Chris

Big bass are live feeders meaning it needs to act like something that is easy to catch that they have eaten before. The more you make any bait look like something real the more you are going to tempt or trick them into eating it. This might sound weird but take time to learn how bait acts around a bass. If a bass runs behind a bait and the the bait acts like it could care less chances are that it will not hit it. If the bait takes flight and tries to get away chances are great that it will hit it. More important how does a sick or injured baitfish act around a bass. If you want to hold that fishes attention give it something that looks or acts like its hurt not something thats healthy. You want your bait look different than the others and draw attention to it.

Fish learn from conditioning its not intelligence. The environment they live in today is nowhere near the same as 20 or 50 years ago. We have more boaters on the water and more fishermen. Fishing pressure is different. Bass are just reacting to the environment that they live in. Think about it this way your sitting in your bass boat with your trolling motor, depthfinder, and live well on. How much noise are you making? Fish get conditioned into relating that noise or boat traffic or fishing pressure with danger and become inactive or change positions to a safe area or zone. The fish knows something is different or threatening.

I guess I am one of the few that still likes pork lol. I like pork because it has a fluid motion in the water. It also has a fatty underside that helps slow down the fall of the bait. It is made of a natural material that feels real because it is. Bass hold onto pork longer than plastic. This gives you more time to set the hook before a bass rejects your bait. Pork stays flexible in cold water. Pork is loaded with salt. Pork lasts alot longer than plastic of any kind. On the other side of the coin plastic trailers like zoom superchunk and 3x strikeking trailers have a wider color selection to match your jig. The 3x floats and has garlic salt and the superchunk is loaded with salt cooked in. Plastic is easier to deal with but your going to burn through a bag of zoom trailers each trip. The 3x trailers hold up better but they too get beat up and needs to be changed. I can use the same pork trailer all day and put it back into the jar for the next trip.

Any lake that has moss can be a pain to fish. I like to use jerkbaits, topwater (spook or buzzbaits), rattletraps, or a grassrat. I might try a spinnerbait also.

If you can see fry use a wacky rigged senko and pitch it in the middle of the fry. Target the fry and fish slow with baits that are easy to catch or on the flip side reaction bite with a jerkbait or burn a spinnerbait or speed trap. Both work depending on the mood. If both of these tactics don't work move off a little deeper and use a suspending crankbait and target the first depth change next to the spawning areas.

RATTLETRAP the grass and bounce shallow crankbaits off the stumps. Topwater in the morning either a buzzbait or a walking bait this could be a good locator also and back it up with a drop bait like a jig or tube. A fluke would work great in the afternoon or a drop bait. Use the stumps as targets even if you don't see bass and pitch a tube to them. Alot of times bass will be there even if you don't see them buried up in the grass under or next to the stump.

Fish it like stained water if your worm fishing use junebug or redshad. If your spinnerbait fishing use gold or chart/white skirt and gold blades. Crankbaits use gold or chrome in shallow water and light colors like white or chartruse in the deeper water. Topwater use white or shad colors on bright days chrome or gold.

Let me also add that if you are going to use a shinner make sure to use a WILD SHINNER. There is a big difference! A domestic shinner which looks silver in color does not act the same way around a bass that a golden wild shinner does. A domestic has never grown up in an enviroment where everything wants to eat it so it almost acts dumb around bass. A wild shinner knows he is on the low end of the food chain runs for its life around a bass. You will always catch more bass on wild shinners than domestic.

I fished with wild shinners for years then I found out how much they where a dozen and learned to cast net them. I think in the 80's we where paying $10 a dozen I think now they are up to $14 or $15 a dozen. We fished them with a flipping stick spooled with 30lb test line and a egg shaped cork bobber. Unless we where just sitting on one spot most of the time we trolled it behind the boat while we flipped a tube or worm in the weeds. The cork we used worked great because it didn't have a bobber stop in it. Instead it had a thread that you put the line through then you pulled the thread that pulled the line in one side of it and out the other side of the cork.(thats the best I can explain it) The line was snug in the bobber but if it got stuck in the weeds because of a fish grabbing the bait the line would still pull through it and not get the bobber hung up.

