RSM789

There are 6 or 7 ways that it is recommended to fish it, but I have used just 3 methods. Quite a few hits come on the fall, but once it has reached bottom, I initially tried swimming it slowly along the bottom, kind of like slow rolling a spinnerbait. I didn't have much success with that. I also did the lift & glide retrieve, where once it had settled, I would lift it a foot or so off the bottom & let it glide towards the boat. For my lake & conditions, this was unsuccessful for me as well. What has been lights out for me was been as you mentioned, bouncy it slowly back kind of like a shakey head. When I watched that retrieve in shallow water, it really looked like a small minnow or fry feeding on the bottom, which is a good fit for my current conditions. I'd highly recommend you experiment with different retrieves, the fish will definitely tell you when you are using the right one. I followed the advice of Bluebasser & Team9nine when choosing the jighead, a mushroom shaped one weighing 1/16 oz. The only reason I chose the BPS mushroom jigs over the Zman ones was they had a choice of hook sizes, 1/0 & 1. I have used the size 1 and had almost no lost fish. Most of the hooksets are deep (not swallowed), only a few in the lip. In fact it is kind of weird, I get more gut hooked fish on wacky rigged senkos than the Ned rig. It is as if they try to swallow the larger baits as fast as possible, but with the Ned rig, they swim around content to just keep the whole thing inside their mouth. Maybe since the small size allows them to engulf the entire rig, they don't feel the need to have to get it down their gullet so quick. I have used small grubs as well, usually curly tail models & swam them along with decent results. For me, in the limited time I have used it, the Ned rig has produced more fish each trip than a grub ever did. It may just be my lake, but I feel when fished in a manner that the fish want, it is a very accurate & slow presentation, resulting in reaction, defensive & feeding strikes. As far as it being the flavor of the month, from what I have read, it has been a staple in the midwest for years. I promise to post the first time any other bait outproduces the Ned rig on a future day of fishing. My bet that day will be a sunny, warm summer day when most of the fish are tucked way back under docks. I can skip the Ned rig under the docks, but enjoy and am better with skipping wacky rigged senkos. I may have to handicap Ned with fewer casts to allow another bait to pass him in catch totals

Best of luck on the surgery & welcome to the Ned fan club. I guarantee just when you think you will only catch small fish on it, a big ol' hawg, giant catfish, or monster of some other species will grab it & run for the border.

Looks like he gets a little too rambunctious while trying to pin prey up against a seawall. By chance, when you pulled him out out of the water, did he say "I like the way you talk..."?

I've wondered if "Day on the Lake" would work if they modified it to have a pro fish a home lake of a B.A.S.S. member, with that member going along. The articles could be about how the amateur has fished the lake in the past and how the pro gives new eyes to him in regards to locations, lure choices, etc. I think the results would be a mixture of either the pro teaching the B.A.S.S. member a bit about his home lake or the pro struggling and learning some local secrets from the amateur.

I had an experience the other day where a specific size & color bait was the only thing I could get bit consistently on. When using other lures & techniques, it was as if I was fishing dead water. When I used the bait that is a close resemblance to what the bass seemed to be keying on, I loaded the boat. On that day, there was no middle ground, it was a strikeout or homerun based on matching (or closely resembling) the hatch. I have had other days when the fish were not keyed in on a single bait, they were being opportunity predators and eating just about anything that came into their strike zone. I have been told by ocean fishermen that marlin act the same way. If they are keyed in on specific forage, you must use something that resembles it, but if they aren't keyed in, your choices are much more broad. Why bass or any fish key in on a specific forage, I don't know. The bass in my koi pond went thru a 6 week stage where she began ignoring or spitting out the nightcrawlers that she use to eat relentlessly. I thought she may be sick until I dumped in some feeder goldfish and it turned into hammer time. Interestingly enough, during those six weeks, the bass in her previous lake keyed in on baits that resembled small fry and were less interested in plastics & soft craws. Is it part of her DNA from the lake she used to inhabit that post spawn time is the time to key in on fry & small minnows to the exclusion of all else? I don't know, but I am curious how she reacts when the Junebugs start appearing in the next few weeks.

