Brian_Reeves

I like a 5:1 to 1. I use a Quantum low profile reel on a 7' med. heavy rod with extra guides (all Fuji). I like the control that i get from the longer rod and I like the horsepower that the lower gear ratios give me in thick or tight cover. Anyway, on a pitch, I agree with Jim. I like to move it past or close to the area that I'm going to fish on the first few pitches/flips. I'll try swimming, hopping, popping, dragging and everything else on those first few casts. If that doesn't produce, then I'll flip or pitch a few times into the structure itself, hoping for the fish to hit the lure on the fall.

Having a touch of vinegar in your veins is part of being a lakefront baitshop owner's job requirements. I don't deal with the guys on any lake under any circumstance. I get much better service in Cabella's, Wal-Mart, Academy, or Bass Pro plus the tackle and gear that I buy is much better quality and generally better priced. I'm all about helping the little man fight his fight against big business...until it interferes with my fishing experiance. I have on little hobby that doesn't bother anyone except my wife and some old coot is going to give me flack about it when it was his idea to open the stupid baitshop? No thanks. Wal-Mart always tells me to at least have a nice day when they don't have what I'm looking for instead of "If it ain't in my shop it don't catch fish anyway." Yeah....ok

First rule on any fishery that is heavily pressured... ignore the obvious. That one little statement has led my team to larger fish more consistantly this year. Now for the extremely clear lakes with huge dropoffs. First off, I feel your pain. I fish Stillhouse Hollow pretty religiously. Stillhouse is full of hydrilla, which is where I'm about to start putting my chips on. But aside from that, when I'm fishing dropoffs on stillhouse, I like to use a carolina rig, jig, deep diving cranks parallel to the dropoff, and slow rolling spinnerbaits. Texas rigging a worm or creature bait wouldn't be a bad idea either. For the river, all you really have to do is find substancial current breaks and beat them to death with crankbaits. That will work on any river. Now all you gotta do is figure out depth, color, and size. I'd go with a Rebel Wee-R or a Mann's Baby 1 Minus or Baby 4 minus. Those are all shallow divers that you can work pretty slow. Since the water is in the 80's, the fish should be pretty spazzy and willing to slam crankbaits if presented properly. You'll have to play around with retrieve speeds to figure out what they want. Hopefully this works for you. Good luck

Fishing too fast trying too cover too much water in too litle time

I'm more inclined to jump in the lake after a crankbait than I am trying to protect it now. Cranking heavy cover is worth it. A good bet is get a Rapala DT bait. They dive to specified depths (which can allow you to keep the bait right over the nasty stuff)

If I get the chance to fish some nights out here, I'm putting all my chips in on the Black Hart spinnerbait by Hart Tackle. It just looks too derned good for that type of application. If that doesn't work, then I will probably throw a black jig with a grub trailer or a black worm w/rattler.

There's a lake that I bank fish from that is loaded with hydrilla and milfoil. Running a spinnerbait is impossible and even some soft plastics can get pretty tough. The grass is about a foot from the surface....which is why I started using the Mann's Baby 1 Minus Crankbaits. These super shallow runners are GREAT for a slow retrieve right about the grass in situations like that. In fact, the biggest bass I've ever caught was on one of these. If you can get away with it, you might wanna try that. Otherwise, try a heavy flipping tube, t-rigged worm, senko, or a t-rig creature bait. If you can find pockets in the grass, casting a shakeyhead or a jig of some sort would be a really good idea.

I have a dark skin coloration naturally so I typically don't get burned unless it's under the worst of conditions. I just stay covered up. A good loose t-shirt and a baseball cap with sunglasses work for me. When I do use sunblock, I go for spf30-45 and apply it religiously. Those are for those UV warning days on the news. I usually put a lot of sunscreen on my tattoos since they are more prone to cancer than regular skin and besides, it will fade the heck out of colors. A solid fabric baseball cap will protect the head (since I shave mine I DO NOT want my head to get burned) and polorized glasses protect your eyes as well as let you see under the water...extremely important anyway. According to the Army, wearing baggy long sleeved shirts (like our BDU, DCU, or ACU uniforms) is ideal. I survived Iraq with those things, and it's much hotter than Texas or Louisiana...which is simply murderous anyway. If your skin burns easy or tans incredibly fast, then you might wanna consider a long sleeve loose and light material shirt. It's not as bad as you might think...but a regular t-shirt is MUCH better. As far as brand, I agree with Nick_Barr. Banana Boat rocks and it's pretty affordable too.

