Jar11591

Was there a recent temperature/weather change? Even a change in wind direction or speed can turn the bite off. Another thing you might want to try is trolling with tiny cranks to see if you can locate fish who are actually feeding. When you get a strike, post up and drop a small senko or dropshot rig. It could be possible as well that because the bright sun/clear water and the sparse cover that they were inactive.

I hate when that happens. Makes me question everything from my lure choice to maybe my scent is somehow spooking them. It feels like I am doing something to turn them off. But when fish aren't biting at all, I usually downsize my lure. I'll switch from a 5" senko to a 4" one, or use a really tiny crank or jerkbait, just to entice a bite from anything. If nothing is hitting the tiny stuff then you know the bite is off.

I think that would gain you a considerable amount of casting distance. Last year on one of my spinning setups i switched from 6 lb mono to 8lb mono and i noticed immediately that i didn't have the distance i had with the 6 lb line, and that's only 1 diameter size difference. 12 lb line will still hold up in most situations, so for me i would definitely downsize to 12lb.

You can't beat a small classic red & white DarDevle.

I dropped from 14 lb mono to 10 lb mono and its casts a lot farther and just seems to flow off the reel so much smoother. And it has a lot less memory in my opinion. Lighter line is just more comfortable to fish with for me.

15 inches is enough to keep me entertained as long as there is a prospect of a bigger fish, but to me a bass is a "nice" one at 17" and above.

Tipping my Coleman Crawdad is out of the question simply because I'm embarrassed about my girly screams should I ever end up in weedy, murky, pike-infested water. The hair on my neck stands up just thinking about it. I can't let it happen!

Rod: Daiwa MHF Strikeforce ($30) Reel: Abu Garcia Silvermax ($60) Total = $90 Looking to upgrade the rod soon though. It's not a very good one, but it's still a Daiwa and for $30 it's done an ok job.

I love the 7" fat max ribbon tail. Definitely my favorite worm to T-rig. And the incredi-craw or whatever it is also works really well also. Culprit makes great baits.

Uh...I think everybody who fishes would care about how much line their reel can hold. Kind of important.

Taking a trip to BPS in a week so I'll post when I get back. I plan on spending an obscene amount of money there. I've got a list of a few "necessities" that I need to purchase before this year's season starts up.

You could go to your nearest BPS and go fishing in their big aquarium. They always have giant deformed looking bass in them. I figure you can get 2-3 casts in before you're asked to leave...but I'm in the same boat as you (no pun intended). I've considered driving down south for a weekend just to get my fishing fix because I can't take this anymore. It's hard to take a 5 month break from something I'm so obsessed with such as bass fishing. The only issue I have with the south is their giant spiders. I'll take a few frozen months over a brown recloose crawling on me in my sleep any day.

"Tahra Dactyl" has to be the best one. Lol....That's so great that I almost can't believe its real.

I want to know the total number if bass I've caught, as well as the combined weight of all the bass I've caught.

If the word "Microsoft" isn't anywhere on the site or in the URL it's a scam!

I always ignore the mercury warnings kind of like the serving sizes of food. And I've never heard of anyone having any health issues due to mercury in game fish. But I mostly C&R except for bluegill/crappie/perch when I accidentally catch them.

I don't know if bass will be able to see a 2-dimensional image like the minnows on the lure and actually read it as several baitfish. I think their visual reception would be based more on colors, not images. But it's all about odds, so the baitball might help your chances ever so slightly. And that's all that counts.

Let's put it this way; If I never bought another bag of soft plastics, I would have more than enough to last me the rest of my life. Will I buy more? Absolutely.

5" YCB senko-watermelon w/ black flecks

Dick's has a brand of lures? I've never seen them. Are you talking about the sporting goods store?

Are you talking about snap-swivels? I never use snaps or snap-swivels just because it's added hardware and I try to use as little hardware as possible. But for plain swivels, I use tiny ones for tying a leader on, because you can reel it right up through the guides.

Some factors may be more important than others, but every variable adds up which is what determines how man fish are caught. If you already have presentation down, why ignore things like color? That's the easy part, and combined with presentation, it might be the thing that tips the odds in your favor. Every single factor changes yours odds of success. Maybe not equally, but it changes the odds nonetheless.

Can it happen again?

I started as soon as I was old enough to hold a rod, so maybe 3 or 4 years old. It was love at first bass!

A 7" bait is very big for smallmouth. Maybe try a 4" Roboworm? I would think it would dance better than a Slug-O on a dropshot also. The Slug-O you could fish weightless wacky rigged. It sinks slowly so it would spend a good amount of time in the strike zone of the suspended bass.