Panamoka_Bassin

On my lake, they don't allow any motors, not even electric trolling motors, so in order to fuel up, a cup of coffee and a handfull of vitamins does it for me... :)

I like to run a buzz bait along the edges of pads when I can, or I'll just go with the frog across the tops when I'm in the thick of them. The best part is seeing those bass explode through the pads, even though more than half the time I fail to hook 'em. As I understand it, when using a frog across the tops, you need to be patient when setting the hook. Let the bass have a good 3 seconds before setting the hook and you'll have better success at landing them...

Great advice, Catt, I've never really thought of using a jig in that thick stuff, but tomorrow I have a goal...

I am a proponent of fishing in the wind, or rather, finding the spot that isn't in the wind on windy days. I find that fishing the leeward side of the wind (leeward->you->windward) procduces much better for me, especially using soft plastics. Other people will tell you the opposite, but from watching baitfish all my life (exciting life I lead, eh?), I know they don't want to be any kind of current, so they'll get under the wind, therefore, any hungry bass will be close by. Or at least, that's the theory...

I've got the same problem in my pond, and GCPMan has it right. If that doesn't do it, when I get the bait close to me, I'll "swim" it around in the water at my feet to get the snot off. Believe it or not, I also caught a fish doing that. I had a big clump of the stuff on a tube worm, and as I'm cleaning it off, a bass screamed in from about 3 feet away and inhaled the thing. I saw the algae mving, and then my pole loaded up, and I said to myself, "Well, what the heck am I casting 30 away feet for?" Of course I haven't duplicated this since, though I try...

I find that the consistancy of the plastic will determine how far I bury the hook. On a power worm, I'll make sure the hook is completely inside the plastic, while with a tube, I'll generally "skin hook" the bait. Generally, I like to have the hook end totally covered by the plastic, but with some tougher plastics its impossible to get a hook set. Like Avid sez, experiment with it. If you're getting strikes, but are unable to set the hook, maybe you need to let the hook hang outside more...

Wow, talk about coincidence! Minutes ago, I was fishing my pond with a black t-rigged tube, and as I'm shaking the bait to get the algae off of it, a bass came out from under the algae and hammered it! He was about a foot away from me when I saw him!

He doesn't have a NE accent, its kinda a combo of Boston and NY... "Paahk the caahr and fuhgeddaboutit."

Yanks get swept by the Sox. Oh, boy, that burns my brisket! At least ARod is still en fuego. 2 more dingers last night in Tampa. How long can he keep this up?

These two sentences really caught my attention. First, it is extremely unlikely that a pond only thrity feet from a fish filled lake would not have fish in it if it were a healthy body of water. Assuming the pond has been around awhile the birds, frogs, snakes, etc. would surely transport fertiliezed eggs that short a distance. So the fact that you got skunked today, or if the fishing is not good would be a red flag for me. I would stop transplanting immediately. If there is a problems with the water in that little pond, then it can find it's way back into the lake, and your plan could backfire. I have caught a few fish there this year already, but yesterday was weird. The fish I've caught seemed healthy, no gill marks, no scale rot, no "open sores". I think that since we had some nice weather the last 3 days, the fish have moved into the bushes along the bank and I just can't get into them deep enough. There's plenty of life in the pond, frogs, snakes, even some goldfish my neighbor put in a few years back as feeders (now they're about 10"!). There's an abundance of life in this pond from muskrats to blue herons and egrets, plus, the pond is spring fed, so I'm pretty sure its healthy water. I'm going to take a sample to the local college and see if they'll do a test for me and confirm this. Thanks for the heads up, though, avid, I appreciate you lookin' out for me

When I use a tube, which is very often, I never use styro, alka seltzer, or peg the weight. I always t-rig with a 1/8 or 1/16 bullet, or I use no weight at all (but I'm fishing about 8-12 ft. of water). When I fish a tube, I like to let the bait sink after a cast, settle, then I'll give it a 6-10 lift and let it settle again. Once the bait is "Relaxed", I'll twitch it along the bottom for a few inches, but never more than 12. The idea is to make the tube look like a craw finding food. I'll repeat this process until I catch a fish or get too close to me to get good action. Hope this helps... P.S.- This is a tube Loose Lip:

I've done a fair bit of transplanting myself, and I'll be one of the first to endorse it. The fish I placed in the pond 2 years ago now out weigh the ones in the lake by a considerable margin. There are some factors to consider in my case, though. First, the distance from the lake to the pond is about 30 feet, so I am not keeping them in a live well. I catch from one shore and walk to the pond for the release. Second, there were no fish in this pond before I started putting fish in there, or at least none that I knew of. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the fish are coming from a privately owned lake and going into a privately owned pond. The DEC may have some word on the subject of transplanting, but I don't think anyone would give me a problem about it. The lake needs to have some fish thinned out of it, in my opinion. The only thing negative about this that I can say is that I spent 2 hours in the canoe in the pond today and still got skunked.

