ww2farmer

Stick with it. We're from the same area, and I promise you that it is very effective on lakes around here.

Largemouth are just more prolific. Coast to coast, border to border they are available.

Around here, of course you don't lip Pike or Muskies. I personally don't lip Walleye, but have seen people do it. With Pike..it's not the large canine teeth that get you, it's the 2 million razor blades on the roof of their mouth. I made the mistake of trying to lip a bullhead when I was a kid. I don't know how something so small can have such tremendous clamping power. I had to practically beat it off my finger. I have refrained from ever doing that again.

There is no "passing the time" between bites for me. I can't help it, but I fish every single time I am on the water like it's a tournament and my livelihood depends on it. I'm super, to a fault, competitive. Most people are not like this, but some are, and the ones that are know exactly what I'm talking about. I know that's not what fishing is for a lot of folks, but that's the beauty of this sport, if you want to relax, spend some time outdoors, and have fun....there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not my approach.

It's been gone since at least early June. I had an event set up for the first weekend of June here, and it vanished with no explanation, and there's been no response to my questions about it from MLF.

I prefer the LV200 and LV500 from Lucky Craft. The "heavy weight for size" of them gets me more bites. That LV500 is dang near magic in 7-10 feet of sub 50 degree water in the spring. I can't get fish holding in that depth range to come up far enough to smack a 1/2 oz bait which wants to ride too high over them, and If I slow it down enough for a 1/2 oz bait to reach them, in our clear water they won't bite it. I can still keep an LV500 clipping along pretty good in that clear water and keep it down. PS.....fishing slow in cold clear water is not always the best idea, you'd be surprised how many big largemouth will bite a quick moving bait in cold water IF IT'S CLEAR....dirty water....not so much.

Bloody tails do not always indicate spawning activity. A lot of the time it's just a side effect of an older wounded tail (probably from spawning) that never gets a chance to heal up 100%, especially if they are living/hanging out on hard bottom, or constantly rooting around in rocks/wood/shell beds/etc.....kinda like if you scrape your knee on the side walk, and then keep scraping it daily or weekly for a while, it's always going to look raw and not heal 100% until you stop scraping it up. As a human you have a brain that tells you to stop doing the thing that bangs up your knee....bass are not so smart, and the need to eat or what not out ranks any concerns for the health of their tail.

Perfect example of "time and place" for a weightless senko. I'm talking about guys who just poo poo the concept of fishing one with any weight added what so ever.

I have won a lot of money on a weighted senko flipping it in grass BEHIND guys using big jigs, t-rigged craws/creatures, etc... Weightless has a time and place, but when someone tells me they ONLY fish them weightless, everything they say or have said suddenly becomes suspect.

Drop Shot Ned Rig And a jig....jig weight, style, etc.. might change, but I always have at least one tied on something.

