thediscochef

Nice!!

this happened to me this year, I think. It was either conditioning or weather. I'm banking on weather but I won't really know until next year. This particular pond is stocked with trout in the winter and you'll never get a fishable spot on the bank unless you show up at stupid hours when the park is technically closed. If the game warden or the sheriff wanted to make some money, all they'd need to do is sit out there in plain clothes for an hour on the weekends - it's a neighborhood fishing pond managed by TPWD and I see people break the law every time. Either keeping undersized bass, using cast nets, having more than two rods, etc. My favorite thing that happened regularly this year was fishing this pond with one rod and just CRUSHING the bass, while these guys with like six rods aren't catching a thing. Anyway - off my fishery soapbox - I used the same bait for like 22 of 30 days in October at this exact spot and had great catch rates. I mean I was going there and picking up 10 bass in under 2 hours, which is pretty great from the bank on such a pressured pond. Most of the people around me don't even realize there's bass in there until I pull one out. The skirtless chatterbait just slammed it...I theorize because it was different from what they had been seeing. The other piece of this is that I was casting at angles and directions nobody else was either...much closer to cover. Now, since a few weeks before trout started, I'm not catching a thing there. It's been freezing a few times at night, so I know the water is colder than it was, so I think they may just be deeper. Which is harder to fish with the techniques and lures I'm familiar with. I was not particularly tight lipped about the specifics of what I was using...but the nearest shop with a chatterbait micro is a solid hour round trip. Most guys can find a catch elsewhere on what they already have...and aren't willing to drive for such an underwhelming yet highly specific bait. So I didn't have a problem with that. I did give a few away to some folks there who were obviously just starting out, but I'm guessing they didn't get much mileage. Whether the slowdown is from water getting colder plus trout stocking...hard to say. But I became reasonably convinced in November that they had figured me out. Given my complete aversion to the insanity of stocked trout fishing, I'm hoping that a 4+ month break from that spot will make my preferred lure effective again. Until then, I'm at other places, and finally picking up some work on a feature film.

I love it, I have it in a couple different varieties. Easily my most used rod since my Clarus broke Good ole country time internet posting me three times lol

Speaking of micro chatterbaits, I caught a new PB LMB on one tonight. Only fish I got. Black color, skirtless, rigged with a 3" BPS split tail stiko, vertical fins. 6.8lbs by my scale. It's a Christmas miracle. A very happy holiday to you all!

Glad to see some love for the skirtless microchatter here, it's the main lure I've used all year. All my annual PBs came on that this year. Including that spotted bass yesterday. They fish way better without without skirt, @The Bassman is dead on about that.

It's a good day to catch my first positively identifiable spotted bass. I have a few others this year that I suspect may have been spotties but the dorsal fins aren't sticking out so I can't see a bridge. But they have the ventrolateral stripes, spots above the lateral line, and smaller mouths. Those, and this one were all caught in the same general 100 yard area. I lost a huge catfish, as well. It and the spottie were the only hard hits I had today. It was 75, sunny, but gusts to 30. Hope everyone is having a happy holiday

This right here is how I do it. Noise and flash. I've also done well with black chatterbaits and silver chatterbaits. Pearl jam trailers of some variety. My go-to for super muddy water is a chartreuse chatterbait with a watermelon pearl jam plastic on it.

Ya know being 30 isn't so bad. Caught this on the last cast of the day, not five minutes after realizing I'd been fishing with my drag cranked all day. Two guys landing their bass boat got to watch me land it, which is always fun. What luck. This bass was, uh, "passing" a senko it had taken from a wacky rig. It was far enough along that there obviously wasn't a hook in it, so I very gently got that out of her and set her back on her way. Not sure what the exact weight of this one was, but I'm guessing about 3.5. Biggest mouth on anything (edit: bass) I've caught this year.

Yes This is especially true for big catfish and gar, too in my experiences this year. My philosophy for cat spawn this summer was "no monsters before 10am". I theorize that this is in relation to the chaos of morning feeding.

I think the line for diminishing returns is varied by angler. Some will be able to make use of the difference between $100 and $500 combos, some won't. I generally hover around the $200 mark for a combo that I'm just in love with (Tac40 plus Daiwa Fuego). That gets me into nicer guides and blanks, a reel with sealed innards, and some serious sensitivity. I think when you get to a point that you can't really pinpoint what you wish was different about your setup...that's where diminishing returns start.

? that's intense The spot I caught all my big fish in is a river below a dam so there's relatively little to get hung on that you won't see. There's small snags on the bottom but for the most part my main losses have come from hitting the opposite bank in the trees or rocks. I fish the bottom there with a lot of confidence that I won't get stuck. None of my fish over 5lbs were landed before 10am this year. Only one was a bass, though. The stuff over 3lbs mostly took place in the same manner but there were a handful of 3lb bass that came ashore between 9 and 10.

