ww2farmer

Spent a couple hours of each afternoon this Sat. and Sunday on Silver. Neither day was on fire, but it wasn't terrible either. Water is still only 42-44 degrees, so not being terrible is a bonus LOL. I caught 5 keeper bass on Saturday afternoon, a 5-1, 4-4, 4-2, and 3-11 smallmouth. And a lone 2.5lb largemouth. I caught 7 on Sunday afternoon. A 5-2, 4-1, and 2lb largermouth. And 4 cookie cutter 3.5lb smallmouth.

Dragged my boat out of the weeds Thursday, pulled the cover off to make sure no critters were living in it, kicked the tires, charged the batteries and went fishing on Silver Friday for the first time in 2020. Good first day, with 9 smallmouth boated. Two over 5lbs, three over 4lbs, and 22+ for the best five. Still plenty cold as far as water temps go, 38-41 depending on where I went. Wind died around 2pm, and the sun popped out. Bite died with that. Called it a day at 4 after going 2 hours without anything but a couple pike. I really slacked off my reports last year, not for lack of fishing and catching, just didn't think much about it. I'll try to keep up better this year

Berkley Skinny Cutter 110+ is a sleeper. It's been a favorite of mine since it came out, and it's NOT expensive. It keeps up with my other more expensive baits.

I fish 100+ days a "season" up here I fish 20-30 tournaments a "season". I have 8 rods on my boat. 5 casting, 3 spinning. 2 Dobyns 735 casting w/ 8:1 Fuego CT's spooled with 50lb braid 2 Dobyns 704 casting w/7.3:1 Fuego CT's spooled with 30lb braid 1 Dobyns 703 casting w/a 6.3:1 Fuego CT spooled with 20lb braid 1 Dobyns 703 spinning w/ Revros LT 2000 size spooled with 10lb braid 2 Dobyns 702 spinning w/Revros LT 2000's spooled with 10lb braid When I jump on a buddies boat, I take one of each for a total of 5 rods. Works for me. The caveat I place on this...is that I fish the same handful of lakes regularly, and have for years....I kinda am semi-set in my ways and "think" I know what I'm doing....sometimes LOL.

Berkley Havoc Devil Spear Jr. Berkley Havoc "The Jerk" soft jerkbait. Berkley Powerbait Shaky and Slim Shaky worm Berkley Powerbait Handpured Finesse worms Spro Dawg walking top water bait Lucky Craft G-splash poppers Xcaliber Edwin Evers suspending jerkbait. Rapala Deep Ratling Fat Rap Bill Lewis Floating Rat-L-Traps with the diving lip about the size of Shad Rap on them.

I jump into friends boats all the time, and having my rods in stick jackets, with them "bound" together in a bundle with strap makes this simple and easy. Nothing is tangled, and everything is "grab and go". While on my own boat it makes sliding them in and out of the rod locker less of a hassle, and keeps guides from getting caught on stuff or getting dinged up.

Same here. The SLX just didn't "do-it" for me. I'm sure it's a fine reel. I used mine for one full season, and sold it. I still have, and am buying more Fuego CT's

You'll love it. About the only thing the 703 does better is fish heavier baits in heavier cover...but I don't use spinning gear for that, so it's not a rod that has much use for me.

I'm 2+ seasons in now to using Dobyn's Fury's almost exclusively. I have several 702 and one 703 spinning rods. They are all used with 2000 sized Daiwa LT reels, all spooled with 10lb braid as main line. 702's get used with 6 + 8 lb leaders, 703 with 8 + 10 lb leaders. I almost have no use for the 703 and won't be buying any more, and will probably replace it with another 702 The 702' s on the other hand are as good of a "do-all" spinning rod as I have ever found. I drop shot, ned rig, neko rig, flick shake, swim small grubs/swimbaits, fish lite wire micro finesse jigs, drag small tubes and football jigs, skip weightless plastics under docks, fish little cranks and jerkbaits, and more with the 702's. They are powerful enough to handle 5-6lb fish, and have enough tip to protect light 6lb leaders, and load up well for baits that are small like 1/15th oz ned rigs. My buddy loves the Sierra line, and feels the same way about the 692 vs the 693

