BigCheese

I have had the chance to make two seprate trips to the North-East to fish for spawning smallies. IMO you could throw an old shoe at them and they would eat it. Never have I seen a fish so agressive on the bed. I used tubes and Senko's all you had to do was get it close and watch for your line to swim off. I wanted to see how far they would swim off the bed with a bait in there mouth and had a few fish that would go 25 feet before the spit the bait out.

Very unsportsman like.... This is a sad thing but three years ago I was fishing the same cove with another boat on Santee Cooper. The fish were on the bed and I was praticing for a up-comeing tournment. I watched him pull 4 fish off beds with a rattle trap with #2 trebbel hooks. Everyone of these fish went in the livewell. I was absoulty furious. I approached him and asked just what and the @*## he thinks he's doing. His reply...A mans gotta eat somehow. How a guy running a newer modle Nitro can afford food is beyond me. I said a few more choice words and got the finger from hiom on his way out of the cove. This was probally the single most unethical thing I have ever seen in my life, and it still upsets me to this day.

I've done it twice...Once on a Rapala and last fall on a Sammy. Both in the fall around schooling fish.

There is a tool out there called a D-Bard. It's look's like a large set of split ring pliers, with a cutting bit. On gut hooked fish you just push the hook through use the tool to cut the hook below the barb and pull it back through the orginal hole. I do not know if they still make this tool because there website is pending re-newel. But if you can find one this is the best tool I have found to ensure the life of gut hooked fish.

Hot summer afternoon when there is no wind. Not only is this very uncomfortable to fish in with the sweat rolling down your back and glasses fogging up, its the toughest time I have getting bit.

A little story on this... I was up on Lake Winnapasaki in NH a couple years ago. I pulled up to a shaded bank and spotted two nice Smallies in the gin clear water. I purppossly threw my Spalsh-It 20 yards behind one of the fish. When it hit the water the bass spun around and sat there looking at my bait floating on the water. I twitched my rod tip and made the bait pop once. That smallie turned into a brown streak and in a split second inhaled my bait. After seeing that I don't think you could reel fast enough to keep a bait away from an agressive fish even with 7:1 gears.

Post cold fronts I will down size my baits and fish them very slooow. Allot of time if the fish are shallow allready they won't back off if it is a short cold front. I will find thick cover in the same general area and go to work flipping or fishing a senko around sparse cover, If the front lasts a couple three days I'll be back to the first drop close to shallow water fishing suspending jerks and tight wobbleing cranks.