HokieBen

My latest addiction is searching Amazon for deals on plastics... their prices are all over the place (usually over priced), but if you find the right color you'll get a deal. Their inventory and pricing changes all the time. Anything Havoc less than $2 goes in the cart. The bait monkey just found a new way to get my money.

My first bass came on a baby bass Strike King Bitsy Minnow... still have it, although it took 5 guys, an oar, and a paddle boat for me to get it back from a tree once.

Thanks for all of the advice, guys... I guess my alarm will be going off at 4:30am again tomorrow so I can try out your suggestions. I'll definitley try more of a finesse approach next time. I think I read too many articles that say to use topwaters in the morning during the summer and I ignored what the bass were telling me. When I saw the bass in the weeds, I did back off and cast past them. The water isn't super clear, maybe 5 feet with a green stain. The ones that I saw in the water were really close to the bank. It's a man-made pond with a low wall all the way around, so it's probably 3 feet deep right at the edge. Form what I've seen, the forage is primarily bluegills and craws, so I'll do my best to match their size/shape/color. I'm not sure how much pressure it gets since I've only been there twice right at sunrise... I've been the only one there both days.

The last two mornings, I've been getting up early to fish a pond before work. I get there at sunrise and can fish for just over an hour before I have to head to the office. I've been skunked both mornings. Today, I saw several decent sized bass hanging out pretty shallow near some submerged grass, but I couldn't get single bite. I did see a few following my buzzbait, but they didn't strike. In addition to the buzzbait, I've thrown a popper, a zarra puppy, a t-rigged zoom uv speed worm, and a 3" grub on an 1/8th oz jig. I have seen a couple of bass busting the surface, so it seems like a topwater should work, but I'm just not getting anything. Any ideas on what I should do differently?

I've seen most of these videos a couple times... good to know the removal techniques, but it kinda makes me not want to throw a crankbait! Do you guys have any tips on how to avoid getting hooked when landing a fish with a mouth full of trebles? I usually just tell the fish to calm down before I go for the lip, but they don't always listen.

Leesburg, VA here

I use duolock snaps on cranks. Everything else is tied direct. I also remove the factory split rings from my crankbaits thinking the snap will be roughly a one to one replacement for them in terms of weight and freedom of movement. For the other folks who use snaps on cranks, do you keep the split ring or take it off?

I didn't start until about 6 months ago at the age of 29. No family or friends were in to fishing growing up. I started watching Bill Dance, Jimmy Houston, and Hank Parker on Saturday mornings with my one-year-old daughter because there was nothing else on and she liked to see the fish; that really sparked my intrest. I'm looking forward to taking her out this spring... I'm jealous that she'll grow up fishing and I'm just starting from scratch.

2013 was my first year fishing. Grand total came to 5 days! Free time is scarce, so I'll be happy if I get 20 next year. I'm jealous of all of you.

The two spinning rods are both 6'6". One is a medium/moderate Pflueger Echelon and the other is a medium/fast Cabela's Tourney Trail. The Cabela's rod seems to have a little more backbone than the Pflueger, so I generally use it for my single hook lures and use the Pflueger for anything with trebles. Do you think the Cabelas rod would work with a 3/8oz spinnerbait? I'm definitley open to adding another rod to the arsenal, but I feel like I should justify the purchase by learning to catch a few fish on the gear that I already have. Tom, I've got a few Rapalas in the 05, 07 size range... do you think those would work as well as the F13, or do I need to go up in size?

Wow, I definitely prefer shopping in store vs online, but not that much. So far it's just the occasional trip to the local Dick's and lots of time on *** for me.

Good advise... I do plan to take my oldest girl (22 months old) out with me this spring and let my wife stay home with the newborn. The trips will be short, especially since she's not at the point of participating yet, but I'll get in a little practice and some good father/daughter time. I've already taken her once on a warmish day in late November... she did great, but I got skunked for the hour we were there. She loves fish, so I can't wait to see her eyes light up when I finally haul one out of the water for her.

Thanks for the warm welcome and great advise. I'll focus on Senkos the next few times I go out and I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Hi folks, I just joined the forum, but I've been reading all I can on the site for the past 6 months... thanks for all the great info (especially glenn and his YouTube videos). I'm 30 years old and just getting in to fishing. None of my family or friends were in to fishing when I was growing up, so I'm starting completely from scratch. For some reason, I just got the bug to start fishing over the summer when my family went on vacation to Smith Mountain Lake, VA. Between family, work, and other hobbies, I was only able to go out fishing 5 times this year and only caught 4 bass. I plan to get a bit more fishing in during 2014, but with a two-year-old and another baby due in March, I'll probably only be able to make a few short trips to the local ponds in next year. The reason I say I've gone overboard is that I have plenty of time to THINK about fishing and SHOP for gear and I feel a little overwhelmed about how I should spend the precious few hours of fishing time that I'll get next year. Sorry for the long backstory... let me get to my question. I'd like to spend my 2014 fishing time getting really good at one technique, rather experimenting with a bunch of random techiques/lures. I live in northern Virginia, local water is usually somewhere between stained and muddy, I don't have a boat, I have two medium power spinning rods and an ultralight, and my main goal is to have fun, catch numbers, and gain confidence. If you were me, what are the one or two techniques that you would focus on next year? Thanks, Ben