Koz

The only time I had problems with the tail of a Sprinker Frog was when a turtle grabbed it. Luckily they come with an extra tail.

Wait until spring! But seriously, folks. Try a ned rig fished really slow in the deep water and in transitional depths.

Crankbaits, specifically diving crankbaits. I do OK on lipless crankbaits when I throw them, but not divers or even square bills. That's probably because I bank fish. I think that I've caught less than a handful on them in all of my life. But I still keep 3 or 4 in my bag and once I month I cast them only to be disappointed once again.

I think we'll see a different strategy when they are fishing the first tournament in Kissimmee. That's BIG bass territory and I think at least a few will try for quality over quantity. In a lot of events I saw last year a big bass for those lakes was 5 or 6 pounds. In Florida we're looking at 8-10 pound bigguns. It would be a really interesting championship if both strategies had paid off in the qualifying rounds.

My thought is that with bass fishing presentation of the bait is the key. I think you could attach treble hooks to a rectangular piece of balsa wood, cast it out, and pop it along the surface and if a particular bass was interested in topwaters that day it would strike that block of wood.

The fish got together for a meeting later that evening to discuss their experience and vowed to never let that happen again

Download Fishing Planet (free) on Steam or PS4 and do some virtual fishing this winter

Actually, the info came from Larry Dahlberg, the guy who designed the Whopper Plopper for River2Sea. If I can find the article again I'll post the link. My hookup rates with the 110 and the 130 have been great. In fact, the front hook usually catches the lip and the back hook catches the gill area. I don't fish the 90 very much because we have a lot of floating weeds and debris in the lagoons I fish and the tiniest amount of weeds stops the prop. Plus, casts need to be much shorter with the 90 for the prop to engage. Next time try it in an area with a hard bottom and see what happens.

You're correct about that as the schedule works around the major family holidays. One other important point is that MLF does not have any entry fees.

Is MLF trying to keep the results under wraps? The haven't posted any of the scoring on their website or app.

I decided too get into swimbait fishing this winter and bought an S-Waver 168 and at 1 5/8 ounces I definitely would not throw it on my 7' MH rod. I bought a cheap BPS 7' 6" heavy rod and put on an old Lew's low profile baitcasting reel and 50 pound braid. It works for now, but the reel isn't the best choice for bigger swimbaits. I went this route because I have no idea if I want to fish swimbaits on a regular basis. The payoff can be huge, but it can get tiring throwing them and it's not like throwing a Senko where you can get a ton of strikes all day long. If I do enjoy throwing it this spring I'll swap out the reel with an Abu Garcia Ambassadeur or something similar that can hold a lot more line and enable me to bomb more casts out there. If I want to start throwing bigger and heavier swimbaits I'll need to upgrade the rod as well as the $39 BPS rod I bought is only rated to two ounces, but that's all I need for now. If you try and use a MH rod on even the 1.5-2oz baits the rod won't load up well when you cast, your casts won't be that far or accurate, and you may end up breaking the rod. You're also going to need more backbone to set the hook with a bigger swimbait. I'm sure others here will chime in on better gear for swimbaits. Mine is the low budget option to throw bigger glide and swimbaits 2 ounces and under. But if you want to throw BIG swimbaits you'll need to invest in a good rod and reel. And that's before you get into the $60-$300 swimbaits. If you want something jointed that you can probably throw on your existing rod the 5" Storm Live Kickin' Shad is only 7/8 oz and sells for under $6. I have one I purchased this winter but haven't tried it yet.

This winter in SC I've landed a few with a Teckel Sprinker frog with a stop, pop, and go technique. I haven't even had a strike on buzzbaits, frogs, or Whopper Ploppers. I did not try a popper this winter.

As someone who has fished all of those and the Whopper Plopper I strongly disagree. I love to fish all topwaters, and there are times when I've fished buzzbaits and frogs with no luck, but then I throw a Whopper Plopper and it gets smoked for an hour straight. There are also times when the Whopper Plopper doesn't produce at all. One thing that I have read about the WP is that it is "tuned" to drive bass crazy when it's used over rocky or hard bottomed surfaces and that's where it performs best. I can't confirm that since every place I fish had weedy or soft, muddy bottoms. The best 45 minute stretch of fishing in my life was with a Whopper Plopper. On almost every single cast I landed a 2-3 pounder for that 45 minute stretch. It was ridiculous. The only reason it ended was I had to get home. But like I stated earlier, sometimes it's a complete dud. And down here it's an alligator magnet so I don't always get to fish it. But you're missing out if you don't have a Bone WP 110 in your tackle box.

