Bluebasser86

Just looks like their 10" grubs they use to sell? Nothing wrong with that, those were great fish catchers, I was just expecting something new.

Eagle Claw makes Trokar, which seem to be a lot of people's favorite hooks, but for some reason those same people seem to think that Eagle Claw makes junk hooks 🙄 I'm the other way around, I like Eagle Claw but despise Trokar hooks 😂 When money is on the line, I'm going to be using a premium hook more often than not though, like a Gamakatsu.

Yikes, you'd think those guys would have been seasoned enough to know their limitations, but sometimes we overestimate ourselves I guess. Glad everything turned out okay. The one time I flipped my old kayak was in similar water temps, but in calm water on a very small lake. Even still, the cold took my breath away instantly and made it hard for me to think for a couple seconds.

Started work really early yesterday because I was supposed to be on a 3 day trial, but we showed up at 8:30 to find out that one of the key witnesses had Covid so they had to continue it, which meant I got out of work early, on a 75* day, so I went fishing for a couple hours. Didn't set the world on fire, but I caught 10 in a little under 2 hours. Always nice to steal an extra trip during the middle of the week. Caught them all on a Ned or a Rogue.

Sounds like you're doing fine, but maybe wanting too much from yourself. It takes years on the water and lots of experience to develop the skills and intuition that is required to be regularly successful in tournament fishing. Even if you dedicate that time, it doesn't guarantee that you'll be successful either. Bass tournaments are extremely competitive and with the new technology, they're also very expensive if you want to compete at a higher level. Try not to make it too complicated for now. I've been fishing over 35 years, tournament fishing over 20, they still beat me bad some days. I've gotten better by focusing on myself instead of everything else. All the media sources you're talking about, that's a lot of extra clutter in your mind on tournament day. I find I do much better since I stopped trying to find recent fishing reports, youtube videos from the lake, and instead just look at a map and find areas where they should be based on my experience. It doesn't always work, but I feel better about it when I failed doing what I felt I should be instead of chasing someone else's bite.

I wear a NRS chinook in my kayak. I opted for a little more bulk in favor of the certainty that I'd float if I ever went in. I had an auto Mustang, but it went off twice in the rain. I have a manual now that I wear in the boat but I'm not sure the last time I wore it.

Went out this last Sunday to enjoy some of the unseasonably warm weather before it went back in the tank today (19* out this morning 🙄). My lake of choice was certainly a target rich environment. Fishing was a little tougher than I'd hoped, but I managed to nab about 15 of them before I had to call it a day. Saw water temps all the way to 51* already, makes the cold front hurt that much worse. Supposed to be back up to nearly 80* by Sunday though, just have to make it through a rough couple days.

Some days it just feels like the world is trying to tell you to stay home.

It's my phone's camera. 2 "Blaze", colored baits from Berkely (maybe red/orange), and a "Delta Red", Spro Speed Demon. Added another good one on a red/orange bait today.

Yes it is. Bought it back in 2020 and been addicted to fishing out of it ever since. My boat just sits in the garage for the most part.

It's a Berkley Stunna 112 in the Blaze color. 6th Sense makes one that I also have in a color called Ditchweed that is yellow on one side and red on the other.

Glides is a bait you don't want to go "too small", in my opinion. You'll lose a lot of the good gliding action and the drawing power of the bait. You don't need to go super expensive. I've got quite a few baits north of the $100 mark but I've probably caught as many on a Shine Glide as any of them.

I use my fingernails also. Strike King is about the only split rings I can't open with my fingers. As long as it isn't cold out I can swap a hook in a few seconds without any tools. I use a mix of EWG and round bend trebles. I don't like EWG's for jerks and topwaters, other than that, doesn't matter either way to me.

Are you able to fish a standard jig in the bodies of water you fish? If so, I'd be trying a swing head.

Red is a confidence color for me and not just in cold water months and not just in dirty water. It's been producing the last few trips.

