Hog Basser

Not in the Arkansas Delta. We have a few gators, never know if they're around or not. I pretty much kill at least one cottonmouth every time I go out. Keep "the judge" handy with 410 shells. The lake I fish is separated from a large bayou by a levee, so gators come and go.

Good article on spawn: https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/spawn-rolls.html

I wear pants and boots while out in the woods always. Then I get my wife to "tick check" me. She's not as enthusiastic about me "tick checking" her. ☹️

Move South! ?

My biggest problem when i buy non-resident licenses is the constant barrage of emails from those states after I've fished there. I went to Maine two years ago and we stayed on the water, so I bought a license. I still get emails from them all the time. And don't even get me started on Oklahoma, they send me emails at least weekly and I get them in triplicate since my email address at work has changed twice, but I still receive everything that comes to the old addresses.

I store them on peg board hooks. Once I'm ready to take them out to the water, the packaging comes off and they go in my box.

Yep, won't change without action, and a lot of it! Good luck convincing them. The least they could do is have a professional fisheries biologist come out and do an electroshock survey and prove to them they have a problem.

Tell us more about the lake. Public? Private? Who sets the regs? 25 bass to restock a 72 acre lake is WAY too low and the bluegill have taken over for sure. There may be a ton more bass now, but they will never have enough food due to the competition from large gills. There is a lot more information in the lake management section of this site (linked below). But if you can't get buy-in from who controls the lake, it is a lost cause. P.S. I help manage a private 53 acre lake, but I still have a lot to learn. A few options: 1. Aggressive removal of dinks for the dinner plate. Just to keep ours in check, the local biologist advised us to remove 1,000 lbs of bass per year from our lake (your lake would be slightly more). We remove everything in the 10"-15" range unless it is an absolute football-shaped stud. Since already overcrowded, you could probably double that figure easily. 2. Aggressive stocking of bait fish. This may just be a temporary treatment unless it is continual, which makes it costly too. To be honest, the current fish may be too stunted to ever recover, but some could eventually make it better. 3. Stock new bass from different gene pools. I would only do this after 1 and 2 have been implemented for a while, but you will eventually need to supplement the genetics in the water to get better quality fish. 4. Talk to a local fisheries biologist for suggestions and stocking/recovery plan. 5. Wipe out the whole fish population and start over correctly. This is by far not the most popular option, but sometimes it can be the only option. It will take years to grow large bass afterward, but the rewards can be worth it. The problem here is, if it isn't managed correctly, you'll be right back in the same boat (pun intended). Stocking plans vary by your goals and the amount of work you want to do or money you want to spend, it must be researched thoroughly before beginning. https://www.bassresource.com/lake-management/ Also check out the pond boss forum, they are the real pros.

Beer, Copenhagen, Water, and a bag of chips ?

I always tip a guide. I sometimes guide for duck hunting myself and I take clients bass fishing in the afternoon after a hunt if it is warm enough, but those are corporate customers, so there is no tip expected since they are a guest. If I'm hiring out a guide for hunting or fishing, they will get tipped and usually very well. It doesn't matter if it's the owner of the guide service or whoever, it is a service that requires a lot of attention before, during and after your trip to be successful. I cannot comprehend how anyone would justify not tipping a guide for their service. An example is our annual pheasant hunt in SD, there are usually about seven of us and we each pitch in $100 at the end of the trip to tip the guides. One of the guides is the owner's son and others are sons-in-law, etc., but that doesn't make them any less deserving of a tip, they work hard preparing for you and they work hard in the field with you, period. They also take time out of their day to socialize and entertain you when you stay at a lodge like that. Always tip your guide!

I eat bass out of our private lake in the 10-15 inch range because we harvest those to keep the lake population healthy and I don't want to waste them. I don't know why so many think bass isn't that good to eat, I think it's great. We have crappie in there too and keep every one of those. If we have one in the keeping range that looks like a stud (football), I will put it back. My goal is to keep the numbers down so we get good top end growth. That being said, I don't keep much out of larger public lakes, but do on occasion.

Get ya some heavy duty rigs and flippin sticks. Honestly, I fish all types of gear, but lean toward the heavier side. My in-laws are from Newport, which is near there, lots of good fishing on the white and black rivers. Plenty of good big and small lakes around. Try your hand at catfishing too. As for bass gear, lots of things work such as the aforementioned jigs and ole monster (I use both frequently). Lots of decent topwater fishing in the warmer months too. Zara Spooks, whopper ploppers, Pop-Rs, etc. Also use spinner baits a lot and shallow diving cranks. Be prepared to be really hot and really eaten up by mosquitoes, good luck!

My older brother (who I lost back in 2001) who taught me to bass fish. He used to set the hook so hard it would almost flip our small boat (scamp). We went on a fishing trip once on a reservoir that held a lot of 5 pound bass when I was a teenager and he was about 21. The reservoir was loaded with gar as well and I caught one. While trying to get my hook out, the gar twitched and lodged the hook in my finger then twitched again and ripped a nice slice through my finger. He was getting tons of action with the bass, so he just dropped me at the bank to drive myself back to the house to get bandaged up. I hauled it there and back as quick as I could to get back in on the action with him. He is the reason I love to bass fish and I wish I could spend just one more day on the water with him.

I caught some over the last few weeks on spinners here in Arkansas. I've had friends tear them up with spinner baits in the winter, just got to find them.

Ha! We get the creepers at our dock when the ladies are out. I generally start talking to them nicely and asking a bunch of questions (they don't spot me at first usually) and they move on. This is my only problem, when people come by and fish close while we are actually on the dock and/or swimming. Jokes on them though, there are absolutely ZERO bass under my dock, it is a barren wasteland down there. All we have are tiny bluegill for the kids.