Brew City Bass

I've fished certain lakes that had beaver dams for 10 years and never once saw a beaver, but believe me, they're there.

Thank you Black with red flake skirted spinnerbait. Double Colorado copper blades.

What a crazy night, guys. South East Wisconsin lake, absolute pigs. Both completely blew my old PB of 5.5lb out of the fricking water! Sadly I didn't have a scale on the boat. First one was 22" and the second was almost 24". Extremely old fish for Wisconsin. Still can't believe this happened. I apologize in advanced for jacking the fish's jaws. I was on autopilot and in shock and wasn't as gentle with the holding as I'd normally be. Both were out of the water for less than one minute. (Straight to the live well, then taken out for picture, then released) They swam away strong and unharmed.

When the water is above 75* I like to keep them out of the water as short as possible. If it's a fish I want a picture with, I put him in the live well so he can recover for a minute while I get the camera out and ready. Then I snap the pic and hold him in the water until he swims off on his own power. I have massive respect for these fish and even though they are hearty fish, the older and bigger ones expend a lot of energy in the fight and deserve to be treated with the utmost care in my eyes. I try to keep them in water as much as possible.

I was offering him solutions to pull it out, but being one hook in 2 hands, it was gonna be a messy operation on the boat. He was in some pretty good pain too, he wanted to go to the walk in and I wasn't about to argue with a guy with a hook in both his hands. And he ain't no puss when it comes to pain. I've seen this man dislocate a shoulder and slam it against a wall to put it back in. I've gotten one in the fingertip before and it's one of the more painful things I've felt besides tearing both my ACL's.

Happy birthday, brother!

We joked about that with the doc and he didn't seem amused. lol

Thankfully it was only a skinny 25" pike. If it was bigger it would have just been more painful. The fish was still hooked when he got the hooks in his hands. All the weight of the fish was pulling on the hook. I felt so terrible.

Wasn't even at the lake for 15 minutes before I hooked into a decent pike, I went to boat flip it and my dad grabbed the line and the fish was flopping around and drove one point of the treble into his finger on his left hand. He went to stabilize the fish with his right hand and the same hook went into his thumb. I felt absolutely terrible and knew how painful it was. I immediately cut the line, unhooked the northern and assessed the situation. Deemed it best to cut the hook in half so he wasn't handcuffed by the hook anymore. Then we sat down, calmed our nerves and decided it wasn't something I could do in the boat without anesthetics. So we drove to the doctors office where they did a terrible job. They didn't have anything to cut the rest of the hook so I had to go back out to the boat and grab the wire cutters. Then the doc couldn't grip the cutters hard enough to cut the shank so I had to step in to do that.. 2 hours at the doctors. All in all, dad is fine and in good spirits about it. It's something to laugh at now. He's a great dad and person. I just feel terrible it happened on my boat.

Very sorry to hear about the damage. My first year of owning a boat I toasted two props and luckily didn't bend my shaft even with running it on a damaged prop both times. I haven't taken it in to be looked at, but it runs at no noticeable difference and it's only a 96 force 75hp. So even if it was bent, it'd be more $$ to fix than the motor is worth. How's the fishing been up north though? It's been pretty great down here in the Milwaukee area!

Nope! I like to stay about 20 yards away from the suspending bass, cast over them, then let it fall to their depth. Once it's in the strike zone I jerk it as hard as I can once or twice up, then let it flutter back down. I reel in the slack as I am jerking it up.

Haven't bought a plopper yet. I try to stay away from new lures that cost more than $10. I've hear great things about them. My problem is, if I'm fishing top water, it's through the slop and a plopper just won't come through that stuff with exposed hooks. Frog gets my vote.

I guess I do, but without ever really realizing or thinking about it. Specifically moving baits. If I am throwing a crank, I can pretty much always guess where it's at in the water column or when I'm about to hit that log I found on my downscan.

Please do not overlook the flutter spoon. It has been paramount this summer for me when I try to get suspended bass fired up.

I stand corrected! I should have looked for sources to cite before saying that. I am going to have to stop being so gullible when talking to my "biologist" sister in law... Either she was pulling my leg or her degree is a lie.

I live in Wisconsin, and I hear it often that this is one of the best states to fish. For fishing in general? Yeah, I have to agree. We have amazing salmon, steelhead, musky, pike, walleye, and panfish fisheries. Sadly, I feel like bass is way under-managed. We are pretty d**n good for smallies though if you get more north in the state. I'm in Milwaukee and have caught some nice 4-5lb smallies, but they grow em BIG up 'nort. I never have a boring day fishing. If the bass are finicky and not biting, I can toss for big pike or musky. If they won't hit, I jig for walleyes. If they don't hit, I'll catch some perch for dinner. Then in the spring we fish the tribs for steelies, fall for salmon. Or we head out to the harbor in the bass boat and toss plugs and spoons for browns.

