Big Bass Chaser

I'm a big guy as well 6'3" 260. I bought the Okuma backpack from Walmart.com. I really did my research and looked at bags up to $200 and the Okuma was the best one ($50 I believe). That being said, I should have thought of an Alice pack, that would have been perfect.

I fish a system of lakes that all have crappie in them, with one lake with the largest Florida strain bass in it having the highest population of crappie (correlation?). The lake is relatively shallow (with the creek bed never being more than 40 feet down and the average depth of probably 10 feet) and stained (from 1' to 5' visibility depending). Has anyone had success with a crappie swimbait in places where they are part of the main forage of the bass (there are no shad in the system of lakes)? Hard or soft body doesn't matter, just something that has drawn strikes.

I'm glad this came up. I honestly hadn't considered the mechanics of the hook eye/hook point to the bass' mouth. I had thought the EWG ALWAYS provided easier hooking but I can see where it easily cannot. It is so painfully obvious now that people have pointed it out in this thread and I just read a few hook articles, I feel stupid for not realizing this earlier :-[ . During a tournament recently (which I thankfully won even though I was using the wrong hooks) I visibly lost two fish while hopping a texas rigged chigger craw across the bottom in the shallows where I saw the bait come fully out of the bass' mouth. Needless to say, today after work I will be buying some straight shank and offset 2/0,3/0, and 4/0 hooks.

Largemouth bass are a lot more resistant to hypoxia (being deprived of oxygen) than you think. While I don't advocate holding a bass out of the water any longer than you have to, I've seen studies stating that largemouth can be held out of the water as long as 30 minutes without death after being returned to the water. Google "largemouth bass hypoxia", you'll get a large number of studies on the subject. Smallmouth on the other hand are much more susceptible to hypoxia and should be returned to the water ASAP.

I try not to, besides the bigger females hanging around just deeper than the beds getting ready to spawn are often aggressive biters or at least reaction biters.

x2, football head w/craw trailer

Spring is so wild I have to ask: What temp outside, in the water? 30 degrees, 80 perhaps? What visibility? 2', 20'? How pressured is the body of water? What structure is available? what cover? etc etc etc.... I have three lakes that I fish regularly, one is very stained (3'), one is semi-stained (6'), one is very clear (20'). In the very stained on a warm day, spinner bait or chatterbait next to cover, cold day jigs and shakeyhead. In the semi-stained on a warm day, swimbaits or cranks near cover/structure, jigs and dropshot on a cold day. In the very clear on a warm day, hopping texas rigged chigger craw or crank, cold day jigs and drop shot.

I have these in Green Pumpkin with black flake from Yamamoto?

To get my first 10lb + fish. I believe it will come on the jig or swimbait.

Being not too far from you and experiencing the front slightly before you, a friend caught a 11.5 lb hog in Marin Sunday.

Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (all sizes) - jig trailer, double wide beaver on a 3/8oz football jig has a very nice fall Berkeley Chigger Craw (original and crazy) - jig trailer, brass n glass Netbait Paca Chunk (for a smaller presentation) - smaller jig trailer

I love fishing skirted football head jigs w/ trailer, 1/4oz up to 1oz BECAUSE I tend to fish very rocky lakes where crayfish are the #2 forage. I, like roadwarrior favor bigger jigs, usually fishing 3/4 oz with a RI Sweet Beaver or Berkeley Chigger Craw for a trailer. It's definitely reduced the amount of bites I get, but increased the size. My technique depends on the bottom. If it's big chunk rock I like to do the smallest hops possible between pauses while hoping to find a nice big rockface to present the jig like it's on a table. For gravel to small chunk, I drag the jig a foot or two at a time between pauses. For very vertical rockwalls, big hops hoping to bang the jig head into the wall on the way up or down.

I fish with guys who have a plethora of very expensive polarized glasses to choose from. I wear Oakley Oil Drum polarized in brown/bronze and none of them beat the Oakleys for visibility below/into the water. Also, I can wear my Oakleys just before it gets light outside and just after the sun goes down and STILL they take some of the glare off the water. The one minus is their price at 150-170. I suggest the Oil Drums because they are less curved.

They are a great bait to slow roll for females staging about to spawn. If you're not going to snag up too much, you can fish them like a fast football head jig too.

Pre-spawn, spring.

I imagine the guys who like the bright colors fish stained, turbid, or heavy cover water. The guys who fish the natural colors, clear, rocky, low turbidity waters. As I fish rocky, clear, low turbidity waters most of the time, I fish watermelon/green pumpkin laminate.

The lakes I fish: Dropshot Jigs Shakeyhead What I fish 90% of the time: Jigs Dropshot Shakeyhead The other 10%: cranks, ripbaits, swimbaits

Thanks for the input. Although I listed an exhaustive amount of information, it's more for the worry of not considering something crucial than trying to consider all those variables. I find that lately, now that I am comfortable with the bodies of water I fish, I have been paring down what I bring to the lake and the number of presentations I try. For example, lately I've located bass holding close to a rocky bottom in about 20 feet of water next to weed beds on the shallower part of the lake. I hadn't really thought about the variables, just kind of searched for them using a presentation I thought was likely they'd key on that day.

