Paul Roberts

I've been using a mono leader, and tying a loop knot. I like the split ring idea.

I go where no man has gone before! :)) And, I have the whole pond to myself. I appear to be the only one so daring, or so obsessed. The tube is wonderful to fish from. Biggest drawback is sitting so low above the water. There's no real sight-fishing to be done from a tube, or much scouting without sitting on top of the spots. However, the tube doesn't spook fish all that much. But, kicking through the thick stuff is pretty "thrashy". I use open pockets where ever I can, but, there aren't that many of them in this pond. And the veggie beds are dense all the way to the bottom in most places, so I have to kick at the surface -thrash, thrash, thrash... I thrash into a spot then, for good luck, hang out for a bit, letting things settle down.

This^^^, exactly. It may seem counterintuitive, but it pays to conduct your jungle warfare deftly. The trick is to coax and cajole your lure through the stuff, so that you don’t sink your hooks into that cover. This kind of fishing requires heavy tackle, and… a light touch. As far as deep-hooking with soft plastics, two suggestions: -Slack does help you get bites, but you can check for fish by "weighing" the line, by gently drawing taught and feeling for weight, life. Bass will often hold a soft plastic bait for some time, so you should be able to feel them. -Go barbless. As long as you keep line taught, it works great, and makes unhooking easy.

Yes, it is! I actually chose it for my summer "Jungle Warfare" videos (3 video fishing journals), bc it is SO dense. In some ways that makes, at least some of, the "bassy" spots more obvious. There's plenty more that I couldn't see though, I'm sure. Getting into that stuff, and then getting them out, was... frustrating, and comical. Esp with the time and effort kicking (thrashing) into position, waiting for things to settle, then trying to hit an 8in wide avenue. OOooooooo! I needed to do some creative editing to maintain my... Bob Ross-like reputation. If something can go wrong, it's sure to happen in such slop. And... frog bites are so easy to miss, esp when you're rusty. SURPRISE! Rats! SURPRISE! RATS! SURPRISE! $%&#!!! I eventually got my shtick together, and was able to wait that half-second. Despite the work and frustrations, this type of fishing is a hoot. I could do it every day. Good way to get in shape too. ? The bass are not big in that pond, however. I've known that pond a long time, watching it go from a rubble-bottomed open water pond with willow brush, to this bowl of dense veggie soup, that came on after the massive 2013 flood washed in a ton of nutrients. A lot more small bass now, and sunfishes, owing to better survival of the little fish. But... so far, the bass still seem to disappear at 16". Yet they are fat things, always have been. Puzzling. I suspect it may be that groundwater keeps it cool, but I haven't done the profiles to find out. This August, there was a real live thermocline throughout the pond, as much as a 20F diff from the surface skin to 4fow!!. I don't know how much is due to the thick vegetation insulating the core, and how much is groundwater. Anyway, I'll take a bunch of fat 15" bass any day. And who knows... When you chuck a frog, or Pit Boss, into a crevice in that kind of stuff, and have water thrown back at you 5ft in the air, the one's that got away could have been state records!

Thanks! I always lamented that I could take photos and catch fish... but not at the same time! GoPro's solved a lot of that. :)) No seat belt needed. It would be darn hard to "fall out" of it. Would be like falling out of a LaZboy. I'm totally secure, but do avoid waves and current.

It was! It always amazes me how much water bass can throw when they charge a "frog". It's almost scary. It was also a heck of a lot of work, kicking through that stuff, and scraping off the rust. Second outing since the end of March. Frogging and Flipunching are probably two of the toughest ways to get your mojo back on-line -esp from a float tube. I missed, and lost, a few. Luckily, this kind of fishing is addicting.

Froggin' and "Flipunching"

Hey, at least you were expecting bass. There's something to be said for confidence! Fun thread.

Have it checked out. I have had a few old man issues from fishing. Most lately, a potential rotator cuff. I'm being careful there. As you say, we don't want the downtime involved in surgery. For you younger folks... just don't go there, if you can help it.

You always ask them to come up. But, you often have to go in and get them.

Well... I didn't reads all the posts... apologies if I'm redundant. If your rod is exceptionally stiff (F/XF) it may be the culprit. Long bombing casts are best accomplished with a slower rod. This does not mean lacking in power. It should load on the cast, and the longer the level, the easier it is for longer and smoother casts. Something to check off as you troubleshoot.

I don't think so. They can anticipate, but I suspect (but do not know) what kind of duration we're talking. It may only be an immediate reaction to a stimulus -like an increase in current flow, a darkening of the sky. Any aquarium owner will see anticipation in fish, at feeding time. But fishing happens in a much more complex and inconsistent environment. Bass can learn about fishing though. They go from naively stupid to difficult after being exposed to regular fishing. Then there are conditions that might have changed, although morning is often a good time during summer.

