Panamoka_Bassin

Spook is for sure the way to go. It was made for walking the dog. As far as walking, I'll give 3 or 4 cranks, tipt the rod over as the bait slows, reel the slack, crank a few more times, etc. But there are times I like keeping the bait moving, which is the part that tends to be rather like rubbing your belly and patting your head. I find its easier to learn the technique with a shorter rod, though it won't give you quite the same action as a longer rod. Make sure you've got plenty of swing room before you start casting. Just throw the plug straight out a good ways, and turn yourself a little off center after it splashes. You should now be pulling a little bit off center. Slowly start reeling the plug towards the center line again. As you get across that "center line," move your hands over to the other side as you keep reeling. Set your hands, keep reeling, and move the tip of the rod over to the other side. Now the bait will keep moving, and make a sharp turn in the other direction. As the bait comes back to the center line, do the same process, but make smaller hand and tip adjustments since there will be less line to work with (which is when a lot of people feel most like a spaz). The more you do it, the more natural it will feel, and you'll be able to do it faster, and with different lures. Prop baits, poppers, and pretty much any other top water lure can be used, and they will each produce in their own way. The real fun comes in when you learn when they work best. I remember when I first learned how to walk the dog with an old blue and white wooden rebel casting the flats in the bay for schoolie stripers. Something about the motion just drives bass wild. Kinda one of the reasons I like topwaters so much, I guess.

Well, since FlyRod just wrote a very good article, I'll only speak of what I use. I agree with the small hook idea, especially since I've been using some plastice grubs lately. I've gone through 2 bags of Kinami 5" cinamon purple twin tail skirt grubs on a 2/0 round bend worm hook. With a 1/8 or 1/16 oz bullet, depending on the wind, I'm getting some really nice flutter. If those aren't working (which isn't often), I've been switching to a Venom green pumpkin tube worm, rigged the same way, but with a 2/0 circle hook instead.

Yeah, same goes here, but there aren't too many weeds right now, but there's plenty of water surrounding the edges of the lakes and ponds, which has submerged a lot of brush. Shallow water would have been my next choice for Long Island, NY.

Thanks for the info, guys, all good stuff. I do quite often wear waders, but some days I can only fish for a few mins before work, hence being on the shore (and in the bushes). As for the weed whacking, well, I think I need a chainsaw for most of these shrubs, plus I think the DEC might get a little miffed (a warden lives right next door...) if I go cutting on preserved land. Guess I'm gonna have to get some heavier line or a net...

The pond next to my house is so over flowing right now that I have about 3 ft of shoreline to fish from, seeing as all the surrounding bushes are aqautic plants now. Hooking fish is no problem, but landing them can be. A few times in the last weeks the bass have gotten so into the bushes that I've had to cut my line or hang the bass, which means that they are swimming away with a hook and worm in their lips. Will this hurt/kill the bass? Or will it just spit it out eventually? I'm thinking that it wouldn't really hurt them, but wanted to be sure...

I have been under the impression that bass will try to stay out of the windiest areas, on the lee-ward side of a shore. Whether this is true or not, I can't really say, but it is what I have been told in the past. Otherwise, I do know that wind direction can play a factor, at least around these parts. A nice little way to remember: West is best, East is least.

But doesn't it stand to reason that sunlight can reach further down in clear water, thus warming a larger water column than if the passage of light were blocked by particles? Just a thought...

Yeah, man, I agree...as much of a problem as they may be, otters are among the more intelligent animals in the world. There has to be a better solution than just blasting it to kingdom-come. Do some research and see if there is a more humane way to get rid of him/them.

They could also have been carp...I spent the better part of 2 hrs casting a splashes a while back, and never got a hit. The guy at the tackle shop told me afterwards that there was a bunch of carp in that pond...drove me nuts...

No dam or berm there, so I guess I'm ok...just a small spring fed pond and a muskrat to keep me company...

Yeah that's what I thought, but I just wanted to be sure...and I'll certainly call the DEC...

So the last few days I've noticed a muskrat swimming in my little pond (its only about 3/4 acre) and was wondering if he's going to be problematic. Do muskrats eat bass? Will it cause other problems for me in the future if I don't do something to get rid of him? Or should I just not care and live and let live?

Yup, its true, bass are canibals! I have found that a "Baby Bass" colored/shaped lure can be deadly a few weeks after spawn is over...I'm sure a walleye lure would be just as effective.

I agree that with buzz-baits a little chop deffinately helps, but for spooks and poppers, I think calmer is better...and certailny for prop baits. I don't seem to get enough noise and "action" from those in a lot of wind, but I have had plenty of luck on glassy surfaces. Best tip I know of, though, is to let any floating bait sit for 5-10 seconds before retrieving. A bass might get spooked a bit when the bait hits the water, but many times will come back to investigate. I've actually been able to catch a few fish before I even start reeling in the bait.

I chose Stripers, myself. There's nothing better in my mind than catching a 20lb fish on ultra-light tackle. When the bays around here warm up I love to spend the last 2 hours of daylight tossing poppers into the flats and getting attacked by a nice schoolie. Tough choices, though...IMO they're all great to catch!

