JHoss

Anyone else catch the footage of what got Skeeter Crosby DQ'd? He's making small talk with a camera boat and the conversation goes like this: Skeeter: "y'all been over there and seen Buck?" Assuming the camera boat responds in the affirmative because you can't hear it. Skeeter: "He catching em?" Some other response you can't hear. Skeeter: "He's probably getting blowed out over there." This no info rule has gone way too far in my opinion. Guarantee every angler on every pro tour has violated the rule if we're going that far. Whenever I pass another boat fishing, I almost always ask something like "y'all slaying em today?" I guess even that could get someone DQ'd with today's rules.

Not familiar with a world record caught on a bluegill. Can you please elaborate?

I was dying when Ken Duke realized they had him on the show the night before he was set to fish in the knockout round. Listening to him on that show and another recently made me realize how smart he is. You're right, he could be successful at anything he chose. When he started talking about the mind games he plays with people in practice and during the tournament... at 22 years old... dude is going to be a threat for a long time to come.

You sure you aren't tip-wrapped or missed a guide somewhere? There's some serious friction going on somewhere.

If we're talking everything to consider for a new body of water, one thing no one is talking about is researching the forage. I'll check the State's DNR site for that lake to see what type of forage species are supposed to be there. The other thing I'll do is go into Fishbrain and just look at the recent catches in the area. I don't care about the bass people are catching or what they're catching them on. I want to see what species of brim and perch people are catching and what they look like. Map study is one of my favorite things about bass fishing. I'll spend many hours looking over Navionics, C Map, Google Earth, Omnia, etc going over every detail and thinking about where fish should setup and how they should move. This year, I'm incorporating more water clarity and historical water temperature maps into my study I won't be able to prefish much.

Sounds like the line is the most likely issue. Anything more than 10 or 15 lb braid is overkill on that setup. Also, what kind of cast are you using? If I'm going for distance with a spinning rod, it's got to be over hand and use my off hand on the butt to "trebuchet" that thing.

I remember Edwin Evers talking about coaching his son's high school fishing team. He talked about how much different their accuracy was vs a pro. They would flip at a target and be happy if it was within a few feet. He drilled into them that they had to hit a spot the size of softball because that's THE spot a bait needs to land to get a bite. That goes to what @Catt said. It's about being in the right place at the right time. If you're there and they're in the mood, they'll eat a lot of baits. Most likely you'll catch that PB on whatever bait you have the most confidence in because it spends the most time in the water. I've broken my PB on a bladed jig every time. And every time was in a lake I had 0 expectations of catching a PB in. But that's the bait I had the utmost confidence in at the time and threw 75% of the time.

The most prominent memory took a few hours to figure out. Took me an hour or so in the morning to relocate the fish I had found in practice and picked up a few on a buzz bait as expected. As the sun got up I caught a few more on various baits (probably cycled through 10 or 12) and had a decent limit. Eventually the sun got high and they stopped eating anything else. I finally put that BangOLure on and went back through the same areas and proceeded to cull most of my fish. It was a kayak derby and I ended around 90". I'm not sure I'll ever forget the 6+ that threw the BangOLure back at me. I had a feeling there'd be a good one on a small flat point with some stumps. I had switched rods a couple times from losing fish already and had it on a M F spinning rod with braid to mono leader. I knew she was big when she hit it. She made a jump completely out of the water 75 ft away and shook that big ol head and threw the bait back at me. I did manage another around her size a short while after that I was able to get in the boat. Another time was in a river and all the usual baits weren't working. Decided to try the BangOLure but didn't figured out that's what the wanted until I made a cast between a few cypress knees and backlashed. As I was picking out the backlash a fish took it under. That's how I caught them the rest of the day. Were there other baits that would've worked in those situations? Absolutely. But there's plenty of times the first 10-20 baits don't work and I figure something out that does.

I'm also surprised it's not fished more. I've only seen one other person throw it in a tournament over the years, and I think I may be the only person under 65 in the whole state who has them in his box. I can think of a few days where the bite shut off entirely for every other bait, but the BangOLure kept producing. I imagine if they weren't so hard to cast, more folks might use them. I haven't used a Bomber version, but sounds like they're more castable.

