ww2farmer

This ^^^^ Being a recent owner/user of a Dobyns rods myself (Fury line) I have found to bump UP one power from the St Croix, Abu, Daiwa, and Fenwick rods I am used to. I own a 735C, and have been using borrowed to try out a 704C, 703S, and 702S. The 702S is a very limber in the tip rod....perfect for small ned rigs, open water, exposed hook drop shotting, small flick shake worms etc...with 6lb + 8lb line. I wouldn't want to use that rod for anything else. The 703S gets the nod for me for the things you mentioned, and it's not too power full that you have to worry about breaking 6 and 8lb line, or bending light wire hooks. I am going to buy all the models I am trying, but I am glad I had the luxury of trying them first instead of going in blind based on MFG. ratings

Moon phase and overnight weather changes play a big part in timing as well. A clear, starlit, bright moon night makes for tuff AM fishing any time of the year, especially in clear water fisheries, and double especially in clear cold water early and late in the season. A pre-dawn thunderstorm can also make the morning bite tuff, as those fish might have had the feed bag on during and leading up to the overnight storm, and by the time day breaks and it's cleared off, it's often shut down city. If I am faced with either of these conditions I sleep in, and hit the lake later in the day...unless there is a tournament, then I have no choice, and have to deal with it. Then you have the strange, once in great while, against conventional wisdom days...like the time I woke up in mid october to below freezing temps, flurries still in the air, and snow on the ground, and against my better judgement went fishing anyways.....and proceeded to catch a limit of 5 and 6 lb largemouth before the sun popped out and the snow started to melt. Which in turn killed the bite despite the warming conditions....go figure. So, until you learn the quirks of your bodies of water, just go when you can go, time on the water will teach you what is favorable or not....most of the time.

Since last report: Fished Sunday 9/23 for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening, and it was mighty slow. A few small largemouth on the ned rig, and a few average sized ones up shallow was all I could come up with. Monday 9/24 after work for a few hours was also dreadfully slow. I hoped in with a buddy on his boat and I only caught ***.5lber fishing behind him, and he didn't light it up either catching two the same size in the 3 hours we fished. Tuesday 9/25 after work...much better. Got a few good ones up shallow, and a handfull of decent ones deep. Thursday 9/27: Fished the 8th, and 2nd to last event on my weekday Solo Angler tournament trail on Silver. Finished in 2nd with 18.89lbs, winner had 19.85, and 3rd had 18.12. AOY race is coming down to the wire in the season finale at Conesus on Oct. 11th. I am currently in third with 109.32lbs....a frog hair behind 2nd w/ 109.5 lbs, with 1st being a very slim lead on us at 112lbs. I need to catch 18.5-19lbs to drop my 16lb lowest bag, and I need both 2nd and 1st place guys to NOT catch more than 15.5 lbs, as that is both of there next drop weights in our best 6 of 9 tournament format for AOY.

I started with Original Bill Lewis Rat-L-Traps 25+ years ago. Always caught fish on them. When the Strike King Red Eye Shad came out, I jumped on the bandwagon and fished them almost exclusively for a long while The last few years has been "play around with different lipless baits" for no other reason than i was bored with the R.E.S. It didn't stop working, but I just wanted to try new stuff. I also got a little dismayed at the number of people tossing SK cranks in general....seems like EVERYONE around here throws them, and wanted to be "different" in that aspect. Over the course of my playing around with many many different brands and styles the last few years, the standouts have been: The Spro Aruku Shad, the Jackall TN Disk Knocker (a little $$$ for me but dang it's pretty and works), plus the Damiki Tremor (especially the silent version). And let me tell you about the Ima suspending trap....shhhhh..never mind. Honorable mention to the Berkley Warpig (I fished the Warpig almost exclusively this year and while not unproductive, I wasn't "wowed" by it, but it's a solid bait), the Lucky Craft LV500, the good ol' dirt cheap Cordell Spot, and the various Booyah/old x-caliber baits. Rapala, Yamamoto, Livetarget, Livingston, Savage Gear, Lunker hunt, and Storm lipless baits have not been worth the packages they come in....for me...YMMV. I am interested in trying the Azuma line of baits, and maybe the R2S Rukus next. I guess I don't have a favorite....I like them all LOL.