Where I come from, you can't swing a cat without hitting one of these guys. My great uncle was one of them, Uncle Edgar. As a kid, we'd have Thanksgiving dinner at his house, along with about 20 other people, and the game was to see how long before Uncle Ed fell asleep at the table. Happened every year. He'd even start snoring. He was a great story teller, a helluva good bayman, and generally just a great guy to be around. After he passed, I was talking to one of his kids, my cousin, and she told me how he'd been in a Nazi POW camp for 2 years after being shot down in a bomber; he was the tail gunner. I never knew this, and I guess it just added to the aura I always saw around him. Funny how you can know someone your whole life and still be amazed by them.

I'm sure he'd be great! I know he wouldn't get a swollen head like Jimmy Houston or Bill Dance, and I'm sure he'd be a lot more accessable than Charlie Moore. Maybe it should be so...

I've never done anything like that Never. No, really. I've also never gotten a lure stuck in a tree. Nope, never done that either. Nor have I ever tied on a hook before I put a sinker on the line. I don't do anything like that... (Okay, beofre i go on, anyone wanna put on some boots?)

Chances are those schooling bass are staging for the spawn and will be VERY hard to get. Try using a smaller inline spinner (Mepps are good), or, better yet, a 3 or 4 inch senko wacky rigged, maybe in junebug or watermellon color.

Is it just me, or is Alex Rodriguez just about the most dialed-in player there is right now? 12 dingers and 30 RBIs, and it's only the 21st of April, 15 games into the season. At this rate, he'll have somewhere near 120 HRs and 350 RBIs if he keeps this pace. Obviously, he's not going to, but what kind of numbers do you think he will actually put up? I'm thiking 55 HRs and 175 RBIs is not so out of the realm of possibilities...

I've spent my whole life fishing in many different ways, enjoying every minute. About 15 years back, my dad got into fresh water fishing and would come home with some pretty good stories. After he passed away, I inherited his tackle and didn't really put much thought into it. One day, as I was driving home from work, I passed a couple ponds and decided to try fresh water fishing, seeing as I had all this tackle that I'd never used. I got my license and headed out with my waders to one of these ponds. I didn't catch a bass, but I did catch a tiny trout, but the thing that got me most was the peace and tranquility. I was normally a salt water fisherman, with all the noise that goes with it. Now, I'm standing in the water, listening to nothing but birds and deer walking in the woods, and realizing what a great Zen-like moment I've discovered. To me, nothing beats the quiet calm I get from bass fishing (that is, until I hook up). I still do all kinds of other fishing, but I'll always retreat to the quiet of the woods and ponds. I know I'm not doing a great job of explaning the feeling I get, but that's why I fish for LMB...

OMG! What a game! Yanks come back from 6-2 in the ninth with 2 outs and win the game 8-6 off A-Rod's 10th (yes 10) homer and 26th RBIs. Glad I stayed until the end. Like Yogi said, "It ain't over until it's over."

I gave it an 8. Its got a good beat and you can dance to it... Oh, wait, this isn't voting for American Bandstand? J/K, of course I gave it a 10!

ouch

Good luck, dude. Its gonna be a lot of hard work, but I wish I had finished school when I had the chance. I thought I didn't need a piece of paper to tell me what I know, but as it turns out, you need that piece of paper to tell OTHERS what you know...Silly me...Take my advice, finish now while you're young! Also, PM me if there's anything I can do to help you out...

I was wondering how they were going to acomplish that...Too funny

It is a tough situation, no doubt, but unless I see the bass spawning in the shallow northern end, I might be more inclined to fish a little deeper. Maybe there's a little "rise" as you get to the northern end of the lake, or perhaps a nice little channel into those back coves. If the fish aren't spawning, which it doesn't sound like they are, I'll bet they're getting ready to spawn and will be hanging out looking for a bit of forage along any structure. If you can find some water a little cooler than the north end, but much warmer than the south end along a slope of any kind, I'd be working tubes, jigs, and worms along the bottom for a while and then slowly work my way up the water column to where the bass are holding.

Ahahaha, I never even thought about confusing people, but I can see how it might have happened. I've certainly been bitten by that hardware monkey too, otherwise why would I have a table saw that I've used 3 times in 5 years... Sorry if I wasn't clear as to which hardware monkey...