HATE IT. Had terrible experiences with it in the salt 20 years ago where 30-40 lb would randomly break off in the middle of the spool. Bought a spool of 10 lb last year and while I didn't break any off, it frayed worse than any braid I've ever seen.

@bulldog1935 what's up with the yellow cord on your reels here?

Did he have his stuff stolen again or is this the same story from 2020?

I think your buddies approach tends to lead to more success for less experienced anglers. When I first got into bass fishing and was fishing kayak tournaments, I had the most success just beating the bank and junk fishing. If I made 2,000 casts in a day, I was probably going to stumble across 5 fish. Now that I have more experience (and a boat), it's much easier to look for specific spots where fish should be. If they're not there, I run to my next spot. @WRB advice about scanning the marina/ramp is great. This is the most important thing I do when I fish tournaments and am waiting for blastoff. Ultimately, I think it comes down to how experienced you are and what you want to get out of it. If you're a novice and just want to catch a few fish, do what your buddy says. If you have some experience or are trying to learn to be better, do it your way.

Uhhh how would one go about getting one of these jobs? Asking for a friend of course.

This is all true. It seems like a lot of times they're kind of swiping at it from the side as they shoot out of cover. Smallies are my favorite, but I only get to fish for them once a year. These issues have been with largemouth. And I've watched enough 5 lbers throw the bait to know it's not a mouth size issue. The one with a prop. I should've made that clear in the initial post, but I forget there's a non-propped version.

I have the Dobyns Fury Swimbait Casting Rod, which sounds like it would suit your needs and only runs about $130. I'm far from an expert when it comes to big swimbaits, but it was highly recommended and has done fine for me.

I've always considered myself good at fighting fish. Growing up fishing salt, I feel like I learned to play fish better than guys who grew up fishing fresh. How often have y'all caught bass that weighed more than the test of the line you're using? I'd guess the answer is close to 0. But in salt, that's commonplace. I know there's times to get fish in the boat as a fast as I can and times to baby them in. The problem I've had with the BangOLure is that in my experience thus far, if I let a fish fight for too long, they throw the hook 95% of the time. So I probably do rush them more now than when I first started throwing the bait. The most painful loss last year was a 5+ lber. She pulled off 30-60 seconds into the fight while steady swimming away from me with maybe 3-4 lbs of drag on the reel. Don't know what else I could've done there. That was on a Med F with 15 lb copolymer. This makes a ton of sense to me. Not sure if anyone remembers seeing the Nat Geo footage of tiger sharks eating birds, but there was a similar phenomenon where the wake pushed up by the shark was moving the birds out of their bite. I could see that happening, and then just getting a hook in the skin outside the mouth.

Maybe I am hitting them a bit too soon. I drop down in rod speed for a lot of other visual techniques because I can be quick on the trigger. It's probably a perfect storm of all the factors mentioned here. I'm going to control what I can control and replace hooks and go to braid rings. I'll keep experimenting with rods and throw this in practice and fun fishing to build that confidence up. Appreciate all the advice y'all.

I ordered some 4 and 5s. I plan to weigh the stock hook and split ring and pick the size that matches that, then add braid split rings instead. I've tried these and they didn't seem to help. They work fine on other baits for me, though. I would think this would mess with the weight and balance of the bait too much. Unless you went with substantially bigger or heavier single hooks. Most of the fish that come unbuttoned, do so before I get them halfway to the boat. But your post has me wondering if part of it is just a mental block of sorts. I'm expecting them to come off, so maybe I am rushing them or overplaying them. I'm hopeful I can find something that works enough to give me confidence and then I'll be good to go again- like a ballplayer getting the yips. I can vividly remember way too many good fish throwing my bait back at me and not enough good memories of landing good fish. I'm using the standard 3 hooks style spin tails. My thinking with the braid is less about the weight and more reducing the leverage a fish can put on the hooks. I just want to match the weight to stock hooks and split rings to ensure the bait still sits properly in the water. I was recently talking to the old timer who turned me onto this bait about my issues. He uses stock hooks and has no problems. He did suggest giving slack to the fish after I hook it in hopes it would shake its head and get an extra hook in it, but that seems contrary to everything I know about fighting fish.

