mudcatwilly

I have had jigs bite hard, soft, and have had a fish on without feeling a bite at all. Many times, the bass will bite the jig as its falling. You may not feel it at all, so you have to watch your line for a twitch. When pulling it through weeds, you may get a mushy feeling..swing away! I usaully get the harder bites when I crawl it along the bottom or right after the jig has hit something hard like a stump.

I look for topwater conditions first. Even if the conditions are wrong, I'll make a few casts anyway just in case I catch a bass daydreaming. After that, I go with what I think the conditions dictate. If that doesn't work, I go to my confidence baits, worms and slow rolling spinners. I believe a bass will bite a worm anytime.

Any lay down or sunken road bed, or docks, or bridge pilings.

Fish shallow before the sun hits the water. I try to fish an eastern part of the lake where the hills can block the sun longer. This time of year at my lake, the water is 83 degrees. You have about a 2 hour window to do some damage and then after then, the bass head for the thermocline at about 30 feet deep and suspend all day until they come back to shore after sunset. In the middle of the day, try and locate the depth of the thermo cline (cooler water with more oxygen) and try jigging with spoons. A deep ledge that is close to even deeper water is a good place to start, especially if there is some structure around the ledge. If you can find a spot where the thermocline intersects a deepwater point, you're in business, but don't expect fantastic results. This is where I would drop shot.

Drag and pause. Select your sinker based on the bottom charactersitics and depth. For rocky or sandy soil, I like the egg sinker because it is less prone to getting wedged between the rocks. For timber and weeds, I like the bullet sinker bacause it pulls through the slop easier. I like to main line a 12 to 15 pound flourocarbon and add a three foot long mono leader in about 12 pound test. The mono doesn't sink as fast, giving more wiggle to the bait. Lizards and roboworms and trickworms work great for this. Try the "Hardnose Lizard" for this. It stays on the hook better than the old soft headed lizard. I'll use anything from 1/4 oz to 1 oz sinkers, depending on depth.

I like a white jig or a white senko. This allows you to see your bait better in the water. I also like to put a light colored worm trailer on the jig with a little chartruese curly tail. The weightless white senko or any stickbait fished weightless either weedless or wacky rigged can be deadly. I have also heard of guys using light colored swimbaits if the fish are deeper. Let it hit bottom structure and reel back with a slow to medium steady retreive.

Try letting it fall to the bottom and then dead-sticking it, meaning leave it alone for a minute or two. Then give it a small twitch. Repeat all the way back to the boat, going very slow. It doen't hurt to add some scent. I like to smear gel krill on my baits, especially when dead-sticking. Keeping the bait still will allow the scent to disperse and create a scent trail that could lead a bass right to it. Sometimes the bass will hover above the bait, nose down, just watching it. Then a slight twitch can trigger a strike. This also works with jigs. Be patient. The bass are going to be sluggish in hot weather and don't want to do a lot of chasing. They are looking for an easy meal that appears to be injured or dying. Also, in the summer, many guys will fish smaller baits. Try a smaller senko or switch to a finesse jig like the bitsy bug.

Yum Dingers and dare I say...Berkeley Gulp, though not exactly a stick bait.

I've had spells like that. The thing that got me out of it was to go to someplace I'd never fished before and then pound the banks till I got a decent fish on. After that, I went back to my home lake and had success catching quality bass with the same baits that were previously catching only dinks. It's 75 percent mental. What's the difference between catching a 1 pound bass and a 10 pound bass? A few feet of water? A different color bait? A different presentation? It's all of the above or none of the above. Reread that last sentence and ponder it for a moment. If you are pitching baits to a location that holds bass, then there is the potential for you to hook a big bass. Not always, but sometimes. Keep in mind that it's summer and the bass bite can get sluggish unless you are fishing deeper water. Keep throwing the same baits, but increase the size. Bigger bass don't want to waste the energy going after a small meal, especially when the water temp is above 77-80 degrees. There is going to be a trade off. If you want larger fish, you will get fewer bites, but better fish. Dinks wont mess with a 10-inch swimbait, but a 10 pounder will. There are far fewer 10 plus pounders in any lake than dinks. It's simple math. The cool thing is that sometimes, a big bass will bite a small bait. Stay patient and keep fishing. When things go bad for me, I target a different species just to renew my love of fishing. Salmon fishing is hot in the SF Bay area right now. I went out last weekend and had a blast fishing for salmon, but catching sharks.

El Salto, Clearlake, Sam Rayburn, and one of those stocked ponds that Bill Dance fishes on TV.

Definitely fluke on a light jighead. Sit beyond the drop off facing the shallow side and work the bait toward the dropoff. As you get your bait to the drop off, try to keep the bait just above the bass (they see upward better than downward). I would swim it with a stop and go retrieve, twitching it a little bit.

You can actually cast over a steep bank with a drop shot rig and reel it in slowly, slightly twitching the rod. It kinda gives the presentation of a C-rig except the bait doesn't hit the bottom. It has worked for me where there are steep, rocky ledges. The great thing is, you almost never get snagged be cause if you feel a snag, you just back off it and the sinker will fall and unsnag you.

All these guys are right about the definition of foul hooking. I hooked a fish through the tail once (not sight fishing). That takes skill.

My home lake is currently 83 degrees and during the day, the bass are being caught off deep structure to 35 feet. I tried fishing it from about 7:00 pm until dark and had no luck. I threw the box at them, fishing deep and shallow and still nothing. I figured they may come up shallower to feed, so when it got dark, I tried spinners and then buzz baits, first in white, and then in black colors. Does anyone have any experience with fishing warm, deep water in low light conditions? I was mainly fishing steeper rocky banks.