You posted the picture but didn't go into what it's all about. The reason I say this is that just today I was think that as someone who fishes from the bank it would be pretty cool if I had a castable camera to see what's under the surface. This crazy looking Eco Popper is actually a lure / camera that allows you to see what's going on in the water. I watched a few videos on this and there are three ways to use it. Some take the hooks off and use it as a scout camera. That actually interests me the most. Yeas, it would be great to see where the fish are, but I fish mainly featureless lagoons from the bank. This camera could help show me the structure beneath the surface. The second was is to fish it as a regular popper. But this thing is big and heavy (2.5 oz) and you would definitely need a heavy setup. I'm sure some fish would bite it, but it may be a dud as a lure. The third way is to take off the hooks, then run a line off of the back and attach a crankbait or other lure so you can get video of a fish hitting your trailer lure. That might be appealing to some. Anyway, I saw this and the GoFish Cam and I think that would be a nice tool to use when fishing from the bank. But they are a bit more than I would like to spend. Hopefully there's competition and smaller, castable cameras in the future.

There are tons of underwater Cypress trees out in the middle and if you traverse the rip rap in one corner there are a bunch of downed trees that they have left there. But it doesn't matter. Either the lake has a ton of fishing pressure or the bass population is way down for some reason. I don't think the fishery is very active there. You're better off finding a random lagoon somewhere on Google maps and fishing that instead. Truthfully, in the SC Lowcountry that's where you usually find the best fishing.

There are a couple of things that you can do. The first is to bring or rent a bike and pedal your way from lagoon to lagoon with your rod and a backpack or shoulder bag full of gear. I live on the mainland side of the bridge in Bluffton and that's what we do in the residential communities. You will not be able to park your car on the side of the road on most streets. If you do, security will eventually ask you to move the car. You can rent bikes right in PD or have them delivered to where you are staying. You can also rent kayaks and canoes right in palmetto Dunes and navigate the 12+ miles of interconnected lagoons. But I'm pretty sure that water is brackish and in there you will find red rum, sea trout, black drum, etc. If you want to fish for bass you'll need to fish the isolated lagoons. But to tell you the truth, I've never heard of bass being caught in PD. There is good bass fishing in Hilton Head Plantation and Sea Pines Plantation. You can purchase a gate pass at Sea Pines and bring your bikes or rent bikes there. I have not fished there but only because I don't need the hassle of the traffic and tourists (sorry!) when I have better places to fish nearby. But I know folks that caught 5 and 6 pound bass in Sea Pines. You can also bank fish at Jarvis Creek Park mid island. They have a concrete fishing pad and you can fish in some open areas along the shoreline as well. I fished there once and landed a few 3 pounders from the fishing pad. However, we encountered some aggressive alligators that day that crashed into the pad while we were on it. We got out of there and one of the bigger gators actually climbed onto the pad. This was a few years ago, but when it happened we contacted the town park manager and they sent someone to remove the bigger gators. Off Island, near HWY 278 and i-95 is Sergeant Jasper Park. They have 8 or 9 lagoons there and many of them contain lily pads and laydowns. I fished there once at two of the lagoons near the main entrance and didn't catch much, but I plan to go back there again this spring. We'll bring our bikes because there is a lot of ground to cover to get to the more isolated lagoons. You can also rent canoes on the main body of water. This is a county park and an SC fishing license is not required, but there is a fishing fee that I think is $6. If you know where you're staying be sure to check out Google Earth and look for the small, isolated lagoons in PD. The small lagoons here still hold some big bass. One last thing - it's going to be hot in July. Brutally hot. And humid, especially in the early mornings. Be prepared for that. You also need to understand that no matter where you fish you will probably encounter alligators. Chances are they will not bother you, but some may react if you have a fish on the line. And before entering any area of dense vegetation or cover make sure you take a good look around, and keep scanning the water and along teh shoreline when you fish just to be safe.

Use a password manager like LastPass.

50 pound braid, usually Power Pro although I may give Sufix 832 Camo a try this spring.

My primary rod is a 7' MH and since I fish from the bank it does allow me to cast further than my 6'6" MH, but it did take some getting used to. I also have a 7'6" heavy rod that I use for swimbaits and heavier top water (like a Whopper Plopper) and every time I cast it I feel like I'm string to swing a tree. I used to have a 6' rod but after moving to a 6'6" rod I would never consider a smaller bass fishing rod again. I'm most comfortable with the 6'6" rod but for my purposes I need the extra distance garnered with the 7' rod.

Medium heavy rods are the Swiss army knife of freshwater fishing.