Oh, man, am I jealous! Enjoy the time off, and don't get fooled by those private school teams...some of them have really nice uniforms, lol

I used to get a case of this every year when we started shrink-wrapping boats for the winter. I had a 10 ft torch that would just destroy my forearms in a matter of a week or two. Then, after all the boats were wrapped up, it would finally start to heal. My doctor told me to just use one of those neoprene wraps and take Aleve for the pain. Seemed to work pretty well, but only the rest I got after christmas made it truly better. First time I walked in to see the doctor, he of course was a wisenheimer, "So, how long have you been playing tennis?"...

The spinner bait still sounds like the right bait for those conditions, maybe you just need to change the colors or the blades...also, a jig and pig sort of set up might get you some bites in the cooler water. Chances are the water at the bottom isn't that warm yet, so maybe a suspended bait might be the answer. If the air temp is warm, you might try working a surface bait just in case the bass have come up to the warmer water. I would target the north side as much as possible, as this is where the warmest water will tend to be. 55 degrees is nice, but its still a bit cool, so you may have to be a bit slower than you'd think with your retreive. If all else fails, throw a frog or a mouse across the top of the pads, or even drop a tube into them (just make sure you've got some strong line to pull it through).

So if I were to go out on the street corner with a line with say, a snickers on it, I would probably get more kids attacking it than old people?

Man, there's some nice fish being caught in Tx! Maybe I'll take a vacation to Sam Rayburn next year instead on Tahoe...

A big ole AMEN to that! I just got back from a ski trip to Squaw Valley (Lake Tahoe) where it was 50 degrees almost every day! When the snow turned to mashed potatoes every afternoon, I'd look at the lake and say to myself, "Dang, I shoulda brought my fishing rod." And now they're calling for snow here on Long Island...HURRY UP AND GET WARM ALREADY!!!

I know I have a tendency to compare bass fishing with salt water fishing, but the more I look, the more I realize how similar they really are. Case in point, when out looking for tuna, most captains will get a water temp map to determine where they are going to fish. These maps are alot like a topographical map, but show trends in water temp rather than altitude. In most cases, these maps will put you right on the fish, especially when you can properlly read them. If you follow the right temp gradient, you'll be hooked up all day, if not, you'll probably get skunked (unless you're lucky...). I suppose this could be applied to bass fishing as well. When the water is colder, like it is now, I would think the bass would follow the warmest water they can find, and as the day progresses different parts of the water may be a different temp. A difference of 1 or 2 degrees may not seem like much to you and me, but to a bass it may be like ice water vs. a jacuzzi. I'm not sure that this is the case, but I am certainly going to put more thought and evaluation to this theory.

You're crazy!!! If they can pass curling off as a sport, why not bass fishing? I've been trying to figure out this curling thing and the best I can tell it's simply shuffleboard on ice. ;D ;D ;D Yep, you're right. Like I said, these so called "sports" liike curling are an ebarrassment to the Olympics. And yet, they took baseball out of the summer olympics...Yeah, that makes sense...we'll keep skeet shooting and curling, but get rid of a real sport...sigh

I've had that happen once. We were fishing a little man-made pond in a brand new development that my brother-in-law was working at. There were only bass in this pond, and apparently, they were starving. It was litterally every cast that you caught a fish. I threw my pecil popper out, hooked a little fish, and as I was reeling it in, another bass came up and hit the other trebble hook. Freaky, yes, but like I said, those fish were so hungry you could have caught them with a saftey pin and a length of yarn.

Not to sound like a broken record, here, but it was my dad also who got me into fishing. I was, and am, lucky to be on Long Island growing up, so more than anything else we would salt water fish. I can remember being about 10 or so fishing for snappers (baby bluefish) on Shinnecock Canal when the fish were so thick you could practically walk across the water on them. A few years after that, dad got me a job as a "dock johnny" at a local marina, where I again was lucky to go out deep sea fishing. As my dad used to be a mate on a charter boat, he called in a favor with his former captain. Back in the day, around mid-August every year, there would be a HUGE migration of white marlin just a few miles off shore of the Shinnecock Inlet, and the whole fleet it seemed to be out there fishing. One of those days, I can remember it so clearly, we were out there trying our luck, but after a few hours of sea-sickness, I had no desire but to get back onto dry land. As I lay on the hard top of the bridge, spotting fish as it were, we came into a set of about 5 or 6 marlins. The fish played around with the baits as we trolled, but never actually took a bait. I watched my dad pick up a rod with a Green Machine on it and essentially jig the lure. As soon as he did this, a big marlin came up and engulfed the bait. Dad handed me the rod, and about 20 minutes later, after several great jumps, I had my first marlin in the boat. We steamed back into port, the marina where I worked, and I brought my prize over to the weigh-in station. I was perhaps TOO excited about it, and must have messed up putting the tail rope on, because as I hoisted the fish on the block and tackle, she let loose and fell into the drink. Luckily for me, the water wasn't too deep and I was able to get the fish back, but now without a bill because it went into the dock and snapped off. Finally got the thing on the scale properlly and tipped out at 91 pounds, a very respectable weight for white marlin. Since then, I have caught many fish much bigger than that (tuna, mako, thresher shark, blue marlin, and one swordfish), but I never would have gone on those trips if I hadn't caught that marlin with my dad. Thanks, dad...Wish you were here