JHoss

I'll come back and update this thread next year once the season gets under way. Option 1 has Active Target on his boat. Not sure it matters much as we'll be fishing off my boat that does have Livescope. My dad has "used" mine a couple times on crappie and just gets a kick out of watching me use it. I think Option 1 got jealous a few times that I had it on the front and he didn't have it in the back. I plan to keep him as a fishing buddy, but suspect our tournament days are largely over. I could see us fishing the occasional event together, but doubt he'll ever be a regular tournament partner again.

Now that is a very healthy post spawn bass. I'd expect those fish to be 120-130% relative weight. The "skinny" bass in @Swamp Girl's original post looks like it's head is large enough to swallow the rest of its body- a tell tale sign of being under relative weight.

Looking forward to the Albemarle Sound event and hoping they don't set any boundary restrictions. Would be cool to see how some of the pros would attack Back Bay or North Landing River. And if they're spotted in the Northwest River, just take their pro card away immediately.

This is a common misconception which has been disproved since the late 70's when Wege and Anderson came up with the idea of relative weight. Fish from a healthy population will still be at or close to 100% relative weight after the spawn.

Current research says the discoloration is caused by a virus, either Blotchy Bass Syndrome (an Adomavirus) or Largemouth Bass Virus. Like flu season in humans, each body of water tends to have a certain time of year where the virus runs rampant and blotches appear on fish. I'm sure that poor handling practices play a role in weakening immune systems which would allow a virus to infect a fish more easily. They say that LMBV is in almost half of the states nowadays and can be spread from one waterbody to another the same way invasives get moved. In some cases, LMBV can kill fish.

No contest, short and fat. Long and skinny means underweight and not healthy. Even immediately after a spawn, bass should still be 95% of their relative weight. Too many people see a skinny bass and chalk that up to spawning stress, when in reality, the fish is not getting enough to eat.

Broke 3 this year alone and 2 more in the last few years. Slammed the butt end of a Lews in the truck door. Wrapped it with braid and epoxy and kept using it for a couple years until I stepped on it mid-rod this year. Had a ML Penn Spinning rod hanging out of the front of my kayak and hit it with the line from a much heavier setup on the cast. Had a fish get hung up in a blowdown. When I stuck the 13 Fishing flipping stick in to get a better angle, he took off at a weird angle and broke it about a foot below the tip. Accidentally dropped the lid of a rod locker on an Abu frog rod this summer. I take full blame for all but the 13 Fishing. I think that one may have been more of defect than anything.

Very seldom. Only if I'm missing a bunch of bites- I usually add a trailer before a trailer hook.

Yes

Have you had much luck on them? It does look like it would be killed on a free rig.

I plan to do braid split rings on all my cranks this winter. I'll clean them up and purge a few while I'm at it. That should be enough to keep me entertained between the end of hunting season and the start of tournament season.

Anyone have experience with this bait and willing to share how they use it? Yamamoto just announced they're doing a limited run, and as a big Yamamoto fan, I'm intrigued. Looks like it would be a slick C Rig or Texas Rig bait perhaps?

Came here to say just this. Unexpectedly delicious for something that roosts in alkali ponds. Kudu is a very close second for me.

