WVU-SCPA

After an 18 month battle with various cancer my dad (67) was given months here at the end of September. I've watched him go from being able to navigate wadding large trout streams to not lasting an hour out on the boat in a rather short period of time. My whole life we have traveled up and down the east coast for various types of fishing. We had this week penciled in for a trip to chase salmon in NY at the beginning of the year, however do to his current state I'll be happy with taking him out on a local lake for an hour tomorrow. 18 months ago I would have never envisioned this was the path of life. He still hasn't officially retired from running his business and my brother and I's work life was the reason not to take trips over the last few years. I would sacrifice a lot to be able to take one more trip. The will is still there, but the pain and energy level is too much for him to overcome. Last Monday he was telling me he was thinking about taking the fly rod for a walk. We both knew that wasn't feasible, but we continued the conversation on which section of stream would be active and flies to use. We are all here because of the same passion. Whether it's your tired, in financial woes, or just in a rut in life, the passion of fishing is always an escape. Even if that escape isn't wetting a line but just talking about it, even on a message board.

I still take a gander every time, before it got popular my local stores always had maxscent items below the going price($4), I would buy them out every time they restocked. The last 3 years I haven't saw it under $7.98 there.

Best skunking of my life. Took the new project boat out to mess with a few things and decided to take the boy for his first on the water fishing trip since it was going to be a short excursion. Was ready to go "bye bye" after 45 minutes, but cherished every moment. Did have 2 bites in 30 cast where something just blasted the blades. Local spinnerbait bite has been fire.

Technically speaking large mouth are not native to my watershed (Chesapeake), but were introduced so long ago they are viewed as native by most people. The human history of moving fish is quite extensive.

If you haven't t-rigged a maxscent creature bait in rock I would highly recommend you do so. There are several different bite patterns. When cresting an apex, falling off the apex, hopping/popping in various manors, slow dragging into the base of the rock, ect.

Bass were thumping a spinnerbait on the drop after the first crank, could tell instantly this was a little different and was thinking pike. Got to swim free as I had to go back to work and wasn't heading home.

Spinnerbait. Coming from the world of natural presentation fly fishing I couldn't grasp why a fish would look at a spinnerbait and say I want to eat that. Took me a few years and hitting the perfect windy day to change my thinking on them.

A lot already mentioned above, but a little different method that has helped getting that bigger bite is fishing a over weight T-rig or shakey head in heavy rock. You will 100% get hung up and lose tackle, but getting the bait hung up and popping it free has constantly produced a better class of fish for me. If you do it long enough you can really build a feel for working the bait and when your going to get hung up.

Haven't done it myself, but a guy I fish with has a 2016 175 and moved his DC batteries in the rod compartment. Not sure what he exactly did, but its doable. Freed up room in the back, but is primary reason was weight distribution.

Fishing rock/hard structure is my strength. Sometimes they just are not keyed on it, but I'll always pound it way longer then I should. I fish bodies of water a little larger then your lake but not much. There is usually a rock within the rocks that has that higher bite percentage. Learn those areas and they can really help you make decisions on techniques or if you move on to other structure/areas. I didn't listen to my own advice and caught 0 fish from the 5 spots within spots I wanted to hit. Still decided to beat the rocks the next 5 hours for 3 fish before stumbling upon a punching bite that was lights out for the final 2 hours.

Had a little different technique help win a tournament about a month ago. Was at least the 4th boat to hit spot that day. Large boulder about 10' fow with the top being in about 2' fow. Pulled 11lbs with 3 fish by slowly dragging up the face and letting a t-rig tumble back down before cresting the top. All 3 fish bit after at least the 3rd tumble down the face of the rock. All bites(several fish that didn't help the cause) were on the tumble back down. Those fish are likely conditioned to a bait falling past them, then being ripped up and over the rock. The yo yo method gave multiple looks to trigger a strike and a different ROF as a tumble vs a drop in. That same rock has a good history with the "getting stuck and your line starts swimming away as you are attempting to free it bite". Something different that triggers the strike.

I'm guessing it's some type of genetic variance. I used to fish a golf course that had 4 ponds over a 3 year period. 2 of the ponds we loaded with as many good size bass your heart could desire with your typical bass thumb occurring. 3rd pond I'm guessing had a forage imbalance with very few and skinny fish so I didn't spend much time on it. 4th pond had a fish kill a few years prior with a high mortality rate. Vary few large fish, heavily populated with 10"-12" bass. Those 10"-12" fish had some serious "teeth". At times felt like pin ****** and would draw blood from just putting slight thumb pressure. Ponds 1-3 didn't have anything similar to this. I would assume the original bass in all 4 ponds came from the same genetic line, but the fish kill in pond 4 lead to a change in the genetic pool of reproducing bass. This lead to the bulk of the population of bass exhibiting larger "teeth" in pond 4. Or I'm full of poop and there is some other reason there was a pond full of mini jaws.

