MFBAB

Some of the reservoirs around here have a 20-30' drawdown in the winter, you can go out on a 4 wheeler and find all sorts of things like old foundations and rockpiles, ditches, you name it. I've found cars, trucks, culverts, thousands of manmade mats,old boats, you name it! It's also a great time to build stake beds. The corps has habitat days here where they furnish the supplies and you just volunteer your time for a day, it's a great way to meet other fishermen on your home waters and learn more about why you catch fish where you do when the water is up. Usually there are a few biologists on hand for these events, and it is incredibly informative to speak with them at times!! As fishermen, we can compare our anecdotal experiences with their data and a lot of mysteries get unraveled that way

Keeping a log, and counting blow-ups and missed strikes is VERY smart!! I keep a spreadsheet, with columns for caught, missed, biggest, total, etc... Those blow-ups are telling you where the fish live (or at least where they feed), and like I said, once you know those spots, you can saturate them with a mixture of presentations as conditions dictate. When the sun shines and the wind stops, they will hunker down on a drop-off or settle into cover close to where the blow-ups happened. On ponds, we don't have contour maps and often we are limited to the bank so we can't use sonar to find the structural contours, but knowing where you got a hit tells you they probably have a hidey-hole nearby

Great first post Willis!! I'm going to be the first in with "What you talkin bout Willis??" to the OP: This thread is a couple of months old so you may have already figured things out. If not, here's some general advice. When learning a new pond, a great strategy is to use your search baits (Buzzbait on top, spinnerbait/chatterbait/squarebill etc. in the middle, to locate active fish. The trick to this is to use these baits when the conditions are optimal for them: Windy, cloudy, low light, early/late, stained water helps. The idea with these baits isn't to slow down and saturate an area, the idea is to cover water and pick off the active fish. What you are learning by doing this is where they feed-the "10%" deep alluded to if you will). Once you locate the feeding stations, some of which will be obvious (points, visible cover, etc) and some not so much (straight banks with underwater cover or structure), then you can go back and slow down in these places with the worms and jigs. They're going to slide off of the feeding stations and suspend (underspin, jerkbait) or bury up in cover nearby (T-rig, Jig) when the sun comes out or the wind dies, etc...this is finesse/slowdown time. Worms and jigs are great fish catchers, and they excel when the conditions don't allow the search baits, but they aren't great for locating fish unless you already know where the feeding stations are. You can "loop" a pond 1 mile around in about an hour with a buzzer or a spinnerbait to get the lay of the land, then go back over the areas where you had bites slowly with the T-rig to clean up and you are maximizing your time! If you start w the T-rig, it takes you about 3 hours to work your way around that 1 mile pond and you are probably fishing dead water a lot of the time in the process. Hope that helps!

I usually clip off the front hook as stated above for bass fishing, I think it reduces snags drastically. Also, we troll crankbaits for crappie a lot in my area, and I have been removing the front treble on those for years with no ill effects (like poor hook-up rates) The reason I remove the hook for crappie isn't snags, this is open water fishing mostly: 1 - To reduce mortality on the ones I release (12" size limit here so lots of release fish) and 2 - To make it faster to unhook them in general, you want your hands free whenever you run through a school of them **I will admit to changing my trebles out to Triple-Grips though, I think those hooks keep them buttoned better than most of the factory hooks I've seen and this step probably mitigates some losses I would have caused by removing or clipping the front hook.

Disclaimer: I am nowhere near a pro at jig making, I just started doing a lot of my own stuff within the last 3-5 years. If I'd spent the same amount of money on new lures as I did tacklemaking stuff, I'd probably have gotten a lifetime supply, which I probably already had one or two of before I started making stuff anyway if I'm being honest And if I spent all of my spare time actually fishing instead of making lures or looking at fishing forums, etc...well, I'd probably catch more fish too!! It's just all part of one big hobby for me, so it's supposed to cost money, right? If you haven't already, get yourself a Do-It catalog and a Janns Netcraft catalog. There are many others, but if you get these and read through them a little, you will start to get a better understanding of all of the parts that are required for the various jigs. There are lots of articles out there as well, the Do-It site has many, and a Google search will turn up a lot more. And YouTube is definitely your friend!! There are dozens and dozens of good videos on pouring/painting all sorts of jigs there. As mentioned above, there are other tackle making forums too. Join up on a couple of them and use the search feature. And as said above, there is a learning curve. You won't start out making perfect jigs, but in my experience most of what you'll make is definitely "fishable".