I carry at all time 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 3/4, and 1 oz tungsten slip sinkers. I prefer them in the "flipping" profile/shape as opposed to the traditional "bullet" profile/shape. Both work equally well, but the flipping weights are more versatile and come through cover better for me, so I keep it simple with the one style. All black, all the time for color. As I am losing painted ones from various brands, they have been getting replaced with Picasso "gun metal" weights. It's a dull/matte blackish/grey finish and it does not chip or flake off. It's all I have bought the last couple years. I peg almost all the time. If I don't want it pegged I still slide a small 6th sense rubber sinker stop on the line and just slide it up out of the way. That way if I come to a heavy piece of cover and want a pegged weight I just slide it back it down and the sinker is held in place to the nose of the bait. But since I am usually fishing moderate to heavy cover, I'd say 95% + of the time the sinker is pegged.

I too was at Silver from about 7ish till pm. It wasn't terrible for me, nor was it on fire. I started on Smallmouth, and caught 5 in the first couple hours. Not a huge bag. 17lbs or so, but I had two good ones at 4-1, and 4-4. All but one of the 5 came from 15-20 feet of water, the lone odd ball came from 1 foot of water LOL. I switched to Largemouth around 11 or so after is became obvious the smallies were not on fire. They were a grind as well. I ended up catching 4 in the first hour or so fishing for them. Including my two best ones of the day at 4-8, and 4-5. Well flipping grass died before it every really got going...except for pike, pike were on fire...today was the day they decided to eat anything and everything black and blue that fell from the sky. Somehow I managed to lose ZERO jigs, tungsten sinkers, or any other form of rigging to them while catching over a dozen between 1pm and 4pm....including one really good one that weighed 11-14. Then at 4pm, they stopped, and the largemouth started again. I caught 4 more before I left at 6, all clone 3.5lbers.

Lets see....since last report Saturday 9/15.....fished from sun up till sun down, it was a good morning for size with 7 bass in the boat before noon with the best five going 5-5, 4-10, 4-6, 3-12, and 3-9. It ground to a halt for several hours mid-day and nothing short of the ned rig would put fish in the boat. But the best five ned rig fish were all smallmouth and they went 3-11, 3-9, 3-4, 3-3, and 3-1. Monday evening 9/17...fished for 3 hours or so after work. It was SLOW. I caught three all night, but they were all 4+ lbers. Tuesday evening 9/18 was better....I again fished for or so hours after work. Caught 7. Best five a 5-10, 4-9, 4-1, 3-10, and 3-8. The other two were small keepers. Weds. evening 9/19......another 3 hour after work trip, and another grind for 3 bites. No size. All clone 3lbers

It used to be SK KVD 1.5's (and 2.5's), but the sloppy inconsistent paint jobs, poor attention to quality control, and poor hooks out of the package led me to all but stop using them a year or so ago. I have replaced them with Lucky Craft LC 1.5's/2.5's, Berkley Squarebulls, Spro Little/Fat John series, and the Spro Fat Poppa 55's and 70's...(the Spro's are more than your under $10 goal but are worth it). Going forward, I will probably only buy Spro's and Lucky Craft, the Berkley's are nice, but I just don't have the confidence in them that I do the other two brands. All of the above are ready to go out of the package, and the LC's and Spro's attention to deatail and QC is second to none. By the time you swap the hooks out on a SK crank your at more $$ than a LC, and to me, that don't make sense.

I use senko style baits year round. Downsize to 4" on tuff days or in cold water. I also like a lightly weighted t-rig, or a neko rig in cold water over a wacky rig.

On Silver...9 feet for largemouth 18-22 for smallmouth. I am going to go out Saturday on silver and fish shallow just to prove that jfrancho doesn't know what he's talking about. Hahaha.

I just placed a $150 order at TW, and spent another $140 at a local store.....Yamamoto, Reaction Innovations, Zman, Spro, Kietech, and Lucky Craft stuff ain't cheap y'all....and that's just a basic restock/reboot of staples. Plus I jumped on the Dobyns rod bandwagon. Now, I got all these budget rods, plus Yum, Strike King, Berkley and Booyah stuff just sitting around collecting dust. I decided a few weeks ago to return to fishing the "good" stuff. My time on the water is too valuable than to be worrying about saving a few bucks on tackle.

