shawnFL

Very interesting. I was catching so well off senkos and other plastics that I stopped using them for the sake of progression. Lately I've found that poppers at sunset have provided some of the best fishing I've had since the start of this year. Of course the hula popper can't catch me a fish for the life of me, but taking advice from guys here, it's not outrageous that your bait isn't on the menu that day. After much patience and often times frustration, I feel like fishing with hard baits is more rewarding and requires finer practice.

Yes sir, I'm most likely going to get a scale this weekend. I just recently got into bass fishing, so I'm about 6 months in. I suppose you could say within that small time frame I haven't had much chance to bring in a lot of big fish. Now that I am starting to get better and increasing my bites, I'll be needing the scale. I also completely agree about the heat of the moment. The last bass I caught I was extremely excited. It could've been 20lbs in my head at that time =)

Thanks guys. The next fishing day was just as good. My Dad's first cast he caught an amazing bass, beautiful size. A bit smaller than the one I have pictured above. We both just kept producing good results. When I thought things were starting to get quiet, I saw an odd rise in the water near some weed so decided to send my popper flying that direction. Got real lucky, landed right on top of a bass and he destroyed my popper as soon as it hit the water. Had to drag him through a lot of weed considering the angle I was at. He bent the treble hook that had him snagged. Second day out, and another pb. Not sure about the weights, I just go off visual size. Judging from the pic, you can easily tell this one is much bigger than the last =) Best spot to fish thus far.

I was too in the moment to measure but I know it's definitely my best. Caught him on a popper. Any guesstimations? Was a great time fishing none the less! Can't wait to get back out this weekend.

Great evening of bass fishing in southwest Florida using a heddon baby torpedo in g shad. All hits explosive and exciting. Worth the mosquito bites for a change.

That is great advice. I'm very thankful.

I apologize, I'm not following you here?

I did the above posted instruction. As soon as my bass came out of the water, he was already covered in blood. I couldn't get my fingers through the gill, but I could with my needle nosed pliers. I got the hook out in less than a minute, but I still don't think the fish made it (was dark.) I've learned to accept that sometimes bad hooksets happen and as much as it sucks to kill a fish, I'm sure the fishes body will feed other wild life so it wont be a complete disaster.

I've gone cold, too, in Florida. Could you recommend me a bait?

Same thing happened to me a couple nights ago. Got out of work about 30 minutes early. Went to my local spot. 4 or 5 casts in, popper lands in water, but a gust of wind (it was rainy) blows my line into a tree. I tried to react fast and twitch it quickly. Ended up shooting my bait out of the water and stuck in the tree. Tugged and tugged, finally snapped the line. I was so mad, threw a rock at the tree, broke the branch. Yay, got my popper back. Kept fishing, kept catching nothing. Didn't even catch a cold. Hate those days.

Yeah I tried doing a slow retrieve with twitches. I think I've exhausted every technique there is. The bass in my area are just saying no to it. I suppose I gotta deal with it and move it along.

My older brother broke me of this. He pinched the tail down of my worm, then easily showed me how tricked you can be into thinking the bass has it by pulling it and bending my rod down. I've even had a big bass bite down on a longer worm and split it clean in half, completely missing the hook (lol.) When I feel the very typical 'tap tap' I now have trained myself to be composed. I usually bring my rod tip down toward the water, prepared to reel in any slack, then blast a heavy hookset to the point where you can hear my rod cutting the air. I can't tell you how much more I catch on plastics being a patient striker. In my experience, nothing out fishes a worm. I can tell you stories of how I've missed a hookset on one, and when it landed back in the water another instantly destroyed it. I've had bass take it right as I was about to pull it out of the water to throw it again. I've just seen some of the wildest things from worms. I'll admit it's a lot easier to hook up on a crank, but it's a lot easier to attract with a worm.

I thought about doing this for a lot of my hard baits. Silly question, but I'm always in search of knowledge. Has it ever been researched, or proven, whether or not bass see the treble hooks and go the other way?

Yeah I just fished it again. Nothing. Going to come back to it. Thanks guys.

Culprit fat in purple. I want to say it is a 6" worm, could be 7". Slay so much with em, I put em away to practice other baits and techniques.

I have a lot of success on Culprit worms. If the water visibility is bad, I do the purples. When I first started doing plastics, my biggest fault was going for the hookset too early. Sometimes the bass needs to get the entire thing chowed down. I'm a firm believer that with plastics (talking statistics here) any retrieve will catch a fish; however, my greater success rates are after bouncing it back up and just letting it sink back down on its own. Usually do a 1/8 ounce weight, Texas rigged. Another tip, use a shorter worm. This helped calm down my habit of hooksetting before the bass actually had it. Obviously easier for him to swallow a 6" inch worm than a 7 1/2". Superstition or whatever, green worms never catch me fish? Who knows. Senkos, just throw it in the water and profit.

I'm looking for help gentleman. Sorry if this is a repost, initial search didn't yield results I was looking for. I've had bass bump it, inspect it, but nothing has destroyed it yet. My methods of using it: Far cast, try to get it near vegetation (lilly pads etc.) Let it sit about 10 seconds or until wake is basically settled. I then give it a good enough tug that it submerges. Then I wait. I repeat this process until the lure is close to me, then reel in and repeat. Sometimes I slow retrieve it, stop, pop it, wait for a possible inspecting fish to nail it, then slow retrieve again. My question, am I popping it too hard? Should it be retrieved at all, or just popped over and over? I really enjoy fishing new baits and being successful with them. This one, I cannot get it going. Also, I use 15# braid with a 20# mono leader and I tie it with a loop knot. (I usually fish heavy heavy vegetation areas.)