Paul Roberts

Great fishing. Awesome multi-species spot as you've got three species i nsome stage of spawning there. You might even get a drop back brown if the creek held enough water to winter some browns. Absolutely love the look on your son's face. A tip: Lose the cotton sweatshirt and replace with fleece. Then put a rain jacket over and you'll stay snug. Pneumonia will cost you fish!

Well… studies have shown that fished hooked in the esophagus –virtually anywhere behind the tongue–show very high mortality. Any further ripping or tearing and its downhill from a bad place to begin with. Best you can do is extract each hook with hemostats. Sometimes you have to get the hook to come out in the same orientation it went in, and then it slips out easier. I’ve removed lures through the gills too. I’ve also realized the damage and simply killed the fish and dissected the lure out. The best thing I’ve ever done in terms of minimizing damage to fish, and sheer ease of unhooking, has been going barbless. I started this with soft plastics bc of deep hooking. A barbless hook just slips right out and I’ve seen no issues with fish coming unhooked during the fight. Keep a tight line and it’s no different. Small compact jigs, like hair or grubs, are a different story though, and jumping fish will throw them like butter. Keep the barbs on them. I’ve never de-barbed large jigs and really haven’t had to. Seems bass spit them, maybe due to the weight. Trebles are the worst. So I took the next plunge and de-barbed some crankbaits and I surprisingly didn’t lose fish on them either. An internet buddy, Brian Waldman, did a barbless crankbait test and took over 200 fish and said he didn’t see a difference either. What’s really neat is when you get them in the boat and can just shake the hooks out. It’s so easy on both me and the fish. The only cranks I haven’t de-barbed are heavier lipless, bc they are more easily thrown than other cranks, possibly due to the mass in a compact package. I wouldn’t go barbless with a spoon or bladebait either. There are also micro-barb hooks available, and these are really nice. That’s what Brian Waldman went with, as he’s a tournament guy.

Ouch! That is one healthy mama.

Very possible. I have caught the same fish a number of times evidenced by spotting patterns on the body seen in photos. I posted something about that here a couple years ago, complete with circles and arra's. In fact my PB I caught twice, released her twice, then my buddy caught her in the very same spot the next year and she was his PB too. C&R works.

Good post. Interesting. I can definitely see that. I am certainly not in a life threatening situation when fishing. When we are, it pays to be completely open to all possibilities, real or just in the psyche. Reminds me a bit of how native indigenous hunters talk about hunting. I'm a hunter too and understand the effort required, esp in big country, and the role teh psyche takes. Bill Murphy has a section in his Catching Big Bass on the psyche. He says something like, "It doesn't matter whether it's factually right or wrong, only that it works." My blunt response in my first post above is my effort to get insecurity/underconfidence under control, which can get in my way. We may have to be "open" and "creative", but not silly. Where those begin and end is different for everyone.

ww2farmer has some good comments. I also like J's simple -"go graphing". Unless you are expecting results from simple chuck-n-wind, the issue might be more location than presentation. My guess is, and its only a guess, a lot of very early fishers are fishing classic "bass habitat" -flats and coves with cover. But winter bass habitat is often along steep drops, often away from those classic cover strewn flats. This is true in natural lakes as well as reservoirs. In natural lakes such places can be rather subtle. Bass may not appear in classic habitat until those aras warm. Another option is to target lakes/res with shad as the chief forage. Shad often die off during winter and ice out on these lakes can have active bass willing to move for those weak and dying shad.

I knew there would be someone to prove me wrong. Rats! John, go to bed.

IME, there is a general correlation. But... I once tried to actually quantify that, associating numbers of spawners with wild plum blossoms. Problem was, as you might expect, there was so much variation among individual plums that I couldn't say much more than, yeah, the plums bloom about the time the bass spawn. But that isn't saying more than the bass spawn here between late April and mid May. Now, maybe if I'd chosen one plum bush ... but... which one? That variation in blooming time is both genetic and environmental site specific. I have two aspen groves on my property, that are genetically distinct indicated by the fact that the two groves bloom i spring and turn color in fall 3 weeks apart.