I have, and IMHO, the Zman is a better product. Storage issues aside. If I glue a TRD to the head, I can fish one bait all day (unless it gets bit off by a pike, or I snag it on junk) and catch dozens of fish. The Robo Ned worms..............not so much. And you'll go through a pack of them in no time if little fish are tearing them up. I am usually not concerned with bait durability if it is catching fish, but the Zman TRD is the rare exception of a durable bait that flat out is the best for the intended use. Just keep them in their original bags, making sure the bag is sealed when not in use. They are so durable, you won't need but a couple packs of TRD's for an entire season. I have been keeping them (the TRD's) in their original bags, in a storage box with other plastics all year, and nothing has happened. My Zman collection now has grown so large, that i now have a dedicated large, single deep compartment Plano 3700 box dedicated to bags of Zman products, but like I said, until recently, it was a non-issue, as long as they were in their original packages.

Yeah, and they like them enough as it is. It's entertaining for a minute to have a 40" fish follow your bait to the boat....only to realize your $20 jackhammer could be gone in the blink of an eye.

Since last report: I don't think I fished at all after work the week after labor day. I did go out after work, and after my kids football game Saturday and Sunday. Both afternoon's were just average days. Fish were caught, a big one or two each day, but nothing to get excited about. I fished tuesday evening last week after work, it was decent with a dozen + bass being caught in 3 hours. I fished in my solo angler weekday tournament series on Thursday on Conesus. I finished 2nd with 18.44lbs, and moved up to 2nd in the AOY standings with 2 events to go. Winner had 21.90, I was 2nd with 18, 3rd had 18, the top couple non-cashers all had 17lbs. The bite was good, but everyone...............except the winner, seemed to not be on multiple big fish.

I had an old timer at the ramp tell me years and years ago...."big bass like stuff with skirts" He wasn't wrong...as more of my 6lb + fish (which is big for here in WNY) have come on things with skirts, IE jigs and frogs.....but it's not a "rule" as quite a few have come on plastics, and a few more have come on hard baits. This year has not been a jig year for the really big ones...yet. I often catch half a dozen 6lbers a year, this year so far I have 5, not a single one of them has come on a jig or frog. I have two on a wobble head rig, one on a neko rig, one in a tournament on a t-rigged craw, and one on a small plastic nose hooked on a drop shot rig. I have caught a ton of mid to upper 5lb range fish this year, quite a few on a jig, but some of the more memorable ones have been on other stuff, like the ned rig, or other non-skirted things. FWIW...my PB largemouth, a 7-2, came on a jig.

I don't know if bass read man's rule book on how they are supposed to behave. Generally, a couple days after it's passed and things return to "normal" But then there are times like this past weekend, it was 90+ degrees here for the last week, and they were biting good, this weekend it was in the upper 50's, cloudy, and stiff north breezes....and they were still biting OK, despite a 40 degree drop in air temps, and mother nature doing a complete 180 in the weather turning it from Aug to mid November overnight. Moral of the story...just go fishing, if it sucks it sucks, but it might not and you never know because you weren't there.

I have several in both spinning and casting. Their power ratings seem to be a little light, for example: The MH casting rods seem to fish like M power rods from other brands, and the H power casting rods, are more like a MH. The M and MH spinning rods I have are more more like ML and M power respectively. If you know this going in you can select a rod from this line to better suit your needs. I have the 7' MH, and 7'3" MH casting, they make for excellent treble hook rods, and light cover soft plastic rods. The 7' gets used for target casting 1.5 and 2.5 sized squarebills, and for suspending 90+ 110 size jerkbaits. I use the 7'3" for 1/2 oz. lipless cranks, mid and deep diving cranks up to 5xd sized baits, fishing wobble head jigs, and as a worm rod when I need to put 1/8th or 1/4 oz t-rigged worms next to or in light to moderate cover. I have several 7' H casting rods, one is my dedicated frog rod, and it's excellent for that. The others are for jigs and soft plastics, and fish 3/8-3/4 oz weighted baits in heavy cover quite well. They also are excellent swim jig and chatterbait rods. The 7' M spinning rod I have is my ned rig rod, and the 7' MH spinning rod is my neko rig rod. The performance for the price with these rods is un-matched by anything else in it's price range that I have fished with or owned. I used to fish a lot of the Berkley Lightning Rod Shocks, and Abu Garcia Vengeance's at this $50ish price point , but the Aird-X is better. I even like them better than Daiwa Fuego's, Fenwick HMX's, and Abu Vendetta's which cost more. They seem to be more durable by leaps and bounds over the Fuego, and Vendetta, and lighter/better balanced than the HMX.

