Glaucus

All the ponds around here are private. I won't bank fish a lake, and I won't put a kayak in one until it gets warmer. The rivers are flooded so that's a no go too. I'm stuck here for a couple more weeks at least. But I figured something out today. A more subtle moving bait, downsized.

Good info all. Found the ticket. I went through the stuff I already have searching for something I haven't tried. I found 3" PowerBait paddle tail swimbaits in Fire Tiger. I bought them a couple years ago because I have a friend who swears by them for river smallmouth. I wasn't a fan so I put them up and forgot about them. Well these fish loved them. I went out for about 40 minutes before dark and caught 6. 3 more came off. I left when the bats came out and I could no longer see where my bait was landing in the water. These baits catch fish apparently but they're not good quality. The hooks start ripping out of the back of the bait after 1 fish. The hooks also aren't very sharp hence 3 that came off. I'm going to get some good quality Fire Tiger/Bluegill-ish 3" paddle tail swimbaits to use (Bluegill and minnows is the forage along with frogs).

We - or at least I - still have to boil water to get the baits back to the shape they're supposed to be. I can dig through the whole row of whatever plastic but there's rarely a pack that is 100% intact. It gets to be frustrating. Paddle tails are by far the worst offenders. Is there not a way to make these more secure?

The absolute dumbest thing I've ever done while fishing is ignore my wife's phone calls. I still haven't learned my lesson.

Well, bass don't eat what I would eat. Imagine that. To be fair I fished a terrible fishery. I also fished every finesse tactic known to man after power fishing failed. Skunked

I'm in Central Illinois (mods please don't move this thread as it has little to nothing to do with Illinois alone). Due to water temps and flooding I'm still not comfortable kayaking or wading, I'm bank fishing a local pond while I wait for my preferred waters to become fishable. I live in the boonies more or less. I really "hate" this place for fishing. My town has 150 people and the town where the pond is, 5 minutes away, has 100 people. It's not too heavily pressured. However the pond is loaded with bass. 4 and 5 pounders are in it, and I've caught them. On a good day you can see dozens roaming. But over the years, the fishing gets worse and worse every single year, despite catching a good one once in awhile and consistently seeing bass roaming. This year is continuing the trend and it's the worst it's ever been. I've tried jigs, craws, creature baits, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, lipless crankbaits, Senkos rigged every way, Ned Rigs, drop shot, inline spinners, worms, weightless worms, squarebills, everything. Sometimes you can see them actually turn their head away at your lure. I've caught maybe 10 in a month. Most days are a skunk fest. I just don't know what to do about this place anymore. It makes no sense to me. I've live in the area a long time and know that this pond doesn't see pressure. Most guys fish for catfish and bluegill out of here. Outside of me they rarely see a bass lure, and I only fish this place when I have to. From May to September I'm scarcely seen here (after learning my lesson over and over again that they just don't bite). I've never seen more finicky fish who shouldn't be close to finicky.

Looks good. I'd eat it. Going to give it a go now.

One of the first setups I ever owned was one of those cheap like $30 Shakespeare baitcasters with the $15 Shakespeare rods you get at Walmart - I think they're called Excursion. You know what happened? I caught fish and it never broke. Next I stepped up to Lightning rods and Silver Max reels and I still use them for some things to this day. The old Shakespeare rods got spincasters slapped on them for my wife and kids.

I use cheap $1 Zebco mono to back everything - braid, fluoro, copoly, other mono. No reason not to do this.

If I can fish, I fish. I don't care about the rest. I worry about conditions for my own comfort and/or safety, that's it.

Anyone ever do this? I have a handful of GP Trick Worms that are ate up. I cut the top end off of one of them and put the tail end on a spinnerbait to see what it looks like. Looks decent. I'm going to try it tomorrow.

What I'm seeing is that you need to down size your jig and trailer, not necessarily throw a jig without a trailer.

I absolutely hate fishing in wind of 15mph+ where you have nothing to break it. Open water. Just miserable. The best way for me is a spinnerbait or a crankbait thrown with the wind.

Googan plastics are good.

It's true that I fish them on M/MF rods and I do use fairly loose drag with treble baits.

I've never had a KVD Squarebills hook break or bend outside of me snagging and pulling very hard to break it free or off. Really don't get the complaint or what people are doing to cause this. Sometimes I think it happened to some people and it eventually made its rounds across the culture and everyone assumes they must change them out.

Why are you discounting the world record Japanese bass?

The wives have thoroughly roasted Ike and I love this too much.

Casting: Usually always between $100-$200 for the rod, and usually always between $100-$200 for the reel. I feel like this is a really good price range for both components. Spinning: LOL @ spending more than $100 on the reel.

Smallmouth in streams love a Ned Rig. The smaller Whopper Ploppers are OK too. KVD 1.5s bashed ferociously off the bottom rocks is OK too.

Minnesota and Wisconsin if you can deal with the temps not being moderate and not being four season. Tennessee and Missouri for good bass fishing of both major species of bass and more moderate four season temps; just not sure about other species like pike, muskie, walleye, etc.

Cold, windy day today, again. Tomorrow's high is 37* with 1-3" of snow in the forecast. In Illinois. In April. Not unheard of, but not right either. But my partner and I got out there for 45 minutes this evening. Got one little fat guy to take the Z-Man spinnerbait. Yes, those glasses are upside down, and no, she wouldn't let me fix them. I also got lectured by her about my muddy shoes and how I'm going to get them on mommy's floor.

Lures such as spinnerbaits and jigs will always weigh more than listed because only the weight of the head is taken into consideration. Add the skirt, hook, blades, wires, guards, etc and the weight ends up nowhere close to what is listed. Also important to remember when adding a trailer. The lipless has me confused. Those hooks and split rings shouldnt have a 1/4oz registering at almost 1/2oz.

I have a H/F Fury. All makers considered, it's more of a MH+, somewhere in-between MH and H. I wouldn't put 65lb braid on mine, but that's just me.

In any case it says something that a lot of people consider it a universal copolymer line and is very popular.