Chris

redshad green flake black blue flake black blue black pearl blue green pumpkin watermelon pumpkinseed junebug tequila green flake black chartreuse That's about all I throw.

You might be running the bait to fast or the bait is out of tune.

Already answered it. ;D

Conditions help point me in the right direction. First off you need to know the limitations of your lures. Soft plastics for example a worm is a great clear to stained water bait but in murky water it lacks a lot of water displacement so I turn to a creature bait. If I am fishing heavy cover I need something that will help a fish find my bait one way is bulk. Crankbaits can be broken down by action. The wider the wobble the more water it displaces so a wide wobble lure would work better in stained to murky water. Conditions could be cover too. If I know I am going to catch my fish in laydowns I a have a selection of lures I know work well in laydowns. Conditions could be water clarity. I know certain colors work better than others based on the clarity of the water. Windy conditions make flipping a pain. I know that with crankbaits and spinnerbaits I can keep in contact with my baits better. Feeding areas come into play. High sun I know the bass will be hanging in the shade or in deep cover or might drop back into deeper water. Cloudy skies I know topwater is an option and the fish will be moving around some and will be hanging on the edge of cover not in it. I know spinnerbaits work well on cloudy days. A condition comes up where I can't catch fish shallow I know its time to drop back deep or try something else. I see that I am hooking bass outside of the mouth that tells me I need to slow down more or change. When the sun is high and the lake is calm I know I better get my flipping stick out. Cold fronts the strike zone gets small so flipping comes into play also. You need to sit down and tell yourself "well Bob this is going on right now how is this going to effect my fishing and more importantly my fish." The conditions are there in front of you and its up to you to interpret it. Notice how I was slowly weeding out what lures that wouldn't work. If you know what to look for you can pick out high percentage places in the cover that would hold the biggest fish. You can also determine which direction the bass should be facing and which direction they will want the bait to come from in order to get bit. The biggest fish will always take up the best place in the cover and will always face the wind. Wind is current and when they get big they are king of the cover. There is something that I call the natural flow of bait. There is a direction that most of the baitfish swims by if you can duplicate that direction your amount of bites go up.

Yall been busy on this post ;D

I don't use a net but in a tournament usually the guy in the back of the boat gets mad when I don't have one. ;D When I am out fun fishing I don't take one at all. I am out to have fun and loosing fish is part of the fun.

Here is a site that shows trees http://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/browsetrees.cfm

Get yourself a tree identity book and take it with you to the water. Trees such as oaks live on hard bottom areas, cypress, willows live in depressions and creek channels, and pines on sand areas or high points. In your area if you find birch lining the banks of a creek then it would be in the same area if flooded. In Texas river birch don't grow anywhere except on a creek bank. Usually the larger trees are the ones that are next to the channel. If you find a group of cypress next to some pines you might be looking at a high spot in the lake bottom. This high spot might be the edge of a old creek channel. If you can't identify the trees then identify the bottom and look at the trees on either side of the bank to give you a idea what they look like.

Yeah that ties into activity level. The more active a bass is the greater distance a bass will travel to strike a lure. Mood is a big factor and conditions help dictate the mood. Conditions position fish and will give you an Idea of what mood they are in. I know when its a jig bite and I know when to throw something different. Fishing helps refine what they are in the mood for. Conditions help point me in the right direction. Color change is good because colors change as the light penetration changes. Bass can't see all the colors all of the time. (If this sounds greek let me know and I will explain it in another way)

yep just added it ;D

"Window of opportunity " You need to understand this phrase. A window of opportunity basically means a time frame that you are around fish and they become active and you capitalize on it. In a lot of cases the window is small and most of the time the fish are inactive. When you get close to that window things start to change and areas that you didn't catch fish the first time around that you chalked up as dead water is now producing. If you are in the right place at the right time you cash in. Bass go in cycles between being active, neutral, and inactive if the conditions turn south. Bass change their activity level as conditions change. In some cases their activity level changes after you trick one fish out of a school to bite. The rest of the bass that where neutral now become active. I try to fish places that I know holds fish with the right tool for each job then when that window opens I try to be in places where I know big fish live to capitalize on their activity level. Well, when are those fish more inclined to become active? Mornings at first light-When the sun first comes up is a major time when activity levels go up. A bass is a predator fish and mornings give a bass an advantage over their prey. They can see where there prey cannot or has a hard time seeing. Low light distorts color and colors blend more because of lack of light and this by itself is an advantage to a bass. Afternoon-In the afternoon on sunny days shadows give a bass cover and concealment. Prey has a hard time looking into a shadow and making out that 5 pounder licking its chops. Afternoon also is when the sun is the highest in the sky and colors are the most vivid. Bass can see the most range of colors at this time of day. (the more light the bigger range of color is reflected and seen) They are able to pick out color and shape of their prey the best and with less distortion. This is an advantage to a bass. Sun set-the same reasons as sun rise. Cloudy conditions-This is another low light condition to the bass. Windy days-wind positions bait and bass and breaks up the surface of the water. Colors change and become distorted when the surface is disturbed and light is broken up. Night- This is another advantage to a bass.

