Matt Fly

For one thing, ya'll assumed he had been fishing illegally. Which wasn't the case after all. No one answered his original questions really. And since when does some one need to be told to grow up for asking a question. Muddpuppy- A cop can't ask for your hunting and fishing license. So again, who do you want to be stopped by? cop or warden A game warden is the only one that can check you. Yes we can assume they can hold you until a game warden arrives. But again, a cop has no juristdiction on the game laws.

Derrikp said he never fished legally, also didn't say he fished illegally. His question was: was it worse to get caught by warden or a cop? In Tx, a cop doesn't have the authority to ask you for a fishing license, so the game warden is definitley the worst. When one WRITES IN CAPS or large bold letters, I WAS ALWAYS TAUGHT, IT WAS LIKE YELLING AT SOMEONE OR DISPLAYING EMOTIONS. Whats up with the responses towards Derrickp? IMO, you guys assumed he fished illegally? You guys are wrong, and in Tx, a private pond doesn't need a fishing license. And as indicated by all the pond fishermen on this forum, theres alot of people who fish ponds all year that probably doesn't need one either.l Its time to grow up and get a license. Nice response. hookem Matt.

Vegitation is usually the first to filter out some of the mudd. Go with wide wobbling baits, chartruese colorado blades or white, rattling, noise baits. Bass are feeding off vibrations and scents.

What do bass see in chartruese? A lot of bait fish have charttruese fins and tails or very similar in color. As offered by most studies, chartruese is one of the colors most easily seen by fish in all types of water.

Carry all four markers all the time. I make adjustments to cranks, skirts, weights, and plastics. Have tried the dip and glow, but find the markers work fine. When I think a little dressing up is called for, I never over dress for the occassion, I start with a subtle mark, such as chartruese on the tail, I don't go over board because I can always add more. Hookem Matt

Ask him if he would like to be held under the water for 20 minutes. I'm sure that bass needed a drink sooner.

I like to slow roll them for better quality bass. This allows me to stay in touch with the bottom contours, just enough to keep the blades slowly turning. I also like casting past my targets and guiding my spinner into the tree trunk, dock pilings, a branch. I hit them hard enough to make some noise and kill it with tension on my line causing it to flutter down with the blades turning. This looks like an injuried baitfish, bass like to kill it on the fall. Blue skies- double silver willow leafs, white, white/blue as close to cover as I can get it into tightly. The more visible light, the more bass bury up.

You know your a bass fishermen when: 1. every table in the house has a fishing magazine on it. 2. when both bath rooms have bass reading material at arms reach 3. your master bed room has 14 area lake maps pinned on the wall for mid-night oil burning and studying 4. you can't sleep the night before a big tourney 5. You know you are a dedicated bass fishermen when you get propositioned by a beautiful woman for pleasures, and you reply to her by saying, " Sorry, I'm going fishing right now and if I catch something, At least I know what I'm catching.

As long as you keep doing it for him, he'll be just fine. He catches, you release, makes for good team work.....LOL

Remember that the shallows will be full of fry, and blue gills, perch are next to spawn after the bass has finished. Bass normally won't travel far to rest and then begin to catching up on some easy meals like the egg stealing blue gills. Shad and perch colors are good starting points.

I follow the rule of: " if it isn't broke, don't mess with it". My catch rates never suffered with all the new types of hooks out there. 90% of the time, I have used the standard straight shanked hook. For 25 years before all those new fangled hooks came out, was the traditional straight shanked hook. The question is, When you switched, changed hook styles, has your catch rate improved? I honestly couldn't tell. I have asked in the past on hooks and C-rig's and swallowed hooks, one reason I didn't like c-rigs. I will take a few recommendations and give them a thorough testing this summer. I use the strongest, smallest hook allowable. 7" is 2/0, and a 10" is 4/0. Lots of bass records were set by crappie fishermen using soft gold hooks and crappie jigs.

Cheapest fish finder on the market, is the birds, they always show you where the baitfish are. LOL.

These shallow humps may also be more effective after 3 steady days of wind upon them. It positions blown plankton upon the humps which shad will feed upon, thus positioning the bass also.

I always hand paint my bullets, white, red, greens, blues, black, yellows, camo. I cut colored sponges into tiny squares and add them to the back part of the hook so I can apply a scent like lunker sauce and others. Holds the scent in the pores longer. Either match the sponge color or dye it.

Each one is a tool in your toolbox, they each have their strengths and uses. Right after a fish spawns, it usually suspends off bottom or after cold fronts, fish like to suspend off bottom. Those conditions are made for drop shotting when they aren't to far off bottom. Hookem Matt

Although I haven't been able to get mine yet. I'd add "stitching" it or a zig zag pattern.

