Sphynx

I would not advise "doing it anyway" if the rules plainly state not to, that's a great way to lose your ability to fish that area at all. You may have some thermocline issues going on if the water gets hot enough, it'll stop holding enough oxygen for fish to stay in, you can either find deeper, cooler water and shade, or vegetation in heavy enough concentration to provide oxygen, or else moving water/current will create a more oxygen rich environment. As far as night fishing, you can absolutely destroy them at night in the right places, and in the summer heat it can be the best fishing you'll have.

I only wish that sounded like a lot lol, but I guess over a few decades I'll be at that level, I typically only buy replacement gear at this point, which by the time you account for ancillary expenses, $2,400/yr is really not an enormous expense, I'm related to people involved in horses, and they'll drop that in a weekend.

My best advice is to stay flexible, and let the conditions tell you where to start and where to move into. It doesn't sound to me like you are a completely new or inexperienced angler, trust yourself, you can solve the puzzle. Even if you can't, you will have a memorable day, one of my most cherished fishing memories is with my brother in Alabama, we caught like 5 fish between the two of us in 3 days, it was absolutely brutal, but man we put in the work, grinded it out and had a complete ball doing it, wouldn't trade that for the world because of who I was spending the time with.

I'd argue the "why fish a jig when we have better options" thing until the cows come home, I don't think I have a single other bait that consistently produces big fish as well as a jig...may not catch huge numbers on them, but when the jig bite is on, it's the bigger fish that get them. Best 3 Topwater - Toss up between a walking bait and a popper, I catch a ton every year on these when the water is reasonably calm Moving bait - Tie between a paddletail and a lipless, I think it's a noise thing, if one doesn't work one day, the other typically does. Bottom - Jigs and Tubes here. Not sure why, but the tube has catapulted itself into an indispensable technique for me on the river chasing smallmouth. Worst 3 Topwater - Frogs and Whopper Ploppers just don't tend to get it done around my haunts Moving bait - Deep cranks, don't get on enough boats to use them often. Bottom - C-rigs tend to be more trouble than they are worth for me with bass.

I know I gave a smarty pants answer before, but the total figure is WELL into the 5 figure range, and no, I don't own a boat. My basic philosophy for this is that as I am still working, I can adjust my financial situation around this now, doing it at 65+ is going to work far worse, if at all, and short of medical catastrophe, I will die with a fishing rod in my hands if I have a say in it.

I typically go after catfish on summer nights, so the only bass I catch after dark are by-catch and not intentional.

Before I caught anything out of that lake, my first step would be to determine the legality of it, is it private or public? Can't be both technicality or not. If private, either abandon the chase, or obtain WRITTEN permission to fish it, if public, see above article about catching fish and knock them dead.

I usually buy multiples, I stick to a pretty established pattern for colors, there are imitation colors, attractor colors, and reflective colors. One big help with having multiples is that you can order one, and fish the reserve baits while waiting for the UPS man to bring another one or two. My most productive baits I typically have 5-10 of or so.

Springtime and fall are my best times of year for the spinnerbait, and it's one of THE most weedless moving baits, you can throw a spinnerbait just about anywhere and as long as you don't stop it in the middle of a brush pile or chunk rocks or whatever, you are almost never going to hang it up, rip rap? Yep, grass? Chuck it in there and rip it through no problem...or do the right at the top thing either one works fantastic. Wood? Check, pads, reeds, brush, you betcha. You can fish it up top just under the surface, or slow roll the bottom, and everywhere in between, lots of guys (especially old timers nowadays) will spend entire months with nothing else getting fished, and that's because they just work.

This one is fun, and honestly it could be a realistic co-angler set up. Soft: Yum Dinger Zoom Super Fluke Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver Dry Creek Outfitters Double Dipped Tube Grande Bass Airtail Wiggler BioSpawn ExoSwim BioSpawn VileCraw BioSpawn PlasmaTail BioSpawn VileBug Zoom Fat Albert Hard: War Eagle Spinnerbaits Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap 6th Sense Crush Strike King Sexy Dawg Rebel Pop-R Dirty Jigs Tour Level Pitchin' Jigs Megastrike Cavitron Buzzbaits Strike King KVD Jerkbait Teckel Sprinker Frog Whopper Plopper

Didn't mention if you were on the bank or on a boat, spring, and fall are typically the "best" times for fishing from the bank, summer go as early in the day as possible, right around sunrise, winter you'll want to go as late in the day as you can, and you will probably catch fewer fish. All of that goes out the window if your on a boat, because you can follow the fish off shore as water conditions change. Best baits etc I'd say start with a 7ft medium fast spinning rod, a 3000 or so size reel, and a few bags of senko's, green pumpkin and black/(accent color here) to start, buy some offset round bend hooks around 4/0 size, and some 1/4oz bullet weights, try them both weightless and with the bullet weights and you'll figure out pretty quick when to go which direction.

But...innies or outies?

I tend to find that every year my "most productive lure(s)" tend to change a bit, one year I might be unable to put a paddletail down, other years it might be a Rat-L-Trap, a tube or a popper etc, getting to find out which box of lures is going to be my number one producer of the year is one of my favorite parts of getting out on the water, especially when it is a technique that is a weakness for me since it will force me to spend time with it and grow as an angler.

Patch them if you can. All waders are going to leak sooner or later, just make sure whichever patching method you employ works with the material your waders are made from, not all patch kits work for all types of waders, a call to the wader manufacturer should be all that is needed if you are unsure about what material yours are, they'll probably have a patch kit they recommend.

Bait monkey got me twice this week, grabbed a couple packs of soft plastics (Strike King version of Senko, forgot the name) and a couple bags of zoom super flukes, grabbed a bag of cheap 1/4oz bullet weights, pack of 3/0 Gamakatsu ORB hooks, a spool of 15lb braid, 10lb mono, and a Walmart spinning combo to get my brother a rod/reel. I tested it out while waiting for dad to get done with his dental appointment and it works pretty well, though the jerkbaits are going to such with how long the butt section is, and I generally do not prefer a 4000 size reel. The second purchase was a Deeper Chirp Plus 2, figured it was high time I get into some kind of electronics to map my areas and see exactly what I've been fishing over all these years.

St. Croix Shimano BioSpawn

Lol, it's a good enough line that posting it again doesn't hurt anything, doubles the chances that folks just skimming who haven't seen the movie might check it out

7ish ft MF spinning, and a 7ish ft MHF bait casting rod are ALWAYS along, other rods may come and go as the conditions or my mood/preferences change, but those two always go no matter what

If I ever meet one of you fishing types that hasn't drank out of a hoof print I think I'll buy him a Daniel Webster seegar...

Hydrate or die Drill Sergeant!

Well, life conspired to keep me off the water today, but I did get by Cabelas and picked up some things to prevent me from having to stay home from trout fishing on account of weather again, I think these stockers are in real trouble this year. I think this might be the year I actually catch a salmon or a steelhead too, might cost me a few days/couple weeks of bass fishing, but I think I am going to try real hard to figure these fish out this year.

Alright...spill, you can't drop a tantalizing tease like that without an episode #/name lol

Plenty of LM have been caught on tubes. I like the Reaction Innovations Beaver lines, but I bet nearly any beaver style bait would work pretty well.

Well, I had a pretty good day. I caught 3, brought home this one and gave the other two to a couple kids who were out trying to fish with their parents, and were hopelessly out of their depth and didn't want anyone helping them directly, probably going to go back tomorrow.

If I had no idea what was in it? In line spinner, it'll catch nearly anything