Finally had a good trip Sunday. No really big ones but I did finally get a pretty decent one, biggest of the year so far. The day after a 2 day cold front, put over 40 in the kayak. They were eating the paint off my crankbaits. Water temps got up to 45-46 at the end of the day. Best cranks were an Evergreen Flat Force, Spro Speed Demon, and Berkley Money Badger.

Very popular thing in the catfishing world, especially for targeting big blues. The rattle and colors is supposed to help call them in. I know that I only rigged 1 rod with a rattle the last 2 trips we went last fall and probably 75% of the fish we caught hit that rod. One of my rattles has some pretty serious scratches from blues chomping it, so they're for sure attracted to it.

I miss muskies. Haven't caught one, or even fished in a lake with them for several years. I took a weekend off in October to chase them from my kayak though after my tournament season is over. I don't miss crappie. Our lakes have tons of them, big ones, and there is nothing that ruins a good day on the water faster than a hot crappie bite or even worse, the spawn. Everyone is the best fisherman in the world during the crappie spawn and it brings out some of the rudest fishermen that will be on the water all year. Then they go and harvest way over their limits of spawning 12-15 inch females that are full of eggs, and when the population crashes, they blame the bass and catfish for eating them all 🙄

That's supposed to be a catfish rattle, not a topwater. Someone must have added the hooks and rings to it. I use one very similar to them. https://www.amazon.com/Catfish-Rattle-Floats-Dragon-Phantom/dp/B0CGTKLPC4/ref=asc_df_B0CGTKLPC4/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=675669231081&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5112633283193023640&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9023858&hvtargid=pla-2245160746769&psc=1&mcid=eb138832baab342c8c35118327af5cfd

My grandpa noodled snapping turtles. He'd walk a muddy creek/river/pond with stout stick in one hand, poking around and feeling around with his feet. Big snappers tend to bury up in the mud and he'd walk until he'd feel one, then stand on it's shell to hold it down. Once he was standing on it, he'd work around the shell with the stick until he felt a "tap". All he had to do then was reach down to the opposite end of the shell and grab the tail and pull the turtle out of the mud. He was good enough that I don't remember him ever getting bitten. Snappers won't take off your finger like a lot of people think they will, but they'll still put a hurting on you.

Haven't felt very good for about a week now. Really felt bad Saturday but felt a little better Sunday. Got up enough energy to go out for a couple hours before the Superb Owl. Thought I was going to have the first cast curse, but ended up catching one on my last cast as I was just getting back to the ramp. Both were ugly fish but better than a skunk.

The Mini Mag is a great bait and easy to fish. The KVD 8.0 is a good bait but it runs pretty deep for a squarebill. I wish they would make a version with a shorter bill that stays in that 2-5 foot range that most squarebills run in.

Didn't it come with a replacement? Every Shine Glide I've ever bought came with a spare and I've never needed one.

What setup are you using them on @A-Jay? I've got a couple Subwalks and have got a few bites but have issues making them walk consistently. I was using my jerkbait rod with 10lb mono and just trying to twitch it similar to fishing a jerkbait. Still got bit, but I felt like I wasn't getting the full potential out of the bait. Maybe a spinning rod with braid to a leader might have been better.

Birds are liars. I've ran to many flocks of diving gulls, just to find nothing but schools of shad with no fish in the area under them. Most memorable was at Table Rock. We rounded a bend and saw hundreds of gulls diving in the middle of the channel. I was so sure we were about to hammer them. We sat down off of plane, shad everywhere, but no fish. We casted for about 10 minutes at nothing, snagged countless shad and my buddy even almost caught a gull when it flew through his line. This is a more common experience than actually finding fish under them for me. Muskrats have no impact. Bass love hiding around beaver dams. Otters are a terrible sign. I've had several run-ins with them the last couple years and it's been bad for me every time. Gar have no effect on the bass but can be a pain to fish around. They get in massive schools in a couple of the lakes I fish and like to hold in the same areas as the bass and I've actually be cut off by gar when I have a bass hooked. Their scales are so sharp if the line goes the wrong way across their body that the bass have managed to pull the line across them the right way and cut me off.