I pop my spool on the antenna of my Jeep and do it that way.

If it's anything like one of the lakes I use to fish, the weeds are way too thick to throw any moving bait. I basically resorted to jigs / t-rigs in pockets and any open water. It wasn't fun, but it worked and won me a few small tourneys. I stopped fishing that lake because I am a power-fisher and just can't stand throwing t-rigs or jigs for 8 hours at single pockets. I spent more time looking for pockets than I actually did fishing.

What slone said. If it's a $25 or $50 tournament, it's fun and I don't mind donating that money. I know the chances of me winning are slim. But I don't touch the $100+ entry fees because that's steep and I know the best the state has angler wise will be in those trying to make the circuit. Bass fishing is already frustrating as is for me without having money on the line. It gets 10x worse when cash is at stake. I'd personally say go for it and give one a shot. It's a learning experience if nothing. Just don't expect to win because you had a lucky day. Basically, when you're ready for tournaments, you won't be here asking. You'll know it and be doing them without our confirmation.

To add onto this, how does any fish get into any body of water? Eggs transferred by birds and other animals. It's scientifically proven that eggs can and will travel along with our avian friends into water sources.

I fish 4-5 days a week, so that means I'm out in the storms as well. I personally find the fishing to be the same, if not better during fronts or after. The fish just move to different places and feed on different things. Before / during the storms I find them to be rather shallow and they will hit just about any moving bait for me. Favorite this year seems to be a double colorado spinnerbait in black/blue or PB&J. After the rain and the front I find them deeper. This is when I break out the drop shot or carolina rig. Sometimes slow rolling a spinner or swimbait produces as well.

Rod and reels are only the tools we use to catch bass. They don't catch the bass, we do. I only refer people to high end gear if they can logically afford it. I have some higher end gear, but I don't catch more bass because of it. What it does do for me is make fishing for comfortable and fun. Longevity is also a part.

I'm 23 and have been fishing since I could walk. Much like you, everything I had was "good enough". Spinning rods and worms, maybe a mepps inline spinner. Then when I turned 18 and started actually bass fishing and wanting to be not just a angler, but a great angler, I realized I had to get serious. Through trial and error I realized some stuff just can't be done on an ugly stick with a spinning reel and 10lb line. That's when I got my first baitcaster. It was a cheap walmart one, so definitely not "good" gear. I luckily caught on within a few days and was hooked. I started saving every penny I had to buy more bass lures, and moved away from live baits or the standard senko wacky rig. When I was 20 I realized fishing the bank was fun, but there are so many more fish in the lakes that I cannot possibly run my lure past if I am on the bank. So I saved every penny I had and bought an old bass boat. Even with the boat, fishing was rough for two years. I was stuck in my shore fishing habits of throwing wacky rigs 24/7 and spinnerbaits. Sure, I caught fish, but I didn't catch quality, and sure didn't catch limits like I thought I would by owning a boat. This is when I feel I got "serious". I started watching fishing videos 24/7. I was watching every video put out by every pro. Every tips and tricks video on youtube. This is when it clicked. I learned patterns and forage times for bass and where they are more likely to hangout and what mood they will be in. I haven't really had the dough to buy nice gear until two years ago. Boy does it make a difference. The only reason I don't regret having crappy gear until as of late is because even if I had it, I would have had no clue how to properly use it. Now, I don't own $500 rods or reels, but most of my set ups are in the $250-300 range, and I find these to be practical for how serious I've gotten without going broke. Still paying off those college loans... lol One of my best purchases fishing wise was a decent sonar... I use to just aimlessly cast lures not even knowing what was below the water or what the depth was. Man were my eyes opened when I got the sonar. I went from throwing spinners and texas rigs at the bank to drop shotting downed brush piles, or picking apart that 10x10ft hole that nobody would ever know was there if they didn't drive over it with sonar. I feel like I am just aimlessly typing now so I'll stop, but I just wanted to say... I relate. haha

I've had this happen on many spinnerbaits. Not exactly sure why it happens to be honest. Sometimes grass or slime is accumulated where they spin and that stops them, other times it's a mystery to me. I've yet to have this issue with WarEagle spinners.

Can't go wrong with natural colors like PB&J, Brown, or plain black. I'd personally get some of the tube jig hooks, but you can use the 3/0 worm hooks to texas rig it with a bullet weight. I just thought of another one for you to consider - a grubtail jig will catch just about everything that swims. They're dirt cheap at WalMart too! Same colors I recommended earlier. Black seems to be the best producer for me.