Turtle135

the one good thing about the Hawg Trough is that is delivers a consistent accurate length

are you fishing the upper Chesapeake Bay (Susquehanna Flats area) for largemouth bass?

wow, that is rough, done in by a commercial measuring board! hope you have some remaining tournaments to get you back on track to qualify, good luck!

One other thing to look for in hot weather is current. The water will contain more oxygen in rivers, creeks and the in-flows into those ponds. Not always an option but always a good bet during the dog days of summer.

Is it called "Watermelon Pepper"? If so, I have never purchased from this site but they do offer that color. http://www.brothers4outdoors.com/product/N16007?gclid=CIy9yqSN380CFRJZhgodmgUEPw You may also want to google "Netbait Finesse Worm Watermelon Pepper" and see if anyone else is selling.

I do see this happen with bluegills and yellow perch with treble hooked lures. I have caught them where they have completely engulfed one of the treble hooks. This makes me suspect that they get attracted to the lure and when they get close enough they may see the treble hook as an item (maybe an insect) that they can eat.

well done! glad you managed to keep her stuck despite the loose drag ... I love seeing that line move when jig fishing!

as we like to say the kayak fishing world "welcome to the addiction!" ... travel light on your first trip to get used to the yak but bring a camera for that first bass that comes over the side, congrats!

Bill Murphy passed away back in 2004. I believe the seller may be his wife. When I purchased a copy through Amazon I was pretty sure his wife was the seller. I use that type of technique with 10" and 12" worms here in Maryland. It is very effective on pressured bass in my opinion. I reserve it for my A spots that have that perfect combination of structure and deep water in close proximity because you need to commit to that one spot for an extended period of time.

Has nothing to do with expense, has to do with the cover items encountered in tidal water and what that will do to line. Not a fan of flouro period and braid will not hold up for half a trip. Try pitching a jig around this stuff for 30 minutes.

Direct sunlight and heat will degrade the performance and strength of your mono filament line. If you have those memory coils in your line it will rob you of any slack line sensitivity on bottom contact and weightless presentations. I change my mono line fairly frequently (like once a month) because it is relatively inexpensive compared to all the other fishing gear I "have to have". ... I just ship my old line off to the Berkley Recycling Center every so often.

I just copied the whole link for the video into the message field. On the topic in question, not sure about the advisability of pulling those worms out of the stomach of a bass like that. They may swim away but is that doing more damage to the fish? That I do not know. I do know that dead sticking a soft plastic is a great way to get an educated lunker to bite so I can see them eating discarded soft plastics as that would be the ultimate dead stick presentation.

That is likely a skeletal malformation called lordosis that I believe occurs when they are still juveniles. Still, the bass has managed to feed and grow into an adult.

My everyday bass fishing line is Trilene XT in 17 pound test. That stuff is hard to break. When I get snagged it is 70% to 30% where I straighten a hook or pull up the obstruction over actually breaking my line. Anyway, over the winter I dropped down to 10 pound test as an experiment with line management in cold weather and hoping to generate a few more bites. I found my regular hookset could pop that 10 pound test regularly. I really had to tone it down for the lighter line.

have you ever tried using soft plastic glue to glue a sinker inside of a tube?

that is a jig that I could throw 365 days a year (and the hook is just sinister looking)

Siebert Outdoors Grid Iron Arky Jighead, quite possibly becoming my favorite jig head. The hook is an Owner Round Bend which does a great job of sticking the bass. I buy the plain jigheads, tie up the skirts then add a Netbait Baby Paca Craw. Once a month on my local reservoir they allow fishing till midnight (normally it is one hour past sunset). Last night I was in my kayak hugging the shoreline and casting out into 15 feet of water. About halfway back on my cast (little hops with long pauses) she crunched down on the jig. Got a good photo on the hawg trough and back into the drink for her. Hopefully she has already forgotten all about me!

I prefer XT. My baitcasting reels get 14 and 17 pound test and my spinning reels get 8 pound test. I believe XT is more abrasion resistant and has less stretch than XL. The catch is XT is a much fatter line than XL in the same pound test (17 pound test XT has a diameter of .017 inches compared to 17 pound test XL at .015 inches). So to a large degree it is hard to compare the two lines apples to apples. I also know both the 14 and 17 XT actually break at over 20 pounds because I can lift 20 pounds of weight lifting plates with a single strand of XT. If I was a heavy crankbait user the fatter line might be an issue with limiting the diving depth of cranks but I'm more of a spinnerbait/jig fisherman so line diameter does not bother me. My heavier XT is manageable on baitcasting gear. I have sometimes bumped up to 10 pound XT on spinning gear and did not have a line management issues.

Getting a bait momentarily hung up in the weeds then popping it free can be enough to trigger a neutral bass into striking, That is a day to day thing with largemouth so you have to try various retrieves until the fish give you some feed back on what they want that day. Depending on the size of the bass you regularly encounter you can also down size to a tube for the same presentation.

I am in Maryland, while we have had a few days pushing 90 degrees my water temperatures are still only 76 - 78 degrees. I have post spawn bass but they have not moved to deeper summer offshore spots yet. Based on what you are describing on a lake/reservoir type situation from the shore. I would be on the water before first light knowing that my best window for catching will only be a couple of hours. Same situation in the evening, I would focus on fishing from an hour before sunset to an hour after sunset. Night fishing is another option. Some lakes will make shore fishing during summer days extremely difficult. If the layout of the lake does not offer you deeper water on a cast from shore then you have to put your head down and fish what you have access to. If you have shaded weedy areas I would texas rig a plastic worm, peg the sinker and work it through those weeds. Good luck, keep after them!

Welcome to Bass Resource! A good way to combat the dog days is to switch to water with current (tidal water, rivers, creeks, etc.). If you do not have access to that type of water then you best bet from the shore is going to be early and late in the day and areas that are shaded during the day. Where are you fishing and do you know what your water temperatures are?