Paul Roberts

I've never seen a bass with that coloration, but young bluegills have that exact coloration: purple back, blue sides, and yellow-orange "breast" (pectoral region). I find that interesting. There is a good reason for it.

I think you are dead right. The density of FC both bucks wind and offers slack-line sensitivity better than other lines (already water-soaked mono is second, light soft braids are worst –complete disconnect where slack is involved). FC can also sink below the surface currents inevitably created by the wind. First, I’d say switch to FC (and see what happens). It should go all the way to the reel. Other things he could be doing, and/or you should be doing, regardless: -Control of rod (and therefore line) movement (rock solid and/or instantaneous), so that movement from the other end is most apt to be detected. -Reduce, eliminate if possible, bow in the line. If breeze is consistent and you can keep the line steady –mebbe– great! But, realize the more bow the less detection you have, period. If breeze fluctuates -is turbulent- I for one am in trouble. Keep your back to the wind, or secondly, face directly into it. Fish shorter casts. Keep rod low. Allow FC time to sink below surface tension currents (although being in a river may or may not allow this). -Heavier lure, and those that provide tension. -Stretch your line straight when you start. -I like Allen Der's keep line pinched between fingers but that may not be practical if there is much current, with horizontal retrieves, esp with spinning tackle. And it's moot if there is enough bow. -BC'ing gear could be a factor, esp if you have any challenges dealing with slack at the reel. -Don’t let your buddy distract you. Fish the water in front of you, not him. May or may not be a factor but at 8:2 it's easy to get distracted. Good luck. Let us know.

Neither. It is familiar but the group isn't coming to me. I think it's a coastal (brackish/marine) species.

That's a darter -a percid (Percidae), meaning in the perch/walleye family. I'm guessing it's a logperch (Percina caprodes).

I see blue skies. I'll take a not-so-wild guess that you are in what I call the "initial heat-up" period, when immediate shallows begin to warm rapidly. ("Spawn" isn't in the picture yet). That's where I'm at, and we share similar climate patterns. Hold on to your hat; It'll only get better. Let me ask: How big a lake? Were you fishing main lake areas or close to shorelines? Coves? Backwaters? (I see the above fish was close to the bank.) Nice job!

No. No Zen master here. Nice thought though. Just... attentive: http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/116606-searching-out-those-zones-of-carnage/ http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/46927-two-more-fascinating-days-on-colorado-pond-almost-a-skunking-and-pure-carnage/

Hey, I've actually done that, and posted it, a number of times.

Wow. Neat coloration. It's a bass. I believe it's a largemouth. Morpology checks out. It doesn't appear to be a spot. Definitely not a smallmouth. I've never seen coloration like that -in a bass. Is this pond clear of aquatic vegetation? Any cover at all?

Those are some serious maws. Congrats, Paul.

Yes, I think the researcher exercised poor word choice when he said, "study up to become the best". I think he would have been better off saying, "study and practice to become the best you can be".

I don't believe I would be as successful but if I had to pick one color it would be green pumpkin black grape. Although I could survive on green pumpkin.

I've some idea of the fishing hours I’ve tallied, since I’ve kept a fishing journal since 1977 –now working on filling my 10th volume. I logged over 100 fishing days/year for some of those years. Some of those days were up to 14 hrs long. I still much prefer to put in full days if I can, and hate 2 hr “dips in the pool”; I’ve always felt that the planet rolls over too darn quickly. Much of my fishing was multi-species which I consider very valuable time spent, bringing a lot of insight into my bass fishing. There were a few years I did not fish -university years, living abroad, marrying a non-angler. Nowadays -still in the family support mode- fishing time is limited. I just tallied the 2010 season -an average year nowadays- and got 39 trips at 4-11hrs/trip –about 80% of that dedicated to bass. All that tallied however, all those hours aren’t equal in terms of attainment of "mastery". And such hours just aren’t comparable across anglers. There’s something to be said for opportunity –the quality of fishing waters in close proximity, say. There’s also something to be said for sheer competence. Some people have steeper learning curves than others –what Malcolm Gladwell was confronting in his book, “Outliers”, through which the 10000hrs research was swept into the popular imagination. How “mastery” develops is not a simple issue, or, at least there’s more to consider than sheer number of hours spent or IQ points. http://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-gladwells-10000-rule-2014-7 “…But in less stable fields, like entrepreneurship and rock and roll, rules can go out the window.” deliberate practice is only a predictor of success in fields that have super stable structures. For example, in tennis, chess, and classical music, the rules never change, so you can study up to become the best." I think we know where fishing would fall in the stability continuum.