April 4th, 2013 Brilliant blue. High 70F. Great heating day between cold fronts with snow. Warm fronts have been short-lived this spring. Some years things warm quickly, while in others winter and spring duke it out a bit longer. This is one of those years where winter is just not rolling over and dying. At least it would appear that way by looking at the land. Looking at the water however, esp with a thermometer, shows a different and common story. There’s nothing like having several inches of snow dump on your parade to make you think “winter”. But the sun is high in the sky now, and has been that way long enough now that those dark water ponds have indeed been soaking up heat, and holding it stingily. Things are progressing along fairly normally although, in terms of fishing action, I’d like a few more heating days popped in between cold fronts to liven things up. Each spring, I target rapidly heating days that warm the immediate shallows; heat that sucks bluegills in like metal to a magnet, with the bass hot on their tails. The more intense the temperature difference from the surrounding depths the more confined these “hot” shoreline areas tend to be, resulting in, if things set up right, what I call “zones of carnage”. This period, or these periods, are fleeting, but worth looking for. At this time of year I actually pray for cold fronts, on the heels of which come rapid heating on those bright blue post-frontal days. Frigid cold fronts followed by rapid heating is ideal. Imagine, targeting post frontal conditions! In fact, the more of them the merrier. Then there is a point in the season when this yo-yoing temperature pattern erodes, at least in terms of intensity, as heat seeps deeper and further from shorelines and the zones of carnage become less confined. I describe this as “things relaxing”, with predator and prey less apt to be compressed together into narrow bands of heated shoreline. What makes this a pattern worth following is the heat loving bluegills –the prime forage in the waters I fish. While bass do love heat, and I’ve seen them obviously sunning at times, they are more about following bluegills than heat per say. Bluegill size matters too, so during prime heating periods I target waters and areas with larger bluegills, as these are what attract and grow the larger bass. Bass size has a bit more to say too as it appears that as soon as the shorelines “relax” small 8-10" 2-year old bass fill the shallows where prior, earlier heating periods bring only mature bass. At least that’s the way it appears to fall out. I’ve been at this long enough now that although I don’t get the time to fish I used to I can drop in on a given water armed with recent weather trends gleaned from the internet, a thermometer, an eye for wind direction, and some exploratory casting, and get a pretty good idea of the tempo of the day. The rest is “fisherman’s luck”. Sometimes I hit it right, other times I have to pick away at fragments of the "carnage". Today I had nearly brilliant blue (some light cirrus), and an E breeze interspersed with flat calm periods. Mid-day water temps hashed out this way: E shore: 57F@ ST 48F@ 9ft. W shore: 63F@ ST 57F@ 7ft. The E breeze piled the lighter, warmed surface waters onto the W shoreline, and cover strewn W shoreline areas held large numbers of large bluegills, carp, and both small and mature bass. By contrast, only some small bluegills and 8-10” bass were found along the cover strewn NE corner. The breeze was also instrumental in terms of presentation today. While brilliant blue skies makes for great heating, it also makes presentation in such shallow water a bear. Under a flat calm surface, the lure flying overhead, even the line landing on the surface or flashing in the air, puts entire pods of fish down instantly and synchronously. At one point, and I’ve seen this before, a light airplane flying overhead (and not all that close to the ground) put down a pod of large carp in a violent synchronous surge. Luckily I only had to suffer a few flat calm, and relatively fishless, periods. When the breeze returned and put a nice ripple on the water’s surface, I caught fish. Only at near dusk, when the sun drew low in the sky was I able to catch some decent fish with flat water conditions. I did not find a tight zone of carnage to speak of, the shorelines had "relaxed" some, and I had to pick away at loose groups or individual, and spooky, mature bass. A small hard jerk, and a jig-n-pork, took my fish today, many smalls (8”-10” 2-year olds) and several “good ones” from 14” to 18”. The jerk was new and I’d forgotten to mash down the barbs and a couple smalls took the brunt of that, so I mashed ‘em down so as not to brutalize any more. Yeeeeesh, I hate that! What’s a largemouth without its’ mouth? Ugly at best, skinny then dead at worst. The W shorelines collected the warmest water, and carp, mature bluegills, and mature bass. Surface conditions mattered. I used a small subtly colored jerk bc of the bright conditions. As is often the case, a jig took the top fish -17 to 18”ers.

Others described it well -cruising late prespawn females. Their jaws will loosen up soon -just as the groups break up to spawn.

You hit it right, and found a "carnage zone".

No. I've worked hard at removing superstitions from my world view. Simply counterproductive.

Buck and a bull.

Awesome. I love this kind of thing. Thanks, Doc!

Congrats. My "little one" is 11 now. More to come!

Good stuff above. Some thoughts: -I like "fish deeper", above. And would add, "fish slower". Fast chuck-n-wind retrieves tend to interest small bass. -I wouldn't say big fish are always "smarter", many are energetically stingy, and/or they are simply rare esp in hard fished waters. -There may be few large bass in your water. -Figure out where you are in the season. You may likely be fishing to males on spawning banks. The females (the larger of the sexes) may not have come in yet. Or if they have, you may be fishing to males guarding beds. Peri-spawn females tend to be grouped up until the spawn. You may just be missing them. Get off the shallow banks the males are occupying and fish a bit deeper, looking for prominent structure and cover pieces (breaks) that might hold female groups. When they are ready, female groups will break up and enter the spawn banks with the males. Then you can get an idea of just how many "big ones" your lake actually has.

