everythingthatswims

If I was going to travel somewhere to fish, it sure as heck wouldn't be for bass! Too many cool species to target

I use my old broadheads for squirrels haha. Even with pass throughs they will run 20-30yds before expiring. I'm glad deer aren't that tough, bow hunting for them wouldn't be possible. Shooting a squirrel with an arrow would be like sending a telephone pole through a deer.

I was fishing at my neighbor's pond today, throwing an x-rap since a cold front came through today. Fish were knocking the crap outta my bait on the pause but I wasn't hooking up, I got excited thinking the bass were schooled up where I was fishing. WRONG! I finally hooked a few of them, and they ended up being crappies...Still fun but I left them to go look for bass. I may go back with a spinning rod and a little x-rap to put a hurting on them though!

Use a small treble, hook it in the back of the baitfish, and set the hook as soon as you feel them. Or use a circle and feed them plenty of line before reeling down on them and letting the circle hook do its thing.

In really cold water bass will hit crappie jigs on 1/32 and 1/16oz jigheads. I have had days fishing for crappies with slider grubs in Jan-Feb and caught more bass than crappies on them. If you want a bait for crappie and bass get some 3" gulp minnows and fish them on jigheads 1/32-1/8oz

River was super clear, and the bass were chewing swimbaits to pieces. Landed piles of largemouth up to 3lbs and my PB smallie @ 23" 4.2lbs...also landed a 3lb 19" smallie. S-Waver 168 and BBZ Jr. Watched every fish eat the bait and also saw plenty more just following it.

This happens with swimbaits sometimes... "Woah! A trout fell from the sky, I'm gonna eat it!"

No Rivanna is in great shape right now, the photo is from Sugar Hollow

Here is a photo of some old bluegill beds that were 30+ yards from the waters' edge! I have never seen it this low, weird because a reservoir downstream of this one is full and water is dumping over the dam.

Reaction Strike

This past Saturday, my little brother Wyatt got this nice buck with his bow. The deer was 8 yards from his stand when he shot, and only ran 35 yards before crashing. I was set up in my stand close enough to hear the whack when his arrow hit the deer, unfortunately this meant I also had to help him drag it out of the woods and hold a leg up while he gutted it (deer wasn't in rut yet so the smell was tolerable). Edit: Now that deer is in our fridge in the form of sausage, smoked backstrap, and jerky currently in the dehydrator

Thought you were into hunting bigfoot?

CHUNK

We get ice, not enough to fish on it but just enough to keep you from fishing ....Trout streams stay open, I have even caught them with 4-5 feet of ice on either side of the creek with a small gap of of open water in the middle. Going to experiment with the "hot side" of Lake Anna this winter as well.

When you spend time on the ocean in the blue water, you see some crazy things. I have seen hammerheads over 10' and great whites over 15' cruise by the boat while we troll offshore, ocean sunfish that you couldn't fit in the bed of a pickup, manta rays that I don't even want to estimate the size of...etc. etc. One time we were fishing at a wreck 8 miles out and had a GIANT bull mahi swim up to the boat (the big ones are supposed to stay 30+miles from the coast so this was very unusual), my dad pitched a cobia jig to him, hooked up, and within seconds he broke 50lb braid because the drag had been set too tightly, He then proceeded to jump a dozen or more times to try and throw the 2oz bucktail stuck in his mouth. That may be the biggest heart breaker for me when fishing (that I saw). I think the worst ones are the ones you don't get to see!

Practice practice practice and it will become just as easy as fishing with normal tackle. Definitely not something you can pick up in a day though. Learning how to double haul is important IMO, even though you don't need to cast far distances for trout (usually), it helps shoot the line and I feel it gives me more control. You can fish in high winds if you double haul.

Probably gizzard shad and carp if you saw surface activity and didn't get bit

Grill some, smoke some, pan sear........

It would take quite a bit of money for me to part with a cobia!

100% Black Crappie

I can't even imagine a 100 plus AJ! I caught one that was roughly 60# last fall on a live bluefish, watched him eat it about 50 feet below the boat and the battle was on! That thing just about killed me...

We have the most relaxed laws in VA when it comes to this stuff...Zero regs on private ponds other than a few banned species and a permit required for sterile grass carp. I stock all kinds of stuff in my neighbors pond, it's like a fishing zoo!

I caught one that weighed 48lbs after sitting on ice all day when we were drifting eels near the High Rise at the CBBT, I was 12 at the time, my little brother caught a #45 and my dad got a #39 the same day. After experiencing that, I would say pound for pound, jumbo stripers fight pretty poorly (at least in cold water), but if you were trolling while fighting the fish, I bet it pulled like crazy! However, schoolie stripers, pound for pound, will put a smallmouth to shame.

I have no idea how many of these guys I have caught while bass fishing...Swimbaits, crankbaits, worms, jigs, senkos, topwater, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, they will eat absolutely anything! (Fallfish)

I don't think the fish follow out of curiosity, they usually are trying to steal the food from the hooked fish. I don't think I have ever seen largemouth do this, it is always smallies for me. Baits with erratic action tend to trigger strikes from the followers, but you have to be able to drop it next to the hooked fish so fluke style baits on jigheads are a good option. I once hooked a 19" smallie on an s-waver and on the way in he had two others, one slightly smaller and the other much bigger following him, not only did they follow him in, they were both trying to rip the bait out of the hooked fish's mouth! (I caught the bigger fish later, she was 23", my PB smallie). They clearly understand that the hooked fish has food. I have had smallies eat plastics off the line after it slid up the line from the hooked fish's mouth as well.