soflabasser

Congratulations on your new pb smallmouth bass.

There are a lot of things you can do to up your game in bass fishing if you want to. 1. Find someone who is a much better bass fisherman than yourself in the waters you fish and become friends with him/her. Fish with them as much as possible and do your best to learn from them. This will speed up your learning curve much faster than reading anything online or in a book. 2. Do your best to learn from every fishing trip. 3. Do your best to learn how to read the water. 4. Do your best to learn how to fish the different seasons and strive to be good bass fishermen throughout the year, not just a season or two. 5. Do your best to master a couple lures instead of fishing dozens of types of lures but you really don't fish them enough to the point you master them. 6. Understand that no matter how much you know there will always be someone who knows a certain technique better than you and knows how to fish a certain body of water better than you. Knowing this means it would be best to keep a open mind and do your best to learn from everybody who is willing to teach you what they know.

Welcome to the forum

Fall weather? I had to travel outside of Florida to see what real Fall weather looked like. It rarely drops below 40 degrees in South Florida and our weather is more similar to the Amazon than it is to the Great Lakes and other northern areas. The bass fishing is usually better in the ''fall'' and ''winter'' in South Florida so I am looking towards to bass fishing the next couple months.

Time spent wisely on the water is the best teacher.

Once they get past 24 inches they start looking like a freshwater version of a grouper, which happens to be one of my favorite fish to catch. I think you are giving largemouth bass too much credit to put it in the same category as a redfish. Redfish are much more powerful pound for pound than a largemouth bass, at least the ones I have caught in South Florida.

Never found a need for flourocarbon when it comes to bass fishing and do just fine catching lots of big bass that many tournament fisherman would dream of catching in a tournament.I have lost count of the +24 inch bass I have caught on straight braid in clear water in my +23 years of bass fishing and only use a mono leader when I need the extra abrasion resistance mono provides. In saltwater fishing I also don't use a flourocarbon leader and instead I use braid with a mono leader or I use strait mono.

Welcome to the forum

LOL! I agree with you that the bigger bass are more rewarding than the small bass. I rather catch only 1 bass in a full day fishing trip that is as long as a legal Florida black grouper (24" and up) than catch a bunch of bass under 22". There are exceptions though such as catching a species of black bass I have not caught before, which I will consider any size bass a accomplishment.

Welcome to the forum. It would be best to bring a scale you can know how much a bass weighs. You can also measure the length and girth of a bass and get a very good estimation of the weight of the bass. Length*Length*Girth÷1200= Weight in pounds

Welcome to the forum

One of my happiest moments in bass fishing was when I caught my first double digit bass from land in public waters in my home state. Have caught other double digit bass and plan on catching more as time passes but I am more focused on catching as many species of black bass (and other species of fish) at this moment in time.

Welcome to the forum

Do you have pictures of this fish on its side?

Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum

The rod is more important than the reel when it comes to frog fishing, at least for me. All my frog rods are heavy action rods built for abuse and excel at dragging big bass out of heavy cover. As for the reel, any recent reel with 12-15 pounds of drag is enough for bass since they don't fight much compared to many other gamefish which are routinely caught with only 10-15 pounds of drag.

That depends on what you consider better value. For me a rod has to be able to handle lots of abuse and not break for at least a decade and preferably more. Any rod that can't take that type of abuse is not worth much to me. Second I need a rod that is strong enough to pull big fish out of heavy cover without worrying it snapping like so many expensive rods do. With this said I find that Ugly Stiks are the best value for my style of fishing and I still fish the Ugly Stiks my grandfather gave me +23 years ago. I do have a custom topwater rod that was given to me as a gift and although its light I don't like it as much. I do use other brands for bass fishing but they do not compare to Ugly Stiks when it comes to the better value in the long run.

Good thing that both drivers are ok even though the guy should of been more careful driving. This reminds me of Okeechobee road (US 27) in South Florida. This road has similar accidents since many people on Okeechobee road like to drive +20 mph over the speed limit, skip each other to get ahead,rarely use turn signals when turning, and don't look where they are going. Wish there was more enforcement on the road and not just speed traps that you see from time to time.

Welcome to the forum.

My favorite frogs are Live target hollow belly frogs, Booyah hollow belly frogs, and Zoom horny toads.

Thank you for posting the pictures of your replicas. They are beautiful pieces of art.

Congratulations on your big smallmouth bass.

Sounds like you found your answer to this problem. Keep being friends with your buddy and take your wife fishing more often. Teach her everything you know and you will have better fishing trips with her than with some guy who eats all your snacks and takes your lures.

Try fishing with a spinnerbait.