I like both...but not in the same baits. Over the years I have had just about ZERO success with junebug colored jigs, craws, beaver style baits. But lots of success with those baits in black and blue. And the reverse is true for worms like trick worms, power worms, finesse worms, etc... Junebug worms, far out produce black and blue worms for me, so I use those almost exclusively over black and blue in those baits. Stick baits are a toss up, Iv'e had equal success with both colors, and carry both. June bug seems to shine on brighter days in stained water, and black/blue on dark days.

For a long time Gulp leeches in black were my go-to DS bait...but the panfish absolutely will not leave them alone, and it's infuriating to go through a tub of them during an outing to catch several nice smallmouth, but loose 3/4 of them to bluegills/rockbass/perch biting them in half or just plain eating them off the hook with their evil witchcraft. Then I switched to Yum Warning shot's....slathered in megastrike, I caught just as many quality fish as I did with Gulp, no panfish frustration, but the QC is soo soo bad with them, often entire packs would have bent tails. For $2.99 a bag, I looked past it for a while, but then grew tired of it. Now I'm on to baits with better packaging to ensure straight tails. I am smitten with the Xzone slammers, and Zman trickshotz the past few years. Boring old green pumpkin works all the time, anywhere. I fine tune my color selection based on conditions by using green pumpkin based stuff with some orange, gold, purple, or chart. accents (either flakes, laminates with those colors, or tails dipped/colored with dye) and have great success.

To snags: ned rigs To bite-offs: chatterbaits and jerkbaits

10 mins to Silver, 35 mins to Conesus. With those two so close, the quality of both green and brown fish in them, and my track record for success on both, I don't feel the need to venture out much. My little aluminum boat is too small for Cayuga, Erie, Oneida, or Ontario, but I will tag along with someone else in better big water rig. Honeyoe, Waneta-Lamoka, I-bay, Sodus, Onondaga, Owasco, and the rest of the small lakes within an hour or so don't offer anything I can't find on Conesus or Silver, so traveling to them is a once in a blue moon deal for just a change of scenery. You couldn't pay me to bass fish Canandaigua or Seneca on a regular basis. Keuka, and Chautauqua are not so big that my boat would be iffy on them, but they are also far enough away, and big enough bodies of water that I'm not real familiar with that I want to waste valuable fishing time traveling to them often.

I am not giving up on any techniques....but on several bait/tackle companies. #1 Keitech....expensive and fragile. I get better results and have more money in my pocket using other brands. It was not without A TON of trial and error though....it took a while to find a swing impact/fat impact replacement that wasn't a total dud, but I have found one....and it's cheaper....and it's better....and I'm not talking much more about it LOL. #2 VMC hooks....I have a love/hate relationship with them. Several of their products are go-to's for me, like the spinshot dropshot hooks....but I randomly get batches of them that for some reason are made of glass. Hooks that break, swivel wires that break/bend, or cut my line. It's to the point that I can't trust them, and if I can't trust them, their gone. Back to the slightly more expensive, but more reliable Gamakatsu Drop shot/split shot hooks for me. #3 Any bladed jig that's not a Jackhammer, or chatterbait "custom" TW exclusive. I have tried them all...from different brands, and even other Z-man offerings. Those two out fish the rest for me by a wide margin. A buddy of mine is a big fan of the SK Thunder Cricket, and it's comical that SK charges a premium for them, when after a day of fishing AND CATCHING my jackhammers that only cost a little more, still look and perform great, while his Thunder Turds are all but whipped and falling apart with no more, and often less fish to show for it.

Twin tail grub, or some kind of "flapping craw". Flapping craw brand/style changes based on my mood and boredom level with the baits. I have used chigger craws, rage craws, paca craws, and more that I probably don't remember. They all work equally well. Right now I'm keen on the X-zone Muscle Back Craw....mainly because I'm the only one I know using it, it's equally effective as the others, and they have the fastest shipping I have ever seen. I order products on a Monday from them, and 9 times out of 10 I have it by Tues or Weds....with a flat fixed rate shipping charge of $5. I like that.