I use the history of my luck at a place to determine if I need to move. If I'm used to catching 5 bass in an hour somewhere, at a certain light level etc, and one day it's much less...time to move for that day. History can be used inclusively or exclusively depending on what you're hoping to learn from those memories That was kinda my philosophy fishing cat spawn this summer...no monsters before 10AM Held true though, the many times I went out at 6a and was back at noon, I never did as well as when I'd go out at 9a and come in at 2p. Whether that was the bigs coming out late, or me being a better angler when I'm fully awake...we may never know

So the first report of log4shell being used I believe has been tracked to December 1, but that specific vulnerability has been open and present since 2013, so it's entirely possible that it's been used here and there long before now. I'm no expert as I stated above and I may be totally wrong. The thing that gets me though is how long it seemed to take for them to figure it out - and how the direct information was compromised despite PCI encryption standards. Again I may be wrong (certs have been expired a while now) but that's just kinda what prompts me to suspect that

If TW uses Java in any of its customer apps, I'd be willing to bet this is actually the cause after reading more about l4j. It would make the most sense in my eyes given the lack of info from TW and Co. Naturally it would be hard to acknowledge the issue without knowing what the cause is. All you have to do with L4J is log into any Java app and the vulnerability can command TW's server to send your connected data to a different location. Would be a stupidly simple way to nab a ton of card info.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the log4j vulnerability thing? I don't know nearly enough about TW's internal ops nor log4j to positively relate the two. Literally just speculation based on timing and the compromise of encrypted information (log4j vulnerability works with http or https and allows total control of a site's server).

Literally had my debit card info stolen last week. All charges credited back in 20 minutes with Wells Fargo. Second time that's happened right around my birthday, happy 30th LOL only last time it was around $1k. Still got an immediate credit albeit sometimes you have to insist on that part for larger balances. If you never lost track of the physical card they're good about handling it. I ordered TW last night so we will see what happens

As long as the plano box is new and you don't handle any plastisol at all before handling the elaztech, this should work fine albeit some of the baits will take on some weird shape memory if you don't position them well or if you fill the box up completely. Like colors together don't bleed very noticeably but if you put coppertreuse with white lightning you're going to wind up with green lightning. Also make sure the boxes get stored lid side up. I've had issues with colors bleeding in an upside down box. Something to do with one of the chemical curing components of the material they use, kraton plastics are apparently a real pain in the neck from production to storage. Also, there are some KVD elaztech products out there. I have had more cross contamination sensitivity with that stuff than the Zman labeled stuff, though it is supposedly the same stuff. Zman and hooks only in one box. Everything else everywhere else. I abandoned this setup a few months ago as I wanted to carry some plastisols with me too. I care less about the material type and more about the size, shape, and action. Tried keeping separate plano boxes but I think I was changing bait too often and wound up cross-contaminating. Had to toss a whole 3600 box of TRDs. Never again. These days I keep them in the original bag on a binder ring (bags come pre-punched), and use a fanny pack. I just deal with not having every single plastic I could want on hand. Instead I rotate the plastics in my pack every few days. If I can't catch something on one of 10 different plastics presented one of 3 or 4 different ways...I either need to go home or find different water.

Nonsense. I've had 10 bass mornings at a local 2 acre pond while 8 other guys are also fishing. It's not about the amount of pressure in my opinion, but the types of pressure. For instance: I've noticed that if everyone around me is using crankbait, I need to go finesse instead etc. If I see large lures, I go small. It works most of the time. Living in D/FW means most public water has pressure, and fishing private water requires money and/or knowing someone. Less people may mean that fish associate lures with danger at a slower rate, but gatekeeping a sport ain't the thing man Edit: I'm not out here recruiting people for bass fishing by any means, if someone asks for help or a friend wants to go I'm happy to oblige but I see no reason to promote or discourage one thing or another. I will say that less people means less pollution...but unless I'm willing to be one of the less people, I will temper my expectations.

I'm careful about catfish spines for a variety of reasons, including this. They also tend to carry gram-negative bacteria on said spines so if the venom isn't enough, the potential resulting infection may not be fun or cheap to deal with either. Only been barbed once, trying very hard to keep it that way.

Well we went back today and had absolutely monster results, thought I was gonna break another rod... my mistake was deviating from my usual chatterbait in favor of dough balls trying to catch carps

I tend to take the approach that it's less about a fish 'liking' a lure or presentation more, and more about what triggers its bite or feed reactions the strongest. One fish may bite two different lures because it triggered two different reactions. But the end result is the same: fish on. Edit: There's some degree of learning with a bass population, too. Especially if your options of water are limited. They do eventually associate certain things with danger. Sometimes areas, too.

Truck dash says 80 degrees, so it was obviously the day to fish below ray roberts dam. Going back tomorrow before it cools off again. Edit: just my usual 1/8oz skirtless bladed jig. Got a channel and two LMB at sunset in the lake itself.

Found this in my grandfather's tackle box. Gonna tie it on tomorrow cause it'll be 80f here

Yeah my accepted answer is unchanged, it's a smallmouth. Without positive ID with clear markings or genetic testing hybrid is a cop out/better sounding way of saying 'idk'

Quick (not so quick) update on this fish from Texas Parks and Wildlife: "Good afternoon, Thanks for reaching out regarding the species identification of your catch. I asked a few of the TPWD biologists about the identification of the fish. Based on the pictures provided, it appears as if the fish is likely a hybrid bass but likely contains some smallmouth bass. Next time you happen to catch a similar looking fish, take a picture of the fish’s mouth to show if there is a tooth patch. Thank you, [TPWD]" so i guess we will never know for sure. i will call it a smallmouth and let that ride