Good question. The soft jerks can be fished like a stick-worm, and probably vice-versa, esp a slow wobbling fall. However, the jerks dart better. That's my take.

How about painting a gunite swimming pool (sans water of course) in 90deg heat? Don't know how hot it was in that deep end (think reflection oven). But I do remember looking up to find the pool walls starting to spin. I sat in the homeowner's basement for a good half hour. Oh my... then there was chipping the paint off pool walls, before re-painting, holding a rotary chipper up all day! Yeah, interior work is the way to go. But...then there was my boss, who loved to talk, his hands flying the whole time... knocking a gallon of pink paint off his ladder onto a white shag carpet. Knocked the smile off everyone's face for some time after. We had some good things happen too. They just don't stick in the mind quite as much.

Nice! Yes, same here. Only thing I'd add is shoreline trees, which count as overhead cover.

Thanks @Team9nine. I remember some of that stuff. I believe from magazine articles. I never have found his original published papers. I wonder if he had published those results in a journal? Since it was financed by BASS, it may not have been fit for peer review? This appeared to be the case for John Hope's work tracking bass in TX.

OK... here's a story about some potentially "smart" bass... Several years ago, while shore fishing a small public res, I spotted four large LMs holding along a stretch of shoreline. This was late June –past the spawn. A couple other anglers, heading out, said that "those big ones wouldn’t bite anything". So...were these “big ones” just smarter? I approached quietly, but somewhat visibly, and tried several things, including a 4” wacky’d finesse worm, a plastic craw, and a swimming worm, to no avail. I noticed though that when I approached, each bass reacted to my presence, but subtly. Their erect fins would sag a bit, and they’d drop a bit lower in the water column –doing what “head-hunting" brown trout fishers call “sulking”. They saw me, and they sulked. And they wouldn't bite. So… I gave them a short rest, and then rotated back through each fish. This time, after having seen them sulk at my presence, I approached low to the water’s edge, and then kept hidden behind shoreline brush. Casting was difficult from behind bushes but the bass did not see me and did not sulk. And I caught three of the four! Two tipped up for the swimming worm on the first cast, like a trout coming up for a dry fly. Number three took the worm on the second cast. She was interested but turned away on the first, and took the worm killed and twitched on the second. The fourth had moved and spotted me on my attempted approach and, apparently having had enough, she vacated. The bass I lipped were two 19s” and a 20”. These were big fish in this water. Were they smarter than other bass? Tough to say. I can say that they were easily alarmed, as most bass in public waters often are, esp on bright days. If any of these were spookier than others that day, I couldn’t say. I feel I can say that some bass are spookier than others, and although this can be an individual personality trait, it can also be ecological in nature. Male bass guarding a bed full of fertile eggs, and spiked on testosterone, may be the most difficult to spook. Immature bass (and deer) can be “dunderheads”. They can’t perceive as far as larger bass, have less experience with the environment, and live in high competition for food. That’s a recipe for a Darwin award. And there are lots of other things that affect a fish’s spookiness. In general, do fish have "intelligence"? I’d say, yes. But, that comes in degrees. In working on my just released documentary (on the development of behavior in largemouths) I conversed with comparative cognitive scientists on various things “intelligence”, and the general consensus was this: "Intelligence" is ancient, and widespread. And the comparison of animals —including fish— with humans, is a matter of degree, not kind. Essentially, our roots run deep. We often ascribe “intelligence” to the fish we pursue. Brown trout have been called the "wiliest of trout". Carp fishers will say that they pursue the most intelligent fish (and I've been one of them). It's easy to shoehorn human perspectives onto other creatures —to be anthropocentric— simply bc... that's what we have to work with! After coming to understand the social behavior of mule deer, I came to see that they succumb to the very same bias! Which I called “cervo-centrism”. I've been able to get deer accustomed to me, and they then begin to treat me… like other deer. I realize that they cannot do anything else. I'm either a predator, nothing of interest, or… another deer. What’s a little strange, and exposes something of their mental processing —their impressionist painting!— is that I’ve done this in camo, street clothes, and blaze orange! Are they stupid? No. They are deer.

You're probably right on all counts there. I was happily painting away, in an impressionistic style.

Interesting that I remembered this as a "finesse" worm, and "6lb test"! Maybe those details were in another telling? Or, I just painted in those details, owing to the gravity of the situation... knowing there's a difficult 6lb bass just a cast away!

