface, for several reasons: detection, change in lure speed/depth, and the vulnerability a lure or prey item shows as it approaches the surface, the shoreline, or some other barrier. But long casts can be a big help at times: Reaching fish, spooky fish, getting lures deeper, and covering water. However I only use them if I feel I need them, for the reasons you mention and the advantages shorter, more precise, casts often provide. So, long bombing casts may make us feel like we are accomplishing something -like "covering water"- but, that is often not the case.

If it's a small water, float tubes are hard to beat.

As a long-time stream/river fisher, I can say that there's a LOT to fishing current. Stream fishing, and fishing tides, will teach you how fish operate in current. There is no one way to do it. But, some of the main issues revolve around speed control (what current does to your line, essentially), and whether the lure's approach will either alarm, or incite, the fish. One really effective way can be to fish across current from them, which forces the fish to make a decision -a powerful trigger. This can be done straight across, or down and across. But, open lake currents are rarely terribly strong, esp down where the fish are. A lot of that current is on the surface, esp if its wind generated. So you might even be able to ignore it much of the time. If it's a river run reservoir, that's pulling lots of water, and you are in a narrow area where current concentrates, that can be a different story. I made a video on fishing wind-generated current on small shallow waters, where current can get going, that shows how prey fishes (bluegills in this case), and the bass, respond. Current can really liven things up!

I MUCH prefer casting gear for baits that pull back: spinnerbaits and larger billed cranks, esp. I do have some spinning reels that handle them fine, but these are larger decent quality reels, and not for big deep cranks. Nearly any spinning reel will handle small finesse cranks.

Pow! WTG. The road less traveled... bravely going where few dare to tread. WTG.

Reduced lighting is a big plus, almost anytime. Dropping temps early season can reduce activity. But, it takes a heck of a front to knock water temps down much. It may not be quite like in August, when good dark fronts can really get things going. But, reduced lighting can be awful good anytime. Fish man, fish!

Fast growth is what I've assumed also. It means a good start for those fish. How far they can go, though, depends in large part on there plenty of being appropriate food available for each size class. Most of my waters -and I know your are similar- the bass have a tough time breaking the 18-20" length. Length -"frame size" as it's been called- is needed for truly BIG bass. This is why I'm more apt to measure fish, rather than weigh them. I believe length tells me more about the BIG bass potential for that water. Most of our waters can grow some 18" bass. But these fish are, on average, 8years old here. They often decline after this. Some can live much longer, but continued growth depends in large on appropriate food.

A "swing" is a turn, or meander, in a stream or creek. It's due to harder substrate causing the stream to "bounce off" and turn. It could be a rocky outcrop, tree roots, a clay deposit, ... . The reason there is often a drop-off there, if its not badly silted in, is because that hard substrate usually gets eroded by the stream current colliding against it, and may even be undercut. There is also often more mature vegetation on such a spot, like trees or shrubs, bc the stream could not sweep them away. If you want to understand channel bends, go walk a stream.

Just awesome. Had to full screen that video. Dogs knew something was up too. Congrats. That's a heck of a smallie, anywhere.

I've never seen that one. I was thinking Zara Puppy, like others, and yes, the Puppy is a killer in high vis conditions. The Baby Zara looks like it would be a short darting walker, bc it is so short, like the way a weedless "frog" bait walks. Longer baits glide further. One short darter I have is the Bomber/Excalibur Spit'n Image. It should behave in a similar way as the Baby Zara. And, it's still made: https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Heddon_Spitn_Image_Walking_Bait/descpage-HSI.html

Sometimes spot-n-stalk is the only way. Bass are way more aware of what's going on around them, above and below water, than it seems many people realize. Sight-fishing can sure teach us a lot, and helps me realize that a lot of the same reactions to our lures, or presence, are going on even when we can't seen them. Looks like she's still carrying eggs.

One can definitely get better at seeing them, but visibility conditions make a big difference. I see the pale bed in your photo. Interestingly, in my waters, bed size is often indicative of male size, usually about 1.5X the males length, depending on how zealous he is at clearing.

When I've tracked ponds, I've had to be there right at ice-out. Otherwise, there may be little sign of winter-kill, or the extent of it.

I just decide how deep in the spool at which my reel spool would become "unfishable", that is, the longest cast plus some cushion. I put on backing up until that point -and it's not precise -just the point I don't ever expect to see when I'm bass fishing.

With the winter-kills I've seen, the fish don't remain on the surface for long. They rot and sink. Gotta be there pretty quickly after ice-out. A month after suggests this is not winter-kill. Re-icing would rarely cause winter-kill since once open, O2 can replenish pretty quickly. Something else is up.

I don't have really BIG fish where I've lived. 7lbs tops it for me, most "big" bass are 5 or under. Regardless, I've always found it amusing that, even with some decades of catching bass behind me, the most I can say is, it's still all too easy to be fooled. I've joked that my fish are always biggest when: I first set the hook, and when I first pop them out of the water! :)) It's after a few moments, after I've somehow collected myself, that I'm able to give a fair assessment. How a fish is hooked matters a lot. I recently caught a 4.5, that, before I saw it, made me get serious about during the fight. Tail hook of the long jerkbait was in the corner of the mouth, but the front hook was lodged behind the gill plate. That gave her a lot of leverage, like trying to reel in an animated planer board. I was actually a bit let down when I saw her. And, here, a 4.5 is a big (not BIG) bass. That said, all things being equal, BIG bass simply stay in the water longer than smaller ones. Really big ones are able to stay down using their sides to stalemate, rolling up big table-top sized boils. Seeing those always gets my heart going. Oh, and another thing, while fighting a fish, if you watch your rod tip, it can actually measure the length of the fish! When a fish writhes, turns to change direction, or wriggles in an acceleration or high speed bolt, the oscillation(s) will show in rod tip travel. I caught onto this with steelhead, which are more apt to writhe than bass. But if the rod tip oscillates quickly on a run, the fish's body is apt to be short. When a fish writhes, or turns fully, a deep dip in the rod tip can betray its length.