BlackBass19

Yeah those days when you are about to pack up, but instead you tie something else on and figure them out. It's the best, there's something about validating your instincts that you cant get elsewhere. That the thrill of hooking into a big one is pretty sweet too...

A lot of good ones here that I agree with. I can't stand to see people poorly handling fish. Normally they are the $75K bass boat types that are style and no substance. Just ask Gerald Swindle why proper fish care is so important. Knots on lures also drive me nuts, in fact it takes at least twice as long leaving them on.

Learn to use the baitcaster in all situations. This goes hand in hand with the jig-n-pig, crankbaits and frogs.

There's an old saying: "Success breeds confidence." IMO this translates to everything in life from fishing, to picking up woman, or even to telling jokes. In fishing confidence is key because the objective of the whole deal is to catch fish. Succesfully locating fish, enticing them to bite and landing them gives a fisherman confidence that they can repeat this same success in the future. The problem with fishing is things change constantly. You need to possess the skills and knowledge base to land fish in any given scenario to feel confident. A confident fisherman can draw on past experience to replicate results in the future. The second part of the deal is that fishing like golf is a mental game. You must be in the "zone" or in the moment to succeed. You need to visualize your goal and think positive thoughts to allow your body to relax and draw on muscle memory. When you relax you notice your surroundings and can utilize these observations to enhance your game. If you lack confidence in yourself you will question everything you are doing making success nearly impossible. Hope that helps...

#1 Waking Spinnerbait on the weed edges on a cool morning w/ the rising sun on the horizon, mist on the water and a light breeze at my back. #2 T-Rigged Anything fished slowly in the emerging weeds during early postspawn. Inevitably I'll zone out, stop "working" the bait and fish on my instincts alone. Then comes that monster boil or head shake and then a minute of close quarter hand to hand combat with a huge female. It's that kind of experience that keeps me coming back and keeps me hopeful when the fishing gets tough.

#1 Zoom Trick Worm rigged texposed on 2/0 or 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG, 1/16 or 1/8 oz bullet weight with a T-Stop. You can fish this rig anywhere and anytime. During the summer slowdown I'll use this to get to the finicky deeper bass. During the spring rig it weightless and fish it as a slowed down jerkbait. I bought my first baitcaster about a month ago so I've been fishing swim jigs and lipless cranks exclusively instead of my worms. #2 KVD Swim Jig (3/8 oz or 1/4 oz) in both Bluegill or Black/Blue with a Strike King Perfect Plastic KVD Chunk trailer.

:You are in for a treat. I went down there last year and caught my PB 8.5 lber albeit on a guided trip and live bait . Anyway if you want a big fish on Lake Toho your best bet will be fishing live wild shiners on a float. This is the preferred method for Trophy Bass on Lake Toho. It's still a blast to see the bass explode on the shiners, you'll hear a splash akin to a cinder block getting thrown into the water then your rod doubles over. Toho sees a ton of tournament traffic so the big bass have probably seen it all. If you have a few days to fish you can go the artificial route and then use shiners as a last resort, we did both on my trip. We fished weed edges with 7" curly tail worms IIRC. I caught a few nice fish on the worms but nothing bigger then 3.5 lbs and I also caught a nice chain pickerel which was somewhat random. There are weed edges everywhere so you should be able to figure it out with some patience. Also the fishing down there is really streaky. We caught the majority of our fish during two 20 minute stretches 6 hours apart. The fish initially hit as a 10 mph wind built early in the morning, then as the clouds rolled in the afternoon we had another run. Once again be patient and good luck.

There's a lot of good lakes in NE Ohio. Three good lakes for LMB would be Portage Lakes, Mogadore and Ladue Reservoir in no particular order. In the spring I like to fish jig-n-pigs and lipless crankbaits. Water clarity is a real crap shoot this time of year so I vary colors and presentations quite a bit. Once fish have moved into spawning mode I will move to weightless Zoom Trick Worms fished Texposed.

Well that's one way to an answer a question. Matching the hatch is a fly fishing term that IMHO doesn't apply to bass fishing. In fly fishing matching the hatch means to literally match the hatching insects that the trout are eating, which can involve examining trouts stomach contents. During a hatch trout often feed exclusively on this insect. So your fly better look and act like the other hatching insects if you want to catch fish. Bass primarily eat other fish or larger inverterbrates/amphibians. An insect hatch doesn't have much bearing on your lure selection in most LMB fishing scenarios. "Match the hatch" in bass fishing means making a presentation that mimics what that bass is eating. There are several observations that you can make to determine what LMB are eating in a particular lake at that particular time. First find the water temperature for the body of water. Using temperature and time of year you can tell whether the bass are in prespawn,spawn or postpawn. Also you need to find out what types of forage fish live in the lake. This can be obtained from the DNR or by talking to other fisherman or local bait shops. I would spend some time on that BOW getting to know the bluegill, shad and other forage fish. Finally using all of this information you can make an educated guess where the bass are and what ther're eating. Then make lure selections that imitate these forage items into structure/cover that bass uses that time of year.

Up here in Northern Ohio it makes a big difference especially in the Spring time. Once the water temps start cooperating in later April or Mid May bass will feed heavily on the incoming low pressure. So anywhere from 12 hours until its raining the fishing can be fantastic. The next day fishing becomes tough when the cold front arrives and temps drop by 15-25 degrees. You can still catch them, but your numbers will be down and fish will not be as active. Fish that were widespread in the flats head for cover or vegetation to escape the sun. In the summer it doesnt make as big a difference IMO it's during the Spring and the Fall at least up here.

I also converted to a BC recently because throwing 1/2 ounce jigs, crankbaits, spinnerbatis, etc. with Medium spinning gear is a PITA. Congrats on you first bass with the Bait caster.