Most fish don't leave the spawning areas after spawning for a few weeks. Alot will stay in the same areas to feed. As long as the shad, minnows and blue gill are relating to the shallows, most bass will still be in the areas. As with prespawn, the shallows will continue to heat up and its usually the summer heat in Texas that finally drives some of the bass back deep. Just remember that the bluegill spawn is fixing to happen, and as long as there is an easy meal in the shallows, the bass won't be far away. And shad are still spawning shallow in the early mornings, so target the shallows early. Most bass suspend off bottom after spawning for a week or two to rest. 3X floating C-rig or drop shots are easy methods to persue post spawners that are in recovery mode. Once actively feeding, anything from topwaters, assorted plastics, cranks, spinners and jigs all produce.

split shotting the same color or baits as everyone else, just changing the presentation. If you titled this search baits, thats a different thread.

Dugout, Welcome to forum.

Ain't Texan, Well, first I was in the flats with humps from 9ft upto 3ft with hydrilla. Only produced fish up to 2.5 pounds consistently. 2.5 pounders arent gonna win any money there. The 147 bridge across Sam has horizontal cement structures that start at 12 ft deep at current lake level. The 'H' of the bridge under water. I showed fish suspended on top off these structures in 20-30 ft deep water. Feeding on crappie was my thoughts. I graphed each one till I found the same picture i was looking for. I had downsized my line. I lost two fish right out of the gate breaking my line. I switched to 17 pound McCoys mean green and never got the big bite again. Big fish love crappie. There was small bait feeding on the algae growth on bridge piling on the sunny side. Every once in awhile, crappie would bee-line up and hit the baitfish. I expected that the bass where waiting for the crappie to come up and the bass where ambushing the crappie. I had mentioned before on another thread that I have never been on Sam without any wind, and Sat and Sunday basically glassed. gnats were so bad, you couldn't see, breath, or get them out of you nose or ears long enough to concentrate. We called it an early day and packed it up. Sprays didn't effect them, smoke or anything else. Even my partner lit up a cigar. Hookem Matt.

I love top waters. Have you ever had that feeling, because you've been surprised on a hit and it kinda scares you because of the not knowing "when". Any top waters, frogs, chuggers, poppers, buzzers, any and all.

I hear you guys changing the bait, but how about the set up sometimes instead of the bait. Tweaking the pattern instead of finding a new one all together. On Rayburn, watermelon candy had to be a good choice, a brim colored egg stealing lizzard. Caught a few on T-rig 1/4 oz bullet, then changed the bullet to smaller size to slow the fall. So, so. Electronics showed fish suspended off bottom, so I went to drop shotting a watermelon candy fluke 18 inches. That was the ticket . Next morning, topwaters didn't start well, they were up, but just not wanting to take the surface plug. Went to split shotting the fluke, 1/16thoz which stayed in the strikezone better until the sun got up and put them back deeper, then switched back to drop shotting. Watermelon candy. Bass see the same presentation of color every day. Sometimes tweaking the pattern is done by changing presentations, changing the color slightly, down sizing line, weight, hook, leader size, nosie/rattle or no noise. Sometimes on glassey days, instead of rattles, ill use two beads, or 1 bead and the weight. When you know the base color should be green or shades of green, you have pepper, chart and pepper, green fleck/blu fleck/watermelon red/ gold fleck and the list goes on. The same colors for years have always worked, so I stick to base colors, too many brands and types out there. Too much stuff to carry or think about. If you owned everything on the market, you'd sink your boat carring it.

Long sleeves, a wet bandana around my neck, a good hat and pair of shades. Or I go Natural, just not totally natural.

Learning the signs a bass gives off is part of the equation of "if she is locked" or "catchable", what part of the nest is she guarding, and you determine that by the way she postiions herself and her reactions as you probe her nest with a bait. If she is more concerned with you and the boat, she's has possibly been hooked, is not locked. I will make repeated casts with my first choice, and that is dictated by water clarity. I will change baits often, lizzards, tubes with fiz pellets, flukes, floating strikeking 3X baits, and the Xrap, but I use a carolina weight over the bullet, line slides easier, and I don't peg it. By lowering my rod tip, the bait backs off the weight, I will let float up to six inches off bottom and twitch the bait, and it works the same as Ouchitabasser mentioned. I like this one the best because bass bite the tails and carry baits out of the nest, and when they nip the tail with the feathered treble, they get hooked the first time with out me waiting for them to aggressively bite. The only time I go after males is when they both are present or the male itself it huge which is a rareity, males do not get half the size of females, and its a tournament. Other wise, I've caught tons of average fish and leave them for someone else to beat up on. Sight fishing is the chance to set your personal all time best, or encounter much larger fish easier than other times of the year to find and catch. Would your wife like to be bothered during child birth? No way!!!! Not much difference, this is why, when I do sight fish, its for true trophies mostly or a tournament. I'll pass up hundreds of catchable fish looking for that one special fish.

Texas Parks and WildLife Sharelunker program which ends in less than a week. It runs from oct-Apr, if they spawn in captivity, the fry of the off spring is released back into the original lake and the rest are used to spread that gene pool around other Tx lakes. http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/visitorcenters/tffc/budsharelunker/ By going there, I saw #32 for the season has been posted and was caught yesterday. Maybe you would like to post that one for me rattletrap. how come you don't post reports from your state? Other than BASS and Gunterville. We may not own any records, but do have enough top bass lakes to compete with any state pound for pound, stringer to stringer wirh evidence to back it up, not one tournament.