I made the jump from kayak tournaments to jon boats a couple years ago and think some of the experiences associated with that could help here. I ran a NuCanoe Pursuit with a spot-lock equipped XI3 that ran betwen 4.5-5 mph wide open. My current TM on the Jon boat is a Fortrex, so no Spot Lock. I can say for me, that I value the speed over the spot lock and it sounds like OP does too. I am a power fisherman that likes to cover water, and once I embraced that, my performances improved. I used Course Lock far more frequently than I ever used Spot Lock as I was more effective hitting visible shoreline targets than trying to effectively fish offshore with a cheap graph. With foot steering, you could still steer and fish hands-free only needing to use one hand to adjust throttle occasionally. There are times where I 100% miss Spot Lock, but not nearly as much as I though I would. I imagine you could hold position fairly well with manual adjustments of your stern mount motor the same way I hold with the Fortrex. Eventually I will upgrade to a TM with spot lock, but that's not a huge priority at the moment. Like OP alluded to, most of the top anglers on the national level kayak trails seem to favor a stern mount over a bow mount for the ability to cover water. I still follow those trails to some degree and I routinely see folks talk about covering 10-20 miles a day in an event. That's just not really feasible with most bow mount rigs. The biggest disadvantage I see with the stern mounts is that you have to spend most of your time seated in order to control speed and direction. I stood 95% of the time I was actively fishing in the kayak and think I would struggle to be as accurate and efficient sitting down. Maybe that's less of a concern to you. Perhaps you should look at a faster hull design and more powerful bow mount. If I was getting 4.5-5 with a 55lb thrust in the Pursuit, I bet I could've rivaled stern mount speeds with an 80lb thrust and still kept the ability to spot lock.

Appreciate everyone's feedback. I feel like I should've mentioned that I'm fortunate enough to spend a lot of quality time with my dad already. We fish saltwater and hunt together regularly on top of the normal family stuff. That being said, he'll likely get the nod this year. My wife reminded me how many times I came home from derbies and complained about option #1 this past year. Between that and doing OK without a partner, I'm probably best off to take the easy-going, coachable option and keep my expectations low from a production standpoint. If he contributes a fish or two to the stringer, that's a plus. Couple other things came to mind that go in the "Pros" column for the old man: It would be nice having a second rod to "scratch the itch" when I think of something I should try, but don't want to put down what's currently in my hand. It's a lot easier to tell the novice which bait to throw and where than a guy who's been doing it a while and is set in his ways. He'll predominantly be sharing my gear which means less overall weight in the boat and less likely to duplicate techniques. One of my peeves with option 1 has been that he'll see me do well on a certain confidence technique, so he'll tie the exact same thing on and start fishing with that. I don't use FFS a ton, but when I had to use it last year, option 1 would get kind of whiny about him not being able to fish effectively. Dad is usually tickled to just watch this new fangled technology whether he has a rod in his hands or not. Guess it's time to start sending him some articles and YouTube videos to learn some of the basics of seasonal patterns and what not.

I'm looking towards next year's local tournament trail and debating which route to go as far as a partner. Curious to see who y'all would pick or if there's any factors you'd consider that I'm not. My number #1 priority is winning, but not wanting to throw my partner out of the boat mid-tournament is #2. Option 1 is the guy I've fished most of the last two years with. He's in his mid-30s and has 8-10 years of bass fishing experience, 5-6 years of which is kayak or jon boat tournaments. He has no other fishing experience before he got into bass fishing. He has a pretty good grasp on bass patterns, tackle, movement, etc but lacks some of the most basic fishing skills such as knowing cardinal directions and being able to use them to describe a spot or being conscious of noise on the water (I have to remind him not to slam hatch lids multiple times every day we fish together). He tends to get spun out when things don't go his way and I have to help keep him in the right head space on the water. A few events this year he contributed 0 fish to our limit and usually blamed this on being in the back of the boat. We don't really keep track of who's fish go to our limit, but I can confidently say that I carry the team far more often than he does. Option 2 is my dad. He's almost 70 and has been saltwater fishing his entire life. He has some freshwater experience, mostly from his youth and even did some guiding up north in his late teens. Overall, his bass fishing knowledge and experience is extremely limited, but his overall fishing knowledge and skill is quite good from all those years experience. I would certainly be doing a lot of teaching and decision making on his behalf. But, he's also more coachable. He's not experienced with a bait caster, which could limit some bait selections until he gets comfortable. One plus is that he is retired and once I got him coached up to a certain level, he could do some pre-fishing for the team when I'm working. He's always had a good attitude on the boat and I don't think he would be one to get spun out in a local tournament- he'll likely be happy to be fishing regardless of how we place. Option 3 would be to fish solo. I did this the second half of the season after option 1 had life get in the way. There wasn't a drop in average finish without a partner, though there's a few events I think I could've won or finished higher if I had a partner (mostly shallow derbs where a second guy flipping should have resulted in a few more fish. My best overall finishes this year came in events where I fished alone or my partner left halfway through without landing a fish.

