Buzzbaiter

I used to struggle to get bass on the dropshot rig, until I realized the fish didn’t like when I shook the rod too much. Once I started catching fish with the technique, I gave it up pretty quickly. It’s like fishing cutbait except you occasionally have to remind the bass that the bait is still alive.

I’ve done it here and there before ffs minnowing became a thing. I didn’t find it to be more effective than just working craw imitations on the same jigheads. I might try it again this year now that there are specialized baits for it

What’s your methodology for the Giant Dog X? I’m trying to focus on bigger smallmouth this year, and I’m pretty comfortable with walking baits. I figured I should try stick what I know and refine it to catch larger fish.

Only recently got to looking beyond instant coffee. I’m still dialing my tastes. I like drip filter coffee, especially coffee cut with chicory. I’m not diametrically opposed to milk and sugar; I like black coffee, but there’s also something nice about milky coffee that’s lightly sweetened. I enjoy espresso-based drinks (flat whites, lattes, macchiatos, etc.), but can’t bring myself to buy an espresso machine to make that stuff myself. I have an aeropress and coffee grinder on my Christmas list. I’ll be playing around with different beans

I would call it an intelligent mechanism for money laundering. Uhhhh…my head hurts. If I had to categorize them, I’d consider dance and worm wiggling to be sports (not art) on the basis that both activities require physical skill and lack an element of creation. Then again, bass are sunfish, acorns are fruits, and bananas are berries. Tape one to a wall, and that berry becomes art. Dichotomous distinctions are for people with too much time on their hands; I think this cold front is getting to us.

I don’t look for peer-reviewed articles to influence my fishing decisions for the day. On the other hand, the word “art” implies some sort of creation, which doesn’t exist in fishing. I’d call fishing a pseudoscience.

I always keep a document with all my fishing goals for the year. I usually write it at the start of the New Year, so I haven’t thought about it too much yet. My goals this year will be modest. First, I got a really nice UL rod (Daiwa Trout X NT), which I’ve paired with a Daiwa Revros and 2lb P-Line. It’s not the most expensive setup in the world, but it’s my first actual quality UL setup. I’ve used it to catch a single stocked rainbow so far, and it fishes beautifully. I’d like to use it on some Potomac smallmouth and see how light of a rod I can get away with. On the opposite side of that coin, I’d like to catch a 4+ pound smallmouth. I caught a couple of decent ones last year, but my scale died on me. I’d like to spend more time targeting big fish. Frankly, I didn’t spend as much time fishing for smallmouth this year as I’d like to have done. I’m going to Ireland in the spring, so I’m excited to target Atlantic salmon, sea-run brown trout, normal brown trout, pike, redfin perch, and European sea bass. None of that stuff has anything to do with bass, but they are fishing goals. Beyond that, I can’t think of any other goals I’d like to accomplish. I still want to catch a Kentucky bass and an Alabama bass, but I doubt I’ll find the time to fish the southeast. I’m just happy to be fishing another year.

Tubes catch reds. There’s probably a lot of jerkbait and topwater crossover. Of course, swimbaits will work wherever you go. Ultimately, you’ll have to experiment with it and see what pans out; some techniques will work better than expected, while others will fall short. When using freshwater baits for saltwater, be aware that rust can become an issue.

I didn’t spend as much time bass fishing, but had a successful year otherwise. New species caught in 2024 are as follows: shoal bass, bowfin, longear sunfish, warrior bass, shorthead redhorse, white catfish, channel catfish, Atlantic croaker, and southern kingfish. That brings me up to a total of 47 species on my lifelist. I also caught a new PB smallmouth. I didn’t get a measurement, but I think it was between 3 and 4 pounds. Not huge, but a step in the right direction going from numbers to size. It was a fun year

That speck looks more like a weakfish. Seems like a fun time

Going down that list: Disagree; wrong; “never” is a hard word but I do agree; disagree; maybe; wrong. I’m typically against this placing hard rules in animal behavior. I’m all for general guidelines, but “never” and “always” don’t exist for wild animals, at least when it comes to behavior.

I fell off. My fishing interests change, and I find myself more focused on other species than bass nowadays. I also have less time to fish, which doesn’t help. But again, interests change. If you give me a season or two, I might just catch the bassin bug again.

I’ve never tried night fishing, but conventional snook-fishing-wisdom says that snook are especially active after dark. Granted the moon phase is right, you shouldn’t have much trouble pulling into a few. Let us know how it goes!

