Turtle135

I have seen the ATAK in person. The standing platform area in front of the seat looks awesome. The two anglers paddling the ATAK feel that the lower profile of the ATAK sheds the wind really well. It presents a lot less surface to the wind than the Commander or even my Ride 115.

This past weekend I had the exact opposite experience. There were huge carp crashing through shallow aquatic plants and it seemed like the bass were waiting for baitfish to get flushed from the vegetation. A black & blue swim jig right behind the marauding carp frequently found an aggressive largemouth waiting to ambush.

They are a lot of fun and good eating. Small spinners, spinnerbaits and beetle spins are good lures for white perch.

Is it possible the fish you are thinking of is the white perch? Same family as striped bass. As far as I know we do not have white bass in Maryland. We do have striped bass and hybrids in some waters but generally not found in ponds (usually the bigger reservoirs in the state). Some ponds do have populations of white perch.

A Wisconsin study conducted to monitor "delayed mortality" in tournament released bass ranged from 0% up to 52.2% (higher water temperatures generally lead to greater delayed mortality). The bass were monitored for 5 days post tournament release. What this means is that the bass makes it to the weigh in alive and swims away at release but a significant number of those bass will die from tournament handling stress.

I suppose it depends on the presentation. Some types of lures (weight-less soft plastics, suspending jerkbaits, some topwaters) do not play well with the added weight of a steel or wire leader. I know some musky guys that get away with a heavy 50 pound test flourocarbon or mono leader for those types of presentations.

If he enjoys the live bait game, carolina rig a bait fish on a circle hook, he can let the rod just load up and the fish will be hooked in the corner of the mouth.

If you have some access to some unpressured water do not let muddy water slow you down! It might be a gold mine. Do you think it is off colored all the time or it is perhaps because of some recent heavy rainfall? Also, the water temperature is currently only 58 degrees? Have your current night time temperatures been dipping pretty low? At any rate, when I see that type of water I start looking for bass shallow and very tight to cover. A black & blue jig is a great tool for extracting them. Good luck!

My opinion, If the major bass tournaments are going to preach "catch and release" (and pat themselves on the back for doing so) then they ought to be doing everything they can to release those bass in as healthy a condition as possible. Wouldn't hurt to show the professionals taking extra care of their fish so the general public can see and understand proper handling. If they are going to swing that bass around, jack and dislocate the jaw, that bass may swim away at release and then it will just die later. Might as well keep and consume those fish. The tidal potomac river, just south of me, probably hosts as many tournaments as any body of water. Unfortunately I see bad handling practices down there all too frequently. A bag of bass (with no water) lying on the blacktop in the heat of August waiting to be weighed and then "released". A tournament director "releasing" a bag of bass from 10 feet high into 6 inches of water (if he had walked 40 feet he could have released them at water level but apparently he did not feel the need). I'm sure most of the competitors take good care of their fish but their actions are not as evident to the casual observer. There is an opportunity for the televised pros to set and promote a good example here.

Never count casts but I do ponder the number of fish per hour (which this spring has been way too low unfortunately).

The cover was from a company who no longer does business in the United States. I think they were called "CratePak". Got the rod holders at Bass Pro Shops, they look like this:

Nothing too special about my crate. Purchased two standard sized milk crates at The Container Store then cut the bottom 3 inches off the second crate to use as a lid. Zip ties are the hinges and I have a small bungee with a Nite Ize S-Biner to keep the lid closed. I zip tied a 3 rod holder on one side and a 2 rod holder on another. That camo crate covering finally started to fall apart from too much sun and wet so I no longer use that. The only problem I have with my crate setup is that I seem to want to carry more tackle than I can fit inside!

As a slow moving bottom contact lure I think the color of the trailer can matter but the color of the skirt probably does not matter much. Drop one of your jigs in the kitchen sink and watch the strands float up and away from the trailer. Those individual strands do not present much color by themselves. I use round rubber in black & brown and black & blue and mix up the color and profile of the trailer.

The best from this past weekend. Top fish was from a reservoir in Maryland and the bottom fish was from the Tidal Potomac River.

It is tougher fishing if the bass are not used to low visibility conditions. I start off with a big jig and trailer (black & blue) and cast right into the middle of any hard cover I can find. For example on a laydown I will try to bump the jig into as many branches as possible.

nice greenie! that one really dwarfs the golden ruler

Tried out the 17 pound test P-Line CXX Crystal Clear tonight. First impressions are positive. It has that look of clear blue Stren so the line is very visible above the surface of the water. Should be good for presentations that require line watching. I had a sense of the memory issue that I have read about before with this line. Was not such an issue that a 3/8th ounce football jig could not negate. Will have to test some more with a weight-less presentation. It has about the same diameter as 14 pound test Trilene XT which I use so frequently. I had no problem detecting a 17" largemouth taking the football jig at the end of a long cast and a normal hookset did the job. Did not have enough time tonight to determine if sensitivity is an improvement over Trilene XT but I did not find any negatives about the line that would be a deal breaker so far.

Well written post, very informative and nice to have all that information in one spot to pass on to the fluorocarbon fanatics I regularly fish with. The deforming (and losing break strength issue) is the primary reason I do not use flourocarbon. It is either that or I am too old a dog to learn new tricks . They will probably have to bury me with a spool of Trilene XT monofilament for fishing in the next life.

I just put some 17 pound test P-Line CXX Crystal Clear on one of my baitcasting setups. Fishing after work today. Will post an update tonight.

I have often thought that was why tubes can work so well, the bass just see them a defenseless prey item.

A Netbait B-Bug (which is a beaver style soft plastic) in "Hardy Craw" rigged on a 1/4 ounce swimbait hook. This presentation has a forward glide to it on the descent to the bottom so I sweep it up, let it glide back down, sweep, glide, etc.

Yes, as was mentioned, just no transporting one alive (likely for fear that someone could move them to another body of water), catch and immediate release is okay in Maryland and Virginia water.

I ate six of them last season. One of the best eating fish I have ever caught. That one from Saturday I released. I caught it early in the day and I knew the temperatures were shooting up into the eighties & was planning to fish until sunset. Just did not want to kill and let it go to waste. There are too many to completely eradicate them from the system but the bow hunters on the Tidal Potomac do a thorough job of taking out snakeheads that size.

my bass fishing just keeps getting weirder and weirder! 32", 11.25 pounds

well done! that 21" bass had to be close to 5 pounds