Matt Fly

All lakes age, and yes, lakes have cycles if conditions are met again. A lake that is fertile early in its life will be prime for producing bass. As it ages, it looses fertility. The term "fertile" means that a lake can sustain all forms of life. Starting with the planktons in the food chain. The food chain is the primary reason lakes are healthy. Man factors in as well. Did we keep legal catches, practice CNR, dump chemicals in our drains, streets and etc.... As a lake ages and the timber errodes away, if vegitation hasn't started to take hold, the lake gradually dies because of the lack of oxygen producing materials in the water to support life, primarily planktons. Sam Rayburn as mentioned, suffered through many droughts, the first real severe drought killed all the vegitations mats in the late 70's. 3 summer droughts 30 ft low and new brush grew along the bottoms and banks, she filled up and fishing took off again. Mid 80's same thing happened again, we call them facelifts, couple years of droughts and new growth along the shorlines emered, but the vegitation didn't die off this last time. Most biologists will tell you to plant as much brush as you can on the aged lakes. Replacing as much as you can will only add fertility to the water and provide fry with the cover to survive. No vegitation or cover in the shallows and the fry will not survive.

I'd look at why I'm going first, just to meet these individuals or learn a technique. What am I looking to learn. #3 appeals to me more.

10 days and counting!!!!!!! Piece of cake so far. I now have another 150-200.00 dollars a month more for the BaitMonkey. So, how is everyone elses Resolutions going?

Welcome aboard this vessel of fine knowledge.

What shows and articles I have read have been okay. But most of their shows upnorth are nothern related species. Pike, Muskie, walleye are some things us southern folks haven't had the urge to travel for. I agree with Marty, some people just have a knack for fishing. Natural instinct.

82 degrees Sat and Sun. Do I need to say anymore. Sorry.

Certain baits in tournaments can eliminate a few small fish. generally, my spinner bait fish are 80% keepers, 14 inch plus, I average 2.75 on keepers with SB. dd22 pull more keeper fish than dinks. A nice bulky profile pig/jig usually weeds the dinks out also. Baits that catch dinks, this isn't saying they don't catch "keeper fish". Drop shots, flukes, tubes, finese worm, small cranks, rattle traps, small spinner baits. My theroy for my lakes with 200 teams. Lots pressure, so bites and keepers may be few. So with a larger profiles bait, I'm trying to attract chunks instead of 14 inch minimums. 14" x 5 = 5 to 6.25

I like my hats to be at least seven years old. Experience thing!! I like to look at yearly pictures, and if I see a certain shirt in alot of the pics, I might give it another chance.

Nice reading. 10 lbs in 95% of the tournaments we have wouldn't get you a nickle. Try 15-20lbs to be in the running most of the time in Tx. Slot lakes don't count in those results. My goal has always been at least 4-2.5lbers for ten and a kicker of at least 5 for 15lbs. These lakes support that kind of weight every weekend. Most of these lakes in North/Northeast Tx will have a tourney or two every weekend. I am always happy to limit out.

In the fall, bass hit anything that moves, the temps finally cooled back down. Once the water has cooled, gotten alittle frigid, and energy is their concern, bass will target any "cheap" easy prey that comes by. A freebie!!!! But if bass have to exert energy in the process of finding food. Protien and calcium is high on their priorities. Crawfish, if avaiable are #1 in a bass diet. The jig is the #1 imiatator of crawfish. Protien is a must for the growth of the eggs inside. If you have a body of water that isn't popular, private, or just new to you, the state biologist should have some answers, area bait shops, and the guy on the bank fishing. If no info found, well its time to catch some and eat a few. Winter time is a bad time to search shallows for bait fish. Summer times will have the shallows full of fish and a scouting trip will allow you to notice what is in your hole of water. While cleaning, look inside the fishes stomach to see whats been on the menu. My brothers and I do this on the rivers when fishing for cats. Are they feeding on carp fingerlings, hellgramites, other catfish?

I monitor the conditions regular. And when trying for a bigger fish, do plan around certain moon phases or fishing before the fronts. A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work. I'll fish any time weather permits and its not dangerous.

Couple of articles, or letters to the editors on Marina owners in Tx putting no fishing signs out , NO FISHING INSIDE THE MARINA. By law, as long as you are in your boat, you are legal to fish any public waters.

I have some fellows on another forum that are asking about smallmouth guides in the US. Any suggestions? They want a guided trip and don't care about travel. Spring time.

The back seater was in the lead, and when the 4qrt came, and the back seater got boat control, he went to deep water in the middle of the lake to play defense. No way the back seater could catch up fishing in dead waters as he thought. It has to be on something else other than OLN also, cause I watch it and don't have OLN.