I try to give you some direction and maybe it will help. I have a lake that I fish that one year the water dropped 10 ft off of the bank. All the rock, weeds and wood was now high and dry. What I did was I abandoned all the water that was 4ft or shallower and tried to find places that dumped off into deep water 10ft or deeper. I found an area that about 20ft off the bank went from 10ft deep and then dumped off into 20+ft of water. To put it in simple terms I looked for places that had sharp breaks. I then positioned my boat out in the deeper water giving myself enough distance so that my bait had enough running room to hit that depth. I fished it with a medium to slow retrieve. Most of the fish where suspended out on that 10ft breakline. I used a bait that ran 14ft deep. When the water drops fish pull back on structure. They feel safe along the deeper drop offs and are able to move up and down with the water level without moving great distances. They do the same thing with standing timber if its in water deep enough.

I have fished a trap in dirty water before and smoked a fiend bad on it before. I fished it on wind blown flats and on heavy line and slow rolled it. The bait has tons of rattles in it and on a steady reteive they can track it down in dirty water. Try bright colors and hold your rod higher to keep it off the bottom. This bait don't work all the time and works better in stained water but at times it can be killer in dirty water.

Just remember to slow down and give them more time to find your bait.

Black works great chartreuse is another one I throw alot in spinnerbaits and buzzbaits I also like gold blades. In crankbaits I like citrus shad or a crawfish pattern. With a jig black and blue or sapphire blue.

Burn a trap or spinnerbait.

I start off with a black buzz bait. Then when the sun comes up a little either use a spinnerbait or a crankbait that I can bounce off stuff. A crankbait isn't a great option in dirty water unless you can run it though a laydown and bounce it off the branches or dig it into rocks or bottom. A spinnerbait is a good all around bait because it has a constant vibration pattern the bass can track and pinpoint. A jig is the other option but make sure it has a rattle and crashes some limbs most of the time the bass is going to be tight to cover.

I guess all I can tell you is fish it often and you might catch the fish in the right mood to bite.

#8 work on your cast be able to put the bait where you need it. <~This to me is everything! I would say I catch 50% or more of my fish because of my cast or pitch.

If its a river thats in Florida with fresh water it has bass and if its not a popular place then it would have big bass because people don't fish it. Watch your line for it to move. They don't spit it as fast as other lures. Most of the time when a bass has it they are not going to let go. If in doubt set the hook. Sometimes when you feel a peck peck they are eating it then spitting it out or sometimes its bluegills.

I got two that I use if I need to slow my boat down because of wind they are nice to have.

yeah they make a digital one I think it cost me like 14 bucks it has air temp and water temp on it an the time.

You know what as gross as it sounds that is one of the smartest ideas I have heard in awhile. If I was to bait an area for bluegills I would make up a dough balls and toss them in the day before.

yeah blue or junebug

I think I remember watching some Doug Hannon appearance on some show where he said they are on the beds for 3 days the rest of the time they are there to protect the young. It might take about a week for them to hatch and another week for them to change moods from protecting to eating the fry.

If your talking about one of my posts I was talking about a cove that had two main points one on either side of the cove that pointed to each other. the third point was an old road bed that was about 30 ft away from one of the points that came out about 20 ft from the shore and flattened out. A secondary point if I remember right is a point that dog leggs out from the main point. The more features you can find on the point the better the point will be. for example if its shaped weird or has stumps on it or weeds or just something different than the other points. If you have a point that is long and tapering these are the point to look for in early season. The points that have a deep drop on one side are the ones I fish on cold fronts or when the fish are suspened or if you have falling water. In the summertime fish will hang out on the deeper side also. On the ends of the point is where I fish in heavy winds but fish will also will hang anywhere on it so you kinda need to hunt around because fish will change positions on them from day to day. Be mindful of wind direction because it will help determine or give clues on how the fish might be positioned on the point. If the point is positioned shallow side or shore side is north and the deep side is south and the wind is blowing west. The fish might be sitting on the east side of the point facing west into the current. The way I fish points is with a crankbait, spinnerbait, jig, dropshot, carolina rig, tube, fluke, senko, but the main thing is to fish the depth that they are hanging at with the right tool for the situation you are faced with.

Use a rat or take a 7" plastic worm and thread the hook so that it is rigged texas style but the hook sits in the middle not towards the head. Most of your bites the bass will hit it in the middle of the worm and it also helps the bait sit ontop of the grass and sink parallel instead of nose down.