Tides are a good point. Back Bay and Northwest River are wind driven but I would think the sound near Corolla is more tidal. Even Tulls Bay (where Northwest dumps in to) has a decent salinity to it most of the time. If you're thinking about driving to Northwest River, do yourself a favor and go to North River instead. I live 5 minutes from NW and it's nothing special. Plenty of dinks, but bass over 3 lbs are rare. Most of the guys who win tournaments out of NW are running to Back Bay or somewhere well out of the river.

Trust me, I've tried multiple different hooks. These look awesome. I'm going to order some. I was thinking about going up a size and using braid split rings to keep the same weight and balance the bait was designed for. I just added 4 ML spinning rods to the arsenal, so I had planned on trying on of those with it. 10lb braid to a 15 lb mono leader is what I'm thinking. Can anyone tell me what size hooks come standard on these so I can order them before I go home and size them myself?

I've tried M and MH from Mod to Fast in both casting and spinning rods. I've thrown them on straight braid, braid with a leader, mono, copolymer, and probably even straight fluoro. Yes, its the balsa version. I wasn't aware they made them in anything else. I've tried horsing them in and I've tried babying them in. Seems like if I horse them in, I pull the hooks and if I baby them, they jump and throw it or headshake under water and throw it. I don't have these issues with any other treble hook bait.

Not technically over the side, but off the transom. I lost my motor this past summer. I was doing Mach Jesus across the lake when all of a sudden, my arm yanked back. I looked behind me to see my 20hp Tohatsu doing death donuts on the surface for a few seconds before going under. I marked the spot well and went back the next day with scuba gear to try and recover. The water beneath the thermocline had so much sediment in it that it felt like someone closing me in a refrigerator when I went under it. Even with a flashlight, visibility was only 3-4". I had borrowed my dad's BC assuming it was in better shape than mine. I was wrong. When it was time to come up, I hit my inflator but never felt like I was rising and didn't hit the thermocline when I expected. Realizing something was up, I sunk to the bottom to try and get my bearings. I pushed off the bottom and kicked up while hitting the inflator until I saw light at the thermocline. I stopped kicking and started sinking again. I didn't realize until I was back boat side that one of the fill valves on my BC ruptured and was leaking air faster than it could fill. Went back again the next weekend with heavy duty magnets and grapple hooks but was never able to recover it. I like to tell myself that one day I'll catch the winning fish off that motor and it will all be worth it. Besides that, I've just lost lures, scissors, pliers, etc.

Looking for advice on upping my landing percentage with the Bagley BangOLure. I have a ton of confidence that I'll get bit when I'm throwing them, but no confidence the fish makes it in the boat. I've tried countless rod, reel, and line combos. I've tried different hooks. I have fish throw the bait when they're jumping and when they're underwater. The only thing I can think of that I haven't tried is switching to braid split rings. Before I do that, has anyone else found the winning setup or trick for landing fish on these things?

No problem. One other thing that would probably help a lot on this fishery would be to use Google Earth (downloaded on a computer) to view historical imagery of the areas your fishing. I think you'd likely find some images with low water levels, which you could scour for cover or contours exposed by that low water. Just a quick glance at the online version shows a lot of areas of grass and some high spots. If you google 978 Cruz Bay Lane and look off their dock, you'll see an area with what appears to be a strong grass line or contour plus a bunch of scattered grass. There looks like there may even be a duck blind or something there. Places like that can be a great place to start because you can check 4 or 5 types of cover/structure in one small area to see what they're on. The part I don't know how to advise you on is finding the salt line. If I'm remembering correctly, my buddy owns a place on Cruz Bay Lane and we caught a couple speckled trout off his dock the one time we were there. I would think that's far enough from Oregon Inlet to be brackish and have bass and some salt species in there, but can't say for sure. With the warm weather we're having and time of year, I'd expect the first wave of fish to be moving up to spawn. A lot of these fish will look for good bottom in creeks, canals, and backwaters of the marsh where they're protected. I'd be starting at the back of those places and work my way out. Do that in a couple spots and you should run into them.