BassChump

A few days ago while trailering my boat to the lake, I was pulling into a parking lot and I turned a little close to the edge and dropped one of the trailer wheels into a small drainage culvert. > Luckily I was going walking speed but I bounced the trailer and boat about 2 feet in the air. It tore up the fender and flattened the leaf spring. I bought another leaf spring but the new spring has a 9/16 nylon bushing in the eyes and the bolt holes in the frame are only 1/2 inch. Should I try and find the correct bushings, perhaps drill out the bolt holes a little bigger or is it anything to worry about? Does anyone know what the weight of a 1984 Trophy bass boat weighs??? It's a 16 footer with an 85 horse Force engine. I just want to make sure I bought the right size leaf spring. Also, I've only purchased one spring and it's an older boat and trailer. Should I get the spring for the other side as well so the suspension is matched???? I had to remove the fender to get the boat home because it was bent into the tire. As it turns out, the spring was so compressed that while on the drive home, the tire rubbed on the gelcoat just a little when I would hit a bump in the road. It rubbed off just a little of the gelcoat down to the fiberglass matt. The area is about 1/2 inch wide and maybe 3 inches long but not deep at all. Maybe 1/32 on an inch. As I said, it's just an old Trophy bass boat and I just want it to be functional so should I have the fiberglass repaired or is it good the way it is. It doesn't leak and no stress cracks have appeared. Just a little scrape. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I'm somewhat new to bass fishing. I've just in the last few months started to do well with LM. I do have an older bass boat but everything works well. I'm on the central Oregon coast and lately I have had a lot of people telling me to go SM on the Umpqua River. Not only have I never caught a SM, I've never seen one. Some of the guides around here are telling me to go up from the mouth of the Umpqua about 20 miles to the town of Scottsburg, drop the boat in and fish the bank. Other than telling me to watch out for shallow rocks, they say that I should catch a gozillion of them this time of year. Unfortunately, they didn't tell me what to use or how to fish for them. And that brings me to here. WHAT DO I DO????? lol. Do I fish them like LM??? What would you recomend???

It's too bad you can't fish Tenmile. That's my favorite although I just starting fishing it a few months ago. Yes the bass are bigger there. No question about it. One of the reasons is that it's the only lake around here that you can only keep bass under 15 inches so it insures a good quality population. I usually am catching 3 to 5 pounders on a regular basis usually on Senko's. Simple, productive. With the exception of the first time I went there, I haven't been skunked there and I've introduced several people to bass fishing there. I have fished Tachenitch a couple of times but I haven't had any luck there yet but I just don't know the lake well yet. I'll figure that one out as well. I did fish Woahink a couple of times but no luck there as well. I fished Sutton Lake last week and while I have heard that it wasn't that good of a fishing lake, I did well. I caught 8 LM in about 2 hours. None of them very big, but fun and fiesty. Still trying to figure all the lakes around here but I'll have fun doing it. Any other information would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Ann-Marie, I think you hit the nail on the head. I took the boat out this morning after charging both batteries for 2 days. They kept taking at least 4 amps so I just left the charger on. Today I was on the lake for about 5 hours and the main trolling motor battery had plenty of juice left after fishing for most of the morning. I hope that mixing the water will work until the end of the season. The batteries seem fine at the moment at least. Thanks for your imput. Makes sense to me.

Yes, that's correct. Positive to positive, negative to negative. All that's doing is tying the two batteries together and it's still 12 volt.

You spend a week planning a REALLY good fishing trip. Your friend that lives 2 hours away is coming over the night before to stay at your place so you can get an early start. Check the rods and reels over several times. Go to the store several times to make sure you have enough tackle, line, hooks, etc. Take the boat into town to fuel up the truck and the boat. Charge the batteries, check the tires, make sure all the lights are in working order, bilge pump, livewell pump and pre-start the engine. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT. Wake up early, put a pot of coffee in the thermos and your on the road to your favorite lake in the middle of nowhere. Pull up to the ramp, pull the straps and................................ The ranger shows up from nowhere at 5:30 AM and wants to give you a safety inspection. I never saw one there before or since. Everything works EXCEPT THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Where does a guy get a fire extinguisher at 5:30 in the morning far from the nearest town. Murphy was in full force that day.

My apologies. You are correct. Those are deep cycle batteries. I should have said RA, not CCA. In any case, once I added water, they aren't performing like they did. Why would the problem come up when I add water? They are kind of old but I was wondering if it is just coincedence or is there a reason when I added water, that they died? I was getting better than 7 hours out of each one before adding water. Just curious.

