Chris

If the bass are busting them on top use a tiny torpedo. If the bass are under the shad drop a tube with a jighead inside of it and let it spiral down. Use the tube like a soft jerkbait or try a floating worm. If that don't work dig deep in your box for a little george. Count it down to the depth you want then reel in or just let it fall then reel it up and let it fall again. It will helicopter down like a dying baitfish. Try a jigging spoon.

I like to fish when there is a full moon with clear skies. When its pitch black with no moon I feel they feed more during the day. Summertime night fishing under any moon is a good time to catch fish but the more you fish you will notice that the larger fish will bite under a full moon.

Fish always position themselves nose into current. Without current fish will suspend over the structure if bait is hanging over the point or hump they are active. If you see fish just suspending without bait in the area they are neutral or inactive.When you see fish hugging the bottom they are inactive. When you see fish on the up current side of the structure they are active. If you see fish on the down current side they are neutral.

If the weeds stop and have a defined edge that means there is a change in bottom either depth or kind of bottom. In 10 to 15 ft of water I would parallel the edge with a crankbait or carolina rig the edge. You can also use a jig and pitch to the edge with a 1/2 oz jig or try to target the first 10ft into the weeds hitting the holes in the grass. If they are suspended up in the weeds try a frog even if its 15 ft deep.

Me and my Dad hired a guide in Toho and beat the guide lol. I think I was only 13 or 14 years old at the time. The guide wanted to borrow a worm off of me because he didn't have that color or style and it was whipping his butt. ;D I think it was a gambler 7 inch hooktail redshad worm. I'll tell you what a guide is a great start on new water. While your fishing with them pick their brain a little. They will give you great insight on how the lake fishes during the year. As far as 90% of any lake is unproductive I would agree with that. Locating fish in any water tournament or not is hard business. To do it day in and out is even harder. Tournament fishermen and guides are more or less the educators who always come up with new ways to catch the same old fish always pushing the limits.

Bass yawn when they are about to feed and after they feed to turn the baitfish around head first.

Try to find places that are shielded from the wind and flip in the cover. Places like this are less effected by the wind. You can also Carolina rig, crank, or spinnerbait the windy areas if you can't get out of the wind. Cold fronts effect fish dramatically at times and other days it don't effect them as much. You will never know until you go.

Try pitching a dropshot rig you can get to the bottom in a hurry and then the bait has a slow fall to the bottom. Hop it twice then pitch it again ;D

Some days they want something else and some days I don't think the bass know what they want. Some times they are scattered or schooled up in one spot that you have not found yet. Today I caught fish on spinnerbait, 3 different shallow crankbaits, 2 different medium running crankbaits, jighead worms, dropshot, popR, and 2 different jigs. I had no pattern all day I usually catch them on a jerkbait, tube and a kreature bait. The grass was higher and the water changed color from the rains last week and lures changed. They should have been schooling on the points, humps, islands, and on the flooded timber. By switching gears and baits it helps figure them out. I give each bait enough time to convince me they don't want it. I don't put it under a time frame because some baits work better in some situations than others. If the situation comes up where that bait will work better then I go back to it. To me its just a gut feeling. If I think its the right time to change then I do If I doubt that what I am doing will work then I change.

Well look around for beds and if all you see is panfish spawning and fry then spawn is done.

I read just about anything I could get my hands as a kid growing up about bass fishing. I spent more time learning about bass than school work. I fished every chance I had. I rode my bike for miles just to fish different lakes and rivers. New lure came out that I saw someone on Bassmasters using I got one too. I tried to learn every technique I could. I hung around people that tournament fished when I was to young to fish with them and picked their brains. At the age of 15 I hung out at the baitshop to learn after school from guides and tournament guys. When I got old enough to drive I fished my first open tournament. I learned how to pitch a bait at age 13. I joined my first bass club at age 17. Learning as much as you can about bass, time on the water, fishing with great people, remembering what you learned makes me a better fishermen.

Can you tell I use mine? ;D

My fish finder and I DO MEAN FISH FINDER helps me catch fish. I do catch fish that I see on the graph. It helps me find bait fish, bass that are in the middle of weeds, bass that are hanging next to stumps and laydowns, changes in bottom hardness, I can tell how active the fish are that I am seeing on the graph by where they are positioned, I can see wood, weeds, rocks, stumps, drop offs, humps, thermocline, points, and fish. It takes out half of the guess work of finding fish.

Welcome to our neck of the woods ;D You must have been one that voted for Bill in the greatest angler debate. Here he is guys get him! (Just poking ya in the ribs a little) ;D Welcome to the forum!

I find them in drain pipes, the biggest tree in the patch of standing timber, along the creek channel where it has a short depth change (5,5,5,10,5,5,), where you have rocks that are away from the rock shore that form a small point, where two forms of cover meet (like rock and stump) Nothing banks that have some isolated structure, where the deep water meets shallow water, the first laydown at the mouth of a cover, the point that has the steepest angle. Find something different from the surrounding area and you will find them. I think location is key along with lure size and speed.

I have used the 4 inch one from BPS and the 5 inch from Yamamoto baits. You fish it like slow rolling a spinnerbait. You can use a football head or a XPS Grub Heads that look like a shad head. Because the line tie is ontop of the head on the XPS jigheads, it swims a little different.

maybe : maybe not ;D In places where a sunfish is a gamefish they kinda frown on people using it as bait.

We are the worms .. out on the sidewalks.. we are the ones that make a squashy sound when you step on us. ;D Look around at night after a rain or take a hose out and water your lawn they will pop up or check out under rocks, logs, pine straw, and leaf piles.

sure they work ;D

You bet!

Yep, and it works in the mid ranges and the deep dropoffs too. Its a great Fall tactic

If the water is not really clear I wouldn't bother going deep.

carolina rig, dropshot, 1/2 to 1oz jig, 1 oz spinnerbait with smaller blades than it comes with, texas rig plastic worm, blade bait, jigging spoon, crankbait like the hot lips series by lur jenson,(they go deeper) Carolina rig a crankbait to get more depth, or a tube.

The more I think about this post the more I think they sprayed the weeds. If the water is going to turn over it would be in the temps around 60 degrees. A cold winter in Florida is in the 20's. When a lake turns it don't last to long at all because it heats up quick your only dealing with 5ft or 12 ft depths at the most. At 85 to 90 degree water your weed growth should be topped out and growing great. Usually when it gets topped off is when they spray them. A algae bloom is the same there as anywhere else its bright green water. Sometimes you get a high amount of pollen and will turn the water a little yellow. If the water is orange something is dying. When they spray they don't spray the whole thing they spray it in sections. You need to find the healthy green stuff because any other color weeds the bass will stay far away from.

Also throw into the mix they might have just sprayed the weeds.