Jim H.

Once upon a time I was fishing a drop off 100 yards from the shore line. As the morning passed the bite slowed way down as the sun got higher. About that time a water skier came by and ran within 50 feet of where I was fishing. I was P.O.'d but I caught nice bass on the next 3 casts I made. Then the fish quit... until the skier came back and ran by even closer than before with the same results. After that every 30 minutes or so I would crank up the outboard and make a run over the drop off and stir them up again. Wind as well as skiers can also be your friend. I won a tournament in MO in early april with the heaviest stringer I ever weighed in... 6 bass that weighed 29 1/2 lbs. The wind was blowing about 20 MPH and the bass were in the creeks on the down wind side of the points. It is always wise to fish into the wind. For one thing, it is easier to control your boat. Just my $.02

The batteries at Wally World were made by Exide for several years. Mostly they were not very good but the warranty was great. If you will look at the batteries they are selling today, they are coming from Johnson Controls the same company that produces the Interstate brand you see in most garages and those have a very good reputation... for the most part. Truth is you never really know what you are really buying. Both China and Mexico are producing batteries and U.S. companies (including Johnson Controls) are selling them without revealing where they were produced. BESA (Battery Enterprises of South America), for example, is a subsidiary of Johnson Controls and make many of their batteries in Mexico. By the way, our local Wal Mart charges a $9 fee if you don't turn your old battery in. What a rip that is! Your local reclycling operator will pay $.28 - $.32 / lb for your old battery. Most 120 AH, group 27, deep cycles will weigh in around 45 lbs and will bring $13+. Perhaps some day the trolling motor manufacturers will wise up and instead of building 12/24V trolling motors they will go to 6/12V motors and power them with 6V Golf Cart batteries. Back in the day, Byrd Industries located in DyersburgTN made Eagle brand trollers in 6/12V and I loved them. They had as much thrust as most of todays MT's and MG's. The bad thing is they had small prop shafts that would bend and let water get into the lower unit. just my $.02.

OK, I know this tidbit of advice probably sounds wierd and is counter intuitive but give it a try. Take a 6-7" plastic worm rigged Texas style and cast it past the shad then "buzz" it back to the shad and let it fall through the school. A blue worm (or tube) with lots of flake is best. Remember to cast as far on the other side as you can and reel back to the shad and let it drop and then hang on... Try it a couple of times and you may be surprised.

By and large I believe the reason many people loose too many fish is because they try to finesse them and "play" the fish longer than necessary. I'm from the old school and believe the best way is to keep turning the reel's handle and get them in the boat as quickly as you can. If you think the fish is going to jump, turn faster. Every second you waste is just another opportunity for the fish to throw the hook. Obviously the strength of your line will dictate just how long the fight must go on but the objective is to get the fish into the boat not to "play" with it. Just my $.02.

Many years ago a friend and I went crappie fishing at night. He had two headlikght bulbs mounted in styrofoam that we used as floating lights. The lights attracted bugs and the bugs were sopposed to attract minnows and the minnows would attract the crappie. They worked as advertised but the Crappie were too small and I got bored and picked up a casting rod that had a plastic worm rigged up on it. The first cast I caught a 15" bass and then a 4lb bass. The minnows were dumped and we put the lights in the boat so they would shine on the bank. Then we started fishing just the way we would in daylight. We had a really good night and both caught a lot of bass. We were doing the catch and release thing but had we been tournament fishing both of us would have had 20lb plus to weigh in. I've had guys tell me the slightest bit of light will spoil the fishing at night... hog wash, it just ain't so.

At boat shows, Bill Dance used to stick a hook into his finger so he could demostrate how to remove it using a piece of strong line. He made it look easy! Now he is selling a tool do do the same thing! The first thing you need to do is separate the hook from the lure or the bait... especially if you are hooked to one end of a lure and a 6 lb bass is on the other! Trust me on that! BTW I have also had the same situation as above. I took the grandkids catfishing. We were using chicken livers on treble hooks and one of the kids laid his rod down with the bait laying on the ground. Dogs like chicken livers too! It was a mell of a hess. Then take a stiff shot of VOL (very old loudmouth), close your eyes, and jerk the freaking hook out with a pair of vise grips. All humor aside, a hook in things like eyes, testicles, etc. is serious stuff and warrants a visit to the ER.

At boat shows, Bill Dance used to stick a hook into his finger so he could demostrate how to remove it using a piece of strong line. He made it look easy! Now he is selling a tool do do the same thing! The first thing you need to do is separate the hook from the lure or the bait... especially if you are hooked to one end of a lure and a 6 lb bass is on the other! Trust me on that! BTW I have also had the same situation as above. I took the grandkids catfishing. We were using chicken livers on treble hooks and one of the kids laid his rod down with the bait laying on the ground. Dogs like chicken livers too! It was a mell of a hess. Then take a stiff shot of VOL (very old loudmouth), close your eyes, and jerk the freaking hook out with a pair of vise grips. All humor aside, a hook in things like eyes, testicles, etc. is serious stuff and warrants a visit to the ER.