Biggest Largemouth of 2019 was caught on a hollow body frog...6lbs 10oz. Biggest Smallmouth of 2019 was caught on a 5" neko rigged stick bait...5lbs 8oz. Both caught in October, both on "fun fishing" days Biggest Tournament Largemouth in 2019 were caught on chatterbait....5.12lbs, and ned rig...5.27lbs. One in June, one in August. Never caught a 5lb smallmouth in a tournament this year or, another one at all besides the 5-8 in October, lots of mid to upper 4lber's though. Caught a lot of 5lb largemouth fun fishing, on the usual suspects: Frogs, jigs, chatterbaits, neko and wacky rigged sticks, ned rigs, suspending jerkbaits, t-rigged craws and beavers, and probably more I forgot about. It was a poor year for cranking for getting bit AT ALL on that (shallow, mid depth, or deep), I can only think of one good evening outing with a crank all year, and dropshotting produced less numbers than usual, and less size than usual as well, I'm not sure if one fish over 5 was boated while either finesse drop shotting or power shotting all year. I did have two upper 4's in two different tournaments caught on each technique, but they were not fish that got me anything other than middle of the pack finishes because I had nothing but average sized fish at best to go with them.

This ^^^^ Although there are a few of things they make I don't personally care for, it's not because they are are not good products, but some of the stuff is just not my cup of tea. But the products they make that I DO LIKE, are as if I designed them myself, and fit my needs near perfectly.

The reason why hooks have trended larger on bladed jigs over the years is small hooks have a terribly poor hook up % on these baits. The more space you have between the blade when it's in "working" position and the point of the hook, the more fish get put in the boat.

I caught tons of fish on a lot of different stuff. Same as I always do. My biggest largemouth of 2019, a 6lb 11oz fish, came on a frog. My biggest smallmouth of 2019, a 5lb 8oz fish, came on a 5" neko rigged stick bait I won 5 tournaments this year (2 solo, and 3 with a partner), and cashed in 6 more (3 solo, and 3 team). Ned rigs, chatterbaits, and 5" stick baits (either neko, or on a wacky jig) did most of the heavy lifting. Jigs, flipping craws/beavers, drop shot, frogging, cranking and spinnerbaits were productive this year fun fishing, but seemed to be slow on tournament days. A few key fish in tournaments were caught on those techniques, but not as much as last year. I also fell on my face HARD a couple times throughout the year trying to force things. That stuff runs in cycles....next year..who knows, something that was not great this year, or vise versa will be next.

Mostly yellow perch and crawfish. Occasionally a little crappie, or bluegill. I did have one a long time ago now spit up a goby looking thing on my home lake....which doesn't have gobies. Never did find out what it was.

This year was my youngest daughters first as a "bass fisherman". We always fished for panfish before with simple stuff, like live bait under a bobber for bluegills, or small grubs on a jig head, or tiny crankbaits that can be cast and reeled for rockbass. I had her throw the ned rig, and a wacky rig almost exclusively when she said she wanted to "bass fish" this year. She caught them pretty good, and even took 2nd place in her first tournament this summer.

This video will explain how I do it better than I can type it out.

When I fish deep for smallmouth, which is usually in cold water, I like 1/2 oz blade baits, or dropping a drop shot down to fish I can see on my graph screen. If the wind is really blowing, I will cast out a small bait on a 1/2 oz football head and let the drift of the boat drag it along the bottom through the areas they are holding.

Me neither..all my casting reels are Fuego CT's. They stay put. I bought a Shimano SLX this summer....hated having to open the side to set brakes. Sold it to a buddy who's a Shimano guy and bought another Fuego.

My favorite rods that I have ever owned in separate category's: Best built : St. Croix Legend Tournaments Best Warranty/Customer service: St Croix Best bang for the buck: Dobyn's Fury Best balance: Dobyn's Best Budget Rods: Daiwa Aird X's