MemphisFisherman

I'm afraid to say this isn't always the case tho, sometimes a lesser population of bass can improve the size of other bass in the lake. A good example would be Shelby Forest here in West TN...I can go there and catch a bass on probaly 50% of my cast, all of which weigh about 3/4 of a pound. It's the same story EVERY year, the fish won't get any bigger, it's too populated. The lake was drained about 12 year's ago and when they filled it back up and restocked it, they went completely overboard. Too many bass can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. Of-course this is just one situation out of a million, there are plenty of lakes that barely have a good enough bass population to reproduce. I made this post to not only see how many bass were taken from lakes but to find out the reason's why they wernt. I have to admit I am a bit suprised by some of the responses, I was thinking there would be alot of tree hugger's that just held bass up to this holy grail and would pass judgement on anyone who kept them, but the reply's here show that isn't the case. Many if not all of the people who say they don't keep bass feel that way because it is just thier own personal preference, whether it comes from not liking the way bass taste, to being too lazy to clean them, to just enjoying the sport without wanting to eat them. But I dont think one person really passes judgement on those who do. In the end we must remember that eating fish has alway's been a part of history, just like eating cow's that are slaughtered or drowning the cricket to catch that bluegill. As long as it is being done within legal parameter's then it's a personal choice. I do beg of you tho, please use your best judgement when keeping any type of fish, not just bass, don't fish a lake dry just because you can...but don't feel bad if you want to fill your belly a time or two =)

There was a time I had zero confidence in any crankbait other than Poe's, since then my confidence has come back some with the other brand's, but Poe's is still a heck of a lure.

It will varry alot depending on the condition's, but if I had to narrow something down to my "go-to" bait....it would without a doubt be a rattletrap. So many times in the summer the fish are just swimming around not eating, but often times a trap flying past thier face get's them excited and they take a chomp at it. Remember bass are very selfish, if not for the reaction of this bait scaring the hell out of it that makes him bite, he may very well see it and think something is chasing it and want's to get it first.

Just takes practice really, If there's wind high enough that it's creating waves then my advice is to face it...makes the boat easier to control. I can also tell you that way too many people stay on their trolling motor too much and miss alot of fish either by scaring them or just passing them by, unless your power fishing there's no need to stay on it all the time and run your batteries down. AND keep your big motor in the water, I always laugh at those who don't

Get an Eagle 320, great Depth Finder for the money.

Hey my first boat didn't have a livewell so I took a nice sized cooler and mounted a bilge pump running in reverse inside, rigged that up to hook onto my battery and viola...a livewell. Actually come to think about it....it worked GOOD, fish hardly never died even on long day's.

Ugh....a 10' jon boat armed with a small trolling motor...leaked to where I had to take cup's with me to pale the water out, and generaly just the biggest turd out on the water, don't remind me :-p

Wow good responses =) I used to feel just TERRIBLE putting fish in the livewell, but then I realized I only caught them because they were trying to eat a fish as well, it's the circle of life. And before someone say's "well they have no other option than eating other fish" YES, I AM BROKE AND STARVING!!

I'm doing both right now :-p

Not just on this forum, on every bass forum, I see HUGE number's of people who claim to be c&r only. I want to know how many people actually think that way. Me personally, yes...heck yes I keep fish, bass, sometimes. I don't keep bass out of small pond's, but in larger lakes that have a great population of bass, yes I will keep my limit if I catch it...but I never keep the larger bass (over the size limit), I just feel that they have lived their time and I should leave them be...sorta like a respect for the elderly. So what about you guy's? Be honest.

Another fellow TN man =) Welcome...and Sam, get a globe or map or something, Memphis is on the west side of the state!

About 7 or 8 different spinnerbait's, there are very few situation's where I have confidence in them. I only have 1 or 2 buzzbait's but thats because I prefer throwing a ribbit or horny toad instead, but i'm going to give the ole buzzbait another try my next outing, its been a couple of year's.

^^ Toothpick...normal, cheap...toothpick.

Should be an advantage to have a lake drop that low, then again...thing's don't always work out the way you have planned =) Still a fairly big lake? If so I would just go in and approach it like any other lake, find new structure, find new ledges and hump's and shorelines, they are still there. If it's a smaller lake I would pull out a rattletrap and go to town, in a small lake if it drop's that much fish may be hard pressed to find food, and you ripping and roaring a trap in front of thier face will only get them excited and attract more fish over.