I recently purchased the Plano A-Series 2.0 backpack at Dick's and it is fantastic: https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/plano-a-series-2-0-tackle-backpack-18plousrs20tcklbctbx/18plousrs20tcklbctbx It's well balanced and comfortable to wear. I have had no problems with it shifting or slipping even when I just sling one strap over my shoulder. The clasp across the chest also offers greater stability. It hold five 3600 boxes (included with the bag) which is enough for my needs and it has a large zipped storage area inside for soft plastics, water bottle, gloves, snacks, and gaiters. The side pockets are large enough for my scale and fishing tools. It also appears to be fairly heavy duty in its composition and the large, rugged zipper. It does have snaps on the outer pockets so just make sure you snap them tight. While it's retail price was $79.99 I was lucky in that over Christmas it was on sale for $39.99 and Dick's sent me $10 in customer cash so it was a steal of a deal. Another one I almost purchased was the Bass Pro Shops backpack. It sells for only $29 and it holds a TON of planos and gear (it hold 10 360 boxes) . A friend has one and he loves it. https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/bass-pro-shops-extreme-qualifier-360-backpack-or-system The day I bought my bag I really wanted on THAT DAY and if it wasn't a 2 hour round trip drive to BPS I may have bought that one instead. However, I'm really happy with my purchase. It's much, much better than the Spiderwire shoulder bag that I was carrying.

What I should do: Make lure selection and presentation based upon weather conditions, time of year, water conditions, structure, and cover. What I usually do: Power fish my favorite baits. The easiest thing to to is throw on a Senko and fish the heck out of it all over the place. Another thing I do is put a few baits in a plano box and carry only that box when working the bank and leave my main tackle bag behind.

Unfortunately I don't get the Outdoor Channel with my Direct TV package so I'll have to wait until the repeats are shown on the Discovery Channel. Adding OTV would cost $4.99 a month which may not seem like much, but it would be a 10% increase in my DTV bill. Last fall I did get Direct TV to cut my bill in half by threatening to go to the Playstation Vue streaming package. I'll wait another few months, threaten to switch again, and see if they'll throw in OTV for free. As far as the MLF format, I like it. Depending upon the lake the pros can either target landing a ton of dinks or go for bigger bass. But so far in all of the events I have seen the anglers have gone for quantity over quality, but that may change with some of the venues this season. The other day on Discovery Channel I saw they also had a wrap up show at the end of the tournament that showed the tackle and techniques that each angler used to win each round. That was interesting. I hope this year during the coverage they have a screen overlay to show what lures each of the pros are using during the event.

I think that with bass their habits and patterns are relative to their location. For example, when the water temperature dips into the mid to low 60's here the bass all but disappear from the shallows whereas up north they are still very active at that same temperature. Fishing the lagoons here can be frustrating. By late summer the water is so warm that morning, afternoon, or early evening fishing is slow (I don't bank fish at night because that's also feeding time for the reptiles). Then we have a decent 3 or 4 week stretch of fishing beginning in late October, then it's dead until March. There might as well be ice on our lagoons with fishing like that

Great story. I've got a similar one involving my son. There was a farm pond that my son and I used to fish and at one end was a dock where a bass we named "Big Hank" used to hang out. Yeah, I do know it was a female bass, but my son had the naming rights on this one. Anyway, we would see him there a lot but never could get him to bite. This pond had lots of bluegill and small bass that hung out around the dock so Big Hank was never wanting for a meal. It must have been two or three years ago when my son was 10 or 11 when one day we were fishing on that dock and Big Hank grabbed my son Matt's lure. Now at that time Matt wasn't into fishing like he is now and he was using a 6 foot light Abu Garcia spinning combo with probably 6 or 8 pound mono spooled on it. At this point we couldn't see the fish, but Matt's rod was bent nearly in half. I've never seen a rod bend that much without snapping. It was definitely bigger than the dinks and panfish we had been catching. But his light tackle wasn't the only problem. The dock had high railing all around meaning if he couldn't hang on to the fish while walking off the dock to the shore there was no way he was going to lift the fish over the railing. No problem - I'll grab the net. Only Matt left that net all the way on the other side of the pond with his tackle box. There's no way I can get there and back in time so I tell him to walk off the dock and guide the fish to the bank. He's so excited that I don't think he hears me. At that time Big Hank comes to the surface and does a barrel roll. It was massive. Of course it's hard to tell exactly, but it had to be somewhere around 8 pounds. Matt is screaming about how big the fish is and asking what to do next. I'm telling him to try and move off of the dock and guide Big Hank to the shore. He then asks me to take the rod and help him, but this is his chance to land the big one. Just then Big Hank dives, shakes a few times, and is gone forever. We were both devastated. We went back to that pond a few times but never saw Big Hank again. Since then the property has been sold and we have not contacted the new owners and asked to fish there. The good news is since that day he's become an avid bass fisherman, he's caught a handful of 5 pounders, and we've upgraded his equipment to include spinning gear and a baitcaster that can handle the next Big Hank.