Been a while since my last report on tournaments, so I'll just go back to the start and give a "mid season" recap to date on the doings. Friday solo angler open series: #1 on Silver 6/26/20....won that with 17lbs 9oz #2 on Conesus 7/10/20...cashed with a 2nd place finish with 20lbs 12 oz. #3 on Silver 7/24/20.....3rd with 11lbs 14oz #4 on Conesus 8/14/20...8th with 16lbs 5oz Thursday evening 3 fish open team tournaments on Silver #1 7/2/20.... we (my buddy Aaron and I) won with 8lbs 13oz #2 7/16/20... fished solo and got 5th with 10lbs 11oz #3 7/30/20.... fished solo BOMBED and didn't weigh in Allegheny Bass open Team tournament's (with my buddy Aaron) #1 on Cuba 6/28/20....we cashed in 2nd place with 16.19lbs #2 on Waneta Lamoka 7/5/20... we cashed in 2nd place with 16.20lbs #3 on Conesus 7/19/20..... we got 5th with 17.49lbs #4 on Honeyoe 7/26/20.... fished solo and cashed in 2nd place with 12.00 lbs #5 on Cuba 8/2/20.... we BOMBED with 3.10lbs #6 on Silver 8/9/20.... fished solo and Won with 18.03 lbs AND got lunker with a new tournament PB of 7.05lbs Misc. Events: CV Bass League's Annual Team Open on Silver 8/15/20.... we (My buddy Tim and I) got second with 16lbs 3oz...just missed the win by 2 oz. And I fished one of the Tuesday night team open tournaments on conesus in mid July solo....my livewell pump died an hour into the event, so I had to dump the lone fish I had at the time and call it a night early. It's all but impossible to change pump cartridges on my boat on the water, as you would need three arms, 6 hands, the ability to work tools with your feet, and a double jointed spine to do so....but on land..it takes 10 minutes. Oh well. So it's been a decent YTD with 3 wins (all on Silver..go figure LOL) and five 2nd place finishes on a bunch of different lakes. A couple of middle of the pack finishes, and a couple stinkers...which is slightly above a 50% cashing rate...I'll take it, as it's not easy to win or beat a lot of these guys. I'm at a slight handicap the rest of the Allegheny team tournament season, as my buddy Aaron is unavailable for the rest, but I'll be fine going solo. For the most part, it's been a boo-boo free season, no lost fish that have cost me, no fights with other anglers LOL, and other than the livewell pump issue, no major boat or equipment trouble....yet.

Your exp. is WAY WAY different than mine when comparing a Mojo to a Fury. I have owned a bunch of BOTH. And the Fury's are much better. I don't own any St Croix rods any more, because at the price of the Fury's, you'd have to spend a good bit more to equal the performance from a St Croix. The old SCII Mojo's, Premier's, and Triumph's...while nicely built/finished were pretty underwhelming to me at the price point. I don't have any exp. with the more recent SCIII Mojo's., but I did have Avid's and Rage's. And they were where I felt like St Croix's started to shine. Legend Tournaments were pretty awesome, but they are also pretty expensive for me.

If you want to narrow it down to 2 hooks, a #1 Gamakatsu B10 stinger works well for 4" and 5" senkos wacky rigged, and a 2/0 EWG will work well with both texas rigged. Personally I prefer: For Weightless wacky and Neko rigging 2/0 B10 for 6" 1/0 B10 for 5" #1 B10 for 4" For T-rigging 4/0 EWG for 6" 3/0 EWG for 5" 1/0 EWG for 4" But I understand not wanting to have to buy or carry a wide array of hooks. You'll do just fine with the two I mentioned first.

Depending on who's MH rod your using, the rod is probably OK. But braid is a must...for two reasons. #1 your trying to drive 2 big hooks into a fish, and #2 if your in any kind of vegetation, on a hook set braid will slice right through it and transfer your swing into the fish with much greater force than mono which will stretch and work against you in grass. Pad Crashers are fairly soft frogs, and have good hook up and landing %. You can even get by with 30lb braid if the cover your fishing isn't super thick, but that mono has to go.

IMHO...Keitechs SUCK as swim jig trailers. They are best as a stand alone swimbait. Try the new Yamamoto Kicking Zako....that thing in it's short time in my rotation has been FANTASTIC on a swim jig.

Shield is a lot of gun for the money. I have been carrying one everyday IWB for 5+ years now, and it eats everything I feed it, and being strapped to the side of a fat sweaty farmer/bass fisherman/garbage truck driver it's no worse for the wear.....the same can't be said for my buddy's XDS, it looks like a rust bucket. I have a Gen 1....and up until the recent panic buying nonsense, they could be had for $300 or less if you shopped around. When you get your permit, I'll meet you at the firing pin if you want...I'm a member and you can shoot mine.

I have multiple Fury 735's All with 8:1 Fuego CT's on them, all spooled with 50lb Daiwa X4 J-Braid For Jig and T-rig work, I use 15lb and 20lb Seaguar Red Label for leaders. 15 for lighter cover, 20 for heavy. For punching, and frogging, braid tied straight to the bait/hook. The 735 is a swiss army knife of a rod, I flip 5/16-1oz jigs and T-rigs with it, frog, c-rig, drag big football jigs around, cast and reel wobble heads, fish big chatterbaits and spinnerbaits, and more with it.

