The Baron

Randy B. did a YouTube video on the Classic having very low attendance. It did, likely for several contributing reasons but of course he blamed it on claims that watching people fish with FFS is boring. Like watching other people fish was ever not boring? 🤷🏼‍♂️

No doubt that Easton Fothergill’s story is one of overcoming adversity. From emergency brain surgery to winning a Collegiate, then two open wins and to the Elites. Then show up and dominate the Classic. No one could say that young man won only because of FFS. I don’t really know what happened with the Johnston bothers last year. But sad to think they aren’t good ambassadors from Canada. I’d like to think we have a reputation to uphold, of being good folks.

Amazing to see the win go to a 22yo. and 2nd place to a 19yo. That’s the reality of FFS, but it feels somewhat wrong to me that the Super Bowl of bass fishing is won by guys with so little experience and of (until now) relatively unknown names. To ask a 19yo about how long he’s been dreaming of the BM Classic trophy seems weird when there’s guys who could say they’ve dreamt of it 20+ years. I think it might even be dangerous for Bass Masters to make it so easy for newbies to dominate, in that folks might stop caring about the Classic if it looks like a battle for rookie of the year with no “fan favorites” competing. Not taking anything away from the young guys, it’s just my personal thought on things. And completely unrelated… I noticed Cory Johnston was the only one of the super six who didn’t detour to shake Trey McKinney’s hand on his way off stage. I thought that was a disappointing lack of sportsmanship from the only Canadian we had left in the race. 👎🏻

Always good to meet another friendly fellow angler. Sounds to me like he was maybe throwing a glide bait?

Yeah @Swamp Girl we had a few BEAUTIFUL warm, sunny days last week. Now it’s back to about 20-25F overnight and struggling to get above freezing as a high. Windy yesterday, snow in the forecast for Tuesday. It’s a been a grind and we’re not quite done.😕 BUT… I’m scheduled to pickup the new boat on April 1st (🫢) then straight into the shop for electronics and trolling motor install. I spent a few hours yesterday reorganizing baits, and just ordered a few more boxes and bags. Hopefully things will warm up and I’ll get after some early season Lake Ontario bass before it closes down May 10th. A short and closing window, but we should get a few tries.🤞🏻 Then it’s just pike fishing until the regular bass season opens on the back lakes June 21st.

For what the op listed… Jigs - straight braid flipping cover or in stained water. Straight fluoro in clear water, especially for dragging finesse jigs for smallmouth on Lake Ontario. Chatterbaits - 12-14# copoly Cranks - 10-12# copoly for square bills and medium cranks, 14# fluoro for deep crankin’ Topwater - 12# Big Game mono on a dedicated popper, whopper plopper, spook rod. But will throw the same on my medium crankbait setup with 12# copoly. All my spinning gear is braid to 8-10# fluoro leader for everything. Dropshot, ned, tubes, shaky head, and small keitechs on a ball head or underspin. The oddballs are when I’m throwing a bubba shot setup on a baitcaster with braid to a 12# fluoro leader, or for Carolina Rig which is braid to 12# Big Game mono.

I’ve never used a Bantam. But I have two Curado DC 150 size. They’re fine, but I don’t know if I’d buy another. I’m more impressed by the SLX DC, which feels better to me and is less money. As for the DC feature, I don’t know if it’s necessary at all. And the 4 settings seem more restrictive than adjusting a non DC reel properly. I think the root problem might be I’ve just really come to prefer Diawa reels.

Nice. You’re gonna love it. 👍🏻

I bought a 600yd spool of FC Sniper 14# and it's been good for me so far.

I can't speak for heavier crankbaits on a fast action rod, but I fish square bills on a Fenwick Elite Tech 7' medium/fast. With 10# co-poly on a Diawa cc80, it works very well for me and is a pleasure to fish. I fish medium crank baits (up to about 12ft.) on a Dobyn's Fury FR705CB crank bait rod with 12# co-poly. For heavier crank baits (16ft.+) I've gone to a 7'6" H/moderate glass cranking rod with 14# fluoro. I like the glass rod a lot, and would say the specialized cranking rod is definitely worth it for several reasons.

I like the VMC twist lock hooks, usually unweighted but sometimes with the 1/8oz. belly weight. VMC stuff is readily available around here, so it’s a brand I use often.

Absorootry. 👍🏻

Just re: the rust… I don’t put wet baits away. But the lockers on my little Bass Tracker are extremely humid and will leak so I’ve had tackle boxes get totally fogged inside. Once was after a few days of rain that even with the boat covered some boxes were wet inside and I lost several packs of hooks, a few jig heads, some spinnerbaits and chatterbaits. Not a big loss, but want to avoid that ever happening again. Perhaps the new boat (a Lowe Stinger 195) will be dryer and I can get by with many of the boxes I have, and silica packs. 🤞🏻 I do still plan to try the Plano Edge jig and bladed jig boxes, maybe some of the 3700 flex for my expanding crankbait collection.