You are absolutely correct, by not saying something then, I forfeited the chance to learn if B.A.S.S. considers that trolling. That is why my question was if this technique would be considered trolling & violate the rules in the tournaments you fish.

By definition, an immigrant is one who enters a country and becomes a citizen through the legally recognized process. Therefore, the term illegal immigrant is an oxymoron, for one can't be an illegal legal citizen. The correct term used in all federal statutes is "illegal alien". And don't get me started on the phrase "undocumented immigrant", a term that totally devoid of logic because it suggests that all these folks are missing is some messy paperwork. Pray tell, if I broke into the White House, outran the Service Service into the Oval Office and sat down behind the POTUS's desk, would that make me the "Undocumented President of the United States"? But you are spot on about all those cheating bait fisherment being Patriots fans...

No, John Murray has the worlds biggest garage...or is it the world's biggest dock

Good for you, you handled it very well. I can only hope those kids saw their father get arrested or tased in front of them, to show that the dude is way out of control.

I don't believe anyone has said it is the biggest problem. It has gotten a lot of attention compared to those other issues because of who it involved, their history of cheating, the denials in face of the obvious and a rash of partisan folks who are trying to defend them by comparing the infraction to other issues. If Brady had manned up, told the truth ("I had asked for the balls to be prepared this way, I didn't realize it broke the rules, my mistake"), accepted his penalty and the fans of the team scolded the ownership for bring this tarnish upon their hometown team (instead of being apologists for them), the story would have died quickly. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

I used a Ned Rig, specifically the ZMan TRD in Green Pumpkin on a 1/16 oz mushroom head, for the 3rd consecutive week & once again it produced. It was responsible for 46 of the 49 bass I caught, as well as a bull bluegill that weighed just shy of 2 lbs. However, the results of this trip made me realize a bit more of how really effective it can be. The morning started under overcast skies, water temperature at 71 degrees (having dropped a few degrees from the previous week) and the fish were post spawn. I started off with some top water and moving baits and didn't get a strike for the first 45 minutes. I had the Ned Rig set up with a TRD in Peanut Butter & Jelly, the first time I was going to try this color, and I began casting to different depth targets. After 30 minutes without a strike, I was puzzled. I switched over to a 4" plastic worm in green pumpkin, got a couple of strikes & landed a fish in about 30 minutes of fishing. My expectations for the day was much higher, so I tried a couple of different baits and areas for the next 45 minutes without a strike. For the first time, I began to doubt the effectiveness of the Ned rig over other baits. I figured to be fair, I would switch back to the Green Pumpkin color (which I had used exclusively on previous trips) and give it a try. About the time I got it switched over, a light rain began to fall and wouldn't you know it, first cast resulting in a fish. For the rest of the day it was lights out. However, as I started catching fish, I began to wonder if it was the start of the rain that triggered the fish or the lure choice. During the day, when I would get to areas that held fish, I would try other lures. Many of the fish came in 2 feet of water between docks, but these fish would not bump a topwater lure nor touch a small swimbait. In areas where I found them a bit deeper, they wouldn't bite a crankbait and just a few grabbed a small plastic worm or wacky-rigged senko. I even put the Peanut Butter & Jelly TRD back on and didn't get a strike in a spot where I had caught bass on back to back casts. I can only guess that as of right now, the Green Pumpkin TRD is doing a killer job of imitating the minnows & bass fry that I believe the fish are keying on. I think the bass may have been a little less aggressive with the slight drop in water temps, but could not pass up such an easy meal as the TRD. Total for the 3 trips using the Ned rig (about 22 hrs of fishing) is 122 bass (including one that went 7-6), a 7 lb catfish and a near 2lb bluegill. Those hours include the time that I was using baits other than the Ned rig. Wow. For those of you who have been unsuccessful with the Ned rig, I can only suggest making sure to use a color combination that most closely resembles whatever prey the bass in your lake may be eating. For me, that has made a huge difference