What's trending?? Here are the totals so far, some people listed more than one bait, and obviously a few of these are somewhat overlapping categories...but: Jig-N-Craw – IIIII IIIII (10) 4” Senko – IIIII IIII (9) T-Rig – IIIII II (7) DropShot Rig – 4” Finesse Worm or Senko – IIIII (5) Square Bill – IIII (4) Swim Jig – IIII (4) SpinnerBait – IIII (4) ChatterBait – IIII (4) Lipless Cranks – IIII (4) Jigs (*Could probably be added to Jig-N-Craw total) – III (3) Small Creature Bait – III (3) T-Rigged Craw (Chiggar or Rage Craw-Could be added to T-Rig Total) – III (3) Fluke (Weightless) – III (3) Rage Menace (Assume SwimJig Trailer or Similar) – III (3) Rage Cut-R (Assume T-Rig or ShakyHead Rigging?) – III (3) Ned Rig – II (2) ShakyHead (Surprisingly low total here) – II (2) 5” Senko (Could be added to 4” Senko total) – II (2) Jig w Curly Grub – I (1) Tube – I (1) Topwater – Popper or WTD Bait – I (1) Fat Ika – I (1) Hula Grub on JigHead – I (1) 77 Total Votes - 32 “Finesse” Votes As for myself, a 4" finesse worm on a dropshot, a 1/8 Arkie naked w a craw trailer like a small YUM crawbug, or a TrickWorm on a ShakyHead have gotten me out of more than a few jams...but I know it's probably going to be a tough day if I'm reaching for any of these early It was surprising after adding these up, less than half of the votes were for what I would consider "finesse" baits.

Those look good. They will get covered up in algae pretty quickly, and I've caught crappie on PVC mats many times right after putting them out, way before the algae started growing anyway. One suggestion: In private ponds, I like to build in a handle on mine, just one long piece of PVC that comes to the top. This way, you always know where it is, and also, you have an easy way to move it around if it isn't drawing fish. I had a couple of my mats down at the inlaws over thanksgiving that weren't producing for me. I moved them both and caught several crappie off of both mats that w/end after the move The PVC lasts a LONG time and it's almost impossible to hang up in, win-win. You will get crushed banging a crankbait through that thing! Another good item to add in to your mats are those white plastic lawn chairs that always break. I pick up every one I see on the side of the road and tie them together to make mats - they give a lot of shade.

Yep, I thought about wire too. I haven't tried it yet but it's an option. Worst case, I go to a flat-eye and 1 split ring, which should still be a noticeable improvement. Best case, I find a hook that will bend and get the direct connection, although the trade-off is a potentially weaker hook eye.... I think This is worth the trouble, I've got a few hours in it bank fishing so far and I can't get the thing hung-up no matter what I try-wood, rock, fish it like a worm, etc...

The ones Janns sells, I think they call them Shaker blades. I don't know of any others, are there better? I have definitely tried FB jigs and other styles behind these blades, with the bent-eye method. I usually cup the blades a little at the top too. This current rig is not a standard jighead though. I'm more putting the shaker blade in front of a keel-weighted swimbait hook, just a homemade version with the Mustad 60 degree hooks It falls different than a jig does, and is also totally weedless - this thing comes through anything except thick grass I guess! I just need to find the right hook and I'll be set. I think even a flat-eye hook and one split ring would be an improvement. With 2 split rings, I can just watch the whole trailer rig rotating about 1/4 turns, rather than wiggling-and totally unsustainable at slow speeds. It's like a bad electrical connection, it's just losing a lot of energy right at the split ring connection. I mean, the trailer is moving A LOT, it's just not the action you want, if that makes sense I've found a couple of other hook options to try, I just don't know of anywhere to actually look at them here, I was just trying to avoid mail ordering stuff that might not work out.

Thanks for the replies! This is the work-around I've been using (the split rings), but I personally like the action A LOT better with a direct connection to the blade. It doesn't seem to perform the same way at slower retrieve speeds, at least for me. When I look at it in the water, the whole hook/trailer assembly has a lot more play in it with the swivels, most of that tight wiggle action you get with the direct connection is lost, and then when you really slow down, it just tries to sort of roll instead of wiggling. Cadman - Points taken about the metal fatigue issues also, I haven't had one bend out on me yet (on the factory jigs I've used) but it's probably just a matter of time Those Mustads are a really thick hook, and tempered, they tend to just break off rather than bend for me. I haven't tried heating them up, I'm thinking I'll just keep looking for a little lighter guage hook or just stick to the factory baits.

