BFS-Angler75

Dave's Tournament Tackle. Locally made and sold at a local tackle shop the guy who makes them owns. He's got other brands in there besides his own but I really like the pricing and quantity I get with his stuff, and it works great! I buy everything from trickworms to spinner trailers from his brand and have no complaints. You can find some stuff online, but I've never seen his stuff outside of his tackleshop. Also OneCast Fishing for their weedless Ned heads and jigs, which is also locally owned and operated. You can check out the OneCast Fishing stuff from their website and order from it. Bigger brands: Gambler GeeCrack Keitech Zoom!

My youngest and I didn't have a fishing goal until June. 2 years ago she wanted to learn how to fish, and I came out of "retirement" to teach her. 12 years ago when my kids were small, I had just started fishing and wanted to go all the time. That made my other half upset so she chewed me out one night so bad that I just quit. Fast foward to 2 years ago, and my youngest got me back into it. I swore I wouldn't get so hardcore into it and here we are now, a couple of hardcore anglers. My other half doesn't mind at all now since things have changed, and she now sees I'm passionate about a hobby and lets me do it as I let her do hers (always did but no need to go there). We go out just about every weekend, and I go out solo when she wants a break. We tend to fish the same lake since we know it so well, and its 10 minutes away. We switched lakes for 2 months, and it paid off as our catch rate went up from that lake. We went back to our regular lake, and started catching more of bass out of there and finding some areas with low fishing pressure. We accomplished quite a bit. But the main goal we had this year was to catch 100 largemouth bass. We hit that number in mid-September, and we've added 30 more on top of that. We average 8 - 10 bass over the weekend. Yeah its not much compared to some of you more seasoned folks, but to us, its a big deal. We went the first few months this year getting skunked repeatedly. Then things turned around as we started to learn what baits worked and what colors worked in our lakes. My daughter, well she's started catching bass more frequently and has mastered her hookset enough that shes not losing fish too often. She knows how to adjust her baitcaster and roll casts awesome. But she's learned an important lesson: how to be persistent, patient, and how to deal with failure. She's 11 and I hope she stays my fishing buddy forever, but enjoying the time I have with her now before she gets too grown up (although she tells me she'll never be too old to roll out in the boat with me). Anyway, sorry for the long post. But this year has been an awesome year of learning for both of us, and we accomplished our main goal and many others. It doesn't freeze too bad where we live so we'll go out in the winter; at least I will. This winter might be different with El Nino but we'll see. Our new goals which we've started working on is trying out different rigs than our go-to/confidence rigs.

Wind for safety, and try to make sure its not going to rain on me. Other than that, I just like to go out and fish regardless.

The lake I fish at regularly has some decent pressure in it. A lot of the anglers showing up now will fish it for crappie's and deep dwelling bass. They're all over and apparently not getting bit. They rarely if ever go into the river mouths and branches that feed the lake. Out of curiousity my daughter and I decided to explore the rivers at some point this summer. It took us a couple of months but we got them figured out pretty good now. In our rigged out canoe we have to paddle over 20 - 50 yards of shallows from 6 inches to 1 foot of water, which then drops to 5 - 7 feet in the northern river, and down to 12 feet in the southern river. The water is also 10 - 15 degrees cooler, especially in the northern branch that feeds into the lake. The rivers are about 20 - 30 yards wide. All along the shady spots of the banks there's a bunch of structure holding the bass. We raked in 15 over the holiday weekend; mostly 1.5 pounders but pulled in a few 2 - 4 pounders as well. It was a fun. No one really explores back there but we keep those areas to ourselves lol. The bass there aren't pressured at all, but they have a lot more places to hide. The casts are also a little more difficult, but it pays off. We aim for the areas where the river gets to its deepest. The current slows up, water temp comes down into the high 70's, and they'll sit there and wait for the baitfish to swim by. Lately here, we've been ignoring the main body of the lake and hitting up the river mouths and branches lol. But, its nice and peaceful there, and I can avoid the "having any luck?" conversations.

The longer my daughter and I stayed out, the more we knew we needed to bring food. Now, if I'm going to be out longer than 4-5 hours, I'll bring something. Usually just drinks though. I started off with sandwiches and jerky. Now I grab my daughter a Lunchable, and I'll bring some cold pizza, or ramen with some breakfast sausage mixed in.

Thats me as well. I don't compete nor am I a professional guide, but I fish the lake closest to me every weekend (both days), so I know it really well. I tend to give out information as I'm coming in from a full day, and someone going out for a couple of hours asks me if I caught anything and where I caught it. I'll give up the info, but always give them the disclaimer that they may or may not catch anything. I do have a couple of "secret" spots but they're impossible to get to unless you're in a kayak or something that can handle 6 inches of water initially (I fish from a rigged out canoe with outriggers), even then, I'll share those with the kayakers if they feel like paddling out that far. But I agree, its not a competition, and I do this for the thrill and relaxation and to spend time with my youngest. There are some guys who frequent the lake I fish and act like everything is a big secret. They show up in these really expensive boats and a day out fishing is like the final round of MLF lol. Had a pair borrow my scale, and I had to remind them to give it back after they used it for 5 minutes. I like to share as I was once that guy who was getting skunked repeatedly, and wished someone would throw me a tip. I figured things out for myself, but I still try to be helpful when I can.

I don't really consider myself a rookie at this point, but some days lol... I feel like a rookie. I just consider myself a student of bass. Tracking them down has forced me to learn more about bass behavior than I thought I'd ever learn, and even then they'll still deviate from what I think they're doing. But as someone stated earlier, I'll go out and catch a bunch, or I'll catch one all day, or I'll learn something new. This weekend my little girl and I caught 2 each and missed a few. We learned she needs a new rod to put up with the bass fights and has more hook setting power, and I learned how to work with a free rig. Either way, we were out fishing and had fun doing it.