I saw something while marshaling at Lake Havasu last week that I didn't report to the B.A.S.S. officials (because I was unsure if it was an infraction), but has bugged me a little for the last week. On one of the days, the pro I was with alternating between a jig & a drop shot (which he was casting & retrieving, not fishing directly below him) while fishing offshore. The area he was fishing featured a drop off between the shore & an island and from what I could see on the rear graph had quite a few isolated pieces of cover (possibly man-made, part of the habitat program there). The desert winds kicked up and on about a dozen occasions, after he made a cast & let the rig settle to the bottom, he would get on the trolling motor and power into the wind for 10 to 20 yards. I wasn't sure if he was moving to keep the boat in the position he wanted or just to fight the wind, but he was definitely dragging the jig or worm through structure on the bottom (& manipulating it as he did so). He seemed to do it as was moving from one piece of cover to another, a way to keep fishing while moving (as opposed to finishing the cast, moving the boat & making the next cast). He didn't do it every cast, just mostly when he was moving from one target to another. Now I know what "strolling" is, the technique of making a cast, letting out line as you move the boat & then retrieving the lure after you stop the boat. What he was doing was not strolling, the reel was engaged. Nor was this power fishing, with the trolling motor on high as one makes rapid casts over & over. It wasn't trolling in the traditional definition, but it was a process of using the boat to pull the lure through the water for a short distance. As a comparison, neither of the other two pro's I was with did this, although they were mostly flipping & fishing shallow structure to the front of the boat, so the opportunity never really presented itself. My question to those of you who fish tournaments is would this technique be considered trolling & violate the rules in the tournaments you fish?

I have much more respect for a team like the Bills, who went to an unmatched 4 Super Bowls in a row or the Minnesota Vikings who went to 4 Super Bowls in 8 years, than a team that has been shown to cheat time & again in order to try to gain a competitive advantage. The fact that the Patriots didn't even need to cheat in that game against the Colts, that they were clearly the better team & could have easily won straight up, shows how cheating is now ingrained in that teams DNA. It also tells quite a bit about those fans who "stand up" for them, acting like battered wives who say that their abusive husband is really a nice guy who means well. Be a fan for your hometown team, but for heavens sake, when it is run by or hires individuals who tarnish it's reputation, separate the two.

Josh, I think I understand your point if you are talking about the stocked portion. In Southern California, many public waters stock trout in the winter into waters that they would not be able to live in year round. These trout are dumped into the lake or stream and then caught for table fair or die later in the year when water temps get too high or the stream dries up. Also of course, some of these trout are nothing more than feeder fish for huge largemouth that inhabit the same waters. The point is these are not close to being wild fish, they have never really had to evade a predator their entire life. Like you, I have less interest in fishing for creatures than this, no matter their size, than ones that are somewhat of a challenge to figure out (emphasis on "somewhat"). For me, the perfect fishing day is when I struggle initially until I am able to figure out the keys for that day, & from there I load the boat. It means more to catch fish after fish if I had to put the pieces of the puzzle together to make them bite. So, the stocked part is the negative, but the private part isn't necessarily make them easier to catch, especially depending on what species were stocked. If bass were initially stocked a few years back & now have had a few years in the wild evading predators, they are more like a wild fish than a dumb hatchery fish. The private part may be the blessing because it eliminates knuckleheads, present company excluded . Fish the lake & you will know within a trip or two whether or not the bass in that lake need to be fooled into biting or whether they will commit suicide by just jumping into the boat.

"We"? I wasn't aware you were part of the Patriots organization. Hopefully you don't work in a position where Tommy Twoface or Belicheat can ask you to break the rules & then throw you under the bus in a heartbeat in order to save themselves.