Thanks guy I'll look those companies up.

Back in the 1980's I was a serious bass tournament fisherman and fished over 200 tournaments. I won some and lost many but I was "in the money" more often than not. Then there was "the event" when I broke my back in a fall. After months of physical therapy i was once again able to walk but there was no freeking way I could take the beating you get at 65 MPH down the lake. Well that was then and this is now! I just this bought myself a deep "V" 17' aluminum boat powered by a 75 horse Mercury. It is huge! It is higher, wider, and smoother than my 17.5' Ranger from the 1980's and will do 40+ MPH. My question is this, back in those days I was on the Lowrance Pro Staff and knew a lot about all the electronics available at the time. I loved my dash mounted flasher. It would immediately indicate a sudden depth change so you could trim up or shut down to avoid shallow obstacles. Today, about all I can find are digitals and LCD's that scroll so slowly that you can never see a rapid change in drpth in time to correct your course. What new fangled device can react as quickly as the obselete Lowrance 1240?? Your input is appreciated.

Your gas tank is vented to the atmosphere. When it is hot in the day time the dry "fumes" are expelled but when it cools at night the tank sucks in the moisture laden cooler air. The alcohol in the fuel combines with the water vapor and sinks to the bottom of the tank. Unless you periodically grain the tank completely, you will eventually have so much water in your tank your motor will quit. Alcohol in our fuel has cost this country billions of dollars. We are burning our food in our boats and cars and the taxpayers are paying for it... twice! Both in our taxes and again in the price of groceries.

The current craze over swimbaits reminds me of the time years ago when "naturalized" crank baits were the rage. I laughed at the time because I knew a couple of things most fishermen didn't. That is: 1) Bass know what food is and they hardly ever get caught because they have been fooled into thinking that something is food that isn't. 2) Bass do not have hands. Many years ago there was a National fish hatchery and aquarium just west of Corning, Arkansas. Way back when, I was a sales rep for a large company and I would pass by there every couple of weeks. Whenever I could I would stop in and spend some time watching the aquarium that always contained some really nice bass. On one particular day the tank held 3 bass in the 4 - 5 lb class, an artificial log and some other cover. It also had 5 or 6 threadfin shad swiming around and in one corner there was a stream of bubbles rising from an aerator. I was fascinated by those shad! They would swim right in front of those 3 bass and the bass completely ignored them. One bass was on the bottom next to the log, one was laying on top of the log and the other was laying motionless next to a limb on the log. There was also what looked like a small 1" long feather caught up in the stream of bubbles. It would rise to the top and then slowly sink back to the bottom where it would again get caught up in the bubbles. As I watched, each bass (one at a time) would open her mouth and flare her gills. When that happened the shad would immediately go to the surface and start "flipping." The bass would then swim over to the bubbles and suck in the feather, spit it back out and return to it's previous station! In the 90 minutes I watched, every one of the bass performed the same ritual with the feather but not one ever indicated any interest in the shad. My conclusion? I would rather fish with something that looks more like a feather than a shad. This is where the part of "bass don't have hands" applies. They are curious creatures and since they don't have hands they use their mouths instead. Just my $.02

I am 67 years old and have a broken back. I quit tournament fishing in 1995 when I could no longer stand the pounding you get in a bass boat from wind and wakes. After 3 surgeries, I was doing great and then I was in an accident and destroyed my L-5 vertebrae After years of therapy, I feel as if I might be able do some more serious fishing! In the day I had A Stratos promo boat was on the Lowrance pro team. I fished over 150 tournaments and, yes, I even won some. Bottom line is this: I have missed out on many changes in the past 14 years... but you know what? I can still catch them and that is a fact.

This is my first post here... Anytime you are fishing spawning bass in clear water you can forget about finessing a bite. If you really want to catch her, think about what she is doing. She is trying to protect her nest and trying to reproduce her species... in other words she is trying to become a mother. So what you have to do is to peeve her off! One thing that seems to work better than anything else is to run a big noisy crank bait through the nest. Do that enough times and she will attack the intruder. Just remember that bass (or any other fish) do not have any hands. That means whether they are hungry, P.O.'d, or just curious, they will take the object into their mouth just to try to figger out what the heck it is. I remember one time when I was a kid. I stepped on my favorite dog's tail while he was asleep in front of the fireplace. He bit me!!! And that is exactly what you want the bass to do. Oh, by the way there is no such thing as an "uncatchable" large mouth black bass.