I have a 16 foot Trophy bass boat with a Minn Kota 40 lb thrust trolling motor. I have a 900 CCA battery that usually gets me around almost all day. I have a 550 CCA battery as a backup. This weekend I was charging the batteries and checked the water in them. These batteries are several years old. Anyway, the water was down to the top of the plates so I added some distilled water. I went out yesterday and got only about 3 hours on the 900 CCA battery. I've noticed that when I'm charging them, they continue to charge much longer than they used to and they are venting more than they used to. When charging, the clips are getting warm. I use a variable amp charger that I've used for years with no problems at all. I usually charge the batteries until it's only charging 2 amps or so. I figure after that it's only a trickle charge so I don't want to overcharge them. Is there a problem adding water or are the batteries dying??? It's a tough financial time for me right now so if there is any way to keep these batteries going for the rest of the season, that would be great.

Well, I did go fishing yesterday (Tuesday) and it was a fine day. I caught a few fish, the wind didn't pick up as is so common on the coast and the boat ran fine. The only thing that could have made it a better day was if I had a lady chump in the back seat. lol. I'm "fishing" for more than just fish lately!!!!! Anyway, I caught 9 total. 8 bass and one yellow perch. All the bass were caught on Senko's and all were over 2 pounds with 3 of them over 4 pounds. All in all, a good day. I caught everything before 11:00 am and after 4:00 pm. Still can't find 'em in the middle of the day but I'm working on that. I throw other stuff but with little or no luck so far and it's kind of bothering me. I haven't figured out how to catch bass on anything else. Any suggestions??? I am going out on Thursday and Friday as well and I'll let you guys know how I do and thanks again for everybodys help. The picture below is of one of them I caught yesterday. Sorry the picture so dark. It was taken with my cell phone. My scale said it was 4 1/2 pounds but the scale is one of those cheap spring scales so I can't say for sure. I've weighed other stuff on it to check the weight and it seem accurate but I really don't know. That fish measured 20 1/2 inches. Unfortunately I didn't measure it's girth so if you had to guess, what would you guys estimate it weighed????

I'm just curious. I'm fishing a lot lately and I have a case of "fishing elbow". Kind of like tennis elbow but mine is obviously from casting. Nothing serious and certainly not painful enough to keep me off the water. Just wondering if this is a common problem or am I unique? :

Well, it sounds like I'm going fishing in the morning and at least on Friday and if tomorrow is good, I'll probably go another day during the week as well. In any case, fish or no fish, I like the lake, the weather is supposed to be good and it's my solitude. On a beautiful coastal lake, lots of sunshine and just me and my thoughts. Sounds like a good day to me. One other question I have for you fine people. The bite is good until usually around 10:30 am. After that, I usually don't catch anything until about 5:30 pm. Should I fish differently during the middle of the day and if so, what would you folks recommend????

Being relatively new to bass fishing, I have no idea what a "pressured" lake really is. My favorite lake that I have had good luck fishing is about 2000 acres in size. It's actually 2 lakes in one connected by a manmade canal that is about a 1/2 mile long. I usually fish the south lake. I have been successful enough that I haven't found a need to check out the north lake as of yet. Anyway, they had a large tournament there this last weekend. I had great fishing last Friday and I am getting the itch to go fishing again there. The tournament had 75 boats plus the regular weekend fisherman. A 75 boat tournament is the largest the state allows on that lake and it was a full tournament. With that many anglers fishing hard all weekend, I'm assuming the fishing will be pretty poor for a while. With that kind of pressure, should I wait a while to fish these waters again or does it really matter that much????? The lake is a 2000 acre lake with lots of arms. Over 100 miles of shoreline. The surface temps are around 70 and the water clarity is around 4 feet. Thanks in advance for your advice.

Well, I thought I saw it on one of the threads he answered. my mistake. 4 inch, 5 inch, 6 inch,,,,, does it really matter that much???????? Well, other than the obvious. lol

All good advice. I'll try throwing the 5 inch Senko weightless and T-rigged for tomorrow morning. I've been successful with the weighted Senko's and perhaps I'm missing a lot of fish because of that. I'd love to put more fish on the boat so with that in mind, it's weightless for me tomorrow. I'll also try out the baby brush hawgs. As it turns out, I'm bringing along a woman to fill the back seat that has never caught a bass in her life. Should be interesting. I would love to see her land a fatty. She trout fishes all the time but hasn't caught anything larger than a pounder or so. She is a riverbank fisherwoman so this will be a new experience for her and it will be fun to watch if we start landing a few. It's supposed to be overcast, cool and with some slight drizzle in the morning. Will that affect the fishing at all????? As far as RW "recommending" Senko's??? He didn't recommend them, in one of his responses, he just said was successful with weightless 5 inch Senko's. Sorry about that. Anyway, I'll let you guys know how we do. I'll post a pic or two if we catch a few.