The stake method will drive a few up. Picked up 1,000's after spring/summmer rain at night for trout fishing. Would never buy worms and usually had cooler or fridge stocked and ready to go. Strap/tape a Folgers can to you leg and get to picking. Dad also had a thing we called the "worm shocker" for daylight hours. Basically a iron T with an extension cord wired to it. Insulation and electrical tape on the top of the T, pointed bottom to drive into the ground. Would move it around the yard driving up crawlers before going fishing. Times have changed, but not sure how it was ever a good idea for a 10 year old walking around with a live wired rod.

Use it as floss while I fish. Get in trouble when they come out of my pocket and are found in the washer or drier. Drop it the center of the boat where all discarded plastics go until I clean up after pulling out the boat. It's not just the tag ends of knots, I'm constantly retying and removing 6"+ based on catches and the cover I'm fishing.

Made it back to the lake over lunch today. Nothing too exciting and this time only 1 item was mine (Siebert jig lost in March) Rattles traps are salvageable, dark sleeper has corrosion on the hook point, and wouldn't trust the a-rig. There's another 12' of concrete not exposed yet, but would rather have the rain. Fish were still biting.

Lack of rain around here has lakes down 15'+. Took a walk to a recently exposed concrete foundation. 3 spinner baits, fogy(mine), a-rig(mine), 2 rattle traps, and various jig heads and swollen plastics scattered around. Sad part was nothing was salvageable. After 4 sunny days in the mind 90's the deeper end should now be exposed so I'll head back out today to remove line and other items with the hope of something decent.

Something a little different based on a like with 20' of visibility in normal conditions. The fish by mid summer are hardest bass I know of to get to bite outside low light feeding conditions. I've looked for baits that bring something a little different to get those elusive bigger mid day bites. Something a little different has been the Smartbaits Robbie Ribbon 10". Yes it is a little gimmicky, but they do change color as it you move it through the water column/temp change. Outside of that one lake, give be me a power worm or maxscent kingtail worm.

I'll add in temperature control in being a major factor as well. I use Please Release Me, monitor temp with frozen bottles with a stash to switch out throughout the day, recirculater is turned from cycle to ON once the 4th fish is in the box or if conditions are harsh, and last is to check often to hopefully identify if a fish is struggling to take action before its too late. I take pleasure in fish giving the weigh master a hard time.

Plenty of bull heads the past few weeks. Drop shotting a flat worm in a lake with a hearty population of white perch is good way to burn up a few bags. I have plans for the flat nose on a small jig head for fall run steelhead that have lock jaw.

Probably more brand then bait. It you saw my maxscent collection you would think I'm rich. Worse part I fish the same few baits.

4 weeks out from the opening weekend games. How you feeling about your team/who wins it all/does it impact your fish schedule? Went to WVU but family/co workers are all Penn State fans. WVU opens at PSU the first Saturday in September which I plan on attending. The night game should be electric, but I'm not hopeful in the outcome. Predict a 5 win season at best for WVU. Coaching change to follow. Georgia wins the Natty. I'll record 2 or 3 games and let everyone know not to give me updates so I can watch it in the evening.

Texas Roadhouse......It's not bad food, but if you drove by the local one you would think they had 5* meals with the full parking lot and line waiting everyday. Primanti Brothers for anyone in the PA area. I ate at the original one and enjoyed it, the chain ones have always disappointed. Buffalo Wild Wings-it's hard to find a good wing anymore and they always let me down.

I don't go to a spot and replicate how I believe I saw someone else catch a fish, however I do stay observant of other anglers and allow what I see happening impact what or how I'm fishing or not fishing. Don't believe a word I hear from anglers I don't already know their BS level.

Thank you both for the ID. Guess its time to scrub ebay to see what is out there.

All tungsten up to 3/8 for T-rigs. 3/8 produced the winning bites the past weekend although I'm sure various other methods would have produced. Fish were holding tight on hard structure in 6'-10' with only 2 of the 25ish fish caught biting on the drop. Beaver bait dragged into structure and then slowed waaaaaay down once in contact produce the better bites(sure a jig would have worked as well). The 3/8 let me sweep faster when trying to get into structure while maintaining bottom contact which seemed to be a key part of the bite.