Paul Roberts

Rarely, I suppose, is the key word here. Whether juvenile bass use offshore regions is dependent on the same factors as for all fish: It comes down to food pay-off vs predation risk. Add food and the equation tips. Add cover and it tips further. Subtract cover and it tips the other way -toward the predators. Bluegills (and some other sunfishes) have a common early life history behavior pattern that illustrates this well. Bluegill fry, after hatching, move offshore to feed on zooplankton in open water. They also do this to escape from mostly shoreline and cover oriented bass fingerlings already hatched. Why don't the bass fingerlings follow them out? Because, from my own observations, they are large enough to be fodder for the wolf-packs of juvenile bass that tend to occupy the semi-open water zones between dense cover and true open water. Mature bass come and go through both zones, but are safer than smaller fish so they are freer to occupy open water, unless larger predators in sufficient numbers exist out there. It's akin to a strategy game, carried out through opposing capabilities and limitations. After the little bluegills grow a bit (and rapidly), and assume the laterally compressed bluegill shape (an anti-bass form), they come back shallow and tuck into cover (becoming the "bluegills" we all know) where they have an advantage over the bass in terms of maneuverability. Interestingly, and tellingly, in some waters without near-shore predators like bass, many bluegill fry do not migrate offshore, but remain inshore. Every water body is a bit different. One other thing. It's apparent to me that little bass are more comfortable in open water around larger bass than are little bluegills. And this appears to be bc bass are more streamlined, faster, and probably harder for bigger bass to get a bead on. Not that bluegills are pushovers -far from it.

Back in the 80s I did a lot of trout & salmon fishing on Lake Ontario. Lots of people cast lots of lures from the piers. I also did a lot of night fishing. One night I saw a bright light underwater off one side of the pier. Up came a diver with a bunch of bicycle frames wrapped in wire he'd obviously set out and was collecting lures from! Pretty low.

Tommy, have you seen the Wave Crawdude? Several, but the only one I've written a company about to beg them to reintroduce has been the Strike King Grass King spinnerbait, which they've declined to do.

The waters I currently fish are heavily fished public waters. I find lures almost every time out. Of course, stickworms are most common, but squarebills seem to be popular lately.

Ditto Bluebasser's description. Then there are walking poppers. All you need is a dished face and an elongated body. The Chug Bug is one. I will choose one when there's a little chop on the water. On flatter surfaces I like those quieter, more slippery walkers.

I'm not a fan of losing lures, and actually wouldn't be so flippant with the idea that losing lures is just a part of fishing. I guess my take on this is that you need to decide on the rate of lure loss you can tolerate. This is a pretty natural process. Lose a couple lures in quick succession in a given spot and you'll make adjustments. What adjustments to make?... Over time you'll learn which lures are prone to snagging in which types of cover (veges, wood, rock...); It's amazing how lure design can thwart snags. You'll learn how to choose the proper lure weight, lure design, and line diameter for the depth you are fishing. You'll also learn how deep your lure is by learning to visualize its path underwater. Visualization also allows you to "map" the bottom in front of you, which will save you lures, and catch you fish. And you'll learn how to fish your way around and through various bottom/cover types by adjusting rod angle and control of tension. It's amazing how good you'll get at threading lures through "dangerous" spots. This all takes some time and experience to get familiar enough with tackle, lures, water, and bottom type, to gain appropriate control. The two basic "controls" in fishing are depth and speed, and they not only pertain to lure loss, but are critical to catching fish. Control is the key, and it simply takes time to acquire.

I like my GoPros. Maybe there's better out there now. I wouldn't know as I don't have the $$ to experiment. Once I worked out the logistics, my GoPros do the job. It's almost like having a photographer follow me around.

WTG! Great day. Determination pays. I always knew the day before whether it was actually going to be worth stopping to pick up a potential fishing partner at 4am. Any hesitancy and I found it wasn't worth stopping. Never lost any friends that way either.

I have a 5"6 Skyline pistol-grip casting rod too. It gets a occasional use when fishing from shore.

@Catt, I made a minor edit to my post.

Killer.

Interesting... I love the different perspectives we get here. In this case, Catt's giant Toledo Bend and my small waters -some as small as a couple of acres- have obvious differences. But they also share something: largemouth bass, making a living. "A single piece of structure" on TB could be larger than one of my smaller ponds. However, the two {EDIT: -and everything in between"-} could be seen as the same thing -bass habitat. And, no, the bass, and their various age/size classes, are not equally distributed in either place. For my UW video shooting I've chosen a handful of very small ponds to work in. Still, to get the action within the frame of an UW camera I have to know where the action is. In all my waters -regardless of size- there are certain locations that attract the mature bass. Although the exact layouts of each “hot-spot” vary, the reasons the bass are there are the same -the availability of security and food. Security is available in a number of places, but food is often much more concentrated. What's attracting the food? Same -security and food; It’s a food chain thing. One of my behavior videos is about this: Why hot-spots are hot-spots, what they look like underwater, and how the players operate and interact. Potentially pertaining to this thread, each hot-spot has a variety of fish sizes -hence the food chain- but each one does not always, or ever, attract the biggest bass. But, some spots do. The best spots (in my ponds) hold all sizes, because it takes all sizes to create a food chain that is “going somewhere”. In one of my ponds, the 4 largest bass (18-19”ers) tend to be (although not always) found together. This is not just a social thing. Instead, those bass collect where the appropriately sized prey collects. This changes seasonally, and as food availability and vulnerability change, even in a small pond. Believe it or not, “migrations” occur in the smallest of waters too. They just occur on the “movement” scale. Then there are “movements” -local scale adjustments to conditions and circumstances. Sound familiar? I would think that it would, wherever you fish.

