BigEbass

2 years in as a newbie bass man - and got my boat 8 months ago - now starting to venture out in my local public reservoirs without my trusty more experienced mentor/neighbor who has guided me so far. My goals: 1) Get out on Lay Lake and Lewis Smith here in Alabama and start to learn my structure intimately - I am gonna fish every point, creekbed, hump, flat, dropoff - find many spots on spots - I want to begin an intimate mental picture of my waters and fish the entire water column to move towards consistently catching big bass. 2) Try a new technique - I will be throwing big baits - primarily swimbaits - I have done alot of reading and am commiting to it - with these tools I will probe the structure that I am becoming much more familiar with - will learn to properly probe the water column thoroughly and systematically with proper technique - and land huge bass more frequently - well thats the goal anyway - "high my name is Ellery, and I am a dinkaholic" - heh heh - stole that quote from BBZ - thanks Bill. 3) And as always no matter the outcome of #1 and #2 - I plan on having alot of fun no matter what - not to say I will not push myself!!! If I fail, I will re-evaluate - the process will be fun no matter what - if multiple lunkers happen to find my line then all the sweeter - thats the goal! Hope everyone's goals are achieved, and we will see all of our exploits on BR throughout this year

Down south we catch either spots or schoal bass in the current-y parts of our rivers - LM's as far as I know are not huge fans of current - I would seek out more slack water with some good structure/cover where those largies will be ambusing the bait - Along small tributaries that are pretty slack, there are usually downed trees - if you find these trees that are pretty big they may go from shallow at the base down to deep - these are freakin magnets, especially if they lay on on nice outside bend - anyway, thats my limited river experience for whatever its worth - I am nothin special in rivers - mainly fish lakes and ponds myself - good luck. Tell us what happens.

A day on the water is always a good time definately no matter what the outcome in fishing However for me a day on the water catching fish is way better - but I never feel pressured and never greatly remorsed if it doesn't happen - because there will be a next time!

My neighbor kicked his rod in the water right next to a brushpile - where he dropped it was about 15 feet - this was in summer - we drpped the anchor down to where he said it fell - I tried to just dive down and get it a few times and failed - I then pulled myself down using the anchor rope - the bottom was so muddy - ended up finding his worm then the rod and reel - I have since put my snorkel mask in my boat for such occassions WHen I start throwing these swimbaits I will likely be diving for sure the retrieve even an 8 dollar lure - I am cheap too - that money adds up - now for a senko....thats a different story

hahaha, yeah man, I cant wait. At present on avg. I am able to get out 2-3 times per month (weekend day only)- and by that time with the wait in between I am totally tweaking out to fish and it FEELS SO GOOD - I guess that is the good thing - the bitter sweet of it - just with the bitter didnt last so long for me. Paul's comments seem well balanaced - interesting too that he even mentions better fishing sometimes on pre and post front depending on conditions - thats experience for you - also goes to show that the general "rules" that are always regurgitated are incomplete at best if not many times absurd. I too think that changing conditions does not necessarily close down the bite as I have killed em after a nasty cold front - but many times it may cause a shift in the bait fish, thus a shift in the location of the predator - at this stage in my learning - I simply fish the best structure I can find up and down for the most part anyway, I havent figured out all these little tid bits that paul has - still just sort of throwing myself out there and searching them out.

That was my thoughts exactly - cannot wait to get out there and try it out darn it - gotta wait another week!!! But I too have seen other photos of beds - they show up like a bunch of white pimples all over, what an awesome way to find beds, even in murkier water verticle fishing ping noise vs. shallow water.....I will venture a guess that it would not make a big diff. The intensity at say 20-30 feet I would guess (and I am not totally sure?) would be the same or more for those fish you are fishing vertically - in fact that signal in the case of verticle is even more direct right? So the noise would be even better perceived then bouncing around in the shallows....just another thought on that topic.....Maybe that ping noise helped you catch all those fish in verticle fishing

To each his own - some people like the competitiveness, some, like to hunt dd's, some just like to catch anything, some just like to get out away from their normal life out on the water, some like to throw it in the boat, some like to play it out for 4 minutes As long as your methods does not significantly effect my fishery, then I say do what makes you tick and have fun doing it