First off, get a pair of cheap polorized glasses. That will help you see shadows and water color changes. If there are sticks and stumps in the pond, you'll see them with polorized glasses but will miss them with the naked eye or regular sunglasses. For the pond, I'd try something like a texas rigged blue or green worm, a salt-craw, or topwater frogs. For the river, look for places that are unaffected by the current. Wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in some shallow-diving crankbaits like the Mann's baby1- Those things can be magical when fished slow. Try green jigs if you aren't already. Flipping those into those lillypad pockets, against stumps and branches, and into the water clarity changes can be lethal.

Anytime I'm fishing pressured lakes, I keep one thing in mind. Ignore the obvious. Those places have been beat to death and have a million lost lures hung up in the rocks, grass, or submerged timber. I like to key in on less pressured points, dropoffs, humps, and submerged structure. When I'm fishing lakes that don't have that stuff, I just key in on isolated structure. Baits change with the seasons and weather, but I'm working on getting a jig to work year round like it's supposed to. For some reason, me and jigs just don't play well together. I can't really remember any weights or totals of fish caught, but you really can't go wrong ignoring the obvious and backing off of the pressured spots. Too much of one type of cover will lead me into looking for something different. Bass relate to differences in their environment. A piece of rebar sticking in the mud on the outside of a huge grassline might attract a big dude simply because it's different. Work key changes like that religiously. Great patterns can be established relatively easily on most days. Experiment, search, and change up if your initial plans fail. Keep adapting.

Sounds like these Stamina guys have it figured out. I'm about to google their website. I know what you mean about catching fish on your own creations. I really tweaked a swimming jig today and went to the hardest lake on Fort Hood to fish. I've been there a dozen times and never got a bite....and that's throwing every bait in the box. I sat there and watched them hit topwater for an hour (some 4lb+ bass coming clear out of the water) and threw poppers, frogs, buzzbaits, walk-the-dogs, torpedos, and waked a spinnerbait. NADDA. Talk about frusteration. Today, after almost a year, I went back and played around with a jig that I tuned, tweaked, spiked, and added a grub trailer. BAM...got bit....and then the sucker wrapped up in a tree limb and broke my derned line. But at least I accomplished something that I never have in a lake that has been bothering me for a year. I will definitely go back and pitch some more customized jigs. I really wanna create some quality spinnerbaits and start pulling up hawgs on those. Talk about a fun, rewarding reward! Thanks for the help!

Trick is that I'm about to go to Louisiana on a 2 week leave in a little over a month. The lakes I fish now are deep clear water man made reservoirs. The lake I'm going to fish is a natural, swampy, stained water lake in central Louisiana. I have no doubts that I can go and slaughter bass. In my opinion, stained water is the best. Clear is the hardest and super muddy is the second hardest. That lake I'm going to fish has a lot of bass in it. A lot of good bass that the locals can't catch. I'm sure every fish in that lake has seen a spinnerbait, jig, and texas rig. I'm putting my chips on finesse jigs, topwaters, and shallow running crankbaits. I think my approach is going to be shoot to the lillypads early in the morning with a jig, senko, fluke, and scumfrog tied on. During the heat of the day I'm going to switch to submerged timber and any dropoffs or deep pockets that I can find on the depthfinder (there isn't many from what I understand) and hit those with finesse jigs and run shallow running cranks above their heads. Later in the evening, I'm planning on switching to a slow topwater like a Spit'n Image, a Popper, still pitch the finesse jig, and a fluke. The plan sounds good to me and hopefully it will produce. After all, I'm going to be fishing with my Dad who almost believes that bass don't bite at all in that lake. I know he's wrong. How's this sound to y'all?

Stillhouse is a good lake. At first, it broke me down but it's constantly building me back up now. It's a tough lake to fish until you figure out it's quirks and moods. But when you do, it can be awesome. It's my favorite around here.

For the dog days of summer, where would you start off on a completely new lake that you've never fished before? Points, islands, grasslines, laydowns, backwaters, timber? So far 80% of my luck has been on dropoffs and points. I am going to start really getting nasty with these grasslines and hydrilla on my home lake that way I know how to do it on other lakes when we start fishing tournaments again. I actually plan on getting a pair of goggles and a snorkle and going down to look at them to get a better idea of what is going on down there in Rat-L-Trap hell. But for me, on a new lake, I think I'd have to start on points or dropoffs adjacent to shallow water. Seems to be the ticket quite often. I like fishing timber and banklines too, providing there is deeper water nearby. How would you approach it and why?

