iceintheveins

Here in Colorado they tried to pull that crap with some municipal lakes after 9/11. They think keeping the public out somehow makes it safer from terrorists? Don't they realize more people up there means more people to keep an eye on it and that closures and fences won't keep Osama and his buddies out? Man I hate big government losers. The key is to continue fighting and never quit. Eventually you will prevail. We have done so here in Colorado.

If its murky i like bubblegum colored senkos or flukes. Bright colored floating rapalas would be good too, or black/blue jigs and pigs. If live minnows are legal though I would use them a lot in murkier water, because the scent of natural bait can't be matched, and that goes for gulp too, gulp STILL doesn't match the real thing.

The very best times are the twighlight periods and cloudy weather after a period of warm weather. The fish are most aggressive and lure selection then is easy: TOPWATERS!!!!!!!!!! Bass can be caught all day usually though if you pinpoint some hungry fish. During the day in hot weather, deeper structure with deep cranks and plastics are the key. Deep dredging spinnerbaits is good too, especially in dingier water.

In Colorado bass 10 pounds or over are uncommon. They would be more common if the Colorado Division Of Wildlife didn't let people keep every mature bass over 15" though. It takes about 5 years in Colorado for a bass to reach maturity, and then once it reaches maturity, the DOW allows harvest. All this does is selectively breed smaller bass by removing the bigger ones. Minimum length limits are biologically meant to be used for fast growing fish, not slow growing ones. Under a pound - runt 1 - 2 pounds - average 3 - 5 pounds - Nice Bass. Not rare though, just takes more work to get them that size. In good lakes you will catch several per trip usually in that range 6 - 10 pounds - uncommon, takes a lot of work Over 10 pounds - rare

Fishing in light rain is usually good unless the wind is so hard casting is hard and the waves are crashing. Pelting rain puts fish down, and the calm after the storm is often the toughest fishing, especially when the sun comes out.

I can't catch bass on soft plastic crawdads fished along the bottom, despite the fact that crawfish are the main forage for all the gamefish in most systems in my area. I don't try it much though. That's probably why, a lack of confidence in it. The more confident you are with a technique the better it works because you stick with it and fish seriously. And even just having confidence seems to help by itself.

As far as structure goes, major changes in bottom, such as points, drop offs, channels, and humps will concentrate them. If rocky riprap, which holds forage like crawdads and gamefish fry, is present, all the better. The very finest cover is rocks, with logs and wood cover being good at times too. In rivers any place where rocks or objects break current. Smallmouth don't like deep, slow, clean bottomed pools as much as eddies or pools formed by or with major rock or log cover.

I like throwing them into heavy cover on a texas rig. They are good carolina rig baits too. Another good way is just to put a light split shot on them and fish them like a slow senko. They have a really different action when twitched.

Go noisy, bright, and flashy. Big spinnerbaits and big jigs along with buzzbaits and loud prop baits. Bright, loud rattling cranks too. Black and red or black and blue are great colors as are fluorescent ones.

Largemouth often hit a crank when you stop the retrieve or just as you start the retrieve again. I usually reel about 20 feet or so then stop for a few seconds, letting it rise above weedbeds, rocks, stumps, ect. To slow the rise, I like to put suspendots on. For smallmouths I don't pause as much but still will on occasion.

For riverine impoundments like the pickwick tailwaters, just find some rocky structure whether visible from shore or underwater. Any place that breaks the current provides an ambush area for smallmouth too. As for lures, I would go with 1/4 - 1/2 ounce jigheads tipped with 3 - 4" plastic grubs in white, brown pumpkin, or green pumpkin. Baitfish and crawdad imitation colors. Carry some 1/4 ounce rat l traps or super spots in shad or crawfish patterns, medium to deep running cranks like bomber fat a's, excalibur fat free shads, and the like. Also 1/4 - 3/8 ounce spinnerbaits, soft jerkbaits like flukes and senkos, and a few poppers like skitterpops and prop baits like heddon torpedos, along with buzzbaits. Oh and don't forget some #9 and #15 panther martins in gold, holographic, chartreuse, silver, black, and hot orange. Don't go underarmed but no need for a ton of lures.