Same thing happened to me yesterday. My PB is a 5 pound LM. While fishing, my reel started messing up. Not wanting to tear it apart and fix the problem, I grabbed my trout rod with 6 pound mono on it. 3 casts later I hook into something BIG. I loosen my drag so not to snap it off but it didn't work. After about a minute of gingerly playing this fish, the line finally breaks as it takes off. I didn't get to see it but there is no doubt in my mind, it would have easily been my biggest fish to date. Like you guys say, "that's bass fishing".

As many of you that have followed some of my threads know, I've fished since late last year with no success until lately. Finally in the last 3 weeks or so, I've been slaying them. In every body of water I have fished in the past, I am now catching at least a few every time I go out and in my favorite lake, I'm typically catching 3 pounders or better and plenty of them and you guys are absolutely correct. Confidence seems to play a HUGE role in catching bass. I was expecting to be skunked and I got what I expected. I don't think I'm fishing any differently than I did in the past but there must be something that I do differently since I'm now catching stuff where ever I go. Anyway, here's my question. I've thrown lots of stuff at these bass lately and in every case, I've only caught something on a 4 inch senko. Watermellon/blk+red flake. T-rigged with a pegged bullet weight. I'm using flourocarbon line on a spinning reel and a light/medium action rod. I've used different colored senko's. Cinaman, pumpkin, etc. I've used 5 inch senko's, weightless and t-rigged and all kinds of different combinations and the only thing that has worked for me so far is the 4 inch weighted watermellon/blk+red. On Friday, I'm going to go again to my favorite lake. I'm going to use only 2 baits. On RW's recomendation, a 5 inch t-rigged weightless senko and baby brush hawgs. Everybody on here seems to like those so I bought some in the Junebug color. How do I rig them and are they fished the same way as a senko? Do I toss it in, watch the fall, twitch twitch, etc.???? Should I weight them?????? Do I t-rig them???? On the weightless senko, maybe I'm not spending enough time to let it sink. I let it sink but I have never got hit on the fall. Always once it's on the bottom so I figured a weighted senko gets it there quicker and I can cover more water that way. Am I wrong????? Is the weightless rig a better producer than the weighted rig??? I know these questions may be very basic, but I really don't have a clue. Thanks in advance for your responses.

Well, I did go fishing today and it was good for the soul. I caught a few fish. Big ones too. I had a reel die on me so I grabbed another rod that only had 8 lb mono on it. 2 cast later, something broke me off like I wasn't even there. Wish I could have at least had a look at it. Believe it or not, I even caught a steelhead. This lake has a small creek that runs out to the ocean. As it turns out, the sun came out and it got pretty warm. Anyway, it was a good day. I'm going tomorrow as well.

Something came up this morning so I wasn't able to go to the lake I wanted to and I got a later start than I had expected so I went to a local lake not really known for it's bass fishing. I was going on the water regardless but I caught a couple of smaller bass, it just sprinkled a bit and overall, it was a good day. Tomorrow I'm headed out at 4:00 am to fish the lake I was intending today. It's supposed to be overcast and cooler. Lows tonight around 50 with highs tomorrow only getting to 63 or so. I'm really looking forward to it so keep the suggestions coming. Thanks again