Yeah, in alot of alabama waters with alot of cover, 3-6 lb that is able to turn its head and take drag will find a nearby heavy weedbed, tree limb, etc.... I can appreciate the posts intent - I absolutely love to fight the fish - but honestly for me, the bite and the hookset and knowing I tricked that big bass into biting some piece of plastic makes my day - the fight is a bonus for me and I love it, but I dont mess around, I use 10 lb test most times and If I got a 4 lber I dont let up and given them slack - if I do, I dont get them to the boat many times. There is no way I will use 4lb test in most of my fishing locations, but in the fall out in open water, that would be fun for sure (as long as there is not closeby submerged timber etc.... My point is....to each his own. Ike is a tournament fisherman, these guys win tournaments many times catching relatively avg. or small fish, and they are not gonna "waste" their time playing them....they say "no no no" because they dont want to lose that 3 lber that will win or lose them X thousand dollars. It is fun for them yea, but that is their money and livelihood, they care about winning only - and why not? (for them anyway, I agree for me it doesnt seem as attractive either).

I will say this too.....I am also very certain huge bass can be caught on "traditional" tactics and I am not abadoning those - hell, I caught my first two 5+ lbers last month on a bright orange strike king trap - but if there is a strategy that gives an edge to produce larger bass more regularly with hard work, then I am going to investigate it and use it as part of my fishing tool kit - to what extent I do this....we will find out No one type of fishing is "better" than another I would think. And as I recall, Doug Hannon has caught a majority of his 9+ lbers on a 7 inch texas rigged worm (at least I recall reading that in an article?) - but the big bait stuff also looks to be very effective based on what I have been reading and talking to quite a great number of western and easter big bait guys who are having a ball catching 8+ and 10+ lbers year on year - so I am gonna give it a whirl. That is not to say that many of you will do something different in your waters and be less effective....I am simply stating it seems like a fun way and effective way to fish for big bass, and why not try it

Man Triton - thanks so much for your in-depth in-sight - this site rocks! I agree definately - I am sure out of all of my lakes in this area one of them will be very ameenable to swimbaits - but like anything else, I am gonna just go out with an open mind, throw my baits on good structure cover - and see what happens and see if I can figure out if big baits will fit into my arsenal - only my personal experience will dictate - but if you can do it, than I can too (that is after I get more experience).

Makes since Im sure - they can be finicky at times....I have been told by most so far so go for baits in the 20-70 dollar range - hudd and mattlures and bbz are frequently mentioned....thanks.

Awesome, thanks for the great advice - I will be in the market for some gear soon, so that will help.

What species will you be fishing? Northern, florida strain?, spots?, smallies?

Must be nice to be able to go fishing like that when you want to 8-) - I only get to go when I can go :-[ - and by that point I am so desperate I will fish during after before a front whatever. But I have always heard the convention of the best fishing before a front undler low barometric pressure....but I personally am very wary about such conventions.....many times its an excuse for people to say why they couldnt catch them - but I suppose if I had to plan, why not try to plan for the very best condidtions - hope you do well! Take care.

Nice - light rain has done wonders for me too :) - nice fish!! Also, those real cloudy rainy days, the photos come out so much better in general!! Nice shots.

That is cool man - my neighbor laughed at me exactly in the same scenario - calm blue bird skies in july - HOT AS HELL - 1pm - started tossing that buzz bait - I caught 10 nice bass, missed 2 or three in about 15 minutes before he tied on the buzz bait? I welcome people looking at me strange after that I find Siemantel's socratic type philosopy very attractive personally - but I cannot vouch for his methods as "the most effective" as of yet - but I am an open bookd though - I will certainly read bill murphy's book

I presume you all have read BBZ right? It seemed pretty strait forward to me - why would I be looked at strange? I may be missing something. I do plan on buying Bill Murphy's book though for sure - I am not yet sure how it is different the Siemantel's advice....BBZ seemed to just basically say, fish any big baits at various depts thoroughly and hold on - and forget everything you "know" - so far it seemed perfectly logical.......wheater it will work for me, that will be a different story

I PM'ed you man, cool to see someone this close to me - internet is a small place - we should definately get to fishin some time - I actually only have one fishin buddy - my neighbor 69 years old - hes the man - mentored me to date - although now I am looking to switch over and committ to big bait tactics - been heavily researching it and talking to folks on-line - gonna give it a whirle for a year or two - I want to catch my first dd bass or maybe 10 of em, who knows heh heh, so the noise from KVD's sounder is not foreign to those same spooky bass? Definately on a farm pond I can see the rationale about staying absolutely quite - but on public waters I think it may be less important and perhaps. I also believe to a degree bass will hang around the boat - I see it as structure of sorts - I have caught so many LM's and spots right at the boat - how many times have you caught one or more likely missed one right there at the very end of the retrieve - I know I have - I miss less of those know cause I now know that the bass boat is another prime strike zone - and my neighbors sonar during these times is on almost all the time - he just leaves it on. But as with any rule of fising, there are likely specific areas that apply Im sure

