nboucher

Bass Man, have you considered a kayak? I used to fish from an Old Town Kingfisher canoe, but I found it not that easy to maneuver alone. Last summer I got an Old Town Loon 111 kayak, which I can easily lift onto my car rack and carry down to ponds singlehandedly. It is more stable and easier to fish from than a canoe when it's windy, and you're sitting close to the water, which makes landing fish a breeze. I also mounted a Scotty rod mount on the kayak and a FishEasy fishfinder, which has turned it into a fishing machine. (You can see a little of it in my Avatar.) The Loon also comes with a cord and hooks that allow you hook your paddle out of the way when you're fishing. I put my paddle there and fine tune my position sculling quietly with my hand while fishing. All in all, I love fishing from it. The only time it's a pain is when the wind is howling, but aside from that I've fished in it rain or shine, from 40 degrees out to 90.

Terrific post. Like you, I did other kinds of fishing, but didn't really focus on bass fishing until about a year ago. I think I started to feel confident about two months ago, when I started catching bass regularly on Senkos and husky jerks. Before that I threw spinnerbaits and reeled them in, and sometimes bass grabbed 'em going by. I think feeling as if I could work a bait made a big difference in my confidence level. Having said that, confidence is still two steps forward and one backward for me. Just when I think I know what I'm doing, I'll stop catching fish and start scratching my head again.

Thanks. Husker, in the kayak I'm probably either drifting or moving not much faster than trolling speed. I'll look for more subtle marks on the screen.

Thanks, Matt. I'll give 'em a shot!

I recently put an Eagle FishEasy 245DS on my kayak, and it seem to be working fine--temperature and depth readings look fine, it seems to be reading underwater structure and bottom really well. The transducer is not tilted at any angle and seems to be functioning fine. But I don't think I've seen a single fish arch on it yet, and I find it hard to believe that in the many hours I've been using there aren't any fish to be seen. In fact, when I turn on the fish track option, the unit seems to find fish okay, which makes me think I'm either not reading the screen right or the arches are really small or their hidden in the structure readings. Any thoughts or advice?

I just bought some baby brush hogs. Are they good to use in and around pads? Do you just t-rig them and work them as you would a Senko? Weighted or not?

Part of the answer I think depends on your experience. I've heard pros say that one of the mistakes beginners make is to give up too early on a lure. As a relative newbie myself, I think part of the fishing experience is just getting familiar with various lures and baits and working out their best presentation. I know that often if I'm not catching fish, the problem is not the lure but the way I'm working it. So I tend to analyze the conditions and time of day, pick something and really work it for a while. I also limit the number of alternatives I take with me both to keep things simple and to resist the temptation to just jump from lure to lure. I think having a bunch of rigged rods on board makes sense for really experienced fishermen and pros, because they have extensive experience with all of them and know why they're switching. But to catch fish steadily on the long run, sometimes you have to be a little less impatient on the short run and work on skills like presentation. At least that's what I seem to be doing . . . (Or maybe I'm just rationalizing days when I'm not catching much. )

I agree about doing whatever is necessary to keep a body of water from being overfished, or fished in a way that harms the population of healthy bass. As for secrets on how to catch fish, I think it's just not necessary to withhold any knowledge whatsoever. I happen to be reading John McPhee's The Founding Fish, a great book about shad and shad fishing, and he has a great bit in there about the day he went out with one of the best shad fishermen on the Delaware River. He used the same shad dart as this guy, stood just a short ways away him, imitated him as best he could, and even though McPhee is a longtime experienced shad fisherman, he caught nothing. Meanwhile this other guy kept pulling in shad after shad. Finally the other guy had to leave, so McPhee went and stood in the exact location the guy had been fishing from and cast to the exact same spot he'd been casting tobefore leaving the guy had told McPhee precisely where he'd been casting and just how he'd been working the dart. McPhee fished there a couple more hours without catching a single fish. :-/ The point is that difference between success and failure in fishing can be very subtle, just as it is, say, in hitting a baseball. As in baseball, there's a ton to be learned, but some guys just have a tiny bit better instinct for applying that learning. Or maybe the fish can sense who it is at the end of the line! Anyway, it's that mystery, the elusive nature of success, that makes fishing so addictive, I think. The secrets can get you started, but as someone already said, no two people apply the same secrets exactly the same way.

Nice work, Mase! Catching a fish on first cast is usually a sign that I'm not going to catch anything else for a while, but you even beat that jinx . . .

Does it have any lily pads? I have a similar pond very near me (in eastern Mass.) that I like to sneak out to after work for an hour or so, where I have found t-rigged Sluggos very effective when worked around vegetation, especially lilly pads. I also agree that the area around the river inlet is a good place to concentrate. Maybe work that water with a spinnerbait until you find where the bass are and then switch over to a t-rigged Senko or Sluggo or something similar. Let us know how you do!