Good post. Some lures are better in the wind than others. Some are virtualy impossible. If those are your GoTo, it's time to expand horizons. For what it's worth, I always carry an extra spool with fluorocarbon bc its density does help some in windy condtions.

Neat that you have a measurement. For summer bass fishing from shore I have a long-range-rig, a 7ft spinning rod with a large spool reel packed with 20# braid. A must for summer bassing in some of my ponds. I've never measured how far I can cast with it. I once had a great night fly-fishing for stripers from the beach, locating a bunch in a rip between boulders a full fly line out there -~90ft. I happened to be the only one in our group that could throw the entire fly line and was the only one that could reach them. Eventually everyone just assembled to watch. I tend to share in the bounty but there wasn't much could be done about it. You can bet everyone worked on the fine points of their casting when they got home.

Thanks, A-Jay. One more question: What's the main forage there? Are their tilapia there?

Where were you finding your fish? I know you mentioned no consistent pattern. Channels? Steep edges? Coves? Wood? Dwight's deep bite -what was down there?

Brian Waldman also tested his catch rate with stright braid and found it made no difference. He even used fluorescent braid tied direct and it made no difference! Now he concedes that there are times that a leader might be important, but it isn't necessary. I agree with DarrenM, taking it from a purely maintenance standpoint. When I break off with braid, it's the knots, either at the lure or the connection, that gives. What I like about braid (among a number of things) is if you want to change line characteristics you can add a long leader -mono for crankbaits or fluoro for plastics or in wind, or ....

Ah! I see what you're getting at. I dunno. If it "believes the lure to be a food source" than I think it would be willing to try and eat it if its hungry or feeding or whatever. But I do think that fish learn to discern "food" from "not food". The fact that bass do become "educated" to a surprisingly high degree compared to unfished for bass, tells me they can distinguish this, and probably (due to lab studies on negative conditioning in fish behavior) even as negative. How long?? I can only take Keith Jones word for it. He says "months". I don't think lures are very good at being "identical to a natural food source". Lures need to do something special in time and space, usually with the help of environmental conditions, to do us much good most of the time. I fish shallow waters a lot and can often see hunting bass. But I don't catch them all. In fact, if we could see what goes on between most bass and our lures, even with depth and speed controlled, we'd probably hang it up. I hear your point though, and do wonder where instincts, conditioning, and longer term learning separate.

Thanks, Big-O. Yup, spring is jjjjjuuust around the corner. The battle of the titans is still being waged though. Winter just got a big punch in yesterday with over a foot of snow dumped on us. But the sun is out today and it'll melt off quick. There's one thing I can predict with assurance -summer will win. The rest is a mix of fun and frustration, looking at the forecasts and planning my fishing days. "Spring" here in the north can be intense.

Fish do make "choices". They make them all the time. "Feed" or "Run and Hide" is a choice. But I do understand your meaning. But let's not fool ourselves and sell fish short. It may make us feel better, but I don't think it's accurate. Yes, depth and speed control are primary. But it's not true that EVERY fish can be caught. A number of studies have shown that there is a percentage of bass in any given population that have been described as "uncatchable" or "immune to angling". And there are indviduals that are extra-vulnerable to angling. Fish are FAR from being simple robots.

Well… again I don’t know where exactly where conditioning leaves off and learning begins. But, in my mind, if learning didn’t occur then there wouldn‘t be fish. Fish experience pain and fear for a reason –it’s a very old survival mechanism. Are you suggesting that when fish are hungry they cannot be spooked, alarmed, put off? Approach is one of the primary tactics anglers have to learn. I won’t bother giving examples beyond saying that you should try stream fishing for wild trout. I’ve spent considerable time watching stream trout and anglers interact. The clumsy, or clueless anglers, fail miserably. As to the “Hawgtrough” (I assume you mean an aquarium), fish like other critters can filter out stimuli that are found not to be dangerous. Lots of examples of this: Birds on airport runways, peregrine falcons nesting in downtown NYC, fish feeding despite constant heavy boat traffic, trout (same critter mentioned above that runs screaming at a slight footfall or shadow of a fishing line) in very heavily fished tailwaters that happily use wading anglers as current breaks to feed behind (but won’t take a fly –they just aren’t that stupid anymore)…. There are tons of examples of this. Fish in aquariums eat when they are hungry, but I bet, if you give a fish an electric shock everytime it attempts to eat Berkley GULP! you'll condition it (right term this time) right outta that. In fact, this type of thing has been done many times in fish behavior research. Fish can be “conditioned”. They aren’t robots –slaves to their instincts. They can learn. I think lotsa anglers, when talking about the “pea-sized brain” of a fish don’t appreciate just how complex that pea actually is.