We’ve got a brand new boat for this year, with a ton of storage so now’s a good time to start upgrading my tackle storage system. I’ve been using cheap Plano and even dollar store boxes, but they aren’t waterproof and I’ve had some rust losses. Buzbe stuff is crazy expensive, so I’m thinking the Plano Edge boxes are the way to go. For those using the Edge stuff, are they proving to be waterproof and durable? Do you have any favourite or hated boxes in the lineup? I’m also looking at the BKK terminal tackle box, for hooks, weights etc. Soft baits likely in bags, sorted by type. Any other ideas are welcome. 🙂

We fished smallmouth often with a Rapala F13 or J11 when I was a kid. Almost always in gold, or silver but sometime orange or chartreuse. This was in the 70’s-80’s. I guess I never paid enough attention to articles in the In Fisherman though, because we didn’t know the F13 was a jerkbait. We’d either troll or cast/steady retrieve and give a flick or speed up/slow down occasionally. We caught fish, but I wonder how much better we might have done if we fished it properly. Mister Twister was the other big deal when I was a kid. Beetle Spin with a 3” grub was one of my favourites. Of course a hula popper, jitterbug or a Heddon Dying Flutter spook for topwater. Come to think of it, I’ll bet the fish haven’t seen those last three in a while - might be worth a nostalgic topwater outing this year. 🤔

I do have a couple lakes now I’d call home lakes, but I still use my electronics to find deep weed edges and a couple humps/ledges that usually produce most of my fish. I’ll also sidescan and watch for interesting things when I’m just working along the shore. Not really looking at it, but it’s on. On less familiar lakes, I will idle around and look/do some QuickDraw contour mapping either to find a starting spot or whenever I want a break. But usually as soon as I see something interesting, I’m fishing it. I know I could speed up the lake learning process if I spent more time idling, but I like fishing too much. 🙂

I’m looking at a few lakes north/east of Charlotte, probably try High Rock, Baden, Lake Norman… maybe explore some smaller lakes. Most likely catch and release, but good to know spots are considered invasive. For sure we’ll be carefully reading all the regulations.

It’ll probably be mid-late April before we can get on Lake Ontario for the early bass season (open now, closes May 10). We’ll try for smallies with finesse football jigs, dropshot, jerkbaits and underspins. But I’m more looking forward to some fat prespawn largemouth with squarebills, bladed jigs, spinnerbaits, a compact jig and likely a wacky rig. But first we need to pickup the new boat and figure out a whole new tackle organization plan now that we’ll have about 3x the storage space. 🙂

That’s an epic trip! 🤯😎 When our season opens, I’ll be hunting for a Canadian DD (that’s 5 pounds on the metric system 😝)

I'm panning a trip to NC for March break next year, with my son and a couple buddies. We'll be after "bigger than here" LMB primarily, but might take a moment to try and catch our first ever spotted bass. Are spotted bass likely to be caught while we're after largemouth, probably fishing shallow or cranking points? Or are they more of a deeper water fish? I don't feel a need to go after them specifically, but would be fun to say we caught some. Or are spots special for some reason and maybe someone out there will say spots are their favourite to catch?

Ouch. It's hard to know what hurts more - losing a big fish you never got to see, or losing one you did get to see. Largemouth over 5# are rare here, and over 6# are possibly once every five years if you're lucky. My son lost a 6+ pound (OK, at least 5) that wallowed and spit his frog last summer. Two years ago my buddy lost one that was digging and giving big headshakes, then after a good 30 seconds of battle his rod just unloaded and it was gone before we got eyes on it. My buddy still talks about his. But mercifully, my sons memory is pretty short. lol I did even worse in 2024. I never got bit by 100% of the over 5lbers I fished near. 😩😆

I’m planning a trip to the south-ish next March, to somewhere “less cold” and have a decent chance at a 6+ pound largemouth (a rarity up here). I’ve been looking at Lake Murray, which is about as far south as I think I can get with only a week off (would be about a 15 hour drive). But I’m not sure if Lake Murray would be too busy - seems like it’s a tournament haven. Is Murray a good option for mid-March, or are there any other suggestions? Instead of a place right on Lake Murray we could maybe stay somewhere central and do day trips to some smaller lakes? We’ll have capable boats (mine’s a 19ft. aluminum, my buddy’s got a 20ft. Nitro) but I’m not a fan of rough water so would rather fish smaller lakes or pick our days on bigger water. It’d just be nice to have an adventure with my son and catch some bass while there’s likely still ice at home. And my 15yo. son is super excited about the idea of a guys fishing trip, and renting a house with the boats right there at the dock would be awesome.

Compass directions are a relative term, eh @Swamp Girl 😆 I’ve decided we’re going to head to Lake Murray, SC next March break. Florida is too far to drive and roll the dice on it being not much warmer than home. Going a bit later ups the odds it will be “warm”, and also means my son can come on his March break. ❤️ About a 15 hour drive, so a big chunk but I’ll just hammer that out in one day so we gain 2 extra days fishing vs. a 20+ hour drive to Florida that needs two days. 👍🏻

My #1 priority would be to get away from sub-zero temperatures and frozen water. I’d rather not be wearing winter gear and gloves, but I doesn’t need it to be T-shirt weather either. Anything in the 60’s or more would feel great. I’m well aware the weather is never a guarantee, but it would be a real disappointment to drive south for 20+ hours and still need winter clothing. As far as fishing, I’d definitely be down there for big fish over numbers. That said, I’d rather not fish 8 hours for two bites. But if one of those bites was my PB I’d be very happy. My PB is only 5.5#, so not a high bar to clear in the right area. I’d be thrilled with anything over 6# which is a very rare largemouth up here.

I watched a little of the BassMasters Elite live stream yesterday, then looked over the leaderboard this morning. 101 pros fishing all day, in Florida, and many struggled to catch 5 fish with several only landing a few and many weighing in less than 10lbs. This makes me wonder about those days I go out and struggle to catch 5 fish, then come home thinking that was a poor day of fishing. And here I sit, dreaming of getting to Florida for a couple weeks in February (or any other southern state that’s warm and has bass) to escape from winter. Dreaming of the fat sacks of big Florida strain bass I could catch… then I watch the pros struggle and wonder if I’d even catch a fish. I’d hate to pull my boat 20 hours south, rent a place and catch nothing. I know they’re fishing in a cold front, but I wonder if that’s normal for fishing in the south in February? Is March a better both?