OCdockskipper

Sam, I just have to ask. Does the ghost watch your or your wife when you are showering or getting dressed? I'm just curious if the ghost has manners or is a perv...

Since my home lake is shallow (10 ft with a couple of 12 ft holes), I have the luxury of keeping it simple. I break it down to shallow, mid & deep with the following having earned their first string status: Shallow - Strike King KVD 1.0 squarebill (silent) Mid - Strike King 3XD (rattling) Deep - Rapala DT-10 (rattling)

I had $80 built up on my business Discover card rewards, which allowed me to get $100 worth of BPS gift cards. I ended up using them to replenish a few things as well as order a few items I had wanted to try. Sorry for the upside down picture, I can't get it rotated

I have had that a couple of times. My friend once caught a fish that was pooping out a Roboworm it had swiped from his hook on one of our previous trips

I'd say largemouth with a very distinct horizontal band. For me, the difference is not just the jaw, but the head itself. To contain their future bucket mouth, even small largemouth have bigger heads than their spot cousins. If you can't see where the jaw line extends to, just look at the overall head. On a spotted bass, it will often look like it is too small for the body. Plus I have never seen a skinny spotted bass, it seems like they always have a belly on them.

I don't know what would happen in that situation, it might be worthwhile to talk to someone in pond management.

I use P-Line 100% Fluorocarbon as leaders for Nanofil on my spinning rods as well as the main line on some of my casting rods and it has performed well.

If I understand ponds correctly, if most of the bluegills you catch are large, then that is a sign of bluegills being the main forage of the bass. In that scenario, most of the small & medium bluegills get eaten, their only defense being to grow large enough to prohibit that. That is not an unhealthy balance. If there aren't enough bluegill to feed all the bass (i.e., the bass are stunted), the solution is to remove small bass or add more forage, not remove it. In ponds with stunted bluegill populations, there aren't enough bass to eat all the small bluegill, so the bluegill end up overpopulating. Those are the ponds where you remove bluegill or add more predators.

Just think about how many people have launched their boats there and never made a cast, believing there wasn't anything big near the boat rental area.

Dennis Tietje told me about the time he was fishing with B.A.S.S. photographer James Underwood & they were punching mats much like in the MLF incident. They were both on the front of the boat & Underwood swung & miss. The weight hit Tietje in the mouth, knocking out both of his front teeth. Since they were hours away from getting to a 24 hr dentist, James stopped for food while taking him to be treated. Dennis upheld his bayou heritage and went ahead & got a drink when they stopped. I am guessing it was an alcoholic beverage to numb the pain, but he said he did drink it through a straw because the missing teeth made a handy opening.

This. Go ahead & condense your tackle down to the lures that you want to keep. Then set aside the ones you think you don't want, but put a few of those with the keepers. Then make it a habit to meet a young or beginner fisherman every trip and give them one or two of those lures. If you give away a bunch of lures all at once, they won't be appreciated and you will feel like you wasted an opportunity to recoup some money. Giving them away a couple at a time with a conversation on how to use said lure makes the exchange memorable for both parties.

I'm not sure of the weight of that fish, but I do think the guy on the left is getting ready to punch you for catching it.

You are correct that those anglers moving bass doesn't make it legal or good. My anecdote was more a comment of how people ignore such laws and my personal experience with one such incident. I was a teenager fishing with one of the "veterans" of Canyon Lake on his boat and hooked a bass near the rock laden lighthouse. As I landed it, I looked it over and commented that the mouth & head looked smaller than normal. The "criminal" in question got a smirk on his face and cracked "heck, it even looks like it has spots on it". Being a youngster, it took me about 5 minutes to understand what he was getting at...

Plus our "cold fronts" are when the air temp dips into the 50's...Brrrrr!!

The guy who took a couple dozen spotted bass from Lake Perris and released them into Canyon Lake (where he lived) back in the late 70's ignored this law. The spots adapted well to the rocky structure & good shad population initially, but I haven't fished Canyon Lake in decades so I don't know if they reproduced, mixed with the largemouth or disappeared completely.