It's more than the spot, or the lure, or weather... As I've come to understand it, it's about the behavior of the bass and that is very contextual. The spot, the other critters at that spot, the conditions, the immediate circumstances, recent trends, the previous year, heck, the populations history, all play in. When we catch them we have ready answers. When we don't we.. conjure up reasons, often why our answers didn't hold up. Yes, there certainly is rhyme and reason to it. But it just isn't always/often simple. Any one who spends time in the great (and I mean BIG) outdoors realizes that there are more things that can mess up our best laid plans than a novice would ever guess. This is not to disagree with slonezp's excellent OP. Yes, we do run the risk of overthinking stuff, and wasting effort on what's NOT most important in the moment. If anything its often bc we simply can't be on the water all the time to keep track of all (or many) of those contingencies. And, a lot of it we simply don't have access too. We end up at home in our man-caves reading, dreaming up silly tangents, and shopping to fill the void. I do it too. I have more tackle than I can actually get around to using. It's even embarrassing -in the wrong company lol. But, bottom line: All that time spent overthinking can actually help us conjure up some pretty neat things that may allow us to tap into something useful. The cool thing about fishing is that we all can and do come up with stuff. It’s NOT all known; Not by a long shot. You stumble onto something out there (if you happen to be awake), then you tweak it, and tweak it some more and … you’ve got… insight, an understanding, or… a Senko! Keep on keeping on you wacko’s. Ayup! It's the greatest tool we possess. And overthinking / overcomplicating is part of the price we pay for that knowledge. Divining what's most important, esp in the moment, is the true task. It takes time in "the library" and on the water. There are no (known -although the Senko came close) shortcuts below that. And no one will ever get it right every time. It's just too big, too contextual, with too many contingencies.

Ouch! Very nice.

Maybe I'm just getting old (but I don't think that's it) -Not everything has to be "EXTREME!!!" either. Attention span issues out there perhaps.

For shallow weedy waters -broken cover- my absolute favorite is (was) the Strike King Grass King. Hate to say it, (I have a hard time even choking the words out) but they don't make it anymore. And apparently they won't. I've written them several times. You should write them too. We should start a campaign. "Bring back the Grass King!!!"

This may sound a little weird but I may stop using something because it works. Once I've figured something out -and I'm satisfied with the results- I like to go try something else. It's a matter of curiosity, of looking for different (sometimes bigger) fish, of wanting to keep a good bait/location producing in the future, and not wanting to put too many holes in my fish period (I fish small waters and even get to recognize individuals). As to certain baits over the long haul, yes... but that has more to do with certain lures lending themselves to certain water types than because I did well on them in the past. Nothing in my boxes are off limits.

Great thread. Thanks for starting it, slonezp. (btw, I am talking about bass -although other fish could do in a pinch. Hey, you were the one who rolled in "all other animals" and "including humans"! ) I never addressed your original question (kinda side-tracked by the suggestions that bass are simple creatures): I was never "that guy" exactly. By the time I could afford to buy enough stuff to turn into "that guy" I already had more experience with/respect for the fish and water than I did for the catalogs and shop keepers. And I began to read Buck Perry, Fishing Facts, and In-Fisherman. Buck was the antithesis of "that guy". But, IF, in particular, got me on a few bandwagons -and really useful ones they were, and still are. Certain things really worked –often in certain circumstances– that opened my eyes to possible "in's", and to the general idea that there were others yet to be discovered. (Didn't hurt that I also worked full time in the then-largest tackle shop in the state, with an employee's discount.) New things that really work are still being discovered and developed. I appreciate the need to simplify, keep things sane. And I agree that the important things, the real understandings, aren’t hanging on tackle shop walls. Those things are merely tools –often good one’s –but tools none-the-less. That said, I'll offer a story about the importance of those tools: I had a fishing buddy I first met one evening on a local public bass pond (J Francho happens to know this pond ). This guy I met fished two lures: plastic worms he poured himself from a home-made mold, and a black jitterbug, from a Zebco 33 outfit. He caught some bass. He was generally happy. It was a good pond. We hit it off and I suggested he stay on with me into dark. As it got dark he took off his worm and tied on his Jitterbug and we separated, he working around the pond in one direction, and I taking the other. We could plainly hear each other: 'Plop-plop-plop-plop…' and every now and then 'SPLASH!' My sounds were different: SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! … When we met half way around he said, chuckling, “OK…what’r you doing?” I was fishing a spinnerbait –able to cover MUCH more water than he. I gave him one and he had a new “in”, although he had to buy a casting rig (after trying a larger Zebco Prostaff spin-caster that promised better retrieve speeds and cranking power that...didn’t pan out). Over time I introduced him to the venerable Rapala, the Zara, crankbaits (the Big O), a lipless crank (Spot), swimming worms, the jig-n-pig, and others. I showed him how under bright sun a translucent worm could catch them while our esteemed black failed. By the end of that summer he had up-graded to both a good quality casting and spinning rig and had a much larger tackle box. Then I showed him how deadly UL fishing (what we now call “finesse fishing”) could be … . Can we buy success, satisfaction, and happiness? That’s a good question, but it’s definitely not even close to the first ones that need to be asked. I'm sure that this is exactly where you are coming from (although I'm still not in agreement that bass can be waved off as "simple", even entirely "instinctual").

