everythingthatswims

I catch most of my trout, like these ones, on berkley power eggs. I drift them with as little split shot as I can get away with. It may seem easy but I promise you it takes time to master the drift and being able to pop the bait out of rocks to continue the drift while keeping the right amount of slack in the line so that the bait doesn't "swing". Once you figure it out it's almost unfair. I use 2# mono when I'm fun fishing in my area where the current is usually pretty tame and so are the fish but when I go to south western VA I use 6# fluorocarbon since down there the fish are as mean as the creek they come from! Oh yeah, #12 or #14 fly tying scud hooks, even if you have the wimpiest accidental hookset they will be "stuck".

D bomb for me in the spring, then I pretty much use the pit boss when the water is warm. Pit boss moves a lot more on the fall, d bomb is really subtle.

If the water is dirty I'm throwing a lipless crank. I prefer dirty water because I catch most of my winter bass on a 1/4oz red eye shad fished SLOW. Still figuring out the jerkbait stuff. To me it seems that the success rate with jerkbaits depends more on the body of water than the conditions, I know places where they pounce on a jerkbait but go to another lake that same day and you won't get a sniff.

Just getting back into the stocked trout groove that will keep me sane for the winter. Aside from the fish stocked by the state hatchery, there is a private trout farm with very nice rainbows on the river I fished. All of this rain allowed some of those fish to leave the farm and head into normal stocked trout waters so I got to catch some nice ones today! The biggest was 18", the other two were 16". We did get our two man limit of 12 fish, headed for the smoker some time in the near future.

The ones in the Long Island Sound are huge, 2-4lbers are a common occurrence there!

My friend and I fished the Virginia B.A.S.S. Junior State Qualifier this Sunday on Lake Anna, and boy was it tough. I got to pre fish for a few hours with my friend the day before, he showed me some areas where he had been catching fish, that was a major help in what we did. Most people in the tournament chose to go up lake where the fish are supposed to be according to seasonal patterns, we went down lake so we wouldn't have to worry about other people fishing. Down lake has super clear water so it's pretty much finesse stuff on spinning rods, we caught our fish on drop shots and shakey heads. 3 of our fish came from the exact same docks I caught fish on this spring. Had to work our butts off for 5 keepers but we got them, all 12-13" with a 2lb "kicker" . We ended up placing 2nd with 5.32lbs, first place had 5.38lbs, 30 boats and lots of people blanked. Top 15 teams fish the state championship this spring, we are ranked 3rd so as long as we catch a few fish at our last qualifier on Lake Gaston in April, we will be good to go for the championship. And the top two teams from that go to Nationals! If I even think about the state championship I start getting that feeling I get the night before a tournament. If we end up fishing it I'm gonna be a wreck! There have been lots of tournaments on the lake lately, 114 boats last weekend and another tournament going on the day of and the day before the one we fished. Two of the bass we caught had cull tag marks, that lake gets no rest!

Reel men must not use crankbaits

My friend and I got 2nd place in a High School tournament today, difference between us and 1st place was 0.06lbs. We said if one of them would have swallowed our shakey head and we cut the line it could have made the difference, sounds like same for you! Nice fish and way to show the naysayers!

Mental unpreparedness is my number one fish catching technique I swear they know

Especially when the line takes off in the middle of a 30 second pause in frigid water. I think it's better than a topwater strike!

Jerkbait and lipless crank are some bass baits that do REALLY well in the salt Also, I have caught my fair share of flounder on medium diving crankbaits If I had one choice, 4" gulp swimming mullet 3/8oz jighead

I'm also going with white bass, nice fish!!!

If you've got shallow clear water I would reccomend a glide bait. Even if they don't eat it, you will find them with it and can go back later with other baits.

I had one spit up a bluegill that could still swim a little one time! Have also found nymphs in trout bellies that were still very alive...released them into my goldfish pond that we keep trout in during the winter so they probably got to re live the getting eaten process.

I have the jr version and although it looks great and looks exactly like a megabass, it noses up on the pause and no matter how hard I try, I can't get it to nose down with changing hooks, split rings, or using lead wire on the treble. Yesterday saw that they are now on sale for 5.97 at dicks sporting goods, so did I just get a bad bait and would it be worth trying a couple more or the bigger size? If not, I'm gonna have a big hole in my wallet because the megabass baits are right next to them on the shelf.

The law is ridiculous but if I had a pond anywhere near the delta I could definitely make the best of it

Put in 7 hours today on the kayak for 9 fish. Slowwwwwww. This was the only nice one, taped out at 18". Hit a chatterbait a few feet from my kayak in crystal clear water, very cool to watch!

I went to the Outer Banks with my dad and brother for 3 days back in early October. The weather prevented us from taking the boat in the ocean, so we made the best of what we had to work with. After 3 days, and Lord knows how many fiddler crabs later, we put 47 sheepshead in the boat. Sheepshead fishing is an absolute blast, it's like combining a tiny little drop shot bite with flippin', because once you latch onto one of those guys you better get him away from the pilings!

They brought back stocking the river I fish two years ago so there aren't many keepers yet. That fish was just under 19". We have an 18" minimum size limit in VA. They used to stock "back in the day" and people caught many 5-8lb walleyes. I'm looking forward to it! I haven't researched it but I don't think we have many self sustaining populations of 'eyes in Virginia.

A crankbait rod that loads up is wonderful when you have to cast a lot

When it's COLD, I fish ponds small enough that the bass can't hide from me (when they aren't frozen), and power plant lakes.

Late fall I'll be fishing a lipless crank or shad rap

Just fish a ned rig

Got another after school

Also, if you fish the BBZ 2.5" shad like a blade bait on a cast ( not vertically) it can be deadly if the water is shallow. I was catching bass in half frozen ponds with that last February