Bluebasser86

Almost always. I do a lot of skipping and there's nothing much more frustrating than making what would have been a good cast just have the bait and sinker separate and ruin the cast.

Gold is a great lipless color. Seems to work really well around weeds for me, especially when it's cloudy or in tannic water.

I use the Strike King Ocho mainly. Has a very good wobble on the fall and I'll get several fish out of most baits when they're wacky rigged even though I don't use an O ring or collar on them.

Flatheads and bullheads don't have forked tails, blues and channels do. It's the anal fins and rays in that fin that are the main ways to tell the difference between channels and blues, except in small fish where channels typically have spots and blues do not.

I have lots of accidental catches while bass fishing. Drum being one of the more common and my least favorite. As long as the bass I'm catching with the bonus fish appear healthy, that's all I'm worried about. I've fished lakes with lots of species of fish and little forage where the bass and other predator fish were all very skinny, obviously not a well balanced ecosystem.

I use to catch quite a few here in the winter months but they've disappeared the last few years in the powerplant lakes. I caught my PB over 11 pounds on a jerkbait right before they disappeared at least. They're way more fun than a largemouth to catch.

Especially with any kind of surface disturbance/current.

I tie the skirt on mine and use straight shank flipping hooks. Hookups don't seem to be an issue.

Booyahs are my favorite frog and if I could only have 2 colors it would be Cricket Frog and Sunburn. Don't know what it is about those 2, but they're fish catching machines for me.

I make some big swingheads with 7/0 hooks that I fish 7" stick worms, 11" YUM Mighty worms, Zman Giant TRDs, and a few others on. Any of those should work well on that shakyhead.

90's catch plenty of numbers along with size without being as finicky as the 60 is.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Definitely a blue. The straight anal fin is a dead giveaway.

Had 20 minutes before work to make a few cast and got one on the homemade mini bladed jig.

There's a big difference in some of them. Like I said, casting distance typically isn't an issue I'm concerned about so I stick to my tested favorites, but they're not the furthest casting and I'm aware of that. I know guys that fish clear water for spooky fish or maybe bank anglers wanting to reach further targets might have tested different types though, so I'm looking for their advice.

I've used Gliss, it cast great when new but when it starts to "fluff", it loses a ton of that advantage.

I've got a big pile of baits I've found in the last month that I've slacked on sharing. Don't think I've found any ploppers but tons of shallow cranks.

I've gone to mostly straight shank for my soft plastic hooks except for tubes and really think plastics that need the wide gap. I use mostly the Eagle Claw Lazer Sharp Finesse Worm Hook or Flipping Hook depending on what I'm doing. For flukes I use the Eagle Claw Round Bend Worm Hook Platinum Black. I make my own Ned heads with the Eagle Claw Pro V bend jig hooks (formerly the Lil' Nasty hooks). Dropshotting I use the Owner Cover Shot.

Mine likes to go when there's good weather and smallmouth involved. She's pretty dangerous with a Ned rig.

That's a male longear sunfish in full spawning colors. They're beautiful little fish and very aggressive when they're protecting their nest. I had some pecking my legs while I was wading through the creek and got too close to their nest. The other 2 sunfish are both green sunfish, we don't have any rockies within a couple hours of us unfortunately. I guess it's the kid in me that enjoys the panfish but I'll always have a soft spot for them.

Did a little creek fishing Saturday with my boys. Couldn't find any bigger fish, but the sunfish were willing. Tons of green sunfish and longears. Found a couple little bass right before we left. Sunday I took the boat out. I don't know why I do that anymore. It was the calmest day I've fished in a long time and I was in my boat instead of my kayak. I catch bigger fish from my kayak too I think. We still caught over 30 bass and I got to test out my new mini bladed jigs a little bit. I caught a little one on it this morning on a quick stop before work also. I was surprised I caught anything with all the spawning carp tearing things up.

Spinning

I need a braid for long distance cast, the further the better. Distance isn't usually a concern for me but might be a premium at an upcoming tournament so I'd like to have something on hand in case I'm needing to make 100+ foot cast with a light weight bait.