Does anyone know a good way to open the eye up on a 60 degree Jig Hook without breaking it? I've been trying on the Mustad 32786BLN hooks, but not having any luck. I assume they are tempered, but I know I've done this before on other Jig hooks that didn't break, I'm just not sure what make they were because they were on store bought jigs. I'm basically doing this to attach to Shaker Blades (Chatterbait). Any advice on opening up the Mustads I have, or recommendations for a more bendable hook are appreciated! It just can't be too light of a wire strength because they are for bass fishing, but I'm looking for something in a 3-5/0 size and 60 degree bend. Thx, Rob

To me, especially in cold water where you are usually looking for a slower horizontal movement, the Chatterbait style just fits into that cold water trend of baits that you can move slow but also get good action. Traps, flat or thin cranks like flat maxx or shad raps, etc. That chatterbait is going to shimmy 10x as much as a spinnerbait, even at the slowest retrieve you can stand. The blade is giving action to your trailer, even at slow speed. With a spinnerbait, you really have to give the trailer action through increased horizontal speed at some point, it's just moving to slow to activate the appendages. And, it's more compact/smaller profile than a hairpin design, so less obvious to the fish at slow speeds. I think in a lot of ways it's just a better mousetrap for a slow roll.

I call this retrieve that RW described the "stegall" retrieve, because it was made famous in tn river circles by Roger Stegall. He won some big tourneys doing this on the ledges w spinnerbaits. I think it's great for structure fishing this way because you're covering several feet of the water column. If they're on the bottom feeding, they hit it as it comes down. If they're suspended, they see it at the top of the reeling sequence and follow it down. It works in these situations with a lot of baits. Curly grubs on jig heads, hair jigs are hot on bass circuit fished this way currently, big spinnerbaits like stegall used, stroking jigs, tail spinners, etc. The key is to understand whether the bass are suspended or on bottom. If they are suspended, you must get the bait up to their level to get the reaction. If they are 6 feet off bottom, make sure you reel it long enough to get it at or above them so they'll see it and react. I don't think reel speed matters. As RW said, the bites come on the fall. You just need a reel that allows you to bring the bait up high enough during the reeling sequence to set up the semi-slack fall. It's just a great open water structure rig because it casts a long way and covers water, they just think it's a shad in free fall and grab it.

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The closest 2 park ponds I know from there would be the Bartlett Park on N Appling, called Appling Lake I think, and the International Harvester Park in Lakeland, on WS of Canada Rd up near the intersection with Hwy 70. As Wiz said, Google maps is a good resource.

I think the clearer the water, the clearer the skies, the calmer the wind, the more stealth matters (and often making longer casts). Classic finesse conditions. Water with a little stain, cloud cover or low light, a little breeze disturbing the surface, the odds start tipping in our favor and stealth matters less. Classic power fishing conditions.

I know! I was pretty excited about finding it this year. It's been there a long time but just recently became public so I figured it wasn't getting too much pressure yet It has everything you want on paper, but I really think it got screwed up pretty badly when they were doing the park improvements.

That pond looks great, but it was recently converted to a Bartlett park. During the construction of the walking path, etc., they drained the lake according to Bartlett parks and rec., I think this was done in 2012-13 or so.... Basically, it is full of dinks, tiny bass, bream and crappie - throw a trout magnet in there and catch all you want. It will probably get better in a few years, but I found it so tough for bass after a couple of trips this summer that I actually called in to check with the parks and rec. office to see if there had been a fish kill there, that's when I found out about the draining. And yes, there is a bad siltation problem there too, I'm not sure whether it will fish very well from the bank even after it has had more time for the fish to grow. It's just an old farm pond, and they usually silt in eventually, but if you look at it on Google Earth and go back a few years to when Bartlett Parks was working on it, you can see that they really had the shoreline stripped down to dirt for a while...I think a lot of the silt issues came from their improvements. Hope I save you some time, I had high hopes for that pond this past summer myself

Some people can't be pleased You already know the unedited version of that story, btw....

I wouldn't advise the drift socks in current, they are made for wind. You will have no boat control with those in the current, it probably isn't a safe idea.

I guess if pressed, I'd say the grub. As good as the floating minnow is, you can't fish from top to bottom with it, unless you like feeding them to snags on a C-rig I caught my first bass on a floating rapala, at least the first one where I was by myself and fishing for bass- I still have the plug too! I started out panfishing w my grandfather, so I probably caught a few bass as a bycatch that I'm forgetting prior to that day And yes, you guessed it, we were fishing a lot of Mister Twister grubs!

Doesn't make me even a tiny bit mad, if they are within the law.