Matt's absolutely right. I play around all the time until I'm consistantly getting bit. Sometimes it's a completely new bait, sometimes a new color, sometimes a new rig. If you know that they -should- be hitting a plastic worm but they won't hit a traditional Texas Rig, switch to a dropshot or a C-Rig. Change the size, color, sinker, and even hooksize. That has actually worked for me. Smaller hooks make fishing a bit tougher, but can slow down the fall rate of a bait just a tad. Also Matt, when you drop-shotted a fluke, what kind of structure were you around? I've wanted to try it, but never have. I have a confidence issue with fishing right under the boat, though I know it works, but I don't know where it works at

I try something new with baits virtually every time I fish. Even if it's something I use all the time, I'll change something up. A little dye here, a rattle there, a bigger sinker, smaller hook, etc. But as far as NEW baits. This year I have tried shallow cranks, rat-l-traps, jigs, and texas rigs. I've used all of these before, but I'm getting better equipment and experimenting, trying to perfect each technique. With those rigs, you should be able to consistantly put fish in the boat. Carolina rigs are next. Confidence baits are baits that either I KNOW work and I'm screwing it up somehow (the above 5 that I'm working on) I keep those tied on because I know I have to learn how to fish them in various conditions. But for a bait to earn it's rightful place as an anytime, anywhere confidence bait, it has to put about 20lbs of fish in the boat over a short span of time. Surprisingly, I'm getting a lot of confidence these days. This has been my best bass year ever thusfar. As far as how long I'll spend with a bait...that depends on the conditions. I team fish a lot so my buddy and I use different lures to pattern faster. Generally he reconfirms that Flukes are baits that were designed by God himself. But we've picked up a bunch of bass on other stuff. I'll generally spend about 6months fishing a bait before I lose all hope to be sure I've fished it in a variety of temperatures, situations, and weather conditions. Almost every bait will work...it's just a matter of figuring out color, size, when, and where. That takes research...which sucks but really, really pays off.

I've had it up to my ears with generic spinnerbaits that every bass sees every day. At department stores, even Academy, I can't get my colors and blades to match up and when I do, the blades are a size that would make a baracuda scream like a 4 year old girl. I can't get them to match the hatch without getting a small spinnerbait that I can't cast into the wind any darned way when I do want to fish a spinner. So when enough is enough, it's time to take matters into your own hands. Therefore, I'm making my own spinnerbaits. I'm not pouring my own lead and creating my own wires, but I got an idea and wondered if anyone has some other tips on customizing the "most versitile lure in a tacklebox" as KVD would say. So far, I started out with cheap-o wal-mart $1 spinnerbaits. They come with a silver willow leaf blade. I like the size, it's pretty big but doesn't look like the crome version of the loch ness monster coming through the water. Since the lakes that I fish are bottled spring water clear, I think that the flash of the silver blades is a little much. So I took some heavy duty sandpaper and sanded it in arches and curves, giving it a surprisingly good scaley look to the blades. I bought some strike king skirts (not the rubberband garbage but the good kind) with the magic tails. I downsized those mugs with a good pair of scissors. I now have shad and perch colored spinnerbaits that match the colors of these Texas lakes beautifully. Here's my problem. The hooks on these Cheap-O's are the same great-white spooking crome that apparently is a turn-off in these highly pressured lakes. What kind of paint to I use to paint the hooks without adding a funky fish-killing odor. I'd like to stay away from using artificial scents if at all possible. I'll use garlic if I absolutely must, but don't wanna use any kind of Yum spray on or anything like that. Any good ideas for hook/blade paint? I need a good solid blood red and a good shiny gold paint for the blades (for my lower visability spinnerbaits) When I get back from my next training event with the Army, I'll post some pictures up. If these things actually work, I'm going to be hitting you bait-making guys up about spinnerbait molds and wire guages and whatnot. Thanks y'all.

I've had limited success on topwaters on Stillhouse which is a shame. To me, there is no better way to fish. That is the MOST fun. Granted, they sometimes work, but definitely not as often as required to be competitive in any tournaments out there. I already lost one tournament by putting too much faith in a topwater. Never again...but if the strike is there it's there. Jigs seem to be kinda weird out there. Short of dropping it off the side of the boat into the hydrilla and trolling around like you're looking for Blue Marlin, there isn't that much to pitch and flip at, plus the water is so derned clear you can't get into pitching range without losing stealth. Long sidearm casts seem to be the trick of the day, and those aren't really stealthy either. I completely agree with a jig though. I keep one tied on, though I've had NO success on them in stillhouse. I know that's user error though. Ratltraps are a good choice. We've started having success since we slowed them down instead of trying to set new speed records for shad. I haven't given them the honest chance they deserve ever since I caught a leather glove on one. I really need to dial the colors/size on those things down and give them another chance. There can't be all that many gloves in the water. I'm definitely going to have to try carolina rigging with smaller weights and these finesse worms. I hate finesse fishing, but if it works, it works. And if it's working, I probably can stop hating it for awhile