Atter talking with more and more people who really throw these baits regularly, I am convinced they will produce numbers (hopefully) - If it stands up for me too in the next 1-2 years - I am gonna start a campaign - big baits catch many fish....I swear, I was scared away from even thinking about trying these tactics for so long because of the rhetoric of "you will not catch anything day on day and wait for that one bite all day long". We will see how I do with them here - but hey, gadsen aint from from B'ham, its gotta work for me too

Who knows, maybe a swimbait that is all paint chipped off will produce more? As far as rods, I think that mostly I have read that people desire a more parabolic rod - one that has some give, but with backbone - I watched Bill Siemantel's BBZ videos on his website from some TV shows - it seems reeling and keeping pressure in general is of the utmost importance - a very stiff rod I would imagine would lose more fish than a prabolic ? Then again I have no clue cause I am still in the academic stages of swimbait fishing

I would try perhaps a chartreuse colorodo spinnerbait and drag it back on the bottom really slow - I like this bait in really turbid water - also perhaps a craw patterned trap - jig of course worked really slow....just a few thoughts - youll figure them out

On the coosa, bed fish are spooky too. My point is why would you risk any noise if you know they are going to be spooky. I definatly would use the SI for practice and spot locating. Once you find something, mark it as a waypoint and tell no one. When its time to fish it in competition, turn off the sonar and just use the GPS to guide you to that spot. Well, I am not discounting what you are saying and I will certainly keep it in mind. Anyway, if I am actively fishing and not finding/marking structure, I will not be looking at a screen and it will be powered down to save battery life, so it is a bit of a mut point in my case I think - however - I have left it on by accident tons of times fishing shallow even and still caught fish. I will keep that in mind and continue to observe for effects while fishing. But my sort of more general thought about the assumption is that, why is it absolute that a bass would be spooked in general by noises we make? Are they laying down there saying, oh god, I heard that engine turn on, "theres a human run" - perhaps? - but I suspect not all sounds are deleterious to bass fishing and perhaps some may even be beneficial - I have never tried it, but I have heard of folks make a commotion or something like that to trigger shad or bass to hit the shad, thus turn on the bite - I have also read in Bill Siemantel's book that engine noise on some lakes may even be somewhate of a norm for many fish and running over a point may stir up things and improve fishing. This may seem counter-intuitive I suppose, but I enjoy thinking outside of the box when I can - your assumptions in many situations may be "spot" on - I do take extra care and stealth when dealing with thats spooky spots, but I also keep an open mind - I have also only been fishing for 2 years and I may find with time and experience your assumption to be absolutely true - Ill keep an eye for such a trend - so far I have not found it deleterious to my fishing - although I suppose it could have had an effect from time and time - prior to this I had not thought much about this sound so I it was not on my radar THanks for the heads up! This gives me an idea though - I wonder if we could use various sound devices and see what happens - perhaps there is some fish attracting noise??? I am gonna make millions ;D ;D

Hey, and we are from the same neck of the woods....I am trying to get ready and buy my first swim bait rod/reel and a few lures to start out with.....will keep these in mind since they produced for you

Sweet - I have been in the process of contemplating making a cross over to committ to big swimbaits - 6 inch I hear will catch big and small and numbers of decent bass....one guy on here said he caught an 8 inch bass on his 6 inch swimbait.....I have been doing more and more research and I am more and more convinced that these things will produce avg. larger fish and good numbers of them - we will see if it works out for me too - cant wait to get out there and give it a shot - thanks for the testimonial. How many did you catch?

Umm, man, this has been so tough for me!! I have successfully installed the thing with the help of my more handy/experienced neighbor....now ask me if I have gotten on the water yet......NO....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhh - its like getting a bicycle at 8 years old on christmas then parents telling you - "oh you will have to wait 2 weeks sweety to ride that bike, but just enjoy looking at it" - it sucks!! I have read the entire manual back and forth (by the way, the manual for helping guide intallation for idiots like me IMO sucks). So no update yet guys sorry - but I promise you are not as sorry as I am right now - and get this - I have to go out of town this weekend to see family - no fishing this weekend - I likely will not get to use it till NEXT weekend - this sucks :'( :'( :'(