scaleface

Steep sunny banks .

I wait for warm , sunny days and make parallel cast with crankbaits at steep sunny banks in the afternoon exactly like Bobby Murray is doing .

Congratulations to Hank .

I watched a youtube video asking the pros what to do when the fishing is tough . Half said slow down and fish more thoroughly and the other hale said speed up and cover more water . That means I've been doing it right all along .

That does not compute .

I did not know that and will try it out . I like for the baits to spit as far as they can .

Yeah they work . I was fishing Squarebills one day and blanking . I thought the conditions were right so I tied on a Yum Money Maker on a jig head and wore the bass out . This was in about 1 foot of visibility .

I like the Dredgers so much that I ordered three of the new 8.5 foot model . To get free shipping I got some silent Red Eye Shads and a 1/4 ounce Cavitron buzzbait . That 8.5 should be a killer in a 6 foot honey hole that I have manged to keep secret .

If I get paranoid about line visibility , I use the sharpie trick and camouflage it . I think it works but dont know for sure .

I went to Mardi Gras two years ago . Got drunk , puked , got drunk some more , wife got mad , had a good time .

I'll often start out a day messing up and missing fish but develop a rythem as the day goes on .

I guess over half the bass I have caught have been on Texas rigged soft plastics . A couple years back I accidentally left my soft plastics at home . I searched through my gear and found a bag of black Fats Gizits . I rigged them up on my casting worm rod and didnt miss a beat , casting and pitching them deep into shoreline cover .

Post spawn the Bomber Long A Minnow shallow on points leading to deep water .

Any crankbait / spinnerbait with a little chartreuse in it .

In order for diving plugs to be successful they must be fished at the depth as the fish .This is very difficult to determine and relies mainly on trial and error . The Berkley Dredgers dive to the advertised depth using 12 lb Big Game . Select a model that advertises a depth a couple feet deeper than the depth you want to fish . If you think the fish are about 14 foot deep then choose the 17.5 foot model and so on .

One of my more productive tactics is to hop Red Eye Shads off the bottom like a worm .

I also like to use the Strike King Mini Spins with a little extra weight added to the hook shank .

The three that I have had a lot of success with . A buzzbait , popper , and 5 inch curl tail grub rigged on a light jighead or weightless and buzzed . It didnt make any difference what the color is where I fish .

This is a great screen shot posted by EverythingThatSwims . The shad are clearly trying to evade the bass . A lure that goes through there probably gets hammered even though there are thousands of baitfish .

Pick lures that will fish well in the conditions you encounter and the bigger bass will come . A combination of bottom bouncers , crankbaits , spinnerbaits and top waters will just about cover it all .

I look at previous weights from tourneys on the same water , them make a guess .

I spent much of my youth fishing on the banks of the Mississippi river . An observation that I made back then that still sticks with me today is bass are opportunistic feeders . There is a riprap bank that I fished a lot for catfish and I learned to have an extra rod with a lure tied on . When barge waves slammed on the rocks it would stun baitfish and crawdads , the bass would become active gobbling up the disoriented prey . If I was quick enough with the lure I could catch them . I think lures give the illusion of an easy meal .

The way Homer Circle holds a rod I'm surprised if he can feel anything .

My speculation is healthy prey are hard to catch and keep their distance. Lures dont quite act right , there is something wrong with them and often right in their face.

The past two years I have fished worms almost exclusively when fishing soft plastics .