AlabamaSpothunter

It's still so wild to me that all those big fat northern LMB are just cruising around living their best lives under many inches of ice. If you caught a Bass in one of your bogs ice fishing, you'd really blow my mind.....double dog dare you too 😆

Seems more than fair to me and having seen copious pics of your amazing tackle collection, I have no doubts the condition of these rods would be exactly as you said. Thinking about you buddy, hope you're hanging tough!!!!

@Jar11591 and Katie, you guys are so kind, I really appreciate it! Attaboy @LrgmouthShad! I wish I had confidence in jigs.

Thanks a bunch Aaron! It really baffles me how I can go the entire Fall catching a handful of 5lb+ fish, and then the winter rolls around and that's possible on a single day. Winter comes when I'm just about to cry uncle from a losing streak 🤣

Sacked up a bit over 21lbs for a nice day. The 6.5 came on the Deps MIDST 1/4oz Drift Fry combo.....then the other 4 fish that made the bag were between 3.5-4lbs and all came on the spinnerbait. If I'm catching them on a spinnerbait, I've thrown the entire tacklebox 😆

The internet has changed how hard it is to find fish on big public lakes without question. If you do some googling on recent tournament results, especially if B.A.S.S. or MLF has an event on a particular lake, you can usually find all the info you need to find good fishing spots. Then you have the whole "community holes" aspect, go into any local tackle shop, or be friendly around the boat ramps, and most times knowledgeable anglers will freely share the community holes because after all, they're community. Anybody who is competitive on a particular lake will already know those places, no use in keeping them secret. A huge reason why the most dominant anglers in the sport are 18-25 yrs old is the fact they didn't have to spend decades like Rick Clunn learning every single major Bass fishing lake in the country. These kids show up to lakes for the first time with a graph full of waypoints. A graph full of waypoints and copious time using FFS are the main ingredients to winning on the top levels of professional fishing these days.

Heck yeah A-Jay! I need that kind of success on them.......a big ole bronze piggy 😎

I've got the 7.1 as well. It's got all the power you need, and then some. I don't play any fish on this reel, the drag is locked down for the most part and I winch them in as fast as I can. It has no problem winching big fish in so again power is not a problem at all. I don't use it as a frogging reel, but many do and say it really excels in that role. Hopefully that's what you meant by power.

LOLOL......I need to take a picture of where all my tackle is, it's the ying to A-Jay's yang 🤣 @A-Jay I see you got a whole box of Drift Fry, how have they been for you?

To me it's the Mack truck of "normal" sized reels. I've never used a more robust 100-200 sized baitcast reel. I exclusively throw 20lb FC on mine, and 95% of the stuff I throw with it is between 2-3ozs. It's my A-Rig, and standard sized Glide reel. I wish I had another one to see how well it does with 1/2-2oz baits.

@Team9nine Way to go brother! What a giant, and beautiful fish! @Aaron_H Thanks for the kind words friend! She sure did put on a great show. I have no doubt you'll get that big prespawn girl, you got plenty of experience with those big girls as we've seen in the past in this thread. I predict she'll come on a jerkbait if history is a good judge 😎 Stay strong my Canuck and Yankee friends.......contrary to what Punxsutawney Phil recently forecasted, Spring will come sooner than later, and a new PB is waiting for each and every one of you!

Thanks Katie! I feel like one of the real perks of catching a nice fish since joining this forum is getting an attaboy from you.....I'm spoiled now 😎 The weather the last week and for the foreseeable future has been so nice that other anglers have been out there, but the Bass know I'm the only one that calls them Sweetie 🤣

Caught a nice 7.2 yesterday on the Queen Tackle Rollin Strollin/Drift Fry combo. Tried to make a complete video showing the ridiculous action on this bait but the stupid editing program kept getting buggy. This is the second season of using these Drift Fry, and the novelty keeps growing. That front lip makes the bait almost stand still while aggressively rolling, it's the closest bait I've ever seen to matching what a stunned Threadfin Shad does in cold water. They do this thing where they roll on their sides and the right themselves. Adding the elastomer models was the final cherry on top. I think it's the coolest fishing lure I've ever owned.

It sure is pretty, but I'd simply freeze to death. I mean I'm freezing just looking at that 😆

Huge congrats on your wife beating cancer! Awesome act of kindness and generosity as well.

Way to get on the board @Fishlegs! Thread is a thousand times better when people post whatever fish made them happy enough to share it 🙂

The problem with purpose-built FC leader material is that it has significantly less memory, and manageability. Braid already has almost zero stretch, then when you add a leader material that also has very little stretch you end up with a pretty unforgiving combo imho. FC Sniper or Invizx has excellent knot strength, good abrasion resistance, but most importantly has significantly more stretch in it than those leader lines. Not to mention the cost of a whole spool of those lines vs. 25yds of leader material. Just something to think about.

Wish I could answer that pal, but I don't fish them around much submerged grass, just weedlines.

Thanks Katie! It was a happy accident when the GoPro was pointed to far down to capture my normal angles😁 It's so hard to judge a fish's size and quality from a 2D picture I've found, I struggle with my own sometimes. Funny enough my brain has even more problems when I see them on bump boards. I think the biggest thing is most people can't get the depth or distance away from the camera to give proper perspective. You really only get a few magical minutes with these special creatures, a picture, video, or memory can never capture how exquisite a healthy Bass looks like in the flesh imho.

I tend to pinpoint specific cover with the free rig and retrieve it mostly with short rod pops........reel slowly like a jig/t-rig for half a dozen turns, then add a rod pop that will allow that bait/weight separation to occur. Occasionally I'll literally just fish it as it were a T Rig, however the rod pops or making that bait bounce off the bottom a foot or two is where the real magic happens for me.

Thanks for the tips Tim! I've found that is definitely the case when the bait is deep and I use a Damiki Rig and 2D sonar. There are times when I just don't think these fish will eat an artificial bait without putting the bait on their nose. Earlier I was around a ton of bait, typical frenetic schooling activity for hours with an untold amount of Bass, but these fish are dang near impossible to catch. When you do catch one though, they are freak shows and usually spit up half dozen shad. The fish are always really fat during the winter on this lake, but this year is just different. Did catch a nice 6.10 fish on the 1/8th Queen Tackle Rollin Strollin Jighead and the new elastomer Drift Fry 4.0 in flashing bait. If you're in rolling action, you will not find a better combo than that. This 3lb class fish was a perfect football, and you can see some shad it discarded in the water.

That's crazy Bob, never heard of those things before. Reminds me of the Hydrowave 😁

Thanks Katie! They haven't been biting for me lately, but they've surely been pigging out 😁 Agreed about Woody, I've wondered a few times what's up with him. Hopefully everything is okay and he's just taking a break.

Caught a beautiful 7.6 earlier on the A-Rig, along with a few other really fat 3lb class fish, hoping this marks the end of a nasty funk that's been going on for a few weeks caused by crashing water temps and stunned/dying young of the year Threadfin Shad. All you can eat shad buffets make it almost impossible to catch fish I've found. Fat bellies 😍

I suspect Bassblaster will have the stats soon enough. That newsletter is one of the best resources in Bass fishing imho.