Once the water hits 55 for me I will begin throwing topwaters in the evenings or during cloudy weather. The best topwater action in my mind generally occurs between 70 and 80 degrees though during cloudy or low light condtions.

Do any of you know of a lighter battery for a trolling motor that will give at least 6 hours or so of use? I'm looking for a lighter one for my one man pontoon craft.

Guns are way too far but maybe rocks aren't. Some anglers and guides have cut up their nets too that they use to capture pike in backwaters.

The suckers, chubs, and squawfish that used to live in that river are scarcely different than any other species nationwide. Yet because they are a slightly different sub species, they will kill all gamefish in the rivers so what very few are left have no competition. They have removed and killed thousands of bass, catfish, and pike. In Arizona for these fish, they are killing and throwing on the bank thousands of rainbow and brown trout in the mainstem Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. This has been going on for about 6 years. They just simply ignore the public and act like fools on some d**n idealistic crusade. Several times on the Yampa they have been shot at by farmers angry at them.

Now you know why Emperor Palpatine is my avatar. They are the ones who deserve to be electroshocked. ;D In all reality I think fairness would be having them fired, then publicly ridiculed and then reassigned to other jobs.

They electroshock the river, scoop up the smallmouth and pike, then throw them on the banks to rot.

Yep. For chubs, suckers, and squawfish (which in Oregon and Washington have bounties on them because they eat so many salmon).

Our local angling club is planning a lawsuit. Even if we lose we will get plenty of publicity.

Its been very frustrating, even though the people of Colorado are overwhelmingly against it, our senators and reps are evenly split on it, and our lousy governor supports it. We are trying to get new faces in congress, both state and federal. Shows how these faces are driving democracy out of our republic one river at a time so to speak.

Yep thats what I meant by gators. Big pike.

I've already done all that. The governor supports it and at least one of our federal senators does too, even though their constituents don't. Some of our state reps oppose it but its a case of politicians not serving their constituents. However now we are getting some legal stuff on our side and also some sporting goods stores are joining in. The removals have not helped the endangered fish increase at all. These fish are basically extinct and its the presence of dams and irrigation canals that caused it, as well as the fact that they actually poisoned the chubs and suckers back in the 60s. Now they are trying to save the fish they killed with poison and dams. The pike fishing has declined on this river but its still good. The smallmouth have not been hurt at all really, but its the mere idea of them throwing these fish on the banks and killing them that ticks me off.

Not to mention its the only quality smallmouth fishery around my area and the only one in the state that produces trophy smallmouth constistantly.

What would you guys say about a river that is fantastic smallmouth bass fishing, with scores of 3 - 5 pounders and some bigger? How about throw in that lots of pike up to 50" live in the river too, with three foot gators common? It is the best fishery for smallmouth and pike in my region, let alone my state. Now how about I tell you our fisheries managers and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are shocking, removing and killing all pike and smallmouth in the river and all our other rivers in the state, because the rivers used to have a couple species and suckers and chubs that are endangered, and were gone before the bass and pike were ever stocked? Everyone in Colorado is so angry over it they cannot see straight. And we get tired of seeing 4 pound smallmouth and 40" pike littering the banks of the river all in the name of suckers and chubs. It makes me so angry I want to just blow up.

1. Soft Jerkbaits (Senkos, flukes, sluggos, assassins) 2. Small/Medium Crankbaits (Risto Raps, Shad Raps, Fat Raps, Bomber Model As, Rebel Wee Craws, ect) 3. Rapala Skitterpop 4. Curly Tail Grubs 5. Plastic Worms 6. Spinnerbaits 7. Prop Baits 8. Buzzbaits 9. In Line Spinners 10. Plastic Lizards/creatures