Frosty, I have had good luck with this inexpensive super glue from Home Depot http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-0-07-fl-oz-Liquid-Super-Glue-4-Pack-1932546/205474002 . Under $2 for a 4 pack. It holds up in water real well, I not only use it for Ned rigs, but for a little extra protection on my braid to fluorocarbon knots. The tubes are small enough to keep one handy and the rest stored away. I tend to get about 75% of the glue out of it before I inadvertently crush it or the tip gets too glued together, but at 50 cents a bottle, that doesn't bother me.

As a comparison, last year year in Southern California, the coldest water temperature on my my home lake was 54 degrees. The first week of February was the last time it dropped below 60 degrees and ended up topping 70 degrees by the first week of March (it fluctuated between 67 & 72 during March). So to answer your question, no, they don't ever really shut down (unless the Florida strain act different than the Northern large mouths we have) For us, fish begin moving up in January, some are on beds in February and I start noticing large schools of fry in early March.

I haven't, but only because I break that keeper off on purpose. I was having an issue where the ZMan elasticel baits would bunch up past the keeper, towards the head of the jig. Kind of a reverse problem of the bait sliding down the hook. My solution is to bust off the keeper and super glue the head of the bait to the jig.

Were you wearing a ten gallon hat when you did it?

I often tell my wife that one of the things I enjoy about fishing is that every trip, I see or experience something I have never seen or experienced before. Today was one that while not monumental, was something I hadn't ever imagined could happen. First thing in the morning was overcast and I was getting bit on the surface with a Heddon Torpedo. After catching 5 bass and a couple very aggressive bluegill, I hooked up with another bass. After a few moments of fighting, he surfaced and leaped completely out of the water, but in a kind of awkward way. As I got him to the boat and grabbed his head to avoid the mouth full of treble hooks, I did a double take. The line coming off the line tie of the lure was cut, about 3" from the nose of the bait. I followed the line from my rod tip down to the fish & found it wrapped around the belly treble hook, secure enough to allow me to land the fish. So basically the fish broke me off, but was unable to escape because the line was now attached to the lure at the belly hook. I have no idea how this happened, if the bass made it happen during the strike and fight or if he struck the lure after it had already entangled itself on its own line.

For me, the difference is how it is approached. As simple as it sounds, there is a huge difference between someone saying 'Do you mind me asking what you caught them on?" compared to bluntly demanding "What did you catch them on?". I sound like an old-timer saying this, but the latter reflects an attitude of entitlement, that they deserve to know what you worked to figure out. I would doubt there are many, if any, anglers on this website that would not help a fellow fisherman with information. I'll go out of my way to help a newbie or kid catch fish. The problem is with the disrespectful folks who consider every other angler to be their personal fishing report.

Fortunately I don't have to deal with launching my boat at a ramp. However, if I did, I would probably come unglued if someone messed with my boat or any equipment. Based on that, I would never admit to catching anything at the ramp. What I find most appalling is some peoples forwardness in such conversations. it is one thing to meet someone who admits they are taking their kids fishing and would love any advice on what to do. It is another when folks demand to know how many you caught, what you caught them on and where.

If you are a dwarf and your little tiny arm is only 20 inches or so in length, then that fish weighs 16 lbs. If you are of normal stature, then the fish weighs less than 2 lbs. Anything more than that would cause your arm to cramp from holding it out extended away from your body for the picture. If you are a troll, then you have succeeded in your mission...

Growing up, we used to incorrectly call them "Rock Bass" because they always seemed to hide in rip rap or around boulders and were as willing as the largemouth to hit lures.

I see your point, but I don't know if it is the best tool for 5 fish tournaments. I would not be surprised to see it used more in MLF type events, if any of the ZMAN pro's participate. On my home lake, it is indeed a game changer. Not a cure all, but a technique that produces more and bigger fish more times than not. One of the problems is people often slap a piece of any old worm on a jig head, call it a Ned rig, and then state that isn't any good when they don't get results.