everythingthatswims

They will definitely try to eat big baits compared to their mouths. I have caught some on the BBZ 6" but the s-waver 168 is by far my favorite swimbait to throw for smallies, tons of them on it ranging from 12" dinks to my 23" PB smallie. You won't find me throwing a big swimbait for smallies unless it has trebles. The Huddleston weedless shad and grass minnows are great on smallies too, and are small enough for them to easily fit in their mouth.

The VDGIF website has a page where you can see all of the citations registered for all public waters in VA which I think is crazy cool. You can search body of water, by species, and by year. I have caught 6 citation largemouth (22" plus) and one citation smallmouth (20") but haven't submitted any of them because it costs $5 to submit it for a certificate, so I'm sure tons of citations are caught that go unnoticed.

If presented with the opportunity to catch blues on bass tackle with artificials or target bass while fishing one of the tidal rivers, I would probably end up targeting the cats.

Had a good day 'yakkin on a local reservoir. My brothers and I got into a school of nice fish in some standing timber in 10-15' of water. We probably caught 60 of them, lots of fish in the 10-11" range, and one giant 15"er that my youngest brother caught. Fished various straight tailed minnow colored plastics on 1/32 and 1/16oz heads. We could watch them come up and eat it if we kept the bait 6-8 feet under the kayak, visibility was great!

Seems like you have to catch at least 100 12-14"ers before you catch a fish that breaks the 3lb mark around here

12 is too light IMO. #17 is the lightest I will go for jigs. At the moment I am fishing jigs on a MH with #20 fluoro. I can really drive the hook home without worrying about my line. With jigs I tend to boat flip them rather than waiting for a net because they are notorious for shaking their head at the boat and spitting the hook, since you overpower the fish when using jig equipment they still have a ton of energy when they make that jump/headshake at the boat.

We use live bluefish in the 10-15" range for AJs. They are pretty easy to target, not so easy to bring to the boat. Fishing jigs around wrecks can get expensive and live bait works better anyways

(rage tail, yamamoto, and anything with japanese print on part of the package)

UPS driver is slow rolling it in the dark right now

My little brother has me beat on most photogenic bass. Weighed 7.5lbs

I find these a lot in smallmouth, largemouth, most species of chubs, and most members of the sunfish family in rivers (along with "black spot" parasites). Interestingly enough, fallfish do not get any at all, period. I will cut them out of the filets, and toss back fish that have lots showing in their fins.

Both

Drop Shot on long casts, ned rig on long casts, and a glide bait. Did I mention LONG casts? Even if they don't commit to the glide, it will show you where they are.

Only one way to get back at the them...Stock Muskies

Hargill bite has been on for me lately. 5 bass in 2 trips, only about an hour devoted to the gill on both outings. Nothing like that one yet, nice fish!

I was hopping a 3/16oz rippin rap on 4lb test in January

3/8oz black and blue terminator jig with a junebug zoom ultravibe speed craw.

Fished a local reservoir from my kayak today. Went waaaaaay back in a creek, where no boat can go, mainly to explore. Skipped my jig up under a tree in a shade pocket, and started to swim it out when I felt a tiny tap and my jig started swimming sideways. Swung for the fences, and all hell broke loose. I didn't have much line out so the fight was very short and violent, but I managed to lip her and get her in the kayak. Went 23" and weighed 6lbs.

You can never be too early

Early Morning, Late evening, and on cloudy, windy, and rainy days.

Took my kayak to a pond this afternoon, caught this skinny girl on a half ounce flipping jig with a pit boss for a trailer. Measured 20" long and only weighed 3.74lbs. An exciting fish nonetheless!

S-Waver because of ^^^That

When you have a 10 acre lake full of dinks, ya gotta spice things up to keep it interesting. Neon swimjig

Deep I caught one there last summer 12"long on a drop shot. Supposedly it used to have a very large population of smallies.

I don't get as many bites on frogs in open water as I do other surface baits like a spook, popper, buzzbait, or weightless fluke. Fish just don't commit to the frog as much for me, lots of short strikes and blow ups that don't connect. When I do fish a frog in open water it is because it combines the excitement of a blow up with the excitement of putting the screws to a fish on the hookset