el_jewapo

when i fish on a lake for the first time, or for the first time i fish it that year, i like to catch a few bluegill. if i'm catching big ones, it makes me believe there should be big bass. if all i'm catching are babies, especially when they hit on nearly every cast, i expect it to have alot of little bass too.

i don't know how well browns reproduce in the white river, i know at the park they close fishing up by the dam when the browns are spawning, so i guess they do ok. but i was told they don't breed in the red river because they like to spawn by the bank when the water is running. so when they turn the generators off, the water goes down and leaves their eggs high and dry. i would think this would be the case at white river too, but i guess they do ok, if they close fishing for them to spawn.

roadwarrior, my wife used to work at the bull shoals state park trout dock. a game warden there told her they caught the fish in the white river and transported it to the little red river. i don't know why they would have done that, but it might be true. my dad goes to the little red river alot and he said they told him there is a world record brown that frequents one of the holes they fish, but no one has been able to catch it.

my money's on roadwarrior to break it.

i don't know of any lake that has bass and not bluegill. nature has a way of evening things out. by that guys theory, it would seem that bluegill will wipe the bass out over time no matter the size of the lake. i just don't think that's accurate.

do you think a bass even knows it's a bass? fish can't see their self.

it's weird to see your ideas of clear and muddy. not because you're wrong. if you can see over a foot, i consider it clear down here. muddy would only be a couple inches. i like 6 or 8 inches. i think the bass around here probably go by my ideas of clear and muddy, because it's how it is in mud bottom lakes. am i right in thinking this way? or because 1 foot or less would be considered muddy in other parts of the country, is it muddy to the bass then? should i approach these lakes with more of a muddy water technique? i went to bull shoals a few weeks ago for the first time in a while. it was cool to be able to see the bottom that deep. intimidating too. that's too clear for my taste. i didn't fish bull shoals, but i fished norfork, which is about the same type of lake. i caught a nice spot there.

they're genetically programmed to do specific tasks. very basic simple survival activities. feeding,breeding, and trying to stay away from predators. what they do is just basic survival , they don't need much of an iq for that. one of the best analogies i can think of would be a computer program. say, a calculator program on your computer. it can compute numbers at mind boggling speeds. but does this make them smart? no, they are just doing what they are made to do, and that's all they can do. i think it's the same with bass.

i don't know about sun screen, most of it smells good and might actually work as an attractant. but i wouldn't count on it. i don't use sun screen like i should. what i'm more worried about is insect repellant. when i use that, if i get it on my hands i wash my hands with a fish attractant to mask the smell. i don't think human scent or even cigarette smoke scent will stay on the bait longer than a cast or two, chemicals are a different story.

this is kind of off topic, but here goes. my dad said one time he was deer hunting on a ladder stand dipping snuff and spitting it under him. he said a deer came up and stuck its head through the steps of his ladder, smelling the spit. i've never tried it though. i smoke while i hunt, i smoke while i bow hunt and kill deer, it's all about the wind and not throwing them on the ground. i'd probably kill more deer if i didn't and i usually won't do it the first few times i hunt a spot.

if it's loaded with "dinks" i'd keep some every time i went. thin the dinks out and they will start growing bigger. people seem to forget that people have been bass fishing for hundreds of years. catch and release is a fairly new concept. and you could catch more and bigger bass in the old days. imagine that.

when they're hitting top water, that's my favorite hands down. other than that it's probably working a crankbait through timber.

i don't know how well they take being transfered like that. my friend and i one year took all the big bass we caught and released them in a pond behind his house. we never saw them floating, but that doesn't mean they made it. maybe if you fill a cooler up with water from the lake and get an aerator in it to keep oxygen in the water. i think that should work as long as you don't let them get too hot. also check your states laws on transfering fish between lakes or ponds.

i don't like fooling with fish i can't fillet. i fillet any fish i clean except for trout.

i smoke while i'm fishing, i don't think it matters.

is the pond over stocked with bream? do you catch big bream, or are they all tiny? one of the first things i like to do when fishing a lake i don't know much about is catch a few bream. if i'm catchig good solid bream, i feel confident that the lake has a healthy bass population. if i'm catching bream no bigger than a crank bait on every cast, i think that suggests a poor bass population. the little bream aren't getting eaten and are overstocked.

i start at the rail and run the knife up against the back bone to the fin. then i cut that off, that's the fillet. then lay that skin side down and hold onto one end of it and press your knife on it hard and cut the skin off. the only bones in what you have now are ribs. i cut them off of the fillet. just follow around the rib cage with a knife. i keep the ribs, it's a good peice of meat, you just have to pick through bones. i also keep the middle part of the fish. it's bony, but there's plenty of meat there. i hope you have a good sharp fillet knife. it's hard to saw through the bones on a bigger bass with a dull knife. you might have to use a serated knife for that part.

wow! that was quite a day! i don't think you could do that anywhere in the world now.

welcome aboard! this statement is wrong though. you can't do much better than a big, bright, loud throbby crankbait in muddy water! fish slow and tight to cover.

a buzzbait or shallow diving crank bait works well for me in low light conditions. seems like the lures you used should work some. you might have to fish it with soft plastics if that doesn't work. i go alot after work during the week. a typical day for me will be getting on the water about 5:30. the past few times i've been i will spend 30 minutes or an hour in the middle with deep diving crank baits. then i try some weedy banks with shallow crankbaits, spinnerbaits and senkos. i'll keep a buzzbait tied on during this time and throw it some. about the last 2 hours of daylight i fish mostly top water and crankbaits in fairly shallow flooded timber. the last 45 minutes or so i am almost 100% topwater fishing. this has been working well for me this summer, i've been catching some nice bass.

that's a very inspiring story. congradulations on winning your battle.

largemouth= 7lb 2 oz caught it on a crankbait smallmouth = close to two lbs on a jig&craw i've caught maybe 6 or 7 smallies in my life.

oh, and you will pay for a boat after a couple years just by not losing lures. i can count on one hand the lures i've lost this year in a boat. the lakes i fish aren't real deep though. i can usually reach with the rod to free snagged lures. fishing off the bank i expect to lose atleast 3 lures in a day.

where i live there is just no comparison between the two. unless you've got access to a good private pond where they keep it mowed, you just can't fish off the bank very much. little holes in the brush or the boat ramp. a boat is a requirement everywhere i fish. i'm not at all too proud to fish off the bank, i did it for years and still do if i find a good spot. i've caught big fish from the bank.

a quick slap on the surface of the water will get off all the moss most of the time, if it's caked up on the line tie, it might take 2 or 3 pops. it's second nature to me, i only have to pull moss or other trash off with my hands maybe 5 or 6 times in a 2 or 3 hour trip, with hundreds of slaps during this time. if i'm fishing close to the cover i try to do it behind the boat, but i really don't think it bothers the fish.