Anytime some one sees the easy life as it appears, its always gonna be luring to young and old. The topic being BASS role models, what actions on this PG rating show harms our kids? There is more on TV on other channels that are way more apt to corrupt kids. Since most of us don't live with to many pros in person. I would say TV accounts for 95% of the views. And if watching BASS has giving anyone bad feelings of role models, give up the cable. I raised a 2 year old daughter by myself, mom passed away, compared to the sexual content on regular TV, Bass fishing is mild and should not be used as a comparison. I don't see drugs, drinking, very few smokers on air, no wife beatings, no rapes, no murders. Pretty mild mannered compared to the other stations programing. I bet there is more yelling in the homes than seen on a bass fishing show. We would love our kids to pick the right people to emulate, unfortunately, statics say there are more home violence, alcoholics and druggies in our neighbor hoods than on a bass fishing show. I know parents that would do anything for their kids. Kids have minds of their own and don't always see MTV as bad because all of their friends watch it. If a kid wants to watch it, you aren't going to stop them. They watch it at their friends eventually. Tougher world to raise kids in than when I grew up with 2 stations to watch in the early 70's, sorry our aerial didn't get ABC for the third. We didn't really need role models, we were too busy playing outside like the rest of the kids. Way too much out there for them to get into. Times have change for the worst, and it won't get any easier.

You can see my take on waters that have a short winter periond. How does Table Rock compare with the TX spawn? My winter will be short this year as it is going so far. How long do you guys wait to look for pre-spawn staged fish. Does your fish spawn from late march until late may? Common sense says the further north I go, the later the spawn, June in Mn? Would like to know the spawn cycles of lakes across the country which are typical times on the normal years with out the late cold fronts.

All is correct, you will find shallow fish year around and have deep bites also. Some lakes don't follow the norms, never have, never will. Jan in TX means fish could be on beds in Feb. if this weather stay warm as it has all season. Couple of blasts of Artic air and thats been it so far. It won't be long before we have the pre-spawn threads going. This time of the year as Nick and Avid said, points and humps, creek bends will start to stack prespawn fish that have a ledge, 45 degrees is an ideal point with the breaks associated on them. My fish are holding in 20ft, they are traveling about 45 yards in late afternoon, up to 12ft and feeding, this has been about 3:30. Small french fries, ring fries has been the ticket when active, a vertical presentation of a small spoon, tail kicker or drop shot picks up the inactive fish at 20ft. Large major feeder creeks that have deep water into the creek is holding lots of pre-spawners on the secondary points. The key for now on will be using electronics to graph the creek bends, ditches, guts, river chanels, points, road beds that are still deep enough to with stand the late season cold fronts. What is the best spawning grounds on your lake. Just as if you where planning on driving to TX to fish, you would pull your map out and plan your route and the roads to travel. Same with bass, search out the interstates, roads that will take a bass into the spawn areas. Find where they intersect, maybe the creekbend, you will have the same spawning bass and the same post-spawners coming back when there done. Late Jan, we will start seeing male bass cruising the shallows to make beds. You can bet, the first deep water out from there that has deep structure (points, humps and guts) will be some females waiting for mother nature to ring the bell. If weather in Tx holds up, the first full moon is Feb 13, this usually sends the first wave of bass in. The second moon phase is 28th of Feb.

Try down sizing you bait. Try a mepps or similar inline spinner, they always work in clear water ponds for me.

When one mentions a sandy bottom, the key is the hardness versus the softest, Sand will not asorb heat as fast as mud. Darren, I believe that rule is true for when bass spawn, the first areas will always be in the North/North west areas because they recieve the most direct sunshine throughout the day. Problem is the sun is to far away from our hemisphere and only lasts for 10.5 hrs versus the 13.5 of darkness. By the end of Jan., according to the new sunrise and sunset tables, we will have 11.5 hours of sunshine and only 12.5 ours of dark, as the sun is nearing and the days get longer, those areas will start to show the heat absorbtion faster than the rest of the lake.

There are enough pros on tour that set standards, like KVD, Tak, Hite, and others. When you loose your cool on the water, you have mentally taken your mind out of the game. Thiese bad habits will cost you dollars down the road. So they are not only hurting themselves on the water, they are recieving negative press from some, like the fans, us.

We call it punching grass.

Small finish nails are the norm for adding weight to wacky and finese worms.

One of the lakes I mentioned yesterday, Amistad, coughed up a 15.68 yesterday. #27 on the all time Texas Top 50 list, and a new Lake record. #3 sharelunker donated this year.

Be thankful for the rain. I lived in San Dog for 14 yrs and 7 of that was during the drought.

The fact of the matter is, roe and fry are parts of the food chain. We didn't write the menu. If all the roe hatched and every fry lived, you would have lakes over populated and undersized bass fighting for the same food.