Leaches and parasites latch onto the bass and in time the bass get rid of them and whats left is a sore. In the late Fall early Winter you should see less of that. It also could be from poor handling from the fishermen before you that caught the same bass.

A lot of this stuff is more or less guidelines. You need to understand that a bass in a controlled environment acts like a bass should. The problem comes in when their environment changes and the bass changes too. This change could be natural like high water or a cold snap kills off a food source or man made like over fishing, boat traffic, or weed control. A change in a bass's environment changes a bass's habits. A bass in most cases is at the top of the food chain and will do anything they need to do to survive. The problem is that we as fishermen learned how to use better techniques and better lures to catch the same green fish. Something needed to change for the bass to survive. Guess what changed the bass. Most of the bass in California are Florida bass. Well, Florida the average depth of most lakes are 5 ft deep. In Cali you have lakes that are 45-100+ ft deep and people are catching fish in that deep water. The bass changed because shiners where not available to them anymore but trout is. Some of the best advice I could give a new bass fishermen is to learn the tried and true techniques first then you know what not to do when your on a pressured lake. Strange huh? Well if everyone is doing the same thing over and over again the guys catching the fish are the ones doing something different.

The bad thing about BASSMASTER mag is that they run articles over and over. Most of the stuff he has been talking about I know has been printed up in a few books some written by Doug Hannon. I also know that I have not read one of Doug's in almost 20 years. The information is new to those who don't know it. I also touched on a lot of these topics in some of my previous posts. Raul just kinda spelled it out for you. :-/

One of the best ways to trick bedding fish when I lived in Florida was using a slug-go. I would hook the bait so that it wasn't straight. The bait would be bowed slightly. I would put the bait into the bed and quiver it in place. I would wait until the bass got nose to the bait then I would give the bait a sharp jerk. The bait would shoot up into the bass's face and out of instinct the bass would hit the bait. It didn't matter what size the bass was they hit the bait because they couldn't help themselves. Its in their nature to grab something that is trying to get away.

http://bassresource.com/bassfish/bass_fishing_clubs.html

If you can get away with it use a straight hook and glue it in exposed like you would with a jig head. You could peg the hook with some heavy line ran through the head of the fluke through the eye of the hook through to the other end. (a toothpick would work too) This prevents the hook from moving also.

Go back out to the lake and fish it like you would normally fish it like on Thursday. That should give the fish enough time to chill out and become active. When you get a lot of boat traffic it pushes the fish off the bank. The shallow shore water becomes dingy from boat wakes and bass don't like to be bounced around a lot so they move. Sometimes they move to the ends of laydowns, sometimes they susspend out deep or just drop back to the first drop or change in depth. For me I don't throw plastics much unless I am pitching to targets in clear water. If guys are catching fish on minnows then a crankbait might be the ticket or a spinnerbait.

NOPE! Fish get conditioned to the way a bait is presented, and the noise a bait makes. You have got to change with it. Fish still hit live bait and never get conditioned to it. But why? Live bait has random movement. It looks alive. It looks like something the bass has eaten before. Its easy to catch. Right now bass have their feed bag on and are roaming around looking for food. You need to move around and find them. I think it might be more of a factor of fish movement than fish conditioning. With a float cork and a minnow I would guess they are drifting around finding fish. If conditioning is a factor then scale down everything.

On regular plastic worms I count 1,2,3 set on smaller profile baits I don't get to 1.

Ponds: Northern spinnerbait 9 1/2 lbs (released) Southern Bass Assassin 12 lbs (released)

35+ft

Welcome to the forum ;D

Wind means crankbait and spinnerbait time thats why I like it so let it blow let it blow ;D

~>1/2 oz Devils Horse in chrome (bet you didn't know these once came in several sizes) I bet someone does and owns and still uses them. That fish in the picture was caught on the 1/2 oz size.(I am running low on the toothpick size) ;D