I don't really hate any one lure but I am starting to understand that in the lakes I fish it is very hard to get certain bites. For example there is no bite for : spinnerbaits,jerkbaits,and top water. The fish in these lakes just don't accept those presentations. I've learned that they like the jig, dropshot, senko, if the afternoons are warm a crankbait, and a swimbait once in a while. I imagine that on other lakes with different conditions the lures that I am so confident in wouldn't produce squat. So while I don't hate them, I do get frustrated that the presentations that work for other fisherman on other bodies of water don't work on mine. It would be fun to catch them some other way, especially on topwater.

(taken from another post of mine) I am less than a year into serious bass fishing and already the amount of variables to consider each time I go out gets complicated (heck, I can't even tell you how half of it affects the bass yet): Body of water : size, shape, depth, fishing pressure, etc Strain of bass : Northern, Florida, Spot, Striper Photoperiod : getting longer, shorter Moon phase : now, today, where it was past few days, where it is going Temp : same as Moon Weather : same as Moon Barometer : same as Moon Water : Depth, Clarity, Turbidity, Surface, Current, Runoff Seasonal cycle : pre-spawn,spawn,post-spawn,summer,fall, winter Physical approach : on foot, on boat, on float, noise, shadow, etc Forage : speed, size, depth, seasonal cycle Rod : size, action, tip Line : size, strength, visibility, leader Hook : size, style, strength, etc Lure : speed, depth, presentation Structure : mud and rock, wood and weeds, open water, etc Cover : Rock, wood, mats, weeds, docks, wrecks, trees, etc on and on and on.... X100 And then you have to take into consideration how each variable affects each other variable, which have priority, the ability to trump one another. Of course each variable probably has 1000 research papers and 50 books written about it. So what I'd like to know is, each time you go out what do you consider, in what order, and if you have the stamina to type it out, why?

I am less than a year into serious bass fishing and already the amount of variables to consider each time I go out gets complicated (heck, I can't even tell you how half of it affects the bass yet): Body of water : size, shape, depth, fishing pressure, etc Strain of bass : Northern, Florida, Spot, Striper Photoperiod : getting longer, shorter Moon phase : now, today, where it was past few days, where it is going Temp : same as Moon Weather : same as Moon Barometer : same as Moon Water : Depth, Clarity, Turbidity, Surface, Current, Runoff Seasonal cycle : pre-spawn,spawn,post-spawn,summer,fall, winter Physical approach : on foot, on boat, on float, noise, shadow, etc Forage : speed, size, depth, seasonal cycle Rod : size, action, tip Line : size, strength, visibility, leader Hook : size, style, strength, etc Lure : speed, depth, presentation Structure : mud and rock, wood and weeds, open water, etc Cover : Rock, wood, mats, weeds, docks, wrecks, trees, etc on and on and on.... X100 And then you have to take into consideration how each variable affects each other variable and which have priority and the ability to trump one another. Of course each variable probably has 1000 research papers and 50 books written about it.

Cheap solution : Why not go to a snowboarding spring sale where they are selling almost the exact same gear under a different name for 1/4 the cost? Works just as good as any of the expensive fishing specific stuff.

I'm also in California and fish rocky highland reservoirs where the bass can see and feel (your footsteps) coming from a distance. I used to be befuddled on how to catch them, but I think Raul has it. You need to hide like you were Batman stalking a thug. They cannot see, hear, or feel you or they will view as suspect anything you throw at them. Because I've been heartbroken a few times with big girls really shallow like that, I now explicity watch as far ahead as my polarized shades will allow to see if there are any cruisers or shallow bass. When I see them I get a football head (with rattles seems to be better) jig out and cast it way, way past them hopefully in deeper water. My goal is always find something hard near them if they are holding still or in front of them if they are cruising and shake that jig against it hopefully without moving it. You can feel the tack-tack-tack of the jig banging the rock and I'd say about 75% of the time the bass at least investigate and of those that investigate about 50% bite. Of course, that is my local lake, and these are northern strain not southern strain bass so they tend to be more aggressive. On my most recent trip I saw three shallow bass and caught two of them this way. The third felt me coming when I got excited watching it and snapped a dry branch I stepped on. It looked directly at me and then two of it's friends swam up and they just watched me for a minute and swam away.

Although I haven't tried them yet I want to try a rattle-less one like the Flatt Shad at mid-day when they can clearly see it way off or perhaps in ultra-clear water. The lipless that have caught me fish: Bill Lewis' Rat-L-Trap XCalibur Xr50, Xk75 Yozuri Rattln' Vibe 5/8oz I feel like the Strike King Red Eye and XCalibur Xr series are essentially identical. The one lipless that I think is the best producer is the Xk series from XCalibur, the single (and huge) tungsten rattle makes a completely different sound and when no other crank would work, I killed with that a few evenings.

Shorten "When every fish counts!" to "Every fish counts!". Don't you want me using your product all the time? After all, when does every fish not count? I caught five on Monday fun fishing, I wish I had caught six. The aspect of the head and lure in the rear could be outlined in black to better accentuate the fish. Perhaps ask the guy doing the graphics to dial up the color filter which most closely matches the color of the Mega Strike attractant and perhaps add a slightly unnatural yet transparent glow of the same color around the bait. When I see your wrap I want to know that the fish bit that plastic because of the "magic" MegaStrike puts into it.