I do believe that deer do learn to recognize humans as dangerous predators, to be avoided on sight. How much they control they have over that concept is tough to get at. Interestingly, they respond to human predation in a very similar way to how they respond to wolf predation, by changing home range use, activity times, and by holing up in cover for extended periods. These are behaviors we hunters, and rural folk, tend to think of as "normal" deer behavior. However, it's not, where the threat of predation is low. Urban, and National Park, deer are prime examples. Point being, their responses to human predators have a much older history. Again, it's tough to discern where "instinct" (mere reflexive response) leaves off and executive control begins. We just can't get in there. But that is changing rapidly, with the explosive growth in neuroscience. We are going to know a lot more in coming years.

Yeah, it's tough to know where cognition leaves off and "thinking" begins. I do not doubt though that, as Tom says, there are individuals that have figured things out more thoroughly than others. Most of us aren't fishing for those individuals though. If we were fishing for Mabel's, we'd probably end up finding something else to do with our time!

Homer Circle, for Outdoor Life (2007): ... One morning, after donning earphones and submerging the aquaphone receiver, Lembeck listened for a while until he signaled me that he heard a beeping signal. Then he looked at his stopwatch to measure the time between beeps so he could identify the fish transmitting the signal. He gestured toward a small treetop that had collected windblown debris in its branches. It was several yards away, but within casting distance. "The signal I'm picking up tells me it's 'Mabel.' She's five years old, weighs about six pounds and probably never will be caught, but not because fishermen don't fish here. "My test shows that either Mabel is well educated about angler sounds and ignores any lures, or she is just one of those fish that takes off for deeper water whenever she suspects a dangerous intruder is in the neighborhood." Tempting Mabel At that point I decided Mabel had to be caught and I was the fisherman who would do it. Fishing around in my tackle box, I rigged up with a plastic worm and told Lembeck my plan. "I'm going to try something tricky that maybe Mabel hasn't seen." I cast the worm about 10 feet past the woody cover, reeled it slowly back until it was just outside the pile and let it sit there, doing nothing. It was only a matter of time before the curious bass came out from her hiding place and inhaled the worm...or so I thought. At that moment, I saw the aquaphone rod in Lembeck's hand turn and move toward open water. "There she goes, about a hundred feet down the shore and still going," he said with a grin. "I told you, if anything comes near her hangout, big or little, Mabel takes off like a scared rabbit. She is a survivor, like a lot of bass on heavily fished lakes. Probably, she never will be fooled by a fisherman." ...

Hmmmm... Not sure. I can't see the bass usually, so it's tough to say. I think there is "more to" a deer than a bass. Deer can definitely know they are being hunted. Not so sure bass can. I could be wrong but I suspect the bass Tom mentions in Lembeck's study that used a protected area during fishing season, may simply have coincidently used that closed area as its summer home range. If it was avoiding fisherman, it would probably have been bc it was a shy individual. I can say though, that I agree with Tommy that mature deer are, or can be, WAY more capable at evading hunters than younger ones. Among many such experiences, I'll describe a big muley buck that I watched through binocs from my front deck a couple years ago. It was fall, pre-rut, but he was keeping track of a group of does. All the other deer, including some smaller yearling bucks, were quite active, moving about, and quite noticeable, for deer. But when that buck materialized, he moved very little. He stood statue still between movements, for up to 20min at a time. I thought, if I were still-hunting that mountain side, his "patience" would have had me pegged. Big bucks are particularly vulnerable to mountain lions here, so I can understand his caution. Big whitetails too, can be very difficult to see too. And, it's not just the bucks. There was a doe I got to know during a season, years ago, who, once she saw me for what I was, she could recognize me, instantly, over surprising distances, anywhere: Inside a blind, even melded into an old tractor that had been in the woods for years. She simply knew who I was. Can older bass do this? It's suggested that bigger bass see better than smaller ones, bc their eyes gain more vision cells as they grow. And, cognitively, they have more experience. And, it's known that bass can become much more difficult to catch after they gain experience with fishing. But, can they put 2 and 2 together, like that doe appeared to be able to do? At this point, I kind of doubt it.

Homer wrote a couple articles about Lembeck's study for Outdoor Life. He fished with Lembeck for one of them, when he fished to Mabel. I think the article is still findable. I never have found Lembeck's published research though.

A chunk of my latest documentary, on the development of behavior in LMB, flirts with this... conundrum. While all livings things may be considered "robots" at one level or another, they are all mighty sophisticated ones. Took a lot of that "yearly learning" to reach such levels. That kind of "smart" runs through populations, to be tinkered with by individuals. They called her Mabel. Homer Circle threw her a finesse worm on 6lb line (knowing her position), she spooked and withdrew. Lembeck said he expected she would never be caught. Studies on personality in bass and other fishes, have shown that their are "types". Two frequent ones are "bold" and "shy" individuals, and each tend to have different tendencies when confronting novel objects, and in their hunting styles. This is true of just about any living thing you can name.