It's been sunny and warm here in the Pacific Northwest for the last couple of weeks. When I say warm, I'm talking the upper 60's to lower 70's. That's about as hot as it gets on the Oregon coast usually. It's supposed to rain lightly for the next couple of days so I was wondering how that affects the bass fishing and what lures you guys might recomend. It's only supposed to get up to 60 or so. I'm going to Tenmile Lake. A coastal lake with 2000 acres or so, surface temp 69, fairly clear water, lots of docks, downed timber, clean and well defined weedlines with mostly clear, hard bottom and one large rocky point that goes deep not far from the shoreline. I'll be on the water by before 6:00 am. I really need to get on the lake tomorrow morning. It's a personal thing. My brother passed away last night and I just need to be alone on the water with my thoughts. With that in mind, rain or no rain, fish or no fish, I'm going on the water. On the lake is where I belong tomorrow. It's my meditaion. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I live near Florence. Almost the exact center of the Oregon coast about 50 miles north of Coos Bay. I am relatively new to Bass fishing and I was hoping someone on here has some information on the local lakes. I have an older bass boat so very little bank fishing for me. There are tons of lakes in the area but I don't know much about them. If you have any info on them, I'd greatly appreciate your knowledge. Sutton Lake Mercer Lake Munsel Lake Cleawox Lake Woahink Lake Siltcoos Lake Tachenitch Lake Tenmile Lake Eel Lake Umpqua River Smith River Siuslaw River Thanks in advance

Hey Nitro. Yup. Things have changed quite a bit in the last week or so and I have guys like you, frogtog, fishstick and many more to thank for what successes I've had. It's been great fun and I'm looking forward to my daughter coming back home so we can get her on a few fish. If she caught a 4 or 5 pounder, she would be talking about that for years to come I'm sure. If I can make that happen, I'll be sure to post a pic. Proud papa stuff don't ya know!!!!!!

Ummmm,,,,,, I kinda like playing a fish to be honest. I know I'll probably miss a few more fish than most of you guys that just horse 'em in but I enjoy the fight. Most of the lakes I fish are pretty clear. Not crystal clear but clear enough that I try and use a line that is clear. Most of my rods have 12 pound Proline flourocarbon on them except a baitcaster that I now have thanks to frogtog. It's got 30 pound braid on it. I'm going to start using that more now that I'm actually catching a few. Toss a jig around in the dollar pads and reeds. A new experience for me. Should be interesting.

My father (rip) got me into fishing although he wasn't into it much. (He thought the fishing at the bars was a better investment. lol ) We would go on vacation and there was a small lake with tons of bluegill. I would be there at the crack of dawn and catch buckets of them. As I got older, I would fish off the pier or go to a little lake close to home every once in a while but nothing to brag about. I haven't fished much until lately. I stumbled across an old bass boat late last year and got it cheap with the idea of selling it and making a few bucks. Bass fishing was the last thing on my mind. Took the boat out a couple of times to test it, caught a few fish and I've been "hooked" ever since. I didn't know the first thing about bass fishing so I found this place. BR. I've learned virtually everything I know from this forum and the awesome people associated with it. So to answer your question, BR and all you folks have influenced both me and my daughter the most. Gotta go. Woohoo.... Fish on!!!!!!!!

Life is good. After 8 months of tossing Senkos, and catching nothing, I think I FINALLY figured it out. It was a slow learning curve but once I "got it" I'm slaying them. The last 2 outings I've caught more and bigger fish than I've ever caught in my life. The problem was I almost never felt the "tap, tap". What I found out was that I missed the hookset when the line was "heavy". Anyway, I think I got it now. I've been catching boat loads of fish with 4 and 5 inch Senkos. It took me 8 months to figure out plastics but I have not caught a bass on anything else. Now for the question. 1.) I've stuck with one thing until I mastered it or I believe I'm at least proficient at it. Plastics. Now it's time to move on to something different. What would you guys recomend my next lure be? Jigs???? 2.)Also, I caught a bunch of bass yesterday and I was so pumped that I had to take a pic to send to my daughter. She is visiting my brother in California for a few weeks. I don't know if it's alright to do this but I did. I put all the bass on one of those metal stringers. I did it carefully and kept them in the livewell until I took the pic. Actually a couple of pix to be honest. I then put them back in the livewell for a few minutes before releasing them. They all swam away and looked good and healthy. Didn't seem to hurt them a bit but I was wondering if that's hard on them. 3.) One other thing. As I was finishing the day, I broke my line on the pole I was using. I had Proline flourocarbon line on it. Rather than retying, I grabbed another pole that was already rigged. It had the same pound line but in Mono. I found the mono to be much stiffer and it retained the memory of being wound on the spool. I didn't like it at all. Is it just my imagination or is Flourocarbon that much better than mono??? It seems stronger, thinner and it seems to me I can keep in touch with my worm better with that. It doesn't curl up on the water like mono did.

I've been watching this thread for a while now but I didn't want to respond because I had been skunked since October of last year and since February, I've been on the water at least 3 times a week. Lately though has been a different story. I've been slaying them the last week or so. 8-) Go figure.