papajoe222

Not much information to go on. I'm curious as to why you mentioned the 8ft-15ft area of the water column. I'm with you on targeting points, especially if it's an unfamiliar lake. Regardless of your reasoning on depth choice, look for cover and/or forage. Make your lure choices based on those factors. Keep safety in mind as you'll be a sitting duck for pleasure boaters and jet skiers, both of which let things like what's in the water ahead of them become no where near as important as their enjoyment.

Even though I know it isn't necessary, I do it every time. It forces me to set my drag properly next time out.

I am lucky enough to be retired AND live 15min. from my favorite lake. I can hook up the trailer drive there and launch in less than a half hour. Because I can basically go whenever I want I tend to avoid those times when I think catching will be tough. The days I tend to avoid are those bluebird sky and little to no breeze ones. Those happen most often when the barometer is high. As for moon phase, projected feeding windows, wind from the east, etc. I don't give them anywhere near as much influence on my decision to go. For all you working stiffs, my wish for you is to make it not only to retirement age, but well past it so that you will be able to also go whenever you dang well feel like it.

I got into building rods for two reasons. I wanted a rod with the best performance I could afford and I wanted it to look exactly like what it is, custom. Every rod I've built, either for myself, or friends/family, has decorative guide wraps and most have intricate butt wraps. I still use some of my St.Croix and one of my Quantum Tournament Series rods, but I love breaking those custom rods out when I'm out with someone.

I sort of stumbled into using a punch rig about three years ago. I was fishing an extensive milfoil bed and couldn't buy a bite on my usual offerings. I had a C-rig tied on another rod and cut off the leader, The brass weight was maybe 3/4oz. and the hook was a 4/0 worm hook I tied on with a palomar knot. I pegged the weight, threaded on a big beaver weight and sitting directly over the weeds, just lowered it into them. I missed two solid hits before hooking up with a nice girl and ended up with only three fish from that bed, but I'm sure that was three fish more than I would have gotten if I'd stuck with fishing the tops and edges of those weeds. I've since refined the terminal tackle and was surprised to find the heavy weight/hook/line didn't affect the rig's catchability.

2006 No explanation, just an edgemecated guess.

So, say you're out there on a familiar body of water and you're not getting bit. You know you need to change things up, but where do you start? For the sake of eliminating the obvious answer, changing locations, mine is normally changing where in the water column to try next. I've found that, more often than not, I'm fishing below the fish and unlike fishing above them, bass rarely will go down more than a foot or so to grab a lure. The opposite sometimes holds true, like in the early morning when I'm throwing topwater with no takers.

No shad in he natural lakes I frequent. Do the bass move shallow in the fall? YES They also move shallow in the summer, because that's where the forage is. Remember this, shallow is relative to the body of water. In some lakes here, weeds grow to 15ft-18ft. That depth, to me, is shallow in a lake with 45ft.+ depths. The question you likely want answered is how shallow do they go in the fall.

That Hackney video was an eye opener when it comes to color selection. The thing is, I’ve never seen when a significant color change was needed to get bites. If there were something different, water color, light penetration, etc. I can wrap my head around a color change, but in this instance none of those factors had changed from my previous outing two days earlier. What did change was what color the fish didn’t want. I’m just glad I didn’t try to force feed them something green.

I really think it's more of a favorite, or often used color in the southern, south central states (MO, KS, TN, OK). I know it's used just about everywhere, but it seems to be the green pumpkin of the northern midwest.

Simple question for those in the know; How do you determine when the fish want one color over others? Personally, I'm one that doesn't put much faith in color making a difference, but a recent experience when I couldn't buy a bite with a green pumplin soft plastic, they were downright hammering a different style plastic in purple/red flake. I thought the shape was the difference, but the same bait in GP was ignored. Is there a better way to determine when one color is hot?

No, forTexas rigging the weight is outside/in front of the tube, the same way you'd Texas rig a worm. The way I suggested is with the weight inside the tube, which is the same as a Stupid, the hook with the ball weight, or the specialized internal tube weights. The tube still spirals on the fall. With a Texas rig, it doesn't.

I don't like T-rigging a tube as it kills that action that makes tubes such a great bait. I use a 2/0 or 3/0 Gammy EWG hook and a bass casting sinker pushed into the nose of the tube. I run the hook point into the tube, through the eye of the sinker and out. I finish it up running the hook through the body and skin hooking it on the top of the tube. No need for any thing that you don't already carry, except the weights and they're inexpensive.

This is kind of like asking; What's your favorite bait? In my case, that's a jig and if I were forced to choose one brand it'd likely be SiebertOutdoors. Of course, I always have some sort of trailer on my jigs and RageTails by StrikeKing win that one hands down.

