fishinwrench

Red Oak is good. There is a fee ramp under the Hurricane deck bridge (North side) but it is steep and I hate it. You can also launch for a fee at Purvis beach (lk.rd. 5-29) and it is a good ramp.

I got sidetracked chasing white bass this week but before that happened jigs, a buzzbait, and a Redeye shad was doing well for me in 5' or less. Bites on the jig were strictly on the fall and near the outer ends of docks. The Redeye bites were right off the shallow rocky banks. Buzzbait bites were around little pockets along the bank or around any shallow cover. Ends of seawalls and concrete boat ramps were almost a guarantee. The thing that all three of those presentations has in common is they are all targeting reflex type bites. Don't give the fish time to look a bait over good, put them in a position to either hurry up and eat it.....or let it get away.

I target shallow flats with the Redeye mostly, but you can burn down any bank with it and get bit. 15# flouro and a fairly stiff rod (a mushy rod kinda kills the vibration I think). Mix up the retrieve by throwing in lots of pauses and fast darts forward. If you come to a piece of wood cover just keep it coming kinda quick and steady, it'll usually come crashing right through it. Once clear of the brush go back to the erratic retrieve. I've yet to see a day that it doesn't out produce a square bill crank. The only color you need (IMO) is Chrome sexy shad unless you go South where shiners are the predominant forage, then go with gold Chrome. Most new ones need a little tuning, so when you first tie it on make a cast and burn it straight back and bend the eyelet until it runs nice and straight on a fast retrieve without trying to roll one side or the other.

Cleaning the gutters ?

Yep, mine too. It figures that the color scheme that does best for me would also be the most delicate. What can a guy do to make that Chrome last longer?

I like it, it looks like a fun bait to fish, but I'm trying to figure out where I'd throw it. Not over dock cables obviously, and not over wood cover. Burning down a basically bare bank with scattered cover maybe. I'm thinking I could come behind that bait with the ol' Redeye and pick up more bites.

Was up at the 56mm the other day and fished quite a bit of old white foam. Didn't know there was any of it still around.

If you are the impatient type that likes to just zip across the shoals to hurry up and get somewhere then you'll love a jet pump. If you prefer to ease along slower and truly study all the water between here and there you'll appreciate the manuverablility of a prop outboard. The occasional crunches are never as bad as they sound and you'll learn pretty quick how to navigate and keep from tearing anything up.

oh man! Nothing ticks me off worse than idling 1/2 mile back into a cove, getting all set up, and then ringing the gong with your first pitch.

Not a jab, man. My intention was just to encourage guys to get started without feeling that they needed to go spend 250 bones on a specialized rig or else they were wasting their time. Truth be told you can do just about everything in bass-fishing with a 6'6" med w/14# line.

Well, because it's all subjective. What works best for one guy is not tits for all. I use a 6'6" Med/Hvy and a fully spooled 4600C most often and I can slide a bait in there and wrestle a fish out with the best of them. I can also do it with A 7' heavy, and probably could pull it off just fine with a 5'6" pistol grip, but who cares? There's no need to have a special rod dedicated for shooting docks. If you WANT one, fine, but it ain't a hammer/wrench thing by any means. What truly matters is boat positioning and the ability to get the boat positioned good without spooking the fish. Trick casting is a neat way to show-off if you are just really anxious to cast but in most cases you can position the boat so as to eliminate the chances of a blown cast and a spooked fish. I guess it depends on whether your real goal is to catch the fish.... or impress the guy in the back with your trick casting skills.

Geeze! Nobody can even fall out of a tree around here anymore. This place sucks !

Hmmm. Well as in all things fishing y'all are making this way more technical and specialized than necessary, but I understand the OCD pleasure of all that, so by all means carry on.

Hard to describe in text....but if you follow thru with an upward rod movement as the bait it scooting forward it keeps the bait from biting too much water. After some practice you'll learn to drop the rod during the last 3-4 feet of travel so you don't end the shot with too much slack and a high rod position. This is important because 80% of your bites will be almost immediate. You can ship or shoot anything. My partner is on his way to mastering skipping/shooting a buzzbait. He nailed it about 3/4 of the time yesterday.

Not only are some of them gorgeous, they also act really sweet. You'll never see an Amish gal bitching about anything or being hard to get along with. That in itself is worth 8 beauty points. I'm betting they are way easier on credit cards too ! I'd much rather be with a happy ugly girl than a hottie on the verge of throwing things.

It might not hurt to call them first, this time of year they might have the ramp tied up doing winterizes.

Looks like the 6.88 held out. Congrats to the winner ! We went out from Mallard bay and fished from 1pm until dark and landed 5 that totalled a whoppin' 11.0 Repetitive casts with a buzzbait seemed to do the job. One particular spot took about 14 identical casts to get the bite, so after that every stickup required 20 shots before we could give up on it. Lost the same 3+ (TWICE) that would have put us right at 15#, and another better than average fish hit the blades on a Spinnerbait but didn't get stuck, so we had the potential to rack up 17#. Since we weren't registered in the bash we were both glad we didn't stick a hog.

That's a nice Kentucky! Betting that one didn't come from the backends.

No fear for the walking dead !

6.88 leading so far.

I think what we see on LO is the spawn of these blobs of goo... http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/IntroBryozoa.htm

Visability is about 4' where you are putting in at.

Well I went out and sore-mouthed all the upper Gravois fish, so y'all can eliminate that from your milk run. Had 2 that would have been potential contenders in the 3lb even category and 2 other squeakers. NOBODY is fishing today, everyone is "saving" their fish.

As a dedicated shallow water guy I used to think that falling water was seriously bad news, and rising water was the best thing ever. After thirty-some years of fishing for bass in 5' or less I gotta say that if either situation is prime then it has to be the period after the water level has crested and just begun to fall back out. Same with rivers IMO unless it is a major flood.