Tom, The point of my long post was basically that a lot of these "underrated" yet productive baits are just not being hyped by the pros because they are not new or fresh, or big money-makers for the sponsors. Not because they don't work well at catching fish. The sponsors know that the guys who are fishing grubs now will continue to fish them and buy them no matter what, because they have learned that they work, so why waste time re-marketing a bait that is already established. It's pretty simple: If I'm trying to make money selling baits or products, do I try to hype something like a grub, which 98% of the fishermen already have in their tacklebox, which is like trying to sell ice to eskimoes.... or do I try to come up with something new, which means I've got a marketplace full of potential buyers who don't already have that item in their tacklebox? True, every once in a while, one of those new baits shakes things up a little and improves the mouse trap (Senko, swimbaits, bladed jigs, etc...), but by and large, if there had never been another bait invented after about 1950, we would all still be able to do fine at catching fish just like our grandads did with worms, grubs, inlines, topwater plugs, etc:) I think the question is really "what is the most underrated undermarketed productive bait"? And the answer is, there are dozens of them Case in point: The grub has probably gotten more votes in this poll and in most others I've seen, so how is it underrated? But undermarketed? You'd better believe it, I don't remember the last time I saw an ad for a bass grub in a magazine! The other most undermarketed bait going is fishing knowledge. If I'm in the bait business, I want to sell people a treatrment (new magic bait), not a cure (fishing knowledge). If you taught people to fish you'd put yourself right out of the magic bait business

I never tried it, but Buck Perry used to say if there was a topwater bite going, he could cut a little branch off of a tree and hang trebles off of it and catch fish.

Live Bait - Not Allowed in Tourneys so most people never try it for bass, but that doesn't mean it isn't a great way to catch them if used corrrectly. BTW, it doesn't guarrantee anything and the idea that it is cheating is laughable. Trolling - Not Allowed in Tourneys so most people never try it for bass, but that doesn't mean it isn't a great way to catch them if used corrrectly. BTW, it doesn't guarrantee anything and the idea that it is cheating is laughable. Even the great Buck Perry really used trolling to locate the schools, then he would drop an anchor and pound on them by casting. Today we have SI units and GPS mapping to do what he did by trolling his Spoonplugs. Jiggerpole Fishing - Not Allowed in Tourneys so most people never try it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a great way to catch them. In tourneys, they limit the rod length you can use so a Jiggerpole is illegal. For those who don't know, this is taking a long pole, somewhere in the 15'+ range and tying a short /heavy leader to it, say 2-3', and then you just drag a bait like a topwater or shallow crank around in circles over cover (either from a boat or from the bank), or you troll along a bank and run it along the bank covering water. There's just no way to make a presentation like that with a shorter rod length, it is truly unique. T-Rigged Plastic Worm - You almost never hear of a tournament win on a basic T-Rigged worm these days. They say it doesn't cover enough water. Almost everyone I know learned to bass fish with that rig, and a lot of them never bothered to learn any other ways because it works so well. I don't tourney fish, but I have nothing against tourney fishing or people who do it. I understand that tourney fishing does a lot to grow the sport and drives the needle in terms of new bait/product development. I am in no way trying to minimize the positive impacts that tourney fishing has..... But, having said that, it looks like almost all of what is used and promoted in tourney fishing is what will make the sponsors the most money. After all, they do foot most of the bill for the competitors and the tours themselves. They don't do that because they are nice guys, they do it to promote their products. Big shiny bass boats Expensive rods and reels Expensive electronics A seemingly endless stream of new "must have" baits The list goes on and on, and the formula works, that is why Bass Pro Shops is a huge business now, it started as a few shelves in a gas station/ liquor store or something They were literally selling/promoting the baits that the pros were winning the tourneys with in the fledgling years of pro bass fishing. We all have a choice, we can do this as cheaply or as expensively as we want to, it can be as simple as chucking a T-Rigged worm or as complex as we choose to make it. I love how the lowly Grub is considered a 'sleeper" bait, when it is the number one vote-getter in almost every one of these 'sleeper" bait polls I've ever seen. One of the outdoor magazines even named it the best fishing lure of all time a few years ago, I have the article somewhere Here it is - Field and Stream: http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/fishing/bass/2006/04/50-greatest-lures-all-time?photo=26 I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do this in terms of what we use or how we use it, as long as it is legal and makes you feel good, I say go for it!! In other words, don't let the marketing hype dictate what you are fishing with, or what type of boat you're doing it from, or anything else. Again, we all get to choose how we like to fish. Do what you enjoy, this is a recreational pursuit after all unless you are a pro. The best advice I can give is to learn about the bass first, then worry about the tackle. What was the question again??