Bluebasser86

Just do what I did and drop the Iphone in the lake!

Supposed to be a little cooler and on the front edge of a cold front so you may do really well. Flipping a California Craw Rage Craw into the water willow was best for me Wednesday night. The guys that caught the big smallie said they were fishing deep but didn't say how deep or with what. We got very few shakeyhead fish. My biggest smallie of the night was on a 5/8oz Jewel Jig in watermelon red with a GP twin tail trailer. They should be chasing shad first thing in the morning again, especially if it's cloudy and calm.

I'm with ww2farmer except I don't use the smallie beavers on a T-rig, just a shakeyhead. For the bigger beaver baits a 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG superline hook works great for me!

Nice fish G! That flathead needs to eat something! Looks like it should have been more like 15-18 with it's length but not much girth. Did he come out of a place that normally has good current? That might explain why he's long and skinny like that. I never have understood why people say they're so ugly, I think they're a great looking fish!

I think part of what is so frustrating to see someone keep a big bass or to have a big bass die after being caught is we don't have any bass factories close by like some of you guys do. Probably the closest lake to me that most would know is Lake of the Ozarks and that's a 3 hour drive. Most of our lakes have relatively few large bass that tend to be difficult to catch. So to see one get kept or die is frustrating. I know some of them aren't going to make it and the more I fish the more fish I'll kill, but I do everything in my power to help big fish survive.

I sight fished a big snapper out of a pond on a senko. Guy I gave him to said he made good soup I had one stop a Husky Jerk once, hardest hit I've ever had on a jerkbait. They will eat about any bait you pull in front of them though.

I like having my wife in the boat when I can talk her into going. She really wants to catch a new PB largemouth and has had a couple nices ones on but just can't seem to get them landed. I bought her a St.Croix Avid Pearl spinning rod and a Quantum Energy PT 10 reel for one of her Valentine's Day presents this year. I think her old combo was a major part of her loosing a couple of the big bass she hooked. Watching her drag stick and break off probably a 6 pounder at Table Rock a couple years ago was heartbreaking. Now she brags that her rod and reel costs more than almost all of mine!

I actually use bank and flat bank sinkers most of the time. Just like a bell sinker without the brass piece. I like them because they don't seem to roll as easily. You'd be surprised how far a lively green sunfish can drag a 4 or 5 oz weight and when you're trying to cast to within a couple feet of a logjam or big rocks that they could hide under and not be found by a flathead you can't let them drag it at all.

I've fished with lots of different reels and got to play with every brand quite a bit when I worked at Cabela's. I just feel I get the best performance and value for my dollar with Shimano. That was several years ago and it seems that several companies are very good options now that may not have been then. I really like the Revos and have a couple, along with a Diawa, a Quantum, a few Okumas, and a BPS reel. All of them work well but I have never been disappointed by one of my Shimanos.

I use 4/0 EWG Gammies and don't have any problem hooking fish with them. Nothing wrong with using a bigger or smaller hook though, if it's working for you then go with it.

The lake record in the lake I fished growing up was a little over 10 pounds and was caught on an 1/8oz beetle spin. The guy was crappie fishing along the channel next to a spawning flat and over a brushpile. It was a spot on a spot next to a spot. With no shad in the lake the crappie he was fishing for were probably one of the main things that bass ate. I could take a 6" swimbait or 10" worm to my local lake and fish it all day, everyday, but I'd rarely catch anything and if I did it probably wouldn't be very noteworthy. Why? because there just isn't many big fish in the lake. We have Wednesday night tournaments every week from mid-spring until late fall, this year there has been 1 fish over 4lbs and 1 fish over 5lbs brought in. If you aren't fishing where the big fish are, you aren't catching big fish, simple as that. Big baits may help a lot in your quest for big fish, but they can't make big fish appear where they don't exist.

The 6.5lb bass on my wall did about the same thing. I was fishing a small pond with a 4f fat A crankbait for crappie and she just inhaled it. The hooks were in her gills and with the long fight on light line and hot water temps she didn't stand a chance. I don't eat fish so that was the best thing I could think to do with her. I don't know if I hate that more or seeing someone keeping big bass. I was fishing last winter in a powerplant lake in the outlet when a couple in a small boat anchored close to me. They baited up with shad and dropped them in the washout in the tailwaters. Wasn't long before the husband brought in a 6 pound largemouth and put it straight on a stringer. I tried to talk them into releasing it, even offering to trade some catfish or crappie for it but they refused saying that fish was their dinner. The fish kept jumping trying to get off the stringer. I had to leave because I was so mad I couldn't concentrate. I know there is no law against keeping big fish but it takes so long for them to get big around here that it just kills me. Keeping a fish that would have survived just to get a skin mount is just about as bad. Get plenty of pictures and some measurements and get a replica. It may cost a little more but it also lasts a lot longer and you don't have to kill the fish. Plus since all you need is a couple pictures and measurements you can take all the time you need to save up the money to get it done

Why not just make your own smoothies? I make strawberry-banana smoothies at home in a couple minutes in the blender. 1 banana 1 c strawberries 1 c orange juice 1/2 c vanilla yougurt 1 1/2 t suger 1 t milk Blend it up and enjoy! Save money and headaches next time.

