Scott F

In nature, many species of animals, including fish, have colorations that allow them to blend in to their environment so they may be able to hide from predators. Any animals that have some sort of genetic defect, like albinos, do not often survive to adulthood because they can't hide from predators. My question is, does it make sense to use baits that do not stand out from the environment and instead blend in, like those that have photo like paint jobs or does it make more sense to use baits that do not hide and that stand out so that bass can easily find them? Do those of you who insist on using realistic looking baits have better catch rates with them than you get with less than realistic looking baits?

Not a problem for me because I don't have any.

What about the handles on the shopping carts in the stores? They have all the same bacteria that you are worried about on the handles of the salad utensils.

On your bilge pump, the noise can easily just be debris caught in the pump. Remove the pump and check for junk in the impeller. Sorry I can't help you with the live well issues. I haven't used my live wells in over 10 years.

I can't comment on the water the OP is fishing but on the lakes I fish, a skirted jig, if it hits the bottom, disappears in a 12 inch or thicker layer of muck and vegetation. The lure comes up coated in this decayed material.

I fish a lake with a large weedy flat that runs about 5 feet deep on average with dense vegetation on the bottom. The weeds grow within a foot or two of the surface. I drift the open water and have a lot of success with lipless crankbaits and wakebaits like the Mann's 1-minus.

I've had this happen. It was a pain, but I've had to take the battery out of the boat, bring it up to the room and charged it there. It all depends on your location. I've also run a 100 foot extension cord through a window in the cabin down to the dock.

I just came back from a fishing vacation. Many of our fish were caught from around docks and downed wood. My boat partner consistently out fished me not because of the baits we used or the location of the fish but from the accuracy of his casts. He could put his casts much closer to the dock or downed tree more often than I could. My casts, too many times were not close enough to the target to get bit. When my cast was accurate, I connected a higher percentage of the time. He was able to skip his bait on target on the first try more often than I did. Many times, there was only one fish on that dock and he got it even though I was in front. Often times, close is not good enough. There are a lot of skills needed to be able to land bass on a regular basis. Casting accuracy is only one but it can make a big difference in how many fish you boat in a day.

My thoughts are that you should be contacting Lowrance about issues you are having.

This is a typical 8Ah battery that will work just fine. You can probably get a couple of days on a charge. They should run no more than about $40. You can get bigger, or smaller.

You shouldn't be hooking your depth finder to your trolling motor battery. If you don't have a battery to start your motor, the best option is to get a separate battery for the depth finder. You can try connecting the depth finder to the trolling motor battery but it is likely you will have interference every time the trolling motor is running.

I fished two lakes Saturday in Northern Wisconsin. The first one, had tons of boat traffic that made fishing difficult. Fortunately, there are hundreds of lakes in that area and we moved to a less congested lake that had minimal traffic and we hammered the smallies and largies.

I didn't know there were smallmouth bass in Texas.

Try googling Illinois bass fishing clubs and you will get a list of all of them.

All braid, all the time, for me, and never with a FC or mono leader. The main reason I always use braid is I don't like lines that stretch. For things like cranks, I use lighter rods that absorb the hits and I don't horse fish in, so I don't tear hooks out of fish. I adjust my fishing to work with the gear I'm using.

Surface water temp in the lake I'm fishing in Northern Wisconsin went from 55 to 48 overnight. That's a pretty big drop. It sure shut off the bite for both smallmouth and largemouth.

I just added a Garmin with down imaging and the built in transducer on my Terrova works just fine.

My 201E has had nothing but 20lb braid on it since I bought it. I can't remember ever having any issues. It's never dug in and I seldom get backlashes. I've never had any reason to wish I'd have used anything heavier.

Water temps were up to 55 on my lake yesterday but they will be falling. Today, the air temp will struggle to reach 40 degrees with strong north winds. This major cold front will set things back where I'm staying.

Smallmouth change colors like a chameleon. Depending on the water clarity, bottom content, and amount of sun, they can change pretty quick. I'm guessing the water you caught him in dark, tannic stain which made him dark. If you'd have caught the same fish over a light, sand bottom, he would have been very pale.

In North central Wisconsin on the clear, deep lake I'm on, the surface water temp has been 52. Today will be the third day in a row with rain. And more is in the forecast for tomorrow. It's made it difficult to put in much time. The front moving in tonight is a cold front which will drop the air temp by 15 degrees. Possible frost warnings tonight will lower the water temps. Been a tough week so far.

As a guy who fishes all braid all the time and most of the time with spinning reels, this does not match my experience at all. I've gotten wind knots on fresh line that hasn't had time to get twisted. As the OP said, my wind knots come when a line loop lays on top of the spool, gets pulled off during a cast by the line going out, and then all that line is now spun while you are retrieving, causing the wind knot. My habit is to tug on the line, right after the cast to make sure there are no loose loops. The only time I get them is when I forget to check for the loop.

Was this a titanium spinner bait by any chance? Every spinner bait I ever bought that had titanium wire broke off. The wires don't get bent out of shape, but the titanium is brittle and does break.

Check out the St. Croix Wild River series. 8'6" - 13'6" $180-$230

On Father's Day weekend, in 1965, I was 10 years old. My dad took me on a road trip driving all night from Gary, Indiana to his childhood home near the St. Lawrence River. We spent 4 days living in a big house on an island in the St. Lawrence where my uncle was the caretaker, catching bunches of smallmouth on inline spinners and minnows. It was probably the most influential 4 days of my entire life. I still am a smallmouth nut. I run a smallmouth club, I still love taking road trips to go smallmouth fishing and even my house is decorated with artwork that reminds me of the river.