My Ardito MH casting rod arrived. It's what one would expect from a MH casting rod in terms of power. The powerful nature of the spinning models, discussed above, makes me think that the M and MH blanks for spinning and casting may be the same blanks, just different guides and handles put on. Often, spinning rods are lower in power for the same rating. Not the case here. Makes sense as spinning reels are somewhat more robust than than they used to be, and from a production standpoint, I'm not sure how many people are in the market for 3pc rods. My Ardito MH casting rod weighs 5.1oz. The upper two sections (the fishing end) weigh 1.3oz.; the handle section weighs 3.8oz. The rod is very nice -entirely fishable (): rigid, crisp; It should be quite sensitive.

So... when you get skunked or do poorly (presuming you are mortal) it's bc you couldn't "find" the fish? Ever been skunked on a pond? Ever done this?: Cast into a known pod of fish -best examples are in confined spots- caught a few, then got none? Then switched lures and caught a couple more? Then got none. Then switched again and caught another? Ever done any sight fishing? Ever seen a lot of bass, but couldn't catch one?

Doesn't sound all that oversimplified to me! I remember oversimplification: it was a Band Aid box some 50 years ago that held all my precious fishing tackle. I agree with you that there is a difference between shopping/collecting/OCD and what the fishing requires on any given... hour. And I understand and appreciate your sane approach to your fishing. I think we all come to that over time, although age may have something to do with it too. The more stuff I acquire the more work it all becomes, and at some point the catch rates are not commensurate.

I see two perspectives here: one from the angler's, the other from the fish's. When I can't get out and fish for very long I wind up feeling cooped up and end up thinking, planning ... and shopping. Nice to try new stuff, but it all takes time and work to get that new stuff rigged and running right. When I can get out and fish, the fish help me reign in all my wild ideas, and show me just what's wrong with that rigging I "dreamed up". When reality strikes -like I can get out and fish- the fish do have a say. In terms of the fish's perspective, what "complicates" things for me is the variety of waters I encounter in my fishing. I have to meet the requirements of those waters, and over the course of the seasons. The stuff I own just isn't all interchangeable. I start the year with an UL, L, and M spinning tackle (little or no cover, clear water, often bright skies). I'm just now culling the UL and L and moving to M and MH. By summer I'll have dropped the M (mostly) and gone MH and H. I haven't even mentioned techniques and lures, but you get the drift. Complicated? I've spent a good chunk of today bringing my tackle bag up to season, and to the waters I'll be concentrating on. Not done yet... "Now... I thought I had more 1/8oz. Owner Ultraheads -the Bullet type. ..." Then there's my fascination with just what the heck goes on down there -really, my motivation for fishing in the first place. That leads me to complications that appear to have little directly to do with "fishing" as most people practice it. Which is why I fish alone much of the time. As my brother once put it, "You don't want to follow Paul around in the woods, because you'll probably come home after dark all scratched up and have no idea why."

I highly value my rods and I spend time in making the decision. Some people value their reels more. Not me. Primarily, I want sensitivity. Not all highly sensitive rods are the most expensive, but I must check out a rod first-hand before I'll buy one sight unseen. However, it's possible to buy top dollar rods sight unseen and get something usable. I've bought a couple such rods sight unseen. I don't break my rods. They're too valuable.

Light line (4-8lb), small hooks (#1/0 - #12), smallish lures (1/16 - 1/4oz) for anything that'll try and eat them.

I don't think fish seeing line is the operative issue in the problem of having a lure tethered. Fluorocarbon, for instance, fishes well for other reasons than that. I have purposely dyed dark lines in the past to knock down line flash that can spook shallow fish. Otherwise, I don't think it's a concern. I'll say this, dark lines can be harder for YOU to see, which can be a disadvantage at times.