I tend to focus on one or two soft plastics during the course of a season and they're usually not the same from year to year. This season, I don't think I've thrown a wacky worm or one T-rigged since early pre-spawn. I got hooked on longer, finesse worms in their place. I always seem to start the season with them though.

I always have an idea of where the fish will be holding on whatever kind of cover I intend to target. With that in mind, I start out with a horizontal presentation if I can, that will work in that part of the water column. Weeds that don't grow to the surface, rip rap, felled trees, etc. If I'm not getting bit, I change to a vertical presentation like a jig or a tube. I've been using a swim jig and a swimbait on a jig head to accomplish both types of presentations without changing rods. If I get bit fishing vertically, I try to determine where, in relation to the bottom. I may go to something horizontal like a crank that will run at that depth. I also do just the opposite at times, but switching from a horizontal presentation that is working to a vertical one that may also work, I've found, will almost always result in fewer fish.

Good choices on areas to fish, but depending on the scale of the map, they could be large areas. Regardless, pick an area and treat it like a small lake, or big pond. Pick apart the structural changes, bottom transitions and cover with your electronics. When you find a spot with potential, sit on it and fish the entire water column with a horizontal presentation first, then a vertical one. Vary your retrieve speed/drop rate with those presentations and you'll either find fish, or eliminate the spot. The whole process can be done in half an hour. If you find/catch fish and the spot cools off, move to another similar spot on that small 'lake' and fish the depth and presentation that worked there.

I just finished responding to a post about the old BR Road trips and the idea of forming a local group and getting together for a short fishing trip at a local lake hit me as something doable. I figure a four hour drive for a week-end fishing trip is something I'd enjoy and getting together with other members, putting names to faces, exchanging stories, tips and knowledge about some of the lakes we may have fished that others have, would make for an enjoyable trip. Not to mention, we'd get to fish. If it sounds like something you'd be interested in partaking, PM me and I'll see about getting a group together. There's a few guys in close proximity to me that I'd love to make fun of in person and then kick their butt on the water! I know....................I'm a trash talker, and I'd likely get skunked.

I was disappointed when I first heard that the official BR Road Trips were canceled. The following year, I believe, an unoffical one was held. No sponsors, or give aways, and non-boaters were paired with boaters prior to the event. I recall reading posts about it (I didn't attend). Considering the location I thought turnout was decent, but again, as Glen mentioned, there were no sponsors, guest speakers, guides, or raffles. Kent, Gary, Mike, Bluebasser (sorry, his name escapes me) and I had a very informal road trip on Table Rock a couple of years back. Despite being sick (I never did find out what it was) and the fact that we didn't catch much, if anything, It was a great time. Those kind of gatherings are always fun, you get to put names and faces together and get to enjoy your favorite sport in the process. I encourage all our members to form local groups and plan small, short trips to a location fairly close to others that has never been fished by the group. All it takes is one person to take the initiative to bring a group together. If the idea blossoms, we could have an end of season competition between the groups and 'crown' one as the best for that year. I know, wishful thinking, but you never know.

It’s the only crank my wife will use in water under 8ft. deep. I had two, I lost one, I haven’t heard the end of that, and she keeps the other one where I can’t find it.

I have most of them, and no, you can’t have any.

The general rule is just as you assumed, however what I’ve found is they only move up to newly flooded cover and won’t stick around if there isn’t forage doing the same. As there was no new cover in your situation, unless the forage was using that newly formed inside weed edge, there wasn’t a reason for the bass to be there.

I found out a long time ago that when it comes to taking little ones fishing, especially their first few times, the most important thing to do is make sure they have a good time, even if they don’t catch fish. A six year old that my wife babysat, didn’t catch a thing his first time out, but we had a blast and he wanted to know if his little sister could join us the next time. Eventually, they both graduated from bobber fishing and didn’t stop there. he’s sixteen now, loves fishing with soft plastics and now has a dislike for spinning gear.

So do Italians! I did a build for a friend that insisted on metallic gold wraps. I told him it would be structurally unsound as the epoxy wouldn't penetrate it. He bought my explanation and then questioned when I used metallic gold and silver in the decorative butt wrap I did. LOL, I don't believe he understood, but he loved the finished product.

It's happened to me and if you frequent small bodies of water, it's likely happened to you. You catch the same fish, from the same general area, on more than one occasion. Big fish have spots that are home for them. I do a 'milk run' on a decent sized natural lake, so it's not that unusual to catch the same fish more than once during a season. This year I've caught the same fish four times, oddly on the same bait, but what really intrigued me was yesterday I caught it almost 300yrds. across from where I first hooked it, on the same tube. There is no doubt that this was the same fish as she has a scar on one side,another just below her left eye and her tail is missing a small section. Have you ever caught the same fish twice in one day, on the same lure, hundreds of yards from the first spot?