Mattlures

The best thing you can do to prolong the life of your soft swimbait is to lube them up. However sometimes (especialy with the smaller fish) they just tear them up. The big fish usualy have the whole bait inside its mouth where it doesnt get damaged. If your bait is destroyed after 1 or 2 fish, then send it back to me and I will exchange it. Send me an email to my site or a PM. so I am not spamming. On my site I have an article I wrote about making soft swimbaits last alot longer. This aplies to all soft swimbait brands not just mine here it is Swimbait Maintenance Have you ever wondered how guys are getting 15-20 or more fish per soft swimbait when yours are getting torn up after only a few fish? There are a few tips that every swimbait thrower should do to get the most out oh their baits. The first thing I do when I get a new bait is to glue all the potential weak spots. Anything that protrudes out of the plastic should be reinforced with super glue. I will gently pull back the plastic away from the hook until there is a small hole just big enough to put a drop of glue into it. I will do this where the hook eye comes out of the bait and any other metal eyes that are used to add hooks. If you have problems with getting the glue all over your baits just put a drop on some cardboard and dip a tooth pick into the glue, then apply the glue with the tooth pick. It is also important to inspect your bait after every fish. Check for tears and make the necessary repairs with Mend-it before you make another cast. This will keep them from tearing any further. Now that you have your bait reinforced and you are ready to fish it you will need to apply some lube to the bait. Most scents that will stay on the bait for a long time will make a good lube. I prefer Pro Cure and Mega-strike because they have the consistency of Vaseline. Most guys know how important it is to lube your Swimbaits because it increases your odds of hooking the fish when you get bit. The lube will also help your bait resist tears. Even if you don’t think scents and attractants will get you more bites you should still apply a generous amount of lube to your Swimbaits. If for nothing else it will prolong their life. Another common problem with soft Swimbaits is they tend to get warped or twisted when they are not stored properly. It is usually very easy and quick to straighten them out. Soft plastic will return to its original shape if you put it in boiling water. It is not a good idea to submerge the glue on eyes in the boiling water because they could become clouded or fall off, but the rest of the bait will be fine. Dip the body of the bait in the water for about 1-3 minutes and then suspend it in cold water until the bait is completely cooled. This should bring it back to its original shape. Now maybe you will get more fish per bait.

goose775 unfortunatley the guys around here are tight lipped. If you asked at the parking lot you would think everybody caught 1 fish. My response is usualy " Yeah I caught a couple little ones" Your idea is good and it would work at the local seminars when the speakers are giving up some of the goods. jdubs To make your hooks barbless you just pinch down the tip of the barbs with pliers. If your careful you can open them back up later with a knife. One more thing, most guys wont care if you bring home some bass to eat but if your lucky enough to catch a big one then you will make more friends by releasing it. I have seen some bad things happen to guys who kept a big bass here. I dont condone it, but it does happen.

throw a buzzbait parallel to the shoreline at night. Cover the whole pond. Do this on a warm night. This should get you some bigger bites. You most likley have an over population, and that is causing the fish to stop growing. If this is the case you will need to remove some bass so the others can grow bigger.

I have a lot of advice for you. 1st go to ticketmaster and but a ticket to fish lake barrett. Its easy and the good sticks can catch 100 in a day. Novices still get a dozen. 2nd Hire one of our local guides. They will teach you the when were and how plus they will take you to good spots. Tell them how inexperianced you are and they will teach you. Dont get discouraged by our local fish counts. Most of the guys that fish here are very experinced and just plain good. Those numbers can be decieving when 80% of those guys realy know what they are doing. El Cap is a numbers lake, atack it that way. Go set your self some small 4-6 Robo worms. Our local stores(Tackle stores not wallmart) all have the scoop and they will tell you the best colors. You wont need much. probably 2 packs of worms, a pack of hooks and a pack of drop shot weights. 3rd Anglers marine is about to start having its summer seminars called fins. Its a good place to go and ask questions. 4th besides Barrett all our lakes would be very hard for beginners. We have some giants but overall the fishing is very tough. 5th use light line and fluorocarbon helps. 6th I cant emphasize a guide enough. It will shave years off your learning curve if you pay attention. 7th in general our lakes that are CURENTLY producing big bass are usualy much harder to get bites then our numbers lakes. The reason why some of our lakes produce gaints is because there is not a huge bass population. Fish the bigger lakes that are known for numbers like Cap, Barrett, Otay, Hodges etc. The little lakes like Jennings, Poway, Dixon can be brutal.

You are probably going to want a 5/0 with at least 1/4 oz weight

Thanks for the kind words Catt, again I am honored. I do know enough to get by and catch some fish but there are others much better then me. I am a better bait maker then I am a fisherman. Either way I would try and teach you some tricks. Thank you

Congrats on another great fish. You have a great fisherie there. Judging from the looks of those fish I bet you can get another PB maybe even a DD

Congrats on your new PB. Thats a great healthy looking fish!

