Janderson45

yeah, didn't realize we had it here on bass resource, but i had already used a calculator.. the fish was 24.5" long and roughly 12.5" in girth... that puts this guy at around 7lbz 4oz and my new PB

caught a pretty good one of the bank here in Easton mass, I got length and width measurements but didn't have a scale on me.. anyone care to guess by looking at it? I've got a ballpark I know it's in just not an exact weight. That's a size 13 shoe for reference.. fish was caught in relatively shallow water, on a warmer overcast night... caught on a topwater frog, was lurking in an area very heavily vegetated by lily pads.

interested in this as well... I fished there a few days ago from gates 10 and 14, I liked the look of 10 more for the gear that I had with me so I gave it a shot for a few hours with no luck... I can tell you that it was hot, about 90 degrees there, and I tried spinnebaits, and texas rigged grubs/kreature soft plastics to different areas, I could see a few big smallmouth and saw a decent sized northern pike as well, but was not able to hook up on anything. going to give it a try again soon though!

Never fished with anyone from the site, but I'm in the area and am always looking for people to fish with... I'm available lots if anyone is interested... I don't have a boat though. Joel

There is an area near me where a small brook (difference between a brook and a river?) feeds into a larger pond, and there is a bridge overpassing right where it feeds in, i've enjoyed moderate success from shore at this spot, but haven't fished it enough lately I suppose. Maybe I'll keep trying it out!

I fish in eastern massachusetts as well, from Easton MA, next to Brockton. I typically fish smaller ponds from the shore around my town, but also fish winnecunnet in Norton, along with some other bigger bodies of water in Norton, Taunton, and Bridgewater.... of course i fish elsewhere as well, but those are the most common places for me. Haven't had a whole lot of success lately, other than one night where I had a ton of success with the TW frog (caught 6 LMB in under an hour). In the past, I've had pretty decent luck just texas rigging soft plastics and jigging them along the bottom.. so far this year however, this technique hasn't produced at all for me. I don't have a boat, but I am currently saving up for a kayak... figure I'll probably enjoy fishing even more and have far better results out of a kayak.

This is becoming a bit of a trend for me lately... the past four times I've gone out fishing I've had nothing to show for it. Now in fairness I'm fishing from shore, so this is undoubtedly working against me... I'm saving up for a quality kayak to get rid of this problem all together... but in the mean time I'm looking for some advice as to what I can do differently. I have a few spots in town that I typically fish, and typically do well at. Generally I work soft plastics, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and topwater (frogs mainly). Anyways, lately I haven't had too much luck at these locations, so I decided to branch out a little bit and try some bigger lakes and ponds that are a little bit further away. What I've found so far is that these bigger bodies of water are generally a little less forgiving for the shore fisherman.. usually there are only a few location that I can find for public access shore casting, and the areas don't seem to be populated by many fish... areas include small sections of beach, small cutouts in tree lines, and boat ramps... I've been attempting to fish these spots much the same as my typical spots, but haven't even been getting bites... Should I be fishing these larger bodies of water any differently? Or am I just having trouble finding the fish? Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

not sure what happened to the title haha? Auto correct from my browser i think... should read "froggin" although frog gin does sound quite appealing...

was striper fishing in the cape cod canal yesterday for sunrise... and struck out.. so later that night I decided to go to one of my favorite local ponds for a little bit of confidence boosting (hopefully) and bring in some largemouths. I went with a koeppers frog, first time using this particular brand... and let me say this.. WOW. Strike and hook up percentages through the roof when compared to cheaper and larger frogs I was previously using. Caught 5 largemouth in about 40 minutes, and a chain pickerel as well. Here's a few pictures i took with my phone:

So I'm on the market for a new rod... often times I go fishing in somewhat remote locations, and being able to have at least 1 hand free, if not both is ideal.... because of this I'm moving from a hard to a soft tackle box (back-pack and utility boxes) and i'm also looking for a lighter weight rod that's AT LEAST a 2 piece rod that i can break down and carry in the back-pack as well.. I've seen a 4 piece rod from browning, and st croix, not sure of others. I'm not entire sure a 4 piece is necessary, but it seems like it'd work nicely. I'm thinking a medium-light spinning rod, but am open to suggestions... want to use it to complement my heavier st. croix rod that i use for frogs/flipping, and want to use it for more lighter crankbaits, swimbaits, and some lighter top waters as well. So any recommendations on a rod and reel? Haven't looked into the reel much, how are the pro qualifiers from bass pro? Seems like it gets decent reviews for the price, and the extra spool is a cool bonus to me, I'd probably keep both of them with me and spooled with different types of line..

texas rigged gary yamamoto senkos are probably my biggest producer.. but I love to fish frogs, got a few SPRO frogs, also going to try the strike king sexy frog.. other than that I fish spinners and buzz baits with good success... haven't done a whole lot of crank bait fishing yet, but am going to start soon... most of the ponds and lakes I fish are have very heavy vegetation, which makes the texas rigged senko my go to set up in order to keep from hauling in a million weeds.

