Lets talk fishing

I love smallies because they fight and jump, but it's always a bummer when they manage to spit the hook.

I always use a fluorocarbon leader. Some fish, like the walleye, are leader shy. It also makes a better/stealthier presentation in waters with high fishing pressure.

It has been a spinnerbait every time so the leader wouldn’t matter in being seen, but maybe giving some stretch is what has been suggested. I made sure that one yesterday was hooked good. I set the hook twice to be sure and she still spit it.
 
Largemouth in the pond have really turned on. Had nothing to do last night so figured I’d waste some time with the wind, cold, and rain. Caught at least a dozen in an hour. Similar again tonight. Nothing big yet, but its nice getting bit for a change. Most on a wacky rigged stick bait, couple on a spinnerbait. I see a school or two of fry swimming around already. Took the boat out to a local lake the last two weekends. Few decent crappie and just a handful of dink saugeye. Pretty much a waste of fuel. Keep saying its gotta get better.

I have no pond connections here. It’s all public water for me.
 
What’s ur preferred connecting knot? Fukin loved spinnerbaits for bass. It’s underrated nowadays for whatever reason. No one’s using them

I don’t know the name of it, maybe a barrel clinch knot might be the name? For everything else, I use a polymer knot
 
I can only use a spinner bait all season and it just smashes the fish up here. I don’t, as I enjoy throwing different baits. Any new person i take, I just give them a spinner bait and they have a blast.

They are some of the best for me as well. Lake and river. The creek, not at all. The creek for smallies is a choppo or a tube.
 
It has been a spinnerbait every time so the leader wouldn’t matter in being seen, but maybe giving some stretch is what has been suggested. I made sure that one yesterday was hooked good. I set the hook twice to be sure and she still spit it.
Have you tried adding a trailer hook? Bass short strike spinnerbaits a lot, sometimes it helps. Could just be bad luck too.
 
Have you tried adding a trailer hook? Bass short strike spinnerbaits a lot, sometimes it helps. Could just be bad luck too.

I have one set up with a trailer hook. They aren’t short stringing, they are getting hooked for sure, they just spit the hook as they jump. I am either going after it again tonight or I am going out to my old camp and go after some creek smallies. The river ones are a bit bigger and fight harder and are tricker to get in to be sure.
 
I have no pond connections here. It’s all public water for me.

All the fishing experience my way in beautiful NC, USA is in ponds and lakes. An 8-10" Purple and/or Black rubber worm with a #2 or 4 Eagle Claw hook slays large mouth bass, spinner baits IMHO aren't even a close second this way.

Next productive lure experiences include old school favorites (frog colored Hula Poppers 1st and frog colored Jitterbugs 2nd). They do best using an erratic stuttering, non-continuous retrieval, (letting them sit for 3-5 second after a quick rod twitch pop). That initial movement, after sitting still for 5-10 seconds, makes Bigmouths hit it so violently they sometimes come completely out of the water. <Moves>
 
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Who hoo!! Success. Went to the creek instead of the river. Caught a 2.5 lb smallie and a smaller one. Bigger one on a sixth sense whopper plopper type lure and the other on a spinnerbait. Lost another one but it was small
 

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All the fishing experience my way in beautiful NC, USA is in ponds and lakes. An 8-10" Purple and/or Black rubber worm with a #2 or 4 Eagle Claw hook slays large mouth bass, spinner baits IMHO aren't even a close second this way.

Next productive lure experiences include old school favorites (frog colored Hula Poppers 1st and frog colored Jitterbugs 2nd). They do best using an erratic stuttering, non-continuous retrieval, (letting them sit for 3-5 second after a quick rod twitch pop). That initial movement, after sitting still for 5-10 seconds, makes Bigmouths hit it so violently they sometimes come completely out of the water. <Moves>

I fish in Wilmington every year. Usually good for a 4-5 lb bass on a frog at greenfield lake
 
Go to fishing spot. Pull pin in grenade and throw in water. Pull out net and collect fish off top to take home. Very efficient but can have a slight metallic taste but it adds flavor.
 
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Finally landed some river smallies!! No one at the dam, so I had full run of the place. Took my sons and some ass left a tub of liver so I used some-it was rotten af, but didn’t catch any cats. Sure, it was raining hard, but the conditions were good for fishing.

I did, however, catch two monster smallies and actually landed them this time. Caught in a chartreuse mega bass spinner bait. The first was 2 pounds 12 ounces. The second one was bigger, but the scale was acting strange. It said 3 lbs, then it said 2’20, which is not possible-so does that mean the bass was 3.4??? I don’t know, you guys tell me which is bigger. Also, first bass I ever caught with the black spots.
 

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He didn’t catch anything but had a good times gonna try a bigger lake with better chances at fish.

He got his casting down which he enjoys now.

I took my boys fishing tonight. Took some worms to the Ohio river. My oldest slipped and knocked the worms in the water. Some slob left a tub of liver in a plastic bag because people are pigs and can’t collect their trash-anyway, I used the liver but we didn’t catch anything on the liver. I did catch two monster smallies. Seven year old for scale.
 

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What’s ur preferred connecting knot? Fukin loved spinnerbaits for bass. It’s underrated nowadays for whatever reason. No one’s using them

One of my Sponsors is mostly known for their Spinner Baits so i been throwing them more now. 2nd cast i ever threw with one i caught a Bass
 
I took my boys fishing tonight. Took some worms to the Ohio river. My oldest slipped and knocked the worms in the water. Some slob left a tub of liver in a plastic bag because people are pigs and can’t collect their trash-anyway, I used the liver but we didn’t catch anything on the liver. I did catch two monster smallies. Seven year old for scale.

Good job Pops! Teaching em Right!
 
One of my Sponsors is mostly known for their Spinner Baits so i been throwing them more now. 2nd cast i ever threw with one i caught a Bass
its one of those baits thats confounding. totally counterintuitive you look at it and its HTF does this even work.

but it flat out destroys. id try it with saltwater but no doubt they'd mangle this thing in seconds. theres no way it would hold up.
 
its one of those baits thats confounding. totally counterintuitive you look at it and its HTF does this even work.

but it flat out destroys. id try it with saltwater but no doubt they'd mangle this thing in seconds. theres no way it would hold up.
A lot of people use spinnerbaits for redfish, snook and trout. Probably other fish too, those are the ones I’m more familiar with. I bet the musky spinnerbaits could create some explosive strikes from a school of big jacks or a big cuda.
 
Do you guys think fish are smart?

I tend to think the fishing market is geared towards hooking fishermen over actual fish. IMO, this hobby is one of the more echo chamber rich ones there is. Lot of quid pro quo chatter. No one actually knows what an animal with a brain the size of an eraser is actually thinking. To me, its all instinct oriented in a highly competitive world where survival of the fittest in in full effect.

Match the hatch and youre good to go but lure color doesn't mean much to me. I tend to gravitate towards lures that mimic erratic movement to get instinct impulse strikes. I like imparting action not simply casting and reeling. Poppers, sinking pencils, metal jigs and stickballs.
 
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