papajoe222

My season started out great. From ice-out until the week after Memorial Day I boated more than my share of +16in. fish. Numbers increased after the spawn, but overall size went down considerably. I don't think I boated 6 bass over 4lb. all summer. Post Labor Day has been hit or miss for quality fish also. 8 or 10 dinks to one over 16in. was the norm. I put the boat away on Nov. 1 and I've had a few opportunities to do some shore fishing. I really can't complain about the last couple of weeks. It's November and I'm still able to wet a line.

Leave them curled and attach it to your line with a small, quality snap swivel. They are one of the few soft plastic baits I introduce youngsters to as a simple wind and pause retrieve will get them bites. They make a version with weedless hooks that's a killer pond lure.

Only talking bass fishing, this season, 85% casting and 15% spinning. In years prior it was more like 95% casting.

Same here. Top it off with something to break the wind and I'm good to go as long as I'm generating some body heat.

Sounds good to me. You don't want to go much lighter with the leader for bladed jigs, though you could go lighter for wacky rigs. I'm not a big fan of braid to fluoro leader, so mine may not be the most reliable answer.

If you’re catching them on a lipless, I’d try to mimic their action and sound (tight wiggle and loud rattles) with a crank that will run at the depth you were catching them with the lipless.

Your hookset should be more of a reel and sweep of the rod to the side. A hard hookset, especially using braid, shouldn’t be needed. Also, if you’re missing fish, or they are barely hooked, a change in color can make a big difference.

It's straight braid, or straight fluorocarbon depending on the application for me.

I'm ex-military, we always start with the left.

I don't recall ever watching a pro tournament or part of one. The last I watched was a weigh-in and that was over 25yrs. ago. I do read about winning strategies and lures, but I doubt I could name two pros currently on the circuits.

The wind over the week-end was brutal. It stormed late last night and the wind died down. I got on the water for a few hours. Wood and gravel were the keys to catching and you hit the nail on the head...........crankbaits.

Anytime is a good time to try something new. Stick with one or two cranks at first. Get a feel for them; what it feels like when they deflect off something, when they pick up a strand of grass, or when their vibration changes ?. I try out new techniques when catching is tough.

Not knowing where you are located, limits recommendations. One bait I'd try for sure would be a buzzbait, at least until water temps. drop to around 50. Another would be a jig/trailer combo. With the shallow water, I'd go with a 3.8oz. jig and a RageTail Craw, or Paca Craw for a big profile.

With my memory..............LOL? I avoid this by checking to see if there is a star to the left of the heading indicating that I've responded to the thread already.

The mid-west will be experiencing an Indian summer over the next five days or so. With water temps. currently in the upper 50's, how much will the slight increase in surface temp. affect fish location? I'm thinking it would move the bait fish up in the water column and that my initial search should start there.

I've mentioned this before. I was fishing by myself on a small public lake. It was late September, breezy and raining and I was the only one on the lake, not even a bank angler. I was picking up my marker bouys using my trolling motor when I hit a boulder bigger than a VW. Overboard I went and when I popped up my boat was already 100ft. from me and moving in the breeze. In my rain gear, I swam with everything I had in me and was able to catch the boat about 150yrds. from where it dumped me. I had no energy to pull myself up into the boat and knew I couldn't just hang there waiting to get my energy back because of the cold water. I worked my way around to the transom, put my foot on the outboard and used the trim switch to lift me up high enough to where I could flop onto the rear deck. I've never gone fishing by myself without having a PFD on the entire time I'm on the water since.

Not knowing the conditions I'd be faced with, my answer is a Texas rigged ribbon tail worm. Different weights, but grape with a red tail.

My average outing is between three and four hours. I may go through a dozen baits before I find one that produces (if one does), or I may go through three. I break things down by the water column and three baits will cover top to bottom.

Early spring...........................jerkbaits and bladebaits Late spring/pre spawn.....crankbaits Post spawn............................T-rig and drop shot Summer..................................Jig/trailer Late summer.........................Spinnerbait/topwater Early fall....................................Lipless Late fall......................................Bladebaits/ jerkbaits I don't throw bladed jigs and although I will swim a jig, it isn't something I do regularly at any particular time.

I've gone from jigging it with short hops, to letting it sit after it hits bottom. It also works well just swimming it close to the bottom. I'll try different retrieves until I find one that works. I do two things to the jig; First, I run the tail section of a finesse worm up the hook shank to flare the hair. Second, I attach the jig to the mainline using a snap. That allows the jig to stand up at a 45-90 degree angle depending on whether the worm has salt or not. The fish don't seem to be shy about the added hardware. I guess I could use a loop knot to achieve the same results.

My home lake is a strip pit. I fish it on average twice a week during open water. Tubes and hair jigs are my #1 producers. This summer I tried a Ned with good results. A split-shot finesse worm gets the nod when all they want is a bottom presentation. My line of choice is the same as I use up north, 10lb fluoro leader to braid main line. Faster moving hard baits will produce if conditions are right, but slow works 90% of the time, so I rarely bother with anything other than topwater. Dead falls and that first ledge off the bank are the best cover and structure as there is only one flat in this pit.

you'd loose that bet.

Trimming definately stiffens a weed guard and there are times when that's advantageous. Wood and rock are two. Other times I'm in the same group as others; spread it out and leave a V. One thing I don't do is thin out the fibers.

If you have a reel that never had noise and has developed it, something is either worn, or loose. Bearings normally wear over time, so noise from them would have started out faint and gotten louder with time. Brass gears will wear over time, too. Again, it isn't a noise here today that wasn't there yesterday. If that's what happened, something broke or a spring failed somewhere.