Hey everyone- I'm a new member from Massachusetts. New to the forum, but not new to fishing. I've been fishing since I was 4 years old, and I'm now 20 years old. Two years ago I taught a buddy how to fish, and he loves it, and I've now I've got someone to fish with more often than not. This year I decided I wanted to get a bit more serious about my bass fishing, in the past I've mainly worked shore casting locations with whatever dad had laying around for old tackle and rods... Not so much the case anymore as I've started to equip myself with better gear I can call my own. I've also got an old canoe that I'm looking into fishing out of a lot this summer. Theres a lot of small ponds and lakes around me, and without access to a good boat I figure the canoe will probably suit me well for now... I've just got to learn how to fish out of it, a bit of a daunting task. Anyways, Just thought I'd introduce myself, hope to be around a lot in the future. -Joel

thanks for the input everyone... I decided to bite the bullet and went out and bought a bunch of power pro 50# test anyways, so I'll add some of that on there..

No, not that short... however I recently read that if you're spool isn't full or near full capacity you will get a lot less distance on your casts, any idea if this is accurate information? And I'm starting to get a real good grasp on the technique, I just originally struggled a little bit and lost a decent amount of line because of it.

So I've got 50# spider wire on my casting rod, but as it's my first casting rod I ran into a few issues with overruns, and now i'm a little bit short on line left on the reel. I've got 125yds of 30# spider wire sitting around, and I'm looking to potentially put this on the baitcaster now as well... I've got a few questions though, Ideally I'd like to have this rigged up with 50# test but since i'm still learning a little bit on the casting reel, so I want to go ahead and reline with the 30# braid instead of going out and buying more 50#. My question is if it's possible to combine to different diameter braids on my reel? OR am I better suited stripping all of the remaining 50# braid off and just replacing it with the 30#? Thanks!

I always keep Green Pumpkin, and some form of Black (with or without flakes), and I also like baby bass and watermelon colors... I also pretty much exclusively use Gary Yamamoto baits... especially love the "kreature" bait to go along with regular senkos

Interesting thought, thanks for the advice. For what it's worth however the topwater frog fishing was done on shore, not in the canoe... but I had planned to try it in out in the canoe next week... It's one of the nice live target hollow topwater frogs, I've tried to bend the hooks out a bit from the body with a pair of pliers, but they didn't want to budge too much. There aren't really any "legs" to shorten, but the skirt or trailer behind the frog could potentially be trimmed some in order to maybe narrow the area that a fish would want to strike...

Thanks for the link, as far as the rod tip with the frog goes... well the way you're recommending I fish it was the way I instinctively fished it the first time out, and had a few hits, just missed the hook set. I then saw some advice from a guy online who said that he always fishes frogs with the rod tip UP so that when the fish hits he has to drop the rod tip and then set the hook, so it takes a little longer and gives the fish more time to take the whole frog in... this seemed to make sense so I tried it, however I think this guy might have been tackling some bigger fish than me, as I often found after I dropped the rod tip it was too late they had already spit it.. So now I'm back to my original school of thinking that having the rod tip down a bit for a faster hook set as soon as i see the fish take it under may be more effective.

Well I suppose the fact that I'm enticing so many fish to strike has got to be a good thing, right? Just wish I could have landed more of them! Anyways, thanks for the tip about the bass "stunning" the bait and then circling back to engulf it, I hadn't heard that before, so I'll have to try and pause for an extra second or two after it gets "hit and spit" if you will to see if the fish will come back on it. I'm also going to have to start to get a few more complicated knots down I think, I don't often lose fish because of my knot tying, but it's also not the first time that I have..... and that's got to be one of the most frustrating ways to lose one.

So I'm new to the website, but not new to fishing. I've been fishing most of my life, with more experience in freshwater, but i've fished saltwater plenty of times before too. I've lately tried to get more serious about my freshwater bass fishing. I fish mostly off shore casting locations, but I do have a 17' canoe and occasional access to a bass tracker boat. I fish in New England, predominately massachusetts. Also recently purchased a new rod and reel to do a good deal of my fishing with, it's a 6'6" st. croix med-heavy mojo bass rod, equipped with a bass pro johnny morris baitcaster reel and 50lb braided line. It's for texas rigging, topwater frogs, spinner baits, etc. My other rod I commonly bring along is a medium action 6' graphite ugly stick, with a shimano sahara spinning reel, and 10lb mono line. (Usually equipped with 30lb braided, but I'm currently out of it) The past two days Ive been fishing approximately 6 hours, and only landed one fish, about a 2.5lb largemouth bass on a texas rigged green pumpkin worm. Was with my first set up. Since that fish, i've had a lot of issues. I ran into a few issues with the bait caster on a windy day, so I went to set-up number 2. It had been a rainy/overcast type of day so I went to a topwater jitterbug.. third cast I had a monster hit... line broke. Went back to the other rod, spinnerbait on.. water level was high and fairly clear, i was working it faster up near the surface of the water.. BAM big chain pickerel graps it and runs... the knot on my braided slips out and i lose the spinner. Same tactic, this time a bass skys and hits my spinner at the surface, spits it after bringing it down in the weeds and it gets tangled in brush and i lose another spinner. Worried why i didn't get a hook set, I tightened my bail and it seemed it did need it. Put on another spinner bait... lose it in a tree and get a big back lash.. whoops... moved spots to a different pond. Relined, got a topwater frog out on some lily pads and high grass. Things were going crazy for this. Probably had about 10 hits, didn't land a single one... a few just spit it, a few engulfed it i tried to set the hook, and it just flew out. After one final good overrun on the bait caster, i called it a day... very frustrating day of fishing. Now I need to restock on some equipment too...