N Florida Mike

It doesn’t happen very often with me. I use weightless plastics most of the time, and if the bait stops, I slightly lift, if it’s a fish you will see the line moving or feel the peck. If it is just dead weight, no movement or peck, I don’t Usually set the hook, and it ends up being a clump of weeds. The main exception is once and awhile they fool me down in heavy grass. I have more trouble getting a good hook set at times because bass almost always swim off with a soft plastic bait, and you have to know where the fish is exactly before the hook set . If they catch a piece of grass when they are swimming by, You are deceived about where they are. You are setting the hook on where you THINK they are, but they could be 10 feet or so past where you think. This happens to all of us too: When you KNOW it’s a fish by the peck or movement , make a good hookset, and hook a log , stump , or branch. That does happen to me fairly often. They let go right before the hook set, I reckon.

I WOULD have called the police, just like I did over this event. Of course , in this case , I’ll probably never know for sure exactly what happened. I have more problems with relatives that find a way to steal from me than all this other stuff combined. If they would work as hard at an actual job as they do trying to get what I have, then they’d be well off. ?

It was near one of the ponds I fish in a big park with woods nearby. It was funny in a way because when I saw it I instinctively reached for my pistol- but I wasn’t wearing it ?. It held its ground even with me trying to scare it back into the woods. I finally got a long stick and kept prodding it until it finally turned tail and took off. There were some kids around and I didn’t want them stepping on it. I used to kill em on sight, but couldn’t find a strong enough stick to whop It with. I saw a copperhead also in that county a few years ago, and they aren’t even supposed to be any in this part of Fl.

Almost stepped on this one today. Thankfully, I usually walk with my head down.

I’m just so reliant on soft plastics , mainly because my home lake is so weedy and shallow. And they work so well. From now to November, the weeds make it hard to fish hardbaits anyway. So my focus ( besides plastics ) will be improving spinnerbaits and frog fishing.

I started consistently catching bass with Mann’s Jelly worms in the middle and late 70s to early 80s. Got my PB on one. Then , 80s and 90s it was primarily Culprit worms. ( Still fish with them occasionally.) Around 2000 I started fishing Zoom super flukes, which is still my go-to bait. I have caught more and bigger fish on them by far over any other bait in the last 20 years. Yam. Senkos would be second, although now I mostly use yum dingers, the senkos are too expensive for me to use much. I consistently use a good variety of other soft plastics, and spinnerbaits, but They have mostly been used only with in the last 10 years or so.

That’s right! I caught a 26 inch bass last year , post spawn, that only weighed 7.6. That fish had a 9 pound frame on it, but was skinny as a rail.

Caught this one in a pond behind a target store. 8.6

Caught this one on a piece of bream while catfishing.

My finger literally started tingling when I saw that again.

Agreed !

Maybe it’s the public school systems fault!

I never use a net. With my low slung Jon boat, I can just lean over a little and either lip them ( bigger fish especially ) grab them behind the head, or just lift them in. I rarely use anything with treble hooks either, so that’s not a factor. I don’t like nets- they are hook magnets.

Looked like such a good pond today...? I couldn’t help it! ? But I did not trespass...

Just throw some bread out there. They’ll come. If your allowed to cast net, then...

I Still go to work, still fish, still doing projects around the house. The main differences for me are: No parks open in my home county, which means I can’t hang out there or fish in the ponds there between work stops . No restaurants, and no church ( we are having it on line through zoom) Easter will be strange without a doubt. This thing is all about perspective...I’ll leave it at that.

You got it- going on my list now. Went through it with my mom 3 1/2 years ago.

Cut the line?... Is this a trick question?

I was able to separate them and they swam off.

It happens. Found these 2 a couple years ago.

Waited for the rain to stop and didn’t get out to 430 or so . Cloudy and calm. It was an afternoon of contrasts. Started out fishing various worms , caught 2 dinks and lost 5 or 6, then had a bad birds nest on my finesse reel. Didn’t even pick it out , so I...Went to a deep point with an eel grass edge, switched to a watermelon seed super fluke , and immediately caught one. Next cast , caught another. Then I crossed the 100 foot wide channel to the south end of our island. First cast- boom! 20 inch fish.( scale had quit working). Next cast, it had just hit bottom, and the line started peeling out. This one was 21 1/2, skinny though. Third cast, a smaller fish. Then had a fish pick it up but dropped it. I decided to go a little above where I caught the 20 incher- first cast, another decent fish. I then went around 200 feet away, cast along another eel grass line, and caught another 20 incher. Then I missed the last 5 out of 6, had got overconfident I reckon, and the last one I lost might have been the best fish of the day. As a side note, this was my best 5 fish bag of the year ( I think ) and it was also probably my worst hook up percentage for the year. Go figure.??‍♂️