I just tossed them into the mangroves and gave them 2-3 twitches, followed by a fall. Kinda like fishing a senko for bass, just jerkier. My experience fishing for saltwater species is pretty limited, but I believe popping corks are more intended for redfish and speckled trout. If you see snook busting on mullet, then switch to baitfish imitations like swimbaits, flukes, and spooks. A lot of your bass baits can be utilized effectively in this scenario.

I haven’t fished the river, but I do occasionally fish at Cockroach Bay, which is only a short ways off. I’d say plan to fish within three days of the full or new moon. This weekend should be good, in theory. I went a couple of weeks ago, and the mullet hadn’t come into the backwaters yet; shrimp imitations worked well. Now, I think the mullet should be pushing up into areas like the Manatee. Try throwing small swimbaits.

If I’m fishing with open hooks and they run with it, I do a soft reel/sweep. If I’m using open hooks and I just feel a thump, I do a wrist flick. If it’s an EWG, I jab them.

🎵 Got a six pack of women Split it with my beer Driving down a backroad A bit too drunk to steer 🎵 If the song sounds like it was written in Chat GPT with the prompt “beer, America, truck, blue jeans, boots, women”, then you can safely categorize it as bro country.

The full moon brings fun times. Caught 8 snook on a DOA shrimp. All small, the biggest (pictured) was ~15”. It’s been a while since I’ve gone snooking and the bugs weren’t bad, so I’m happy with it.

North Florida. There’re also spots on the panhandle with spring fed creeks. As you go south, there seems to be fewer springs and defined creeks, likely because of the flat topography and organic soil.

What changed?

I left Florida on Tuesday afternoon. I-95 northbound was packed, and southbound was all National Guard vehicles. Pretty much all the hotels below the NC state line were packed. University was closed Wednesday and Thursday; I haven’t heard anything about closures on Friday, so I don’t think it hit North Florida too bad.

Florida: October, March-April Maryland: May-June In Florida, the summer heat becomes too intense for me to enjoy fishing. It doesn’t help that the heat also limits fish activity. I like October because the cooler weather limits the amount of tourists and pleasure boaters, and the fish become hungry again. The same goes for March and April, although tourist activity picks up in the spring. In Maryland, I like fishing for smallmouth in rivers and creeks, and late May through early June provides wet-wading access and active fish. Once the water warms towards the dog days, the fishing is still good but there are fewer solid fish to be found. The weather is also comfortable, and it’s nice to see the trees turn green again after spring blooms.

I used to keep logs of every fish I caught, but I became way too tedious. Now I only log new species for my lifelist.

I found a couple of secluded, gin clear ponds today, and blanked at both. I saw some really huge bass at the first pond, and I’m sure there are solid fish in the second one as well. I tried a number of techniques, including wacky rigged stickbaits, Texas rigged craws, grubs, tubes, toads, and live bluegill. I only caught an ouncer bass on the stickbait. I’ve never targeted Florida bass in clear water, so I’m a bit lost. Both ponds are extremely clear, and slightly pressured (about 2-3 other people fishing each pond on a Saturday). Pond 1 is relatively shallow with some deeper pockets along the shallows. There is grass, but it only covers the bottom in some areas. I saw a lot of bass moving around, actively cruising the shallows. The main forage is coppernose bluegill. Pond 2 is a bit deeper, and shoreline grass likely plays a larger role. I didn’t see any bass cruising, so I imagine they tend to tuck up under the shore grasses. There is submerged grass, but it’s spotty and not very developed. The main forage here is also coppernose bluegill. All of the big bass I saw were apathetic to my presentations. Even when I was well out of sight of the fish, they still didn’t want anything to do with me. My guess is that I found them at a bad time. I’ve heard that Florida bass are more temperamental than largemouth, so I might just need to find an active feeding window. Next time, I want to try burning a spinnerbait over the grass and dropshotting plastics if they’re still inactive, but I’m not confident that that’ll solve the fish. Any advice or suggestions?

I went to a national forest in north Florida today. My target species were mud sunfish, bluespotted sunfish, banded sunfish, blackbanded sunfish, and fliers. I caught none of those. However, I did catch this warmouth in roadside ditch. I also found a couple of ponds, where I caught some coppernose bluegill and a dinky Florida bass. I’d like to come back soon to get my target species.