fishwizzard

Face-to-face with someone I’ll give up basically everything, even specific pieces of cover/structure. There’s one very tiny spot that I keep completely close to the chest though. It’s a small, I mean like maybe an acre, pond in a unpopular public park. Because of its size you can present a lure to basically every square yard of water in maybe 1 to 3 hours depending on what your fishing. Because of this you can generally take “finding the bass”. out of the equation, so it’s my favorite spot for testing out whatever new piece of tackle I’m currently obsessed with. There are a couple 2 to 3 pound bass in there but it’s mostly little one pounders. It’s so small that I don’t want it to get any more pressure and especially don’t want someone to show up and take out a few big bass that are there so I keep my mouth shut about it.

Same here, Last Thursday I saw dozens of them buzzing around in the water but never saw one get blown up on. Oddly, I still got a few hits on a popper.

I wear lightweight baselayer tights under my fishing shorts when yak fishing for sun protection. If there is any breeze at all I can pour water on them and evaporative cooling keeps me comfy. Dead calm days are a different story, but they are going to be unpleasant nonmatter what I am wearing. The only issue is there is a little strip of exposed skin between the bottom of the tights and the tops of my shoes. I remember to put sunblock here maybe every third trip, so I end up with a little sunburned strip every so often.

I do believe that scent will usually make a bass hold a plastic/jig a bit longer. I also believe that no bass currently swimming is worth getting fish attractant in my mouth ever again. With a little Glup juice in my mouth, I can speed walk 2 miles in about 30min in order to get back to my car and drive to somewhere I can buy a toothbrush/paste to get that stuff scrubbed out. So so so foul. I will still use Powerworms and other "scented" plastics, but Maxscent is too drippy for me to risk.

I weigh more or less every new lure, plastic, and bit of terminal tackle that passes through my hands. Mostly I do it out of curiosity, but also to let me narrow down what combo I want to try my new toy on. In terms of keeping track, I do it a few different ways. Jigs, I only use maybe 3-4 different jigs, so it's easy to remember. For plastics, I mentally assign each one into three rough categories. A 5" senko weighs right about 3/8oz, so plastics are either "lighter then a Senko", "same as a Senko", or "heavier than a Senko". This is about as granular as I need to get unless I am fussing with UL tackle where the tiny differences matter more.

Most of my bank fishing trips end either with a fast drive home to shower and check for ticks or a drive to whatever bbq/greasy spoon restaurant that I have picked for my post-fishing reward/consolation prize. I don't always pick my spot for the day based on food, but it's always at least a tie-breaker.

Looking at the line capacity is a good metric. A lot of the newer "BFS" reels are more suited to UL trout/panfish applications due to the limited line capacity. Most of the older finesse reels are much more suited to the 1/4-3/8oz range and have deeper spools, iirc the old Daiwa Pixy would hold 75-80y of 10lb mono, so more then enough capacity to run 7-10lb line for most any common finesse bass presentation. I have one of the Dobyn's SA 740C and while I am really liking it, it's super light tip and strong midsection/backbone conspire to make it a fairly niche rod. To me it straddles the line between BFS and UL casting and I have yet to find a reel I really like on it. Right now I have a more traditional BFS reel on it and I am starting to think about picking up a more UL capable reel for it as it's not a rod I am ever going to want to use line much thicker than 6lb Supernatural mono on.

First bass was on a Gulp panfish worm under a bobber:

I use the Trilene for all lure/hook connections for every type of line. Fast and easy to tie and it’s immediately obvious when it’s tied wrong.

For me, a tube is fished primarily on the bottom and a Ned is primarily fished moving somewhere in the water column.

Those tweezer-style split ring tools look amazing, even more so that they are small and light enough to toss in my tackle sling and carry around. I don't often need to fuss with a split ring in the field, but when it do it's super annoying to not have a tool handy.

Oh yea. A DS is one of the best ways I have found to present a moving plastic just off the bottom w/o getting gunked up in soft, mucky bottom ponds. I cast and crank until I hit something, then slow down see what’s up.

I am in between barbers right now and it's stressing me out. I have been shaving my head bald for decades now but about ten years ago I decided to grow a full beard and I am hopeless when it comes to trying to trim it. I go to just clean it up and end up taking 2-3" off. I have found a place that is both open until 7pm and is between my house and 2-3 of my after work ponds, so I am hoping like hell it works out.

I am for sure biased when it comes to reels, I have so much time on Daiwa reels and am so used to their braking system(s) that it's hard to really look at other reel brands. Rods I am far more open, but most of my lineup is Loomis or Megabass and I am much much more willing to take a chance on a rod from either of them then other brands I have less experience with.

I hate/struggle at the large rocky reservoirs near me, Rocky Gorge and Tridelphia in MD. Most of my bass fishing is in shallow, murky ponds/marshes, so deep, rocky spots are really hard for me to adapt to.

Mine is still in pre-order limbo, I am dying over here. Please post once you have some time on it so I can live through you.

I am almost finished getting my Outback to the point where it can accept third party rails, which means I can get a Hullavator or other lift-assist system. I am (relatively) young and in (relatively) good shape, but I had a near miss last year on a windy day. My choices were to let the yak fall and hit the ground from shoulder height and maybe hit my feet, or push it into my car. I picked the latter and now have some nice scratches in the paint. If that had failed to stop it then my side mirror would have been hit. I looked around at the replacement cost for the mirror and decided that $600 for the Hullvator didn't sound so bad.

I would love to hear your thoughts on them once you have gotten to fish them a bit. I have one of the short frog rods from the LG BLX line and really love it.

This is how I taught myself how to cast. Watching longer full-body shots of pros casting and trying to emulate their form is what flipped the switch for me.

Hit a pond while out running errands, so I was wearing boat shoes and no sunblock. The bite was insane, so I was there for like 4-5 hours. There already was a base tan from normal summer hiking, but the tops of my feet are normally covered so the tan line was crazy sharp.

I tap the blank with my finger, it makes the plastic twitch around w/o moving the lure.

2021 has been a huge dink-fest so far. I fish a lot of light tackle, so I don't really mind big numbers days, but it's a little annoying when I am out with a heavy jig rod and am just winching in 8" bass all day.

Strangely enough, the only time I’ve ever broken a hook was a Gama drop shot hook. Light line, a ML rod, and a not very big bass. The hook just snapped as I was bringing the bass in. I took the rest of the pack and destroyed half of them with pliers, but couldn’t get one to snap cleanly without bending first. I chalked it up to random bad luck and have used dozens and dozens more of that same hook with no issue.

For me it’s not “will a given rod cast a 1/4oz presentation at all” but “will a given rod have 1/4oz as it’s sweetspot?” A lot of MH and even some H bass rods have a lower limit of 1/4oz, but if I am going to be throwing presentations of that weight, I want a rod with 1/4oz at the middle of it’s range, so either BFS or a spinning rod.

For the most part I keep my combos rigged in case I want to mess with them during my late night tackle fussing sessions. I back the drags off so if something snags the line it will pull put and not risk snapping the tip. I do the same when fishing on foot and have to move spots.