Nichol's makes a 1/8oz Mango Jig that covers 0 (slop) to 4 feet. Killer.

Favorites? I do have some old friends that I appreciate owning very much. And some new friends too. My favorite M spinning rod is a Skyline I bought in 1981. Still love that rod for light jigs, grubs, small jerkbaits, and DS. I have a Shimano Bantam 250 I bought in early 80s that I still love. It, along with a 1980's Berkley Bionix rod given to me by a Berkley rep, are my GoTo crankbait (and other treble-hooked lures) rig to this day. Then there's my Kistler Helium soft plastics rod, and my Fenwick Techna jig rod. My BPS Carbonlite M spin is hands-down my favorite shaky rod. Ah! Can't forget my Shimano spinnerbait rod. And I'm really liking my Daiwa Ardito's... I could actually get teary talking about my fly rods so I'll stop there. I have a lot of favorites.

Spent so much time working on bass behavior videos I actually fished much less than usual. Here's what I did make use of: Swim Jig (Mango) -Top of the list simply bc... it's a jig, and it fishes through the dense milfoil and coontail I have here, and just about anything else. I can safely throw into wood, up on the bank, even up into overhanging shoreline brush and tree limbs. Even makes a good slop bait. Grub -paddle-tails mostly. X-Rap -Didya know they fish through veggies darn well? Big O -Great old GoTo. DS and Jig-worm (“Shaky”) -under bluebird skies. Stick-worms -sight fishing. No shame. Then again… no real pride either.

Lotsa possibilities I suppose. The big (mature) fish could be: rare (or even non-existent in some waters) or elsewhere (which would require more reconnaissance). The location change might not be all that far though if the habitat is there. It's very possible that the big fish are not associated so closely with the smaller fish. Smaller fish are more likely to be more widely distributed, as fewer locations might be able to grow large bass. In cold water periods you can expect fish to be more apt to be grouped up, and therefore more apt to be consolidated. Then there's a bait change. Jigs (J-n-P), and larger baits in general, tend to produce bigger fish for me than many other baits. One summer I decided to catch some bigger bass, since I'm generally more a numbers guy. I upscaled everything to 13" worms, musky-sized cranks, and BIG spinnerbaits. I got some strange looks from other anglers. But, although I caught fewer bass, the average size went up, and I broke a few pond records that summer. Some thoughts, from cyberspace.

I am too actually, or at least rusty. For quite a while now "deep" has been "over 6ft". Since fast and slow has come up, in lieu of power and finesse, again I'll say I like it all. Then there's shallow and deep. And vertical and horizontal. Of course speed, shallow, and horizontal is great! If the fish will meet me most of the way, I can't ask for much more. But, if they won't, then I'll do what it takes. All tackle, all speeds, all angles. Just to be eye-to-eye with another green or brown fish.

Both, and in between.

1966 Oh,"bass fishing"... caught my first bass, a 12" LM, about age 7 or 8. I was.... mesmerized. Still am, entirely. Fishing journal begun Oct 19, 1977; Currently on the 9th volume.

Awesome perch! Amazing catch. Congrats. GoPro's are a bit of a pain. It adds to the complexity of the trip, and there is a learning curve; Took me some fails to get it down. Making sure the camera is ON, or not toggled to a still pic mode, were initial problems. Gotta be deliberate with it.

Schooling species "tighten up" for several reasons: -They do so when inactive -under conditions not conducive to feeding- so they can feel more relaxed under protection of the school. -They may tighten up for swimming efficiency when migrating. -And they will tighten up as a defense against attacking predators, what's called school polarization, which makes it more difficult for predators to get a lock on individual prey. Actively feeding schools, in contrast, loosen up. What makes these worth looking for is that feeding prey fishes are distracted prey fishes, and more easily surprised by predators. And looser schools make individuals more easy to target. Another important opportunity for predators like bass to effectively feed on schooling prey is in current, in which the smaller prey are corralled by water pressure. This corralling is used by bass at nearly all times, against cover, the bottom, the surface film, etc... -what are called "ambush points" by anglers, whether we recognize exactly what's going on or not. This explains the difference between "vulnerable prey" and "available prey" -which are not the same thing.

FG.

The SK's I have (Series, KVD Square) are more buoyant and have louder rattles. The Big O's I have date from the 1980's and they rise slower than the SK's and have a single large ("one-knocker" type) bearing for a rattle. However, I have one that rises slower than the rest. Good to test your plugs and adjust buoyancy.

I've always said that if we could eliminate that pesky line going to our lures we'd have solved one angling's biggest issues. When Nanofil appeared I thought, "YES!!" I bought .002 dia Nanofil for nymphing (fly-fishing). Coupled with a tungsten beadhead nymph that terminal rig sliced current like a hot knife through butter! It worked! But, it shred so quickly I had to go back to mono/FC, which fished like rope by comparison. So, I've been hoping for a tippet material that's as close to non-existence as possible. Hey, we can always dream. Preytorien, I'd seen your posts on Gliss, esp your abrasion tests. It kept my dream alive. If I can get rid of the line to my lures... I'll rename myself ... Poseidon! Or Paul-seidon. And all fish will bow down before me. Thanks all.

Any fine diameter braids that don't shred easily? I tried Nanofil finding it shredded WAY to easily. Most abrasion resistant braids out there? Nanobraid? Gliss? Smackdown? ...