In my year end classic team tournament I fished with the guy whom I qualified with as we fished several team tournaments together last year. All was well in those events....................until the classic. We decided to use his boat, as it's bigger, faster, etc..than my Tracker 170. So I am signing people up, doing livewell checks, and other tournament director stuff before take off, at the 6:45 cut off for sign up/boat checks, I notice he's NOT there yet. I send him a few texts.....nothing....finally he roll's in at 7:45...a full 45 minutes after the tournament started and simply states "sorry, I over slept". I am already fuming mad, as my boat is only 5 minutes away, and I could have just gone it alone, and not lost the fishing time had I known he couldn't get there on time. BUT....this is just the start of the story. He has ZERO exp. fishing for smallmouth on my home lake in the fall, which is what I wanted to start with, so after I load my gear, launch him, idle out of the ramp area, and we get to my first spot, we're already 1+ hours behind everyone else. Smallmouth are not there, or not biting at stop #1....but it's too late for me to re-game plan....I'm already spun out and still hopping mad. After a fruitless hour or so of smallmouth fishing, I have him move us shallower to try for largemouth. I boat a decent 3lber right away, but rather than continuing to drift quietly with the wind and fish the grass in this area to see if we could get some more bites....he puts the trolling motor on 11, and heads to the bank chucking and winding spinner baits. Fully spun out, and now wanting to go back to the ramp, I basically go into auto-zombie mode, pick up a chatterbait and aimlessly cast it around to give the impression that I am still "trying". 5 hours of this nonsense, and him running and fishing every terrible area on the lake he could think of, he turns to me and says..."now what do we do? I don't think they are biting this spinnerbait up shallow" My answer: " Take me back to the launch. I'm done". I went back, set up the scales for the weigh in, and took a nap in my truck. I actually like this guy a lot, were friends, but I will NEVER fish a tournament again with him, we don't mesh well as a team, and the not getting out of bed in time thing will bug me for a long long time.

I am also a fan of them. They make for a great swim jig and chatterbait trailer, but I'll flip/pitch them on t-rigs too. I use 3 colors, black/blue, green pumpkin purple, and watermelon candy. They swim/kick very well at slow speeds, which make them a solid cold water swim jig trailer. They don't come as nicely packaged as rage craws, and sometimes have a bent/deformed claw, but @$2.99 a bag I can deal with it. Even the ones with slightly askew claws always catch fish.

Silver has been on freaking fire this weekend. That's all I am going to say, other than each morning has been a slow start for me, but as soon as the boat traffic picks up around 11-noon, the bite has been lights out until dark. I caught over 30 bass Saturday, with the best five going 4-13, 4-10, 4-7, and a pair of 4-5's Today I caught just as many, but with the best five going 5-11, 5-9, 5-4, 5-1, and 4-11.

Until you find out if flat sided cranks work well for you, I would just buy a couple and try them. This "rule" of flat sided cranks working well in cold water or on lethargic fish I have seen regurgitated for years is bunk....so much of what works and what don't is body of water dependent. On my home lakes flat sided lipped cranks haul water. They bite jerkbaits, lipless baits, and moderate to wide wobbling cranks year round here. I have given flat sided cranks a fair trial, and they are just not as effective, even in tough conditions...on the lakes I fish, which are mostly bluegill, perch, and craw forage base oriented. Very little shad, save for the alewives on Conesus, and yet still wider bodied, and wobbling cranks still work better there...for me.....Your results may be different, but you'll never know until you try a few.

