Junk Fisherman

That sounds like an awful stretch to go through. Glad to hear things have improved.

$2500 out the door for a PDL? Now add for rigging, electronics, and a battery. Wow. I kicked around the idea of getting a pedal-drive kayak but I'll stick to my Wilderness System Ride 115 for the couple times a year I use it.

So I motored down the river this past weekend and fished a spot 8 miles from the launch. After about 15 minutes, I went to move and my motor wouldn't fire up. I had used a plug-in charger for my phone while I was running which is something I never do. I figured that was the reason my battery was dead. I took the time to move a trolling motor from under the front deck to see if that would fire up the motor- no change. So I figured my trolling motor batteries would not make it back to the launch but there was another launch about a mile away. Called my wife and she was going to meet me at the launch so I could take her car and go get my truck. I make it to the next marina and was fishing while waiting for my wife. Catch a nice fish and figured I'd get everything organized so I could leave as soon as she arrived. Do you know where this is going? Yeap- I pulled out the kill switch which was attached to my life jacket when I arrived at my first fishing spot. I just had tunnel vision that my battery charger drained my battery. Re-attached the kill switch and the motor fired right up. Thankfully, my wife hadn't left town and started the 45 minute or so drive to the marina. Only lost a couple hours due to my stupidity. At least I should never make that mistake again.

I worked at a local shop and it was the same deal. Their bread and butter was bait and putting line on reels. Hard baits, reels, and electronics made little money. Rods and terminal tackle were more profitable. To this day, they have fair prices and a decent selection but if you watch the online sales and buy in bulk, you can save quite a bit.

I buy between 95% and 99% of my tackle online or at winter fishing shows.

Q and A sessions on a podcast with preselected questions BUT let us suggest and then vote on the questions. If it is a chat you might end up getting a lot of questions along the lines of "What pound line do you use for spinnerbaits" or "What is your favorite color jerkbait?" which have value but can easily be Googled. If we get access to a pro, we need to ask higher level thinking questions like tournament strategy, making adjustments on the water, dealing with changing conditions and seasons, dealing with adversity, misconceptions in bass fishing, examples of good and poor decisions he's made, lessons that took him a long time to learn, ect. ect,

I use them on a dropshot and they work very well.

I've become pretty satisfied with the bass fishing in Illinois. Newton Lake in central Illinois is often on the Bassmaster list of best lakes in the Midwest. I love that lake. Southern Illinois has a couple great lakes and I love the ones with a 10-HP limit. I also have a very good cooling lake that opens on March 1st and that lake will be fantastic for the first month of the season regardless of the air temps. Lake Michigan around Chicago is very good for smallmouth, even though I primarily fish Lake Michigan in Indiana, and there is an adjoining river and lake that have become very good over the last 5 years. There are other lesser-known lakes that I have a lot of success on that I keep quiet about. Learning the sleeper lakes, avoiding fishing when tournaments are being held, and just becoming a better fishermen has made me happy fishing Illinois waters. But with all that said, I plan to get a second home in A-Jay country in about 10 years because that is just so much better.

There's good and bad. I love the fact that less people are fishing. Last year was my first year fishing all of November and well into December. As long as there are no tournaments, the number of fishermen plummet. And while it's colder, the number of big fish I catch go way up compared to the summer. If I am fishing Lake Michigan or its feeder rivers, I can easily tangle with a salmon or trout so that is also fun. Got into a couple musky last year as well. Naturally, it is a little sad since the big fishing pause is coming. However, I have a fantastic cooling lake that opens March 1st so my offseason is usually no more than 2.5 months. And if the water is open this winter, I plan to try some damiki rig fishing and lake trout fishing. There's something about the empty water and cold temperatures that feels both lonely and liberating at the same time. My expectations go way down and I'm just happy to be on the water.

Hey there McFly. Tinley Park basser here. I'm in Maple Bassmasters and if you are interested in that club I could give you a lot of info.

I've gotten to the point where if I'm on a multi-day trip and the fishing is not great early in the trip, I'll make it a half day just to conserve energy. If I try to hit it hard for 4-5 days in a row, I'll run out of steam by the end of the trip especially if the fishing is not great. Burned myself out prefishing a few times.

I did not do well when I first started club tournaments in my mid 20s. I was such a novice since I had only gotten into fishing a couple years before. My dad was an excellent bowhunter but as a fisherman he was a spinnerbait/Rapala Countdown guy. If they didn't hit either of those baits, he was in trouble. So I never had anyone to teach me so I was just left with reading magazines and watching a few shows here and there. In terms of tournaments, I was greatly affected by dock talk and often tied on lures for the first time the night before a tournament if I heard a couple fishermen had done well with the presentation the day before. I didn't have confidence baits, I fixated on color, took poor performances badly, and just made way too many mistakes. I used to have knot issues and broke off on a lot of fish. I missed out on my club's championship team by a few points my first year and I easily would have made it if I could have tied a dammn knot. I look back sometimes and realize just how much of a better fishermen I am nowadays and my tournament results reflect that. I really wish I could go back and teach my 25-year old self a few things that took me way to long to learn.

