the reel ess

Finding enough time to go fishing is my biggest obstacle. I try to got to places where I have a lot of confidence-smaller bodies of water. If I were still chasing dinks on public lakes, locating fish in the dog days of summer would be an issue. Never been very good at locating offshore fish. I might fish for 3 hours for one fish. I'm not very good with finesse techniques either. But I rarely have to fish very clear water.

I had one of those little BPS in-line buzzbaits with the bucktail hair skirt and a single hook with a weedguard. I tried it a couple times without a bite. If I had gotten a bite, I wouldn't feel great about my chances because of the weedguard style. I gave it to a kid along with a tackle bag and 3 Plano utility boxes and a bunch of other lures I either never used or have no confidence in. I hope he has luck with it.

I don't think the bass where I fish know there exist black, ELECTRIC BLUE and white crawfish. I think they're just biting a bait they can see that somewhat represents something they normally like. Black/blue can't hide, even in stained water. If the bite was extremely tough and the water was gin clear, I'd probably feel I needed to more accurately match the hatch.

I like the original bags too. For one thing you don't mix up scents. But I use a kayak and have to travel light sometimes. I'll just throw a bag of each plastic I intend to use behind the seat. I pack 5 rods with different lures and that's what I'm using for that trip. Unless I'm there all day or at a small place and can paddle back to the truck and tie on something else. I have one friend who has a pier at his pond. I'll leave several rods and the tackle bag on the pier then and only take a couple rods until I find a good pattern.

Because they're freaking idiots who know nothing about fishing and don't care about it like we do.

And weeds

That's right. Sometimes bass will hit that frog as soon as it hits the water. And you can make really long casts with it. With braid you'll stand a chance of catching it. Mono can stretch as much as 10%. You won't get the same pressure on the hookset.

Overhanging limbs, laydowns, points, stumps, creek beds.

Right. I mean if they'll bite black, electric blue or white...

Cockroach color.

I use tungsten for T rigs-smaller profile. But I also fish weightless Trick Worms and flukes. I try to swim a Rat L Trap just over the grass just fast enough not to bog down. Then I use topwaters early or late. Of course you can use a weightless stick worm, T rigged. But I haven't had any luck with it yet.

Now that I see your profile pic, I realize we have messaged about this place and Godale. It just looks so bassy. I will have to give it one try.

I've always thought those courses on TV look like a huge waste of good fishing holes. Our local CC has one pond and it's tiny. I could ask permission, but the pond is so small, I could cast and get in the tress on the other side. I already have 4-5 better places. I'm going to a new one Wednesday that belongs to an older couple at our church.

I have different color jigs/chunks. But when I throw a t-rigged craw it's Zoom black sapphire. I've never seen a black crawfish, but these plain work for me. The waters around here always have some stain to them, so I guess these are easier to locate. I caught a PB on it.

I use a Med spin rod that's about 80% backbone, 20% lighter tip. All you need to do with a quality hook is tighten up the line and start reeling. Problem with this rig is the fish will get it deep in there mouths before you can get a hook in them. Then you get it way back in the fleshy parts. On a big bass, that won't hold the hook. Contrary to what a lot of others will tell you, a 2/0 offset shank T rig hook will get them in the lip or jaw more often. And you can give a little more hookset. I listened to everyone on this board about hooks, but that works best for me.

Around here, in the days before most people owned trolling motors and a fishing boat was a 12' jon, old timers used to "circle stumps" with minnows and cane poles with the motor running in reverse. They claimed the noise attracted crappie. I've seen no evidence that it works. But as a kid we used to sometimes fish a spot in our pontoon with the motor running and if they bit, we would turn it off and throw out a cinder block anchor. I imagine they were just biting so well nothing would stop it. Since then I am as quiet as can be. But sometimes nothing would stop a fish from biting. Sometimes nothing can pry its mouth open.

Submerged bottom grass. And "better" not "great". I was getting some bites and LOTS of grass with the lead bullet weights. Tungsten has a much smaller profile for the same weight.

There are some courses that allow fishing before 7 AM and after 7 PM. I stay at a condo in Pawley's Island, SC that seems to have this policy. I've seen others doing it, but I haven't tried it. There's one in Sunset Beach, NC that allows kayaks and small boats and is accessible form a public road. I've seen people on it too.

Come through grass on the bottom better. Here's a potential drawback. They don't dent or bend so they can be abrasive on your line knot. I've been using a glass bead between the tungsten weight and the hook. It protects the knot and certainly doesn't seem to be hurting anything. I heard Scott Martin refer to this as a sort of T-rig rattle.

I like mono for trebles. I like braid for single hooks like T-rigs. But not as a hard-fast rule. I recently had to rely on a MH BC combo for T-rigs because I had braid and a frog on my T-rig combo. It did well enough to land a PB. It was 15# mono and a Gamakatsu hook. It wasn't 8# and a wimpy M spinning combo.

Here it is http://www.7thart.com/films/Bass-Man

MI\ine was on T rigged Zoom Speed Craw. I've caught some good ones on that too.

There's one about BASS that followed Rick Clunn and Takahiro Omori among others as they went on the tourney trail. It showed Omori going fishing with Clunn to learn from him. Omori didn't even fish, just observed Clunn while he fished. In fact, he didn't speak any English at the time. I saw it on Sundance or IFC years ago. It was pretty good. But I can't remember the name now.

Anyone have experience here? I went by this morning with my daughter to have a look around. There was NO ONE there at 10:00. It looks very fishy with lilies around the edges and a good sandy bottom. Water the color of iced tea.

Really? Nobody I know (besides all of you) fishes them. I'm all alone.