I am honored but I am not that good. However if you ever come out here I will see if I can get Mike to play teacher/guide and THEN you will learn some things.

I use unibutter for saltwater bass and it works well. However I have also made my own scents that seem to work well to. I will mix up a bunch of scents includding unibutter in a small tupawhere and double stick tape it to my boat. This way I just dip my bait every few casts. I wont say its as good as just the butter but its convenient. Unibutter is good because it stays on for a while and it makes my saltwater swimbaits slippery. I beleive any scent that makes the fish hold the bait for an extra second or to is worth its price. I regularly fish from 40-70ft deep and I am drifting so I have a ton of line out. That extra second and a slippery bait makes a noticable differance at the end of the day. So my Verdict is that Unibutter is good stuff but I havent used it on freashwater bass. I think I will get some of that UV spay and test that against the salty bass.

Throw a small waking soft swimbait. I dont sell mine but I use them. There are several brands and they are all similar. It doesnt have to be this one and I havent even thrown this exact one but as I said they are all pretty similar. Get a line through with very little weight. http://www.***.com/Top_Shelf_Original_Swimbaits/descpage-TSSWB.html

My friend Mike Long just caught a lake record out here in CA it was 19.3 and he took a few pics and let it go. He already has just about all the lake records for SO Cal but he didnt want to turn this one in. He told me if it was 20 then he would have turned it in. I have thought about this many times. I would probably turn it in but I am not sure.

yes but that one is a floating version and thats how they come

FishChris has me beat. Here is mine 17.2

If you fish from a boat then I wouldnt be worried about loosing it. It floats and it doesnt even dive. I havent heard anything about the baits fish catching yet so I cant help you there. If I was a big frog guy I might try one. Actualy I would make one but thats just me. However I am not a big frog guy. I just wouldnt be afraid to fish that bait if I had it.

The bait is prety small as far as swimbait go so they have no problem eating it. The gill and redear were a nice suprises

Very impresive, I would love to fish that lake some day. Keep sticken them for the rest of us!

Also look through the articles on this site. There are some excelent articles on pond management

Big bass is a simple equasion. Good genetics(florida strain) lots of food and different varieties. Low competition. these rae the basics as there are other factors to. The only way I would stock more bass is if the one he has are northern strain. Then I would stack some florida strain. I would catch and eat all the small bass I could. If you can see them spawning then thats the best time. Catch all the males and eat them. On 50 acres you will never whipe them out. Make a size limit. Example any fish over 2o inches gets put back. Kill and eat as many other fish that are competing for food. Eat the crappie and walley and make a size limit for the smallies. You will not make much of a dent by yourself but if you get a few guys to help you can improve the size of the bass in the lake. 50 acres aint no pond! Man I would love to own it. If I were to stock it, I would stock threadfin, gizzard, bluegill, green sunfish, minnows and crawfish.Maybe put in a couple feeders for the prey species.

That would have been my dinner!

I was feeling cooped up and I had to go releive some stress. I went to a pond that I used to go to years ago. I was hoping it wasnt dried up. It was actualy flooded so I had a good feeling. The pond is next to a golf course but not on it so its accessable without tresspassing. Anyways I started out throwning my floating swimbait for no love. Then I tried a buzzer for a while. Still no bites. Then I drug a worm for a while and caught 2 monsters. Both times I thought I had a decent bass but I wasnt complaining when I saw the size of them. I weighed the redear and it was just shy of 2lbs. The bluegill was probably 1.5lbs The U2 next to the red ear and bluegill is for size comparison. I drug the worm for a while longer with no more bites so I decided to throw my sinking swimbait. Well I couldnt see very good tonight because it was realy dark and I ended up loosing my little gill deep in the reeds. So I tied the floater back on and I was rewarded with a decent one.

Some good stuff here already but I will add a little. When they are coming up to jump, sweep your rod to the side and put extra preasure on them. This usualy works better then stabbing your tip down. Also, many times you need to steer the fish. Learn how on ultralight gear. This is done by applying extra preasure when needed and allowing the fish to ge were you want it to. Move yourself or your boat to steer the fish. Always have a plan. If you know your in a big fish spot or you see a big fish your trying to catch, make a plan of what you need to do and where you need to be. If I am on shore I might run down a bank to keep a fish from going somwhare I dont want it to go. When I am on my boat, my foot is on the TM peddel ready to counter punch. One last tip. If your fishing in a lot of sticks always have another rod digged with something heavy like a jig. I have saved at least 5 realy big bass that wrapped themselves in the sticks. I open the bail and let them swim away from the snag about 10-20ft and then I catch my line with the other rod and handline the bass in. If you have that other rod ready it can definatley save you a big bass

very nice, even better that you got to do it with dad.

thanks, I just dont want people to think I went to the mods and complained. You guys have enough to do.

I have had no contact with the mods on that post at all so I dont wany anybody to think I was whining or crying to them. It does look funny now without Frank's posts. Like I am arguing with myself, ha ha. Its all good. I hope somebody got some usefull info from the post.