Cranking a square bill through the tops of deeper weeds is a great tactic in the summer. No, your no where near bottom contact, but you are contacting the cover. When that bait hangs on some grass and is ripped free you'll get some vicious strikes.

I fished my club tournament solo on Honeyoe this past Sunday. I got 2nd place by myself in a team tournament. It was slow out deep, but I managed a bag of cookie cutter 2.5 lbers for 12lbs which was good enough to get paid. I spent two hours flipping weeds and bailed on it when I only had two 12" fish to show for it .... headed to the bank and had steady action all day on slightly bigger than average Honeyoe fish, I just didn't get the kicker.

Around these parts everyone and their brother uses mostly Strike King and Rapala stuff. In my circle of friends/tournament partners, I'm the only one who uses Lucky Craft and Spro hard baits (the frogs are popular). Suits me fine.

I keep it simple, I use 3 styles of hooks. Gamakatsu Drop Shot/split shot hooks for nose hooking plastics in a drop shot rig. #1, and 1/0 Gamakatsu B-10 stingers for Neko, or weightless wacky rigging, #1, and 1/0 And Gamakatsu EWG work hooks, both regular and super line, for all my texas rigging needs. #1-4/0 in regular wire, 2/0-6/0 in super line wire. I'm not a fan of straight shank hooks, and have none of the problems people claim to have with them...even with big tungsten in a heavy flipping/pitching/punching application.

I gave up on the z-man heads, very poorly made. I have been using Swagger Tungsten heads this year and have been catching them just the same. I have also gave up on Elaztec baits. I didn't like having to keep them segregated from my normal plastic baits, out of the sun, out of the heat, and a host of other "issues" with them....One of which, at least for me, is rigging them straight and perfect in a time crunch, like during a tournament, rarely when I'm in hurry could I ever get them perfect enough to satisfy me on the first try, and when every second spent rigging is a second a bait is not in the water my angst and frustration with them grew . I have switched to the Roboworm Ned worms, and they have been BETTER fish catchers for me than the TRD's, plus go on straight and perfect the first time, every time. Ned purists might scoff, but I'm catching fish, and that's all that matters.

Don't over think it. Buy Green Pumpkin (either plain, or with your favorite colored flakes), Black and Blue, and June Bug in your preferred baits and you'll be set for 99.9% of all water conditions, and catch tons of fish. A can of chartreuse Spike-it dye is helpful if your in a bluegill/perch forage based lake, and some white plastics if your in shad forage based waters. Green pumpkin works great in clear water in any sunlight conditions, and in lightly stained water in bright sun. Junebug is a great stained or dark water color when it's sunny, and Black and blue works great in semi-clear to very stained water when it's overcast.

D-bombs have stunk for me. Catch way more on Reaction innovations beavers and Berkley pit bosses. Stick baits that are not GYCB senkos, or yum dingers have never produced well for me. Strike king products Whopper ploppers and R2S products in general. Anything from zman that's not a jackhammer, or TRD. Zoom products Keitech Fat Impact's....catch way more on the regular swing impact. Bandit, Bomber, and Norman crankbaits Rapala, Storm, VMC products Owner and Trokar hooks Jackall products For soft plastics pretty much all I use are Yammamoto, Berkley, Yum, Robo worm, NetBait, homemade, and Reaction innovations stuff. Terminal tackle I'm a gamakatsu, mustad, swagger tungsten, and Zappu fan And for hard baits/jigs/frogs/spinner baits, I like Spro, Lucky Craft, Booyah, War Eagle, Berkley, and homemade stuff.

Yes...my home lake, Silver, is universally HATED by about 90% of the area's tournament fisherman. It's known as a lake where it's very very tuff for non-locals, and as a lake where you will not get a ton of bites. It is what it is...most of the time I'm the only one there unless there's a tournament, suits me fine.