This............................BUT.....I usually have a jig tied on for the purpose I intend to fish it. It's about efficiency for me. A football jig is a poor choice for grass fishing, a grass jig is a poor choice for dragging around in rock, a light swim jig is a poor choice for punching through thick cover, etc.....But, I often use the "wrong" jig in the "wrong" places for the sake of just putting a bait where a fish might be. For example: If I am fishing deeper water outside the main grass beds I usually use a 1/2 or 3/4 oz football jig, that don't mean I won't pitch it into a good looking patch of grass I might come across. On the flip side, if I am mostly fishing in the grass instead of outside it, I use a grass jig, but like Catt said, it doesn't mean I won't flip it under a near by dock, or cast and drag it down a point or something if I happen to come across it. I am not cutting off and tying on new jigs, nor keeping 10 jig rods rigged up on the deck for every situation under the sun. At most I might have three, or four jig rods rigged up at once, and rarely are they all out at the same time.

Since last report: I didn't fish at all after work this week, between the heat, having other stuff to do, and the slow fishing on Silver I just decided to wait until Thursday to fish. On Thursday, I fished my 6th stop on my Conesus/Silver weekday solo angler trail. Much like last Sunday, given my recent struggles on Silver, I decided to lock a spinning rod with a ned rig in my hand until I got 5 keepers in the boat, and then make adjustments on the fly after that. The final fish of the limit didn't come until 4 hours into the tournament....and the fish I caught on the ned ran from a small 1-14 keeper, to a 5-11 hog with a couple 2 and 3lbers in between. What to do? I decided after fish number 5 (which was a 2.5lber) to fish it for one more bite...if that bite culled...I would keep using it, if it didn't, time to change gears. 2 hours later at 1pm I caught a clone 1-14 to my smallest fish and said "that's it" time to do something else. I picked up a finesse flipping jig and headed to the bank. I caught one more fish by 3pm, another 2.5lber to cull with. I ended up with 16.37lbs for the day....good enough for a handshake and to stay in the top 4 in the AOY race. Winner had 20lbs, 2nd had 20lbs, 3rd had 18, and then there where a whole bunch of us bunched up at 15-16 lbs. I didn't even get lunker with my big fish (5.77lbs on my tournament scale)...that was beat by a 6.29 another guy caught. Oh well....It wasn't a crash and burn like last week, but it wasn't anything to get excited about either. Silver, even though it's my home lake, is not fishing to my strengths right now, Winner, and guy who got 2nd spot baby sat all day, and ground out what they had....that's not my style. I like to cover water, and junk fish, it'll be back "on" for me soon enough. On to the next one in 2 weeks at Conesus.

Another problem with spinning gear and flipping is power. Your just not going to have the same level of fish winching power to get them out of super heavy cover unless you step up to really stout salt water oriented spinning gear, and then you will sacrifice weight and comfort by swinging those heavy big rods/reels all day. Heavy freshwater casting gear is so much more lighter, efficient, and easier to fish comfortably that it's really worth the effort to learn your way around baitcasting equipment.

Same.... and add white soft plastics and jigs to my list. I catch them just fine on white crankbaits, white spinner/buzz/chatterbaits, white frogs, white swim jigs, but a white worm/creature/craw, or white flipping/finesse/football jig hauls water for me. The only white soft plastic that's ever really produced for me has been soft jerk baits, but I catch 10x more on bubble gum, or a natural color that I don't even bother buying white ones anymore. As for variations of basic colors that I don't like: Black w/red flake...black/blue, or black/purple flake are go-to colors for me Green pumpkin w/ blue or red flake, and green pumpkin magic don't seem to catch much for me... straight green pumpkin, green pumpkin candy, green pumpkin with purple flake are Staples in my boat. Plain watermelon, watermelon magic, various versions of "Mardi gras", or "baby bass" are duds for me. Watermelon candy, and watermelon red are both go to colors though. Not a fan of June bug w/red flake, love straight June bug. And I also don't like laminate colors much like : sprayed grass, summer craw, morning dawn, black shappire, etc...the only laminate I really really like is bold bluegill. I am also a fan of chartreuse or orange dipped tails/claws/etc... but factory made chartreuse tips/tails/claws or other colors on soft plastic's seem to not catch them really good for me.