Tom Bass

Howdy All, I hope my two posts didn't offend anyone. I was just trying to make a point that sometimes a man doesn't need the latest, greatest and fastest, especially when it's his hard earned dollars doing the buying. I have nothing against people wanting what they want, be it fast boats or race guns, I shoot SASS and IDPA competitions. I have seen the "need for speed" nearly ruin the SASS shooting sports. Perhaps I mistook some of y'all's input for "keepin' up with the joneses" rather than your experience with boats and motors. Sorry about that. I apologize. I, on the other hand, just got me a nice little 12' Lowe Sea Nymph with a 9.9hp Merc for my personal excursions on the lake. I have a Regal 2120 but it just isn't a fishing boat. It's my pleasure boat. Funny thing is I started off looking at bass boats and I ended up buying the deck boat....so much for taking your wife with you when you are shopping for a bass boat.

If the man has $22,000 to spend he is not going to get what many think is the ultimate Bass Boat. The bottom line is that he gets his Ultimate Bass Boat! Maybe a few years down the road he'll look back and say "Hey, these guys were right!" OR he will look back and say "Hey, I really screwed up and blew umpteen thousand dollars on some boat that I grew to hate just so I could fish!" It's all in your perspective.

Chug Bug, What are you going to use your boat for? Bass fishing? or racing to fish for bass? No offense guys, but perhaps the man just wants a darn nice boat wthout breaking his budget. Are the options he mentions not worth while for a bass fishing boat? Bass fishing is what it is, Bass Fishing! Tournaments and contests are another issue. Racing to a spot is the name of the game, in some cases. Chug Bug, I would buy what pleased me and have a good time with it. I, like you, started out over a year ago looking at bass boats. My wife got involved and wanted to go along and she wanted a pontoon boat. I like to go fast and in the end I wound up with a Regal 2120 260hp deck boat, which I dearly love 8-)...The bottom line is, I ended up happy yet unfullfilled. Tomorrow I am going to look at a $1000 fishing boat with a 9.9hp outboard and if I get that boat I will be just as happy with it as I would be a $22,000 Bass Boat. Buy what you like and what you can afford and enjoy it. No one here is going to cough up the extra money it takes for you to get what they think you should have. It's your money and your happiness, enjoy your new boat on your own terms. The guys here bring up valid points from their experiences but in the end you have to live with what you bought. If you don't need to spend an extra $4500 for a motor to be happy then why do it? If it takes you an extra 10 minutes to get to a fishing spot then that is the way it is. It's not like you are fightin' "The High Seas" is it? There is no money riding on getting "there" faster is there? Some of what I am saying here is "tongue in cheek" and I don't mean to be insulting to the people that have taken time to respond to your question, but the bottom line is that you get what makes you happy, suits your needs and makes you happy. Buy what makes you happy and enjoy it. That is what bass fishing and boating is all about. Take care and enjoy your new boat. Invest the $4500 in other things that the Bait Monkey will try to help you out with.

They have no morals. ;D Bass eat other bass and any other tasty fish they can swallow. Trouble is, they just have a problem eating my lures lately :-[

Just keep fishin' and enjoy yourself. 8-)

Yes, that is a tag.

I have a 2005 Regal 2120 deck boat and a 14' BFS canoe. I am looking to buy a small V-bottom boat with an outboard motor.

I guess it all depends on where they are hooked. One thing is for sure, once hooked they do have a survival instinct...pain or not!

or it's turtles.....

That's a cool picture Reel Lady. 8-) I did a little shore fishing at Lake Norman while your tournament was going on. I caught a nice 16 inch bass on a Rapala floater while reeling it in. It surprised the heck out of me as I was just fiddlin' around with different lures killing some time Friday morning. I had thought the bass had gone deep but this one was in about 4' of water. Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread. Tom

Why not go unorthodox? Put a big lure in an area that you wouldn't even normally try. I caught a big smallie years ago by casting a Red Devle into a very calm area of a creek. I was getting ready to go home and made a "frustration" cast. WAM!

My answer to #1: I don't think you could have done much in that situation to catch the perpitrator. Been there, didn't catch that! My answer to #2: I would have thrown your lure well past the commotion and brought it through the melee and then kept repeating the move. There was probably no time to change lures in that situation. I encountered that same situation a couple of weeks ago but the fish were about twenty yards out past where I could cast. I was bummed.