Tell me about your summers. My father lived in southern IL and from roughly mid May to mid September, the norm was 90+ and high humidity. Their temperatures were generally 5-7 degrees warmer than where I live (300 miles north) which is about 5-7 degrees warmer than where I go in the summer, Northern Michigan which is about 300 miles north of me. I HATE that high heat and humidity where after 10 AM you are drenched in sweat if you are expending much energy outside. Am I wrong to think this is the norm for Florida but for even a longer amount of time each year?

This is my plan when I retire. In about 10 years, I'm buying somewhere around Traverse City and will stay there from April to early November every year. Besides the smallies, I want to learn how to fish lakers in the cold water season. My wife wants to have our home base around Chicago for our kids which I am in total agreement with. I plan to take a 2-week trip to Texas every February and with a great local power plant lake that opens on March 1, I think my fishing calendar will be full. I know this doesn't really answer your question but there isn't one place that would satisfy me for the entire year. Down south is too dammn hot in the summer and you know about your winters up north. Maybe if I ever got into ice fishing, I'd be happy living up north all year around.

My profile pic is my biggest @ 6.6 lbs. Caught it on a green pumpkin, blue flake tube at daylight. My top 5 would be a little under 30 lbs. Having a one day, 25-lb bag has been a goal for a while. I've hit 23-24 lbs a couple times. I just don't spend enough time on the right type of water.

Depends how much you want to spend. The Nitro will be the least expensive but you definitely hear more build quality issues with them than Tritons and Rangers. But a lot of people like their Nitros which definitely counts for something. With the crazy price of boats nowadays, I am going to strongly consider a Nitro for my next boat. Good luck.

I plan on Damiki rig fishing this winter as long the launches aren't frozen. Last year I fished for largemouth and smallmouth throughout temps in the 40s. Low 40s got pretty tough and then it froze up on me. Mids 40s is a great time for a blade bait.

Had a guy yesterday come between me and the shore. To give you an idea how far I was from the shore- I was sitting just a little out of reach of the shore with a cast. So I was floored he didn't go around me. Then, the coangler got hung right in front of me so he had to turn around to unsnag. Neither guy ever looked at me. I just put my rod down, poured a cup of coffee, and watched them shaking my head. I literally thought about this thread while this was going on. I didn't say anything. What's the point? Say something and have a verbal altercation while I'm out enjoying the day of fishing? What does that change? The boater was in his 60s and he knew better.

You're not going to break the 20 lb line so this comes down line management. Thicker line is easier to deal with but braid handles nicely on spinning reels already. I'd go 20 lb but I have learned to go thinner with braid when I am indecisive. The 30 being a little thicker will be more user-friendly but the 20 will cast better.

Used to wade rivers and I have a kayak that I only use in small lakes. All of my smallie fishing is from a boat. 90% of my smallie fishing is on Lake Michigan either around Chicago or on the bays up north- Green Bay, Bays de Noc, and Grand Traverse Bay. There's a couple inland lakes in northern Michigan that I smallmouth fish and a local river leading out to Lake Michigan that I smallie fish late and early in the season.

For 1 day- yes. One of my favorite lakes is 3.5 hours away but I always fish it for 2 days when I go there.

I think larger hooks negatively impacts the action, gets hung more often, and do harm than good overall. I have no problem with a #2 hook. And I make my own jigs so I've tried different sizes. The 1/0 jigs I've already made are used for Damiki rigs and hair jigs.

I use a Ned a lot and I don't have major issues with hang-ups unless I am fishing wood. Use a 1/16th oz head with a #2 hook if it is calm. I'll go to a 1/10th if it's windy or if I am fishing deeper water. Ned K said to go with a #4 hook but that is a little too small for me. I'll use that exposed hook in weedy areas and I can shake off a lot of weeds during the cast. And all of my biggest fish this year came on Neds including a 6.2, a 5.7 in a T, and lots of 3s and 4s. Yeah, I catch a bunch of little fish too but I like the action.

I know most of the places I fish fairly well so my preparation comes down to having all my rigs and the boat ready. I try to do this during the week so when Friday night comes I don't have a lot of work to do and can just focus on tying up some loose ends. I also spend time during the week thinking about what areas and how I want to fish, what kind of changes I might make while on the water, and what new water and new presentations I want to spend some time with. I'll make sure to have enough Ned rigs and swimbaits rigged up (superglued to the head) and I'll a fresh dropshot leader tied so it will speed up the process of tying a whole new leader if needed. During the week and on my drive to the lake I will come up with a gameplan that will be adjusted based on the results of the day. If I am fishing new water, I will spend a lot of time on the Navionics Web app and Google Earth looking at the lake. Then, I will mark waypoints on my unit that I want to fish. I rarely just wing it. I am thinking about how and where I'll be fishing as soon as I decide to go.

I choose lures based on what type of cover and structure I am fishing taking into consideration seasonal and weather patterns. Cover is weeds, wood, rock, ect.. while structure is the contour of the bottom such as a point, dropoff, flat, ect. There are lures to throw on rocky dropoffs that would constantly hang up if thrown on the edge of lily pads or on a weedy dropoff. Sometimes there are overlaps but most times you are matching the lure to the cover. I have enough history to base my selection of similar lures, especially brand, by going with what I like the most. This comes with experience and results. I do tend to keep things simple and don't have a huge selection of slightly different types of lures. If the difference between me catching fish is green pumpkin blue or green pumpkin copper, then there will be days I don't catch any fish. I never pick lures at random.