Only have one livewell? I would think that boat would have two, one between the seat's and one on the front deck. Im assuming your livewell doesn't have a plug since you said it pumps water in and out? Your only bet may be just to bring a cup or something and fill it up...expect fish to be dead by the end of the day. and just to clear some thing's up for ya...Boats of that era did infact recirculate water, mine however...unfortunately does not. Nor does it pump water out, just gotta pull the plug on it to get the water out. On your switches...Off mean's off, Manual mean's it's constantly running, and auto mean's it switches on every couple of minutes and runs for a couple of minutes before switching back off, and just keeps cycling through that.

If your familiar with Lowrance already then I would say go with the Lowrance. I know the unit your not looking at is GPS but if you ever do decide to get into one, I prefer the Lowrance much more because they have better lake maps in my opinion.

You mentioned you can't possibly think it's good for a fish when they get caught out of deep water, road around the lake in the livewell, and then released into shallow water...Is this good for the fish? Certainly not, is it bad for the fish? I am a believer that if you put a fish thats still flopping around all over the place and he swims off without much trouble, that it may take him a couple hours or even a couple of days to readjust but he will do just fine. How often do you see bass floating around dead in this lake, or any of the other lakes for that matter? Not very often, they are resiliant fish. And even if 75% of these fish died, its no worse than keeping and eating the fish, but hey...let's be honest here, too often I see people playing some type of saint and saying they never keep fish, even on this forum. Let me clear it up right now, lakes are managed by creel limit's, limit's that say how many fish and what size fish you can remove from a lake. Ignoring these rules EITHER DIRECTION can effect a lake in usually an adverse way. In other word's, if everyone was catch and release, kiss a bass on the mouth and give it a back rub then you may just end up with a very overpopulated lake and smaller sized bass, maybe even unhealthy, starving bass. So, my point is what's the really huge harm if a few bass are harmed in the process? It happen's, it sucks for the fish...but the turtles love it, and they have to eat too. But then again as I stated earlier in the post, I don't think alive and well bass released in a tournament end up dead, I just don't think it happens.

what's the lake like? out of a boat i assume? Full moon or no?

Neshoba is the name of the pond. It is the centerpiece of a park at Germantown Parkway and Wolf Creek, behind what used to be the old Wal-Mart. http://www.ci.germantown.tn.us/bikes.html I have heard about this place, except when I heard it was behind the old walmart I thought it was still behind a walmart and I drove up and down the street looking for it for like 2 hours lol, found the lake but didn't think that it was the one, thanks for clearing it up.

If I had a lake that pretty, and producing 6 pound bass, i would atleast invest a little bit of money on a cheapie used jonboat, or hell even a pair of wader's. You can probably find a used jon boat for less than 150 buck's, easily...it will be worth it. if your like me and even too broke for that just wade out in the friggin water, it doesn't look that deep.

You must let me know where this pond is RW

How big is the pond? Do you know how deep it is? If it's just a small shallow pond, pull out your ultralite, put on a little beetle and try to catch some bream, if you don't get any within an hour....your pond is dead.

You have shorts and a t-shirt on in the middle of winter? haha that's what I was thinking.

well, here is my advice...you may know it all already and sorry if you do but I'm going to just go back to the basics here. Fish are going to jump, you may can not horse them around so much and try to avoid it but it WILL happen sometimes. You have to keep pressure on the fish all the time, pressure from the rod not from the reel. What I mean by this is make sure your rod is not angled too far up...but not too far down, when the fish jumps you shouldn't be reeling any slack that he may be adding, but your rod should be coming up to make up for it...make sense? I won't get into the whole line issue because its already been covered but I hardly ever lose fish to jumping, and I use fairly cheap mono line, nothing too fancy, I also head out to the backyard and take the stretch out before putting it on my reel's. Good luck and remember practice makes perfect =)

How fast are you moving? Console streeting or Tiller? And god please don't put a jack plate on a 40hp, everyone will laugh at you. How much experience do you have driving? On my boat, which will run a bit different from yours since mine is fiberglass, I gain a good 10mph more just by trimming my motor up (plaining out) after getting out of the hole. But with a 90hp my boat only moves around 43 mph fully planed, which is quick enough. Your's should probaly be running at atleast 25mph. Post your top speed on plain and what rpm your running at during that time.