SpinLight

I have two of the new 24 Certate FC2500LT reels. Love them. Great drag and lighter than the old ones.

I only use high vis line, 3-8 lb test, fishing mostly for spotted bass in a very clear highland lake. Also use it at the coast and in the TN river. Catch a lot of fish. If fish are turned off from visible lines, why do they hit an Alabama rig with a bunch of shiny wires? To each his own.

Several times this year I have stopped on a spot and the screen would be full of thin black arches, spaced evenly apart from top to bottom on my Garmin screen. Not like a bait ball. This screen shot is similar to those I am talking about, but with some small colored arches also in this pic. Was fishing Lake Martin in AL where the most numerous bait fish are threadfin shad and blue back herring. Anybody know what kind of small fish these are on the screen?

Same strategy, except I stop at 3.3 for spots.

I don't have a dogma, but I do have a catma....🙄 Great idea for a discussion, DaubsNU1.

Right. Loons are solitary birds where I fish.

I have been fishing for over 60 years now, and have never had as many fish get off after being pinned for several yards as I did on Wednesday. Must have been a dozen that came off within the first 10-15 yards, or about 15 to 20 feet away from the boat. Landed about 15 bass. Very annoying. Details: fishing for spotted bass with a 3-inch Easy Shiner and 2.8 SI Fat 6# Varivas Super Trout Advance Sight Edition mono (I do not use braid or fluoro), Picasso 1/8th oz. and Gamakatsu 1/8th oz. jigheads with #1 and 1/0 size hooks, ’24 Certate 2500 reels, Megabass Baby Pluggin rod and another rod with a softer tip. Most of the bites were on long casts with most of the slack removed before the bite. I may have been setting the hook too quickly on the first few fish. “Help me if you can I’m feeling down….” All suggestions, ideas, and solutions are appreciated. Thanks.

When fishing small swimbaits for spotted bass, I mostly throw the 3" Easy Shiner or 2.8" Swing Impact Fat. I really have not fished the regular Swing Impact much and wonder if it might perform better. Does anybody here throw the "unfat" Swing Impact much, or have an opinion to share? (I know spots will hit just about any small lure and some large ones.)

I second the motion to all the above. Ichiban Tackle has a limited selection of fishing stuff, mostly lures and terminal tackle, but they have been the fastest getting an order to Alabama from Japan for me. It gets here faster than hook up and TW much of the time.

I first started throwing the "floating worm" back in the mid-60's . We threw the original Creme Scoundrel, and the Creme Shimmy Gal segmented worm with a small flat tail on a small exposed hook. Lots of changes since then in tackle and hooks. I don't fish tournaments anymore and only use spinning tackle and mono by choice. I fish for several different species of fish, but most of my bass fishing now is for spotted bass. For several years now, I simply have not thrown a floating worm. My rod collection is big enough for me to know I have several rods which will work. I am looking for your recommendations of a spinning rod that works best for those of you who fish a Trick worm or reasonable facsimile on 8 or 10 lb. test line. What power, action, and length do you use?

Thanks for all the good ideas, and special thanks to RRocket and TnRiver46 for some nice pics. Steve

Most of my bass fishing in this area is with light tackle for small spotted bass. I enjoy swimming a 3" Easy Shiner and 2.8 Fat Impact, but am looking for other effective small plastics for spots. What other productive, approx. 3" non-creature baits do any of you frequently use on a jig head instead of these two great lures?

Good report. I use Iosso E-Z Snap Zipper and Snap Lubricant on all zippers on all my tackle bags. Bought a small tube years ago. Works great. Zippers move easily and smoothly. It's waterproof too. Walmart and some marine supply places carry it online.

If you throw a Roboworm or other small-diameter worm on a shaky head, what size hook do you use?

Gonna try the free rig for the first time. Will be using 6 lb. test line and small 2 1/2 to 3 inch creature baits. What type, size, and brand of hook or hooks would you recommend?

Anybody know it's exact weight?

Most of my bass fishing is with finesse tackle. (I also occasionally fish for crappie, speckled trout and redfish.) Most swimbaits I throw are not longer than 3 and one-half inches. I throw the 3" Easy Shiner some, but have never tried the 3" Hazedong Shad. If you have used both, how do they compare? Thanks for your thoughts.

Great video. Thanks for sharing, Catt. Lots of insightful comments by others, too. Larry Nixon was being interviewed about his career and tournament fishing. He gives great advice about "fishing your strengths". He has about 6 decades of fishing experience and knows more about tournament bass fishing than almost anybody alive today. Bass fishermen who post on this forum fish all over this country, and a few other countries, too. We fish for different species of bass, on different kinds of lakes, rivers, and ponds while fishing from bass boats, canoes, kayaks, or from the bank, or wading a stream. We use different lures, equipment, and techniques. One of the things we all have in common is that we enjoy catching fish, or at least the process of fishing and all the anticipation and preparation that goes into it. While we are young, it may be about acquiring fundamentals, running and gunning if you are in tournaments, and catching big fish or a lot of fish. After several decades we start slowing down, and for some of us, it's about getting a few bites on that old favorite lure on some of our favorite spots. There are several ways to enjoy fishing, no matter how old or experienced we are. It's all good.

Used to catch smallmouth and rock bass on a Flatfish while wading in clear Tennessee streams. OP's post about a pond trip with an old lure reminded me of a winter pond fishing trip in Tennessee I took over 40 years ago. Caught 5 nice largemouth on the short version of the original big Bagley's Balsa B, the Big O imitation. It's a shallow runner, similar in size to today's 1.5-2.5 squarebills. Slow retrieve and pause worked for me, too.

How deep do you winter Ned users fish the Ned rig? Lb test line? Ned head weight?

With light line, anybody who has used one?

About twenty years ago when I was doing more bay fishing than bass fishing, one of my friends bought a KW 196 Bay Reef with a 140 Suzuki four-stroke. We all liked it so much that another friend and I each bought one just like it. I ran mine for about 15 years before moving and getting back to bass fishing. Kept up good maintenance and never had a problem with it.

At least three times in one day. Below is a copy of my reply to a similar post earlier this year: "My fishing buddy and I caught the same bass three times on a Texas rig worm in the Tennessee River one day several years ago. We were both throwing the same worm. Each of us had clear, blue fluorescent line. One of us hung a bass which then ran into a log jam and broke off several yards of line. We continued to fish in that area and hooked the same fish again about an hour later. The fish jumped and shook loose. We could see that he still had the extra line hanging out of his mouth from when he first broke off. We stopped by at the end of the day, and hooked and finally landed him, with the piece of line and worm still in his mouth."

I have caught sauger in the Tennessee River vertical jigging in 80 feet of water in the wintertime.

Several good suggestions. I prefer the stacked-cone type head like the Guppy, Nishine or Fusion jigheads. They don't seem to tear the soft plastic as much as barbed-type heads. I will add one more, the unpainted Gamakatsu stacked cone jighead, which is cheaper than most of the above-listed jigheads. To save some money, you can still recycle some of the torn plastics from these jigheads by putting them on another jighead that has a large barb.