Chris

In the off season i try to weed out the lures that i either never used or never caught me fish. I also try to reload on the stuff i am running out of and go over past tournaments to try to figure out what to do differently. I also try to read up on new stuff and map out how to apply it to my fishing. If i really get cabin fever i head out to the warm water lakes and try out the topwater bite.

I'll try to tackle the fall shore fishing question. What i do when i get to a lake is try to figure out the mood of the fish. Not all fish are doing the same thing at the same time. Also from day to day or hour to hour fishing changes. I'll give you some insight on how i tackled a lake and stayed with the fish even when conditions changed. First day out.. I found that the fish where schooling heavy on bait and smashing the surface. So i pulled out my topwater lures and fan cast on the areas where i saw the action. I never got a hit. So i figured they might want something else so i tinkered around with crankbaits and found that i was getting more weeds than fish. So i tryed worms... nothing..not even a bump. Spinnerbaits came to mind..one missed fish was all i got. Then i got the idea to throw a diamond shad and 26 fish later i figured in whipped them. Day 2.. i figured with the cloud cover that this might be the day for spinnerbaits. I found 4 areas that has large schools of fish and i hammered them. I figured with the cold front moving in that a slow rolled spinnerbait would be the ticket and it was. (18 fish)Day3...High skys.. sounds like a tough day at the office. I started flipping the cattails and any wood i could find. I threw a 1/4 oz black and blue jig with a #11 pork. I found one area that held 4 good fish. The spot was no bigger than 6ft squared on the side of a point. The wood payed off with 5 more.(9 fish total) Day4...Temp dropped the night before but there was some wind so i desided to throw a rogue suspending jerkbait. The water had some color on it so i picked out a chart/black back. I started in the corners where the wind was blowing into thinking the bait should be there. I started off with hard jerks then letting the bait sit for awhile then jerked it a few more times. I caught 2 fish doing that. Then i desided that the front might have shut them off so i kinda fished it like a worm with long sweeps then pause. Total fish 15..Day 5..I wanted to change things up and i figured i might have pressured the fish so i scaled down. I had been seeing alot of bait but most was small. I picked out a chart/blue back bill norman crankbait that most use for crappie fishing and started cranking. I fished from the middle to the shore and right up against the bank. The kinda stage cast till i found where they where hanging. Total fish 29.

Also look under the foot control and make sure all the conections are well seated and check the plug in and make sure its still good. The quickest way to figure out where the power is being restrictive is to take a tester out and check from the battery on up to the trolling motor.

Yeah i think that was the selling point of that lure

Can anyone think of some creative ways to fish this stuff? I'll give you two of mine one use a tube instead of a rat. When the fish blow up on it the tube slides down in the hole and wham! The other is use a plastic worm. What i do is thread the hook down about two inches so its texas hooked in the middle. By rigging it this way the weight of the hook will make the worm fall funny in water plus most of the strike are in the middle of the worm where the hook is.

Yeah what Glenn said! im glad you tackled that one ;D

THE UGLY! I was fishing the second day to my classic. I hit my first 3 spots and never has a bite. I desided to find me some timber and fish it for all it was worth. I tied on a balsa crankbait and started making my run down the timberline. About 9am the wind started howling and i was having a hard time hitting the water with my bait. The wind would carry it to the tree limbs. I didn't want to waste time so by the time i was halfway down the timber line i had broken off 3 crankbaits so by now i was not in a great mood. Finally i had a fish so i brought it in and measured it. 14 1/2 inches and threw it in the livewell. Through the course of the day i hooked and lost 4 big fish on that crankbait. At weigh in we went to measure my keeper and i messed up and didn't know or forgot that that lake had a size limit of 15 inches. This was a two day classic on two different lakes one lake had a 14 inch size limit the other was 15. oops!

THE BAD! I was fishing my clubs classic I figured i would hunt around with a crankbait and pitch a jig where I could to get my limit. This was a 2 day classic So i figured i would just need a limit to put myself in good standings for the second day. I fished main lake points and creek channels Without much luck so i figured i would have to re think what i should be doing. One of the guys who i was fishing against asked me where should he fish and me being nice told him what i was throwing and told him to fish the dam there always is a few fish there. I kept chucking away with my crankbait and catching a bunch of fish but all where short. By this time the guy i sent to the dam ran by where i was and told me he didn't catch anything at the dam. So i packed up and made a run to the dam. When i got there someone was fishing it so i went to another area waiting the guy out. When he left i picked up my flipping stick and started pitching my jig. My second pitch i hooked my kicker 4 lbs 8 oz bass. This was my first keeper. That fish was caught at 11 am so i had 4 more hours to fish. Instead of changing locations compeatly i figured where there is one there must be more. I also didn't want to leave fish to find fish. So for 3 hours i stayed at the dam and never had another bite. I ended up having the second largest fish of the classic but second isn't big fish.