I've actually been catching all my bass up shallow this summer. They were hanging around the bluegill beds which was nice. There's shad all over the shallows in the lake I fish normally as well. I never really fished deep this summer, but I never caught much fishing deep either in that lake. I'd average 5 catches per day on the weekends between 2 - 5 lbs. Recently though they seem to have disappeared lol. I did track them down though, in the 2 rivers that feed the lake. The water is 10 to 20 degrees cooler which is why I think they went there. Where I am, the vegetation isn't going to die off until mid - late October. They're going to feed off the remaining shad, bluegill and craws. October into November is an awesome time for my normal lake up shallow.

Yeah, my fishing buddy who's my 10 year old daughter feels that pain. She's interesting though, and likes getting challenged by something. However, she told me that fishing makes her frustrated more than other things. She does stick with it, but there are a lot of times where she'd just rather chill out on the boat than fish.... totally understandable lol. She loves going on the trips though, and usually at some point picks up her rod and starts casting. She's caught 3 bass so far, and her next goal is to pull in something heavier. But yeah, just have to keep encouraging. I don't force her to fish as I don't want her to resent anything lol, but I really respect her tenacity. Its one of my driving forces when I start getting frustrated as well.

I fish from my boat most of the time. I'd love to go during the evening during the week but not enough time. And when I start planning to go right after work to sneak in 3 hours on the lake in my boat, something goes wrong and I have to repair it lol. I don't think its jinxed, just has some older pieces that just need to be replaced. When I got back into fishing through teaching my youngest, we started on the bank. She wasn't catching anything so I told her we needed to rent a boat. That started to add up and now, we have a rigged out 16 foot squareback canoe. At first I only wanted to boat fish after we got into it. Now, during the week, its nice to hike down to the pond in our neighborhood and fish it from the bank. Started catching a bunch of dinks on a wacky rig, then I pulled a 2.5 pounder out of there lol. I don't really enjoy bank fishing when there's a ton of people on the bank. The lakes really close by have limited space, and I don't like to mess around with fishing from spots I'm not supposed to after getting in trouble with wildlife resources in my state one day (forgot to put the life jackets back into the boat, and I brought my daughter with me that day). However, the more we fish the pond the more we learn about it. Found a bunch of shad swimming around it tonight. I do know how you feel though. I tried bank fishing after boat fishing for months, and yeah lol... it does feel like your freedom is taken away. But, I've learned recently, bank or boat... just as long as you can go fishing you're good. Just remember what you learned on the boat and apply it to the bank as best as you can.

Your explanations of the Free rig and Tokyo rig are the reasons I keep practicing with them. I need to keep sticking to them and seeing if I can get a good bite. I fish mostly wacky and Ned rigs and they work really well. I want to try something different as the size of the fish I'm attracting and are able bite the hook is demanding bigger hooks. I also need to use my more stouter rods (I BFS gear as my "go to" but it can only go so far) and heavier line. I haven't used a paddle tail on the Tokyo rig too much, but I think this weekend I'll give it a shot and see what happens. Also thanks for the way you explain things. Watching your videos is like shootin' the breeze with fishing buddy.

I know how you feel and where you're at when it comes to the slump you're describing. My PB is 6.5 pounds and I caught it last year in mid-November at the tail end of the fall feeding frenzy. The rest of that year was filled with 1 and 2 pounders. This year I've fared better as I've caught a lot more 3-4 pounders, and a 5 pounder. But nothing larger than my PB. Like others have said its all about being where the big ones are when they're there, and tossing out something they'll want. I'm mostly a wacky rigger, but will toss around other worm rigs when I need to. Wacky rig works really well where I fish normally. I've caught most of the bigger fish on it, along with the Ned rig. I've also been fishing up shallow a lot this summer. I'm starting to fish the deeper flats though to see if they're lurking around. Haven't had any luck with that yet. My normal pattern this time of year is burning up the shallows in the morning into the afternoon, then making my way out to the flats in the main body when most go home. I've had a lot of luck in the flats this summer, lots of shad in the lake I normally fish. The water temp drives the other anglers away from there but, I've been catching them. Granted, I don't have this massive catch rate, but have good quality catches. A good example was this past Saturday. Had a boat of noisy anglers come by and fish an area I was already in. They blocked the entrance so I couldn't leave right away. I hadn't caught anything yet but saw them raking in 1 pounders. I was like "I don't understand is wrong with me?" LOL.... I was eventually able to leave and they told me on the way out that they've just been nabbing 1 pounders. They caught 2 or 3 in the area I like to explore. I came back 40 minutes later after they had left. Tossed out a Ned rig next to some sunken timber, and got a reaction strike immediately.... Ended up pulling in a 4 pounder. I just laughed. Found got 2.5 pounder on my way back to the main lake. Fished the flats, and didn't have any luck lol... still learning the techniques for the flats but having fun doing it. But still on the hunt for the 8 pounders and 10 pounders in the lake. I know they're there, just a matter of time before our patterns line up.

Nice setup!!

Usually I just take a picture of the fish while I'm holding it up. I'll do a selfie as well. I do like what @A-Jay does with the GoPro. Might have to invest in an offbrand one. My daughter wants to make little fishing videos anyway.

I saw similar behavior when going up into a creek that feeds into the lake I fish. We were going up one side of it, and then saw 3 bass dash out from the cover and move to the other side to a shady spot. I tossed out my lure and caught one of them. Not sure if this is regular behavior this time of year, but I saw almost the same thing you did. This was up in shallow water about 3-4 feet deep.