I guess I'll look at this through the lens of my local tournament fishing, since that is what's most important to me when it comes to bass fishing. Advantages: Age/Athleticism- At 33, I'm still younger and in better shape than most of the field I fish against. Boat- I have one of the faster and better equipped boats. Mental toughness- I can grind out tough days better than most folks without getting spun out. I also can stay locked in and fishing for the entirety of a tournament day when a lot of others are taking periodic breaks. Disadvantages: Time- Full time job, wife and 4 year old means I'm usually lucky to get out once or twice a week. Experience- While I've been fishing my whole life, I've only been bass fishing for about 4 years. Hard to keep up with guys who have been doing it their whole lives and on the same lakes we fish regularly. Location- Living in SE VA, we don't have as many large bass lakes within a reasonable driving range as others, which has made the learning curve a bit steeper.

Angler 1 is doing something angler 2 isn't. Like others said, maybe he's presenting the bait in better spots than angler 2. After location I'd assume angler 1 is doing something to his retrieve that angler 2 isn't. Could be speed, could be be pauses, could be rod movement, etc.

I switched to Inverse Grayscale this summer and never looked back. I find it much easier to differentiate bottom hardness than any color palate and cover seems to pop better. I was an Amber guy before the switch.

Correct. But we have different styles of fishing and what works for you may not work for me and vice versa. I like to eliminate water quickly and being able to fish through an area at a higher speed helps me do that. If I get a single bite, I'm probably going to slow down to more your speed for a while to see if there's more there. I'd rather turn a handle painfully slow than burning fast, so a higher gear ratio works better for me.

I wish I was as smart as you and knew more about invasive fish species than thousands of biologists who have spent their entire careers learning about and studying these species. My dumb a$$ can only repeat what people far smarter than me have said. People like fisheries biologists and Mark Twain who has a quote I just love, "Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." Anyways, I'm done with this argument. If you want to continue, feel free to take it up with science.

Just scrolled through 4 years of Amazon orders to find the last time I ordered some off there. Those were from End Game Tackle Company, but looks like they're no longer around or no longer sell these. The last couple times I've bought them, was just random packs of the shelf of my local tackle shop. Some have been name brand, and some looked like they came straight from china. They've all worked fine for me.

You are correct about that. But, Guntersville is still a poor choice to make your argument. It's in the same exact region as their native range so you can expect similar weather conditions. The lake has always had a species of spotted bass which would help other species evolved to better coexist with a very similar species, the ASB. The two watersheds border each other and it's been documented that ducks can transport viable fish eggs up to 100 miles, so it would almost be expected for nature to slowly move some fish from the TN River watershed to the Mobile Basin watershed. It's not expected for nature to transport them 500 miles in one shot. Additionally, Alabama DNR is awful about their research. I've scoured the internet for fish surveys, which would show the shift in the bass demographic in that lake since the ASB got established. If you can find some sort of data that proves no impact, I would love to hear it. We can argue about this all day, but fisheries biologists unanimously agree that Alabama Spotted Bass are invasive and will outcompete LMB and SMB.

Haha glad you're not entirely under a rock. The MLF style kayak events have been gaining popularity for a few years now.

You can say you cover it differently, but its awfully bold of you to assert you do it more effectively than someone you've never fished with. Also, math... if you're going down a 1 mile stretch of bank at .5 MPH and I'm going down the same stretch at 1.5 MPH, I'm going to cover that water 3 times faster. There's many times where a buzzbait (or any bait for that matter) fished fast it more effective than one fished slow.