THE GOOD! Me and a partner where prefishing a tournament and where trying to get a feel for what the fish where doing. The lake had two sides to it with a dam in between but durring the tournament we could fish either or both sides. We started off in the shallow side prefishing and caught 5 fish between the both of us 4 out of the five keepers so we left to try the other side. We fished our butts off and ended up catching enough fish to each fill 4 limits a peice. The following weekend was our tournament and we desided to fish the shallow side. I caught the first keeper then it started to rain. We continued fishing and caught 2 more keepers then the lightning made up duck for cover under a railroad bridge. We found half of the people compeating under the bridge. I desided to fish while i waited for the lightning to stop and threw a worm. I had three fish pick up my worm and swim off with it so i told my partner "as soon as we can troll out of here because they just started to bite again!" We started to troll off and turned the corner and caught the big fish of the tournament. At the end of the tournament we won second place and big bass.

Ok tournament guys lets hear it, what are the things you did durring a tournament that was the deciding factor if you won or lost?

Have you ever heard someone on tv talk about reaction fishing or someone say that they are looking for a reaction bite? Ever wonder what they ment by making the fish bite? Its when you force the fish to eat even when they don't want to. But how do you do it? One way i do it is making a perfect pitch into the middle of a bush and make the jig crash to the bottom then hop it twice then pitch it to another spot. By doing this the jig is dropped infront of the fish's face and forced to bite out of surprise. I do the same thing with spinnerbaits or bouncing crankbaits. What are some of the things you do to get a reaction bite?

When i go jig fishing i have atleast 3 rods rigged ready for action. Two rods rigged with 50 to 65lb spiderwire one rigged with 17 lb mono. One spiderwire rod has a 1/2 oz jig on it with pork or plastic trailer. The other spiderwire rod has a plastic creature bait on it and the mono rod has a lighter jig on it. What do you use when it time to get jiggy with it?

Asking the DNR is a great idea. sometimes lakes get stunned and you have a large population of fish the same size. Bass eat bass along with other stuff. so if you have a large population of 3 inch bass i wouldn't worry to much because half of them will not live though the winter. most new lakes when they are stocked have 2 to 1 ratio or 3 to 1. meaning 3 bass to 1 bluegill. some stock catfish also. if a bass has a successful spawn it will lay lets say 80 eggs (just for arguement). Maybe 10 will make it to adult the rest die or get eaten. Maybe 4 will make it to be a 5 lb fish or bigger. But if you have a high survival rate of bass then those fish will never reach 5 lbs most will never grow any bigger than 2 or 3lbs the lake is stunned. its kinda like a fish tank. if you have a high population of fish in that tank the fish do not have enough food or room to grow so it will never grow to its full potential. but take the same tank and only have a few fish in it the fish have the room and food to grow and will grow much larger than the other fish.

Find current and rocks! Smallmouths love them! Lures depend on the mood of the fish i have caught them on jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, tubes, plastic worms, topwater, and most of the tackle i use for largemouth. Just scale down a little unless the place is known for larger smallmouths.

I watched it the other night and i wasn't impressed. It sounded to me like another espn garbage show. Hunting with Hank is another one i am not impressed with it sounds like Mr. Rodgers going hunting. Whatever happened to Larry Nixon? There is a ton of other fishing and hunting shows that old and new that should be shown well before that idiot. Orlando Wilson is another great show that is not around anymore. Years ago you could plan on Sat or Sunday watching great shows that taught you how to fish or hunt with great tips even for the seasoned outdoorsman now i can think of only a few. Flw, BASS, Denny Brauer, Larry Nixon, Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Stikeking, to name a few. Its sad that i pay for OLN just for a hand full of shows because most of the shows are just for show and not teaching much of anything so i don't find much value to them and you will find many with the same opinion.

I have found that scent plays a role in catching more fish. I have found that if you use a lure that is moving like a crankbait or jerkbait scent is not much of a factor in catching more fish unless you find that bass are chasing your bait to the boat and not hitting it then after you add scent to your bait those fish that followed your bait now hit it. Also in cold water scent plays a role in more fish. On other lures like jigs and worms scent acts like a lube and helps the bait get through cover easier. Water is more dense that air and scent takes awhile to disperse. So the idea that a bass will travel great distances to search out your offering just on scent alone is less possible. But scent helps a fish determine if the offering is food or not. Also scent covers up anything that you might have come in contact with that might turn off the fish. Just remember that a water base scent washes off easy so you going to go through a bunch thoughout the day. Also some scents have heavy color in them and will change the color of your lure or how its seen under water. Sometimes if your in an area catching fish and the fish turn off try changing brands or kind of scent because sometimes fish kinda get wise to your scent. Alot of times this will catch you more fish out of an area. Oil base scent makes your offering look like it has a slime coat which inturn makes it look more natural. Also when a fish eats it the oil covers the fish's taste buds so to speak so the fish can't taste anything unnatural. I feel salt plays a greater role if the fish is going to accept or reject a offering once its been taken and scent helps to get them to bite it.

Last spring I caught a bass 9 1/2 lbs on a white zoro 3/8 oz single colo blade with a #11 white uncle josh pork on the end. I was slow rolling the bait down a tree and killed it when it reached the end of it.