Chris

Let me ask this whats the water color or clearity? Whats the size of the food fish of the lake? Some lakes if the bait in the lake runs mainly small then you might want to change your lure size. Also if your dealing with clear water you might want to scale down some. If the water has color or is stained to murky then then you need to work that into your game plain. I fished a pond in elpaso that had no cover or structure to speak of on the pond. I tried everything to get a bite. I ended up catching fish when i found that the bait in the lake was small. So i switched gears and started throwing a white sexyshad(or whatever they call them)Its a shad swim bait.

If they follow and don't hit it you might need to change lures. The fish are interested in the lure but for whatever reason there is something thats turnning them off. you might want to try a shallow crankbait or jerkbait. Another lure would be a spinnerbait. The idea is to use a lure thats just under the surface.

Join Join Join post post post learn learn learn it doesn't matter if your new to fishing or an Fishing god you might know something that others don't or learn something that makes you a better fisherman or lady.

*fat or thin.... A fat bait has more of a rolling action and a flat bait has a tight action. A fat bait works well in stained to muddy water and a flat bait is great for clear or cold water. A fat bait displaces more water that a flat bait.

For me i learned that a jig is a powerful tool and alot of people still don't know how to pitch or flip or don't have confidence in it.(mainly the people i fish against) I also learned that spinnerbaits can be deadly. I learned that dropshot has its place. I learned that a crankbait isn't always the answer but can be.

What are some new things that you learned while fishing in a club or learned while fishing with others?

What spinnerbait do you use and what are some of the things you do to tweak it a little?

The thing about it if i break off fish i loose money. So if 65 lb test is what i need to hook and horse a fish out then boat flip them if need be. Then thats what i gotta use.

Im real bad about stripping off line and tossing it in the bottom of my boat and i usually have a pile of soft plastics on my front deck at the end of a fishing day. My storage box is filled with soda cans but.. it all goes in the trash at the ramp

Whats your #1 creaturebait? I like the strikeking tube lizard and the yamamoto Kreature. For me the lizard is a tube with some flash . The yamamoto kreature is great because you can rig it normal and do well with it or you can rig it backwards and displace more water. Both have caught me a ton of fish. I tend to like baits that catch keepers and still have enough appeal to tempt larger fish.

One way i get a reaction bite is to take a slug-go and rig it so the nose of the bait is swooped up. What i do is pitch it in a spawning bed and let the bait sit in the middle of it. Then i shake it like a tube until the bass sits infront of it with its nose to it. Then i take my rod and make the bait jerk hard. When i do this the bait shoots up infront of the fish's face and he reacts to it by hitting it. Force feed southern style lol

I was fishing a team tournament on a warm water discharge lake. The wind was blowing hard all day and the lake was packed. We where fishing a large lake that i had never seen or fished before so i asked my partner where do you want to fish. He kept saying i have some spots. So dumb me who was new to the club at the time figured the guy had a handle on the lake so when our number was called we took off. When we rounded the corner and slowed down to the idle zone one of the guys i was fishing against blew by me and cut me in line to get under the bridge. I asked the guy where the first spot was he said to hang a right and fish the back side of the bridge. When we got to the other side of the bridge the guy that cut in front of me was heading to the spot i was going to. I said well thats taken where is another spot. He then informed me that he only had two spot and never fished the rest of the lake and has only caught one keeper ever in this lake. I though to myself now thats great to know i was kinda ticked. lol Fishing was tough most of the main lake structure or good looking shore cove has someone fishing it. So we hopped around trying to find nothing banks that might have something on them that nobody had found yet. We caught a few short fish so i figured i would try to find some pre spawn fish or fish staging to get into the coves. Still no keepers. By this time we had 5 ft waves crashing my boat and 20 to 30 mph winds. So i hunted for some coves because my trolling motor wasn't holding me out in the main lake. On my 8th cove i told the guy to fish the shore and i'll fish the deeper trees in the center. He hooked a keeper with 10 minutes till weigh in. So i haul butt for the weigh in. Out of 23 boats and 46 fishing the tournament 2 fish where caught and we came in second. go figure.

One of the things i like to do this time of the year is swimming a jig. I mainly do it in stained to clear water but have caught fish in stained to muddy water also. Am i the only one using this killer way to catch fish? I find that i catch many big fish doing this. Its also great for suspending fish. Have you tried this way of jig fishing? If so what has worked for you?

*Action is another quality I look for in picking the right bait for the job. If you look at a crankbait notice where the line tie is. If its away from the bait the lure will have a wider wobble. The closer the line tie is to the bait the tighter the wiggle. Shape of the bill also determines the wiggle of your lure. A wide bill will have more side to side wiggle than a slimmer bill. The degree that the bill is positioned on the bait determines how fast the bait will dive. example: a fatfree shad has a bill that jets straight out from the bait. This causes the bait to have a steep dive.

you can still buy most of those worms you spoke about on the internet if you can't find any email me i just got rid of a ton of gatortail worms and others

Did that help out any? The main thing is to mess around till you can start putting together something. You kinda got to move with the fish and try to pick lures to best suit the mood of the fish and also account for your own fishing pressure and weather or water conditions.

How many of us take the time to pick up used line, old soft plastics, or trash along the the waters edge?

I live in Illinois but grew up in Florida. I fish tournaments throughout the year and have fished all over the United States. Bass fishing is my life. I just hope others can learn from some of my post or just get them thinking some in the right direction. :

*Deflective qualities is one thing I look for. If the bill has a corner on it like a square bill or is rounded helps me determine where I will fish it. One day when your bored try this. Take a round billed crankbait and throw it past a flooded tree. You will notice the bait will deflect around the tree but when it does the pattern of deflection caused by a round bill will make the bait to run close to the trunk. Now take a square bill and try it again. You will notice that the square bill will cause the bait to kick out away from the trunk once it is deflected off of it. Next try it with a coffin billed bait. You will notice that the bait will kick out away from the trunk at a greater distance than the square bill.

What i like to do is get a lake map and figure out the main lake features like drop offs, ledges, points or humps and flip it with a jig. Its places like this even if the weeds are up that fish tend to hang around and also draw fish to. I think mainly because of bottom content or hardness.

Another great way to get them to bite is to flip a strikeking jig and spin. The bait has a weedguard and a spinnerbait arm and blade. When you flip it the bait it the blade spins on the fall.

One of the biggest ways to make fish react is to make the lure look like its trying to get away or when a lure changes speeds or direction.

In some of the areas where i fish i started off with lighter line and broke off fish...a ton of fish. I still break 65 lb test but way less often. I know 65 lb test seems extreme but trust me its needed for the kinds of cover i flip in.

In your opinion what makes one crankbait better than another? Why does one crankbait produce better in clear water than stained aside from color? What do you look for in a crankbait that sets it apart from another which in turn catches more fish under various conditions?

When you feel the first tap its the fish grabbing it the second is the fish spitting it out. A jig bite is not like a worm! A worm bite they tap it then tap it and you still have them. The first tap on a worm is them grabbing it to stop it the second is the fish inhailing it. A jig is different. They almost always have it on the first tap. If not then you might want to change to something smaller or figure out if the bluegills are messing with you. If you swim a jig the bite is like a worm bite. They tap it to stop it and tap it to inhail it. Be a line watcher most of the bites you never feel or see your line tick. It just moves off or never hits the bottom.