My best fishin' day has nothing to do with numbers or poundage. I was fishing a farm pond in Pennsylvania about 18 years ago. It was a pond in the middle of a corn field owned by a farmer who never let anyone fish there. I knocked on the door and politely asked if I could fish in his pond and the man thanked me for asking and gave me permission. I caught and released so many smallmouth bass that I lost coumt. I was using all kinds of different lures and every lure seemed to be a "Ringer' in that pond. It started getting dark and I decided to leave as I had about 400 yards to walk back to my truck. As I walked through the fledgling cornfield the sun was just going all the way down on the horizon and at that same time, as the gold, purple, green and blue of the evening sky was just getting brilliant, millions of lightening bugs started flashing about two feet off of the ground for as far as the eye could see in all directions. I was dumbstruck and mesmerized. It was beautiful. No camera could have captured that moment. I stood there for about five minutes and watched and the sun went down and the bugs went away. I still am in great awe of that little piece of time. I had the best fishing of my life and I saw one of the greatest sights of my life. It was wonderful. The topper was that when I was getting back to my truck the farmer ran up to me and said "Wasn't that wonderful? That was just plain fantastic, I have never seen that before on my land." We talked a bit and I drove home in awe. I had the best fishing that I ever had and I saw one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen to this date. I did go back to that pond to fish after that but the action wasn't there...neither was the view. That evening was just plain awesome!

Perhaps you should wait a half a second before setting the hook. It's hard to learn but it does help. I had the same problem with top water lures. I would try to set the hook as soon as the hit occurred.

I have a secret. I never get skunked. When ever I can't catch bass I stow the bass gear and get out my ultra-light gear and catch me some bream. Sometimes I have more fun fishin' for the panfish than I do for the bass. ;D

Hello Britt, I live in Concord, NC and I fish Lake Norman and I sometimes fish Lake Wylie. I fish for bass and bream (panfish) and I sometimes fish for catfish. I moved here from California, where I lived for 22 years. I did fish for trout there but fishing in CA is a pain in the *** unless you live near a lake. When I was a kid we fished all over SW Pennsylvania, NW Arkansas and New Mexico. We moved aroumd alot. I dearly love North Carolina. We have lakes and waterways to fish and there are all kinds of ways to fish here. I am thinkin' that I need to try some salt water fishin' this next spring. I also like to hunt on occassion and I shoot compettion pistol and Cowboy matches (Cowboy shooting kept me sane in CA). I like to take my boat out with my wife. I love to drive my Miata convertible on NC country roads and I like to take my 4X4 out once in while for some fun...I haven't done any four wheeling here in NC yet. I prefer desert off roading. That was another thingI enjoyed in CA. Wide open spaces. Lots of places to shoot. I am currently looking for a cheap fishing boat so that I don't feel guilty about messin' up my pleasure boat and I am having no luck but I have a feeling that this Fall someone will want to sell the boat that I am looking for so I can spend the coming months launching my little boat and catching the best fish of my life. Best regards and don't stop fishin' Tom

Many pallets have chemicals in the wood to preserve the wood that could be bad for the water and the fish. It's kind of like Creosote only different. Same goes for pine trees. Introduce Ex-Christmas trees in a lake would be like tossin' railroad ties full of creosote in them, in my humble opinion. I would use trees and branches that are local to the area. You might get a better outcome.

I have a Magellan Meridian Gold that I have used for about 2.5 years and I like it very much. I upgraded the memory chip and bought the Magellan Map software. The only thing I do not like is once you load an area you can't delete it from the chip so in order to have detailed maps of many areas you may need more memory chips. This is not a problem if you are using it for a state or two but if you load SoCal like I did and move to North Carolina and try to load that you may have a memory problem. All it takes is more chips. By the way, the memory chips are 3 times the price ifyou buy them from Magellan. Buy them at an electronics house like Fry's. If I were to do it over I would buy the Magellan with the color screen and the barometric pressure monitor.

Jim, How do you know what the temperature is at different depths? And, how do you know where the thermocline is? Is there a depth finder that can tell you this or do you have another way of finding the temps? Just so you know, I don't own a fish finder nor have I researched them very much. If they do give you temps at different levels I plead ignorance and need to do some research. On the other hand, if fish finders don't give temp levels, what do you recommend for checking temperatures at different depths and how do you determine the thermocline? I have been fishing the old fashioned way far to long....... Regards, Tom

2-3 times a work week. When I am off I go more.

I got these doing a Yahoo search for "floating dragonfly llure". Interesting. http://www.hover-lure.com/page.php?id=6 http://www.tackletour.com/reviewriver2seadragonfly.html I would also try a floating Rapala lure, perhaps in the same coloration as the local dragonflies. Cast it, leave it sit and twitch it occassionally. Good Luck, Tom

and another thing, bass aren't out for excitement. Boaters, waterskiers and wakeboarders are on the lake for fun. They jump and make noise for fun. Bass are out for survival. They are not jumping for any other reason but survival. They need to eat.

By the way, I always use the "Improved Clich" knot on my lures, hooks, swivels, etc. Other knots have let me down. I do not use braid line though.

Here's a site for learning different knots: http://www.netknots.com/html/fishing_knots.html

The bass are chasing minnows from the colder depths to the top water. The bass give chase and the minnows go for the surface in the hopes of getting away.