It better be a big musky, cause you're only going to catch one on that swimbait before it's trash

Bluegills make good cutbait at times for channels and blues. If they are small enough I'll cut the head off and hook it through the eye socket and use it for bait and then cut the rest in vertical chunks. I also cut off the fins and cut most of the belly portion off where the intestines are because there isn't much there and just balls up in a fishes mouth. Nothing sucks more than waiting a long time and when you finally get bit you set the hook back into the bait. Run the hook through the top portion of the bait, don't try to hide the hook, make sure there are no scales on the tip of the hook. You can scale them but it's just extra work you don't have to do. Most of the bluegill I use for cutbait are 4-7 inches long, smaller ones are too soft for me. If I can get away with it I'll fish cut bluegill with no weight. It casts fine without it and sometimes I'll even fish it like a plastic worm, letting it sink and then very slowly jigging it in. For the flatheads use live bait. I prefer sunfish over bluegill, they stay alive on the hook longer and swim harder. Bullheads, carp, drum, shad, basically anything they can fit in their mouth that is legal bait works. If there is no current I hook them just behind the dorsal fin towards the tail, about half an inch from the back. If there is current I hook them through the nostrils. Set them up on basically a carolina rig with a short leader, 10 to 12 inches is plenty in most cases. If there is lots of snags then use the shortest leader you can tie, flatheads aren't scared of the sinker. For the baits I use it takes about a 4-8oz sinker to hold them down. Make sure to use heavy gear. Flatheads are bullies that live in tough neighborhoods. They aren't going to fight you for 20 minutes like a big blue will but for the 5-10 minutes it might take they are going to make you earn it. I wouldn't use anything lighter than 30lb test, my flathead rigs have between 50 and 130 pound braid on them.

Maybe white bass? They tend to school up and fight like crazy.

That's a big crappie for sure and on a jitterbug?? I've caught a few on topwater but they're usually small ones. Nice fish!

It's a brown bullhead, used to catch a ton of them out of farm ponds when I was little. They make great flathead bait if you catch them in the 6-10 inch range. Just clip off the sharp fins and get them close to a logjam or rocky shoreline. I've used them up to 2lbs for bait and it's amazing how small of a flathead will try to eat a bait that big.

Fished the Wednesday nighter this week and it was tough! Got 3rd with 1 fish, only 3 fish weighed in but finally had a keeper smallmouth brought in! Had awesome color on it and was 19.5 inches and 3.64 pounds. An inch shorter and half a pound lighter than the one I caught out of there this spring so there's at least 2 keeper smallies in there!

Sometimes it seems like they'll eat a bait with more contrast. Look at a bluegill, crawdad, crappie, or a shad. In almost every case they have dark and light colors. The baitfish tend to have dark green/black backs with lighter colored bellies so I'd say you're missing fish if you aren't trying some mismatched jig trailers.

The cooling temps brings the bass and shad back up shallow and it's hard to beat an Xcalibur XR50 in my boat. Squarebills, chatterbaits, buzzbaits, and spinnerbaits get a lot more action than they have all summer long. My favorite fall bait is whatever is working that day though!

I've snagged several on accident while bass fishing. Seems like when it happens to me it's always when I'm fishing a LC or some other expensive bait that I have to worry about breaking off on a dang carp.

Try going to the local fishing forum and post a question for that region, some guys only check the local forums for fishing reports and don't look at the rest of the forum much. Good luck!

Very nice smallmouth! That's a big one around here! It's crazy to see guys on here catching 5 and 6 pound and bigger smallmouth and acting like it's nothing. Our state record isn't even 7 so a 3+lb fish is half the state record so I'm always excited when I get one like that!

I'm always torn between deer hunting and fishing during the fall. I don't know how many times I've been in the boat on a cool morning thinking I should be in the stand or in the stand thinking I should be in the boat. I like the cooler weather but I hate the fact that winter follows fall. I just have to remind myself that spring follows winter