bpro1

I'm up north, Jersey specifically I've fished mainly in my private lake community lake for most of my life and had majority of the success close to shore. This is the first year I'm actually going out a couple of times a week trying to find the 'big one'.

Hey all, I'd consider myself a relatively newer bass fisherman and this year I've been determined to up my craft and fish as much as I can. A few weeks ago, I posted a topic regarding only catching small bass. Up until this last weekend, I was able to snag at least 5-10 small baby bass per trip with the occasional perch... no big ones yet. Last weekend though, I went twice and didn't catch not one fish. This week, I also went again and got skunked. All of the trips have been around 4pm.. so maybe I'm just going at the wrong time. I asked this guy I see on the lake every so often if he's had any luck catching the big ones... and his response was "Yeah, they're deep.. late spawn". Since, I've attempted a variety of different lures in the deeps and still have yet to score a large one. And, to top it off, I haven't been able to catch ANY the last three trips. Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to rule out the time of day by going super early and see if my luck changes. What does "late spawn" mean and how does it affect my fishing? Is the time, early evening, not a great time to fish as well?

Thanks everyone for the tips, I'm definitely gonna attempt to use different techniques.. we'll see. This morning (around 8am), I went out and attempted to "punch" the weeds/pads and I must be doing something wrong. I don't have any special lures mentioned earlier, but I used a plastic worm with a few medium size split shots and the worm just sat on the pads. I wasn't able to have it break through and "punch".. maybe I needed more weight? I gave up pretty quickly and maybe I need more patience. Would the setup with weights/worm work or should i attempt to grab a special punching lure? Any additional tips on punching? Much appreciated!!!!

Thank you! I do have a shallow rapala lure that resembles a smaller rainbow perch which I rarely use but also haven't had much success when I do use it. Maybe the problem is that I haven't given enough patience to the lures that I don't have success with and I give up using them. Yesterday, for example, I went out from around 5pm-7:30pm and I noticed a ton of fish were active and jumping in the shallows so I threw on my jitterbug and I only was able to get one with it, and it was again, a baby. I've never caught anything on a spinner bait.. and again I would say that I gave up trying it because of it. Maybe I'm just not using the proper technique with it. I'm sure I can find some websites that teach different lure techniques, but does anyone know of any such site off hand?

Sure. I'm not quite sure exactly how deep it is, I'd like to say 15-20 feet at it's deepest. There are a lot of lilypad patches and some other areas with heavy weeds (which i avoid, maybe I shouldn't?) I'd say average water clarity is murky lately.

Hey all, new member here.. I couldn't find a thread on this already so I figured I'd make one. (Maybe i'm searching wrong?) Anyway... i'm a member of a private lake, small catch and release lake only electric motors allowed. I've fished this lake since I was a kid (20+ years) and over the last few spring/summer seasons I've noticed a huge drop off in the amount of bigger bass. I've grown up using live bait shiners with my father and between that and rubber worms, we always had great success and there were a number of decent sized bass sprinkled in. Over the last 3 years, I dedicated myself to learning how to fish with lures and in time I've tested different ones, having success with a few. I primarily use a small shallow crank and it's the only lure I've used 90% of the time, and I've learned the technique very well and always catch fish with it. The problem I've run into over the past few years is lack of large (3+ lb) bass. This is a small lake and when I say "large", I mean 3+ lbs.. that's "large" for my lake. I just can't seem the find them.. I'm always catching babies. I'm not sure if this coincides with the fact I'm using a smaller lure or if there's something else going on with the lake habitat. I've attempted to use larger lures to rule that out, but I just can't seem to catch as many fish with them. Another thing I've noticed is the increase of white/rainbow perch in the lake. Years ago, we'd rarely catch a perch, but there's a dramatic increase where I'm catching at least one per trip. Could this be a reason? Over the past many years, we've caught large and smallmouths, crappie bass, sunfish with the occasional perch and I've seen one pickerel in my 20+ years caught. I'm stumped. Maybe people are breaking the catch and release rule and bringing home the large bass? Maybe I'm not fishing in the proper place? I primarily fish on my boat casting close to shore and I've caught large bass there years ago, and again, not so much over the last few. Is the old saying "bigger the bait, bigger the fish" true? Am I using too small of a lure? Any advice would be appreciated, if I need to give more information, let me know. Thank you!