Toss that one back and let a bigger bass eat it

My first bass was at Lake Berryessa in Northern CA. I caught it on a 4-inch brown worm t-rigged in 4 feet of water under some dense weeds. I was amazed that I got a fish to bite a plastic worm. From then on, I was hooked. I didn't catch another bass for 2 months after that because winter set in and we had record rainfall, making the lake to muddy to fish. I thought I sucked at fishing until spring rolled around and then I was catching them again.

In the CA Delta, a bass fishing mecca, I like to fish incoming or outgoing tide right along the tules or rip rap and over grass beds. You don't want absolute low or high tide because the water doesn't move. The moving water stirs up sediment and the little critters on the bottom which attracts the smaller baitfish, which attracts the bass. Also, pay attention to wind direction. Fish the side of the bank that the wind is blowing to. The wind tends to push the bait fish up against the bank and they get stacked up there. That's when the bass started tearing them up.

I"ve been in similar situations. I've seen dozens of bluegill swimming around the surface and some 2 to 3 pound bass swimming right next to them. Bass will definitely eat bluegill. There may have been bass in the area, but not in the mood to feed. When I saw the bass near the bluegill, I tossed a few lures their way, but they wanted nothing to do with my offerings. This time of year, the bass are going to be more active in the deeper, cooler water. They may come up shallow to feed, but usually in the early moring before the sun hits the water or in the late evening or at night. Try that spot again at like 5 am or at night and I bet you will get bit. The conditions will be low light, so I would add some brass and glass or a rattle. In low light, a black spinner bait with big thumping colorado blades is a killer too. Some scent wouldn't hurt either. I like Pautzke's gel krill. Just smear it on your bait and sinker. With that stuff, you can almost dead stick it and it will attract fish. Good luck and let us know how you do.

I will stay with one bait for about 15 minutes or so if I'm in an area that I think is holding bass. I vary depth and retreive speed with that bait. If I get action, I stay with that bait till the bite turns off. If I get no action, I switch baits or move. When I am fishing one of my confidence baits, I am more apt to move than to change baits.

I use two methods. Drag and pause or pump and pause. With the pump and pause, I lift the rod tip about 12 inches, let the sinker hit bottom, reel in the slack, and then pause. Use a monofilament line because it sinks slower than flourocarbon. The bite can be real subtle, so make sure your have a sensitive rod. Sometimes, it doesn't feel like a tap, it more like steady pressure or or a mushy feeling. When it doubt, set the hook. Swings are free!

I haven't had much success with crank baits, but I throw them anyway once in awhile just to see if I can gain some confidence in them. My go to is the t-rigged worm and I use that most of the time.

I don't see anything wrong with keeping a few bass once in awhile. Most states limit the catch to 5 per day witha length of 15 inches or so. My policy is to throw back all bass under 4 pounds and over 5 pounds. The only time I would keep a bass over 5 pounds would be if it was a trophy, say 15 pounds or larger. Even still, I would try to keep that fish alive, weigh it, photo, and release. If I happened to catch a state record, I would probably have to keep it because by the time I got it to an official scale to weigh it, it would probably die. I prefer to release the fish in most cases so they can get bigger. In my home lake, there is a self sustaining population, so keeping a fish every now and then to eat is not going to impact the fishery. I think a lot of the pressure to catch and release comes from the fishing shows on TV, including the tournments. If I catch 20 fish in a day, I would probably keep one.

I did a lot of research before I bought my canoe. Probably, Old Town is the best for the money. If you fish alone, get the stillwater 12. It's light, wide, and easy to manuever. I got the pelican navigator 13'6". It's a good canoe and I only paid about $400 online (plus $100 shipping) at sportsmansguide.com. In hindsight, I should've spent a little more and got the stillwater 12 (it's lighter and more stable). The pelican is 60 pounds (75 with all my gear). I can lift it off my truck by myself, but getting it up and down steeper banks is tough, even with the canoe cart. Be prepared to spend $100 on the canoe cart (you will need it), $20 on a paddle, $20 on misc straps, bungees, etc. I fitted mine with a transom mount fish finder $120. I'm a little sick of paddling, especially when it's windy (you'll see). I am going to get a transom mount trolling motor and deep cycle battery and a charger ($180). Let's see, I've spent $940 on this canoe. Canoe's are great by getting into tight spots, but looking back, I could've bought a jon boat with a 10 hp motor and a trailer for less than what I've spent on the dang canoe. My advice, save your money and get a boat. That's just my $0.02 from having gone through the canoe process.

Generally, bigger bait gets bigger fish, but sometimes smaller bass strike the bigger baits. I haven't seen too many large bass bite smaller baits though. My go to worms are the watermelon/red flake senko and the Berkeley Power Worm in black with a chartruese curly tail. Use the 7 or 10 inch worms. Get some Pautzke's gel krill and rub it onto the senko and fish it slow.

Morning = Buzzbait along the edges of the weeds/lily pads, frog on top of the lily pads and over the weeds. Zara spook out in the open water if it's overcast. Afternoon = Weightless senko on top of the lily pads, letting it fall through the openings, crankbait bounced off the bridge pilings. Slow rolling spinner with a trailer along the weed edges. If you can fish from the bridge, dropshot with a worm near the pilings. I would use a glass bead and a ticker above the dropshot sinker.