Team9nine

“Yes” to the mono and fluoro comments, or at least use a short leader of either if using braid - same as many do when throwing topwaters on braid. Another trick - just remove the rear hook on the Vaults and upsize the belly hook. That will completely solve your rear hook wrapping issue 😄 It also cuts down on the amount of hangs. Vaults are my favorite, along with a historical fondness for original Silver Buddies, for most mid- and deep water work. I use Johnson ThinFishers in shallow water. Vaults are a favorite, though. If you hang on anything wood, getting straight over it and just repeated slack line jiggling, using the lead body to act as a lure remover, frees most baits most of the time. Wedged in rocks can be a bit trickier. Everything else gets a lure knocker. All told, I don’t lose than many in a given year.

With that early reaction, just wait until the after the second shot. Most everyone says that one is much worse 😉

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.

A rare tackle purchase for me, but needed a few niche cranks, a pack of jiggling minnows to play with, and some Bitsy’s on steroids. Sad how little $50 will get you these days - but it will buy free shipping 🤗

Randy just posted a good video on bluff bank fishing - what to look for and baits. He mentions 2 of the baits I suggested, along with 1 other. The Ned could easily double as or complement the jig as a third option in this case. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xb7pHqsOOg

Yes, yes, and yes

Thanks for the mention @Blue Raider Bob. Now here's the bad news...I wish I could give you some great words of wisdom that would work for you, but I've come to believe that while 'a bass is a bass,' that only takes you so far. All success IS a local thing, especially when it comes to big bass. I've been fortunate to be able to push the envelope by fishing as much as 175+ days a year or more for a few decades now, and I can tell you that there is no such thing as water that is too cold to catch bass out of. I've literally caught them in about every cold weather/water scenario imaginable, right up to drilling holes in a frozen lake. But how you actually catch them - what will work or won't work for your waters - is literally based on your waters, your approach restrictions (boat, bank, kayak, etc.), and lots of trial and error. While all of us could rattle off our favorite winter presentations and locations, there's no guarantees any of them would actually work for you where you fish. You have to take the basics of a technique option and just give them a try. The same applies for location. We all are good at posting our successes, but what you rarely see is the hours and hours of our unsuccessful attempts with a variety of baits in a variety of locations - but that's how we learn, and what ultimately leads us to the good catches you eventually see. But to try and be a little bit positive in all this, I will say if I had to start a list of my most successful winter baits, it would include things like blade baits, Ned rigs, jerkbaits, and hair jigs (bucktail or float-n-fly style). Those 4 will cover the water column from top to bottom. I could also say with some confidence that being near or in deep water (which is relative to your lake) is also important. Steeper banks (>45 deg.), whether that be creek or river channel bluffs on a larger body of water, or the deep water end of a pond, are a great starting point. And from there, the trial and error of baits, presentations, retrieves, exact location, best weather patterns, all play. When you do get a bite, consider it a data point that hopefully you can use to expand and build upon, leading you to your next bass. Go out there with an open mind, and know that it's an extremely rare instance in which there isn't a bass somewhere willing to bite on any given day

Definitely wasn’t as good as yesterday, but did score one over 3 lbs. this afternoon on blade bait. Three days of rain starting tonight might really change things here if we get more than the 2.25!inches they are forecasting.

Forecast for most of next week isn’t looking too promising, and we broke 50 today for our high along with very manageable SW winds from 6-9 mph, so I made a rare weekend run to a local lake. Turned out to be a good decision, as I was able to catch a limit of bass in the 3 hours I was out there, topped by this 7.0 pounder (top two pics). Also answered 3 recent forum posts with today’s catch - MB 110’s are worth the $$; Katsuage hooks will easily hold big fish if your setup is right; and a moderate action rod does a really nice job with jerkbaits 😎 😄

Had some good success with them in ponds for greenies...but they are small and lightweight. Fun to fish, but definitely best to gear down if you try some IMO. Still have a handful of them.

A little back history... Culprit came out with their Captivator skirted slip sinker heads back in 1987. Those were some of the earliest versions of this idea sold commercially. Billy Bowen (GA) originally designed the bait modification for himself, took it to Eb Hargrove, a local Lake Sinclair guide, who in turn took it to John Zook, then tech-rep for Classic Mfg. (Culprit), who ended up contracting with Billy to do most all the manufacturing. Back in Texas, and slightly before all this happened, a Mansfield area fisherman named Jim Brown designed and fished a slip sinker that carried a fiber skirt, and was then fished similarly to a jig and pig. Same basic idea, but I don't think it ever made it outside that local area.

Rule #1 - Don’t blank - lol. Avoided that fate with this chunky keeper this afternoon. Briefly touched 60 around lunch, then temps started dropping. Blue skies again along with gusting winds over 30 mph made me change lakes to somewhere slightly more boat friendly.

My short answer: Buck Perry showed us that (bass) fishing, in general, is a science, but certain aspects of it, like big bass/trophy angling, is an art, IMO.

More the cold weather than the wife Cold enough to pull out the ski bibs for the next few months, I imagine.

Dropped down to 20 overnight, but we clawed our way back to 50 by late afternoon, so I hooked up and ran to the lake for about 3 hours. Sunny skies with SW winds of 10-15, gusting 20-25 were a challenge, but I managed to get half a dozen bites on a mix of jerkbaits and blade baits, including one that hit the 6 lb. mark, making it worth being out there.

Sometimes/Most times (~90% of the time)

This ^^^ works for me, too. I used hitchhikers (screw lock/twist lock/CPS spring) in Indiana with smaller soft plastic baits as “dummies” on top 2 arms where 3 hooks was the limit.

You have to vary the jerks and pauses - let the fish tell you what they want. Some days really hard and fast twitches with little pausing works; other days just slight twitches with little movement and long pauses are best. This is where different rod types can come into play and be equally effective depending on the mood of the fish. Just to make that point, here’s another video on jerkbaiting and you’ll see the recommendation is for a ‘very parabolic’ (slower) action. You’ll find this difference in preference across a range of pros. M Stefan jerkbaits

IMO, jerkbait is one of those techniques where you can truly use either rod type and be just fine. You’ll find equally good arguments for both - and I’ve used both extensively. You definitely want to drop some degree of slack between twitches/pauses because tension will drag the bait forward, then line watch for the “jump,” though often it is like blade baits where the next time you go to twitch, the fish is just ‘there’.

I really don't have any advantages anymore - technology has pretty much taken them all away - but I still have plenty of disadvantages I could list

I tend to go with the more historical figure of 55 degrees and under as defining the cold water period.

Oops 🤗 wrong thread…

Pretty strong front set in today. Highs barely broke 50, and winds were steady out of the north 8-12 with the occasional stronger gust. It was a bad setup for where I wanted to fish, but was still able to scrounge out 4 bass in just under 3 hours. I've fished in worse, for less, so no complaints Now we wait for the eventual warmup.

And therein lies the biggest obstacle to this concept actually working, because the goal among most all fisheries departments across the country is not to produce trophy fisheries, but instead, to maximize sustainable harvest and yield. Outside of Oklahoma’s new bass regulation and a handful of specific waters in certain states, minimum length limits are the rule and probably always will be. There is very little desire on the part of state fisheries to create trophy focused waters. Additionally, once you get above a certain sized body of water, your ability to control harvest and enforce regulations is highly diminished, and increasingly cost prohibitive, and so subsequently, your desired outcome will likely fail.

Very nice but slow afternoon on a local reservoir until I got lucky and pulled up on the right spot at the right time with about 40 minutes to go and limited out in 20. Blade bait in 58 deg. water.