I've been having trouble with jigs too, but today I think I took the first baby steps in changing my luck. I went to throw a blue/black heavy jig but my buddy started getting fish off of a tube. Stubborn in my determination, I tied on a light jig that matched his color tube and went fishing. Before I walked out to the truck, I took a pair of fingernail clippers (line cutters) and thinned out the weedguard some, trimmed it right, and made sure my trailer was hooked up to be as small as possible. Within 3 casts, I pulled up the SMALLEST bass I've ever caught in my life. Then I worked around the bank to this tire in the water, pitched in front of it, and felt a strike. It didn't feel like anything. Just a very light bump and then weightlessness. I slammed back and watched the stupid fish swim through the tire. Fought through that and got in a nice little 1-1.5lb bass. Not big or impressive, but it is the first fish I caught pitching a jig and detecting the initial fall. Keep the line pretty tight, but not so much as to interfere with the bait, trim excess guards off, and I like to keep everything small. The only real advice I have for you is that hooksets are free.

Tbird, why so light of a weight on that C-Rig? Are you trying to stay on top of the grass or work the actual breaks and weedlines in the hydrilla? We generally use a 3/4 or 1/2 brass sinker, but I've never tried anything else. It seems to produce, but I'm all for trying to break my hydrilla curse. Also on the crankbait, I've never tried the DT series (yet) but I've noticed that most of the deep water hydrilla stops growing about 8-12 ft from the surface. I was thinking about a DT-10 to skim right over that 12 ft stuff. Ever try that or is it better to use one of the shallower crankbaits? I usually use a oddball colored Bomber that dives 10-12 and have had pretty good luck with that, but once again, I really haven't deviated from the few things I found that kinda work. I really appreciate all this advice too! By the way, did you fish that Buffalo Bill's Bar and Grill tournament on the 23rd (sunday)? If so, what was the winning stringer? My buddy and I weren't in the tournament but we put about 11-12lbs in the boat that day. Just wanted to see how we would have held up. Thanks!

Sometimes you can't go wrong with the basic bluegill/sunpearch colored crankbaits. Especially in the post-spawn, daddy bass will be on a bluegill witch hunt on the flats since these little buggers eat the baby bass. Which is kinda funny, because later in the year baby bass colored baits start working better. Hypocritical cannibals. ;D

It is stillhouse Finding the hydrilla bass is my main concern because I can't get them to hook up. Any reccomendations for search baits when the bass are in that garbage? I know that jigs are a good choice, but I can't seem to get color/trailer/size put together right. Hydrilla is my ultimate weakness because I've never fished it until last year. As far as the C-Rig Dinger/Senko/Tiki Stick, how long of a leader and how heavy is the weight? Is the focus to hop along the top of the hydrilla or bust through it? Thanks guys

Under the following conditions knowing only the following, what baits would you throw? Tackle: 4 rod/reel combos Weather: 70-80degrees, calm wind, early morning Water: Ultra clear, 75degrees Lake: Texas Reservoir, Rocky points, submerged timber on flats and humps, bluffs, river tributary (muddy water), shallow and deep hydrilla beds Under all of the conditions I've fished, this seems to be the most challenging. I prefer stained water that is no deeper than 15-20ft on natural lakes. Facing the exact same scenario listed above, how would you approach the lake, attempt to pattern it, and what kinds of baits would you throw? My "insight" Patternizing-work points and bluffs with crankbaits, rat-l-traps, jerkbaits, and carolina or texas rigs. Move from the points and bluffs into the timber and/or hydrilla beds and work weedlines, pockets, and intersections. Baits of choice-Shallow/med/deep crankbaits or jerkbaits in either bluegill or shad colors. Rat-L-Trap in Crawfish or shad colors. Green or brown jigs with grub trailers. Soft plastic jerkbaits in green or brown. Worms or creature baits in junebug, dark green, or blue. What would you do?

Ironically, I think bass are Cajun by nature. It's hard to go wrong with boiled crawfish red at any given time. But if you wanna get specific with it, you should start the season off with a green pumpkin jig with a light green trailer. Perhaps have a little orange on the trailer. As spawn hits, darken both the trailer and the jig, trying to keep the trailer slightly lighter than the jig itself. During the summer, switch to dark greens and blues or abandon the idea altogether. If you're using crankbaits, start with red and go to dark reds or browns. It's hard to go wrong with soft plastics and jigs in your basic green, brown, or blue colors. Presentation and location is more key than coloration...especially in thick cover.

My buddy and do A LOT of team fishing. We have similar tactics and styles, though our bait choices differ somewhat. We have been doing a great job getting on the fish every time we go out, never catching less than a limit (unless we bring our kids along.) Fishing with someone that knows what they're doing and also compliments your style is fun, educational at times, and if anything else, faster to pattern fish. We hope to do some team fishing on FLW tournaments and whatnot pretty soon. Still looking for some sponsors, though it's coming. All in good time