I like to use Octopus style hooks w/ Wacky Rigged worms. You can basically have the stick bait sit on the inside curve of the hook. Once you have a feel for a committed bass you'll nail them in the corner of the mouth everytime. Bass tend to tap and test the bait before they commit w/ Wacky Worms. So when you watch your line you'll see it briefly pull, but yet it stays kind of slack. When the line starts tightening again as it starts moving away from you the bass has committed. Do not set the hook on this semi-slack line, instead reel the slack out and then give the rod tip a good snap upward to set the hook. You'll get a feel for it quickly and it will become part of your fishing repetoire.

For sure that was a good day on the lake with some nice bass, but that chain pickerel is massive!

A few years back me, my uncle and my two cousins were fishing the back bays around Ocean City, NJ. The fishing was bad so we decided to head in. On the way back we saw a hoard of diving seagulls over the dunes so we followed. We found these two guys chucking spoons into a pile of drifting dead minnows and diving gulls. It only took a minute or so before one of them hooked a really nice seagull. It took him awhile to get the seagull back to the boat. When he did his buddy grabbed the bird and pinned to the deck. They spent five minutes digging the treble hook out of its beak, what a mess...But at least I forgot about getting skunked.

Points and any area that links shallow flats with deeper water. Of course shallow and deep are all relative. Fish will be moving from deeper water into the shallows for multiple reasons this time of year. Bass will be looking for food, warm water and spawning beds. Generally figure out what they are eating and as always follow the forage. This time of year I like to fish suspending jerkbaits, generally I will fish 2-5' with a suspending X-Rap fished moederately slow with twitching action. This should locate active fish and may trigger inactive fish in the upper level of the water column. Also try lipless crankbaits (Rat L Traps) Yo-Yo style and bouncing a foot or so off the bottom. Make sure you slow down and let and any chasing bass catch up. Bounce, bounce, stop...repeat. Best done on your M or MH bait caster of choice. Zoom Trick Worms in Watermelon Candy or Junebug rigged weightless Tex-posed on Extra Wide Gap worm hook is deadly during late prespawn/spawn. Fish it like a jerkbait, twitching and letting it sink to the bottom. This is best done on 6# or 8# mono on a spinning outfit. Your water temps should be getting close for this patten to CRUSH EM. Back coves where water enters the main lake and shallow flats should be your target areas. Back creekbeds that transition into shallow flats then deeper points are ideal. The water will be warmer in the shallows and there should be plenty of bait in all sizes. You can also work the mouth of the same creekbeds with a senko. You should target submerged timber, stumps and other cover between the points created at the mouth of the creekbed. There will be bass often large ones transitioning in and out of these creeks. Without knowing your fishing style or the actual body of water you will be fishing it is hard to give you the "right gameplan". This is how I would approach any BOW during prespawn, making sure I stick to my strengths.

Alright we have established that you need to be on fish to catch fish regardless of technique, lures, etc. When fishing a new body of water how do you go about finding fish? Let's assume it's March and that puts all of us in the pre/early spawn time frame. In order to gauge a pattern what three or four structural elements will you be looking for (vegetation beds, humps, flats, timber, etc.) and at what depth ranges do you want to find these items. Sorry to hijack the thread was heading this way...

Texas rigged trick worms weightless even 1/16 oz. bullet (Junebug, Watermelon/Any Flake, Baby bass). Also found that the small 1/8 oz. Booyah Pond spinner baits work well, blue/black especially. Anything larger than that is overkill in a farm pond. Finally a chartreuse grub on a small crappie jig head sometimes kills.

Presentation is everything especially on waters you know. Here you know where the fish are located, it's just a matter of finding out what they want. If you fish plastics like me for instance you can target the entire water column with the same bait. Ok so I have been on a trick worm kick recently. During the spring I fished weightless T-Rigs with a fast erratic motion before doing anything else. This works say 1/3 times and is great for locating fish. When this doesn't work I change nothing on the terminal tackle just the retrieve. I will cast twitch, twitch and let sink. This would work the other 1/3 of the time. Finally the last presentation I would use would take the exact same trick worm and hook it through the egg sac (Wacky Rigged). Cast out let sink and wait a few seconds, lift tip and take three cranks...repeat. This would catch me fish the other 1/3 of the time. When things get tight go through your repetoire. Try something strange when things are tight see what happens. That's how I found the real fast twitch method that KILLS pre-spawn fish on cloudy days or before a storm. Come summer I add a 1/8 ounce bullet weight to my tackle for a true T-Rig. This allows you to hop baits and get deeper where you can lure lurker transitional fish to the shallows. Find your style whether it be jigs, plastics, cranks, etc. Perfect everything that lure can do. You will catch fish with one of the presentations that these versatile lures offer. Once you've mastered one technique move on to the next. In waters you know pull out the spinnerbait and test the water column and all possible hiding places. Follow the clues when you catch these fish. Then hone in on the type of cover or structure throughout the lake with your honed repetoire.

I live in Northeast Ohio. This year has been different as summer came quickly and the shallow weed beds that I target during summer never materialized. I have had to switch my pattern and have had a lot of luck fishing shallow creek beds and trenches. Numbers are down, but size is for sure up. I think this is do to lack of ideal cover and structure. Bigger bass have controlled the best spots forcing bluegill and smaller guys out into marginal habitat. If I bothered with those areas it might be different. I have been fishing T-Rigs (6-8" Trick Worms and Salamanders), spoons and assorted plastics. I have increased bait sizes across the board which really has no disadvantage besides controlling splash on long casts. Bigger fish take it and everything will chase them. Overall it's a pretty typical summer. The heat has changed the game, but bigger fish and numbers slightly down. Also the heat is keeping pressure off the water.