CyBasser

;D 8-)

3/0 Extra Wide Gap - both Gamakatsu and Owner work. I have also used Mustad EWG 3/0 but they are heavier than the others and increase a bit the rate of fall. But sizewise 3/0 is best....

Bluegill and Baby Bass, especially DT16....

Thanks for the replies guys... I guess I will stick to the weighless representation, though in suitable bottom condition I might give RW's suggestion for Carolina rigging a try :!!!

Nice fish, beautiful boat, wonderful scenery!

We'll see what we can do... I am an air traffic controller

We'll get a boat - we are trying to persuade the goverment to allow limited - restricted boat usage (probably no outboards for water quality control - just small boats with electric motors or even paddles or canoes), which would be under strict control. But it's quite hard, mainly due to the problems of illegal fishing we have here. In any case, if we get a boat, ESPN is welcome too, but YOU were invited first! And even if we don't get a boat, bass fishing on Cyprus still rocks You are more than welcome, as of course are all forum members. Maybe you guys should consider an "air trip" sometime soon :!

I wont be fishing much the next couple of months as the hunting season is on here. Yeah, right Vyron ;D! I can already see you back on the shores next weekend! Special thanks 2 my buddy CyBasser for the resizing and emailing me the pics. You are welcome buddy !

Vyron is indeed on a roll! He can actually catch big bass even when their mouth is tied shut (as the case was yesterday)! It was worth getting your finger cut buddy, right ;D??? LBH - nice verses! And hey, thanks to all for your nice comments on the photography ! Despite the rush since the bass would be released, the photos came out better than I thought they would in those lighting conditions - good to know how to play with the camera's manual settings....

Another two beautiful videos Russ! Great job - and the indie song is really nice too... I now know what my next electronic gadget will be.... ...a digital video camera! By the way, you should consider coming over to Cyprus for a video! What do you think :??

Vyron said: CyBasser ,we ll kick some @ss as a team in the next competition WAITING FOR THAT BUDDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/b]

Hi everybody, I am pretty sure this has been brought up before but I couldn't locate the thread. Anyway, has anybody used the Fat Ikas rigged Texas style weighted? I enjoy using them weightless, but on windy days this can be a major problem for me as I have to fish from the shore and I don't have much control on how to position myself with prevailing winds. For example yesterday it was hopeless, as I could not understand whether the thing was slowly sinking or just floating in the wind induced currents. I basically wonder whether the addition of the slightest weight (even 1/4oz or less) bullet sinker would alter their action, as I believe that slow tantalizing fall is what makes them work so well. Also, if used weighted, would it be better to have the bullet weight pegged or loose? All comments welcome! Thanks!

Hello Everybody, To Dmitri: Welcome aboard buddy ! To Island bassin: The RBL tournament will be held on Kourris, Asprokremmos, and Dhipotamos on November 15, 16, and 17 (which reservoir on which date will be determined by lottery on Tuesday night Nov 14). Nov 13 and 14 are the official practice days - as of tomorrow (Oct 30) all three reservoirs are off-limit all competitors - only Kalavasos left for us! Both Dmitri and I will be participating. Vyron is unable to participate unfortunately (or fortunately judging from his continuing successful roll with 6-7lbers!!! due to work commitments. To Vyron: It's not too late to persuade the boss!!! To Cowie: Beautiful bass for a tournament! There are much bigger bass over here, but the fact that participants have to fish from the shore makes it really hard to break the 3Kg barrier, especially on a tournament. Try to persuade your buddies to participate in the next RBL tournaments, it will be fun (if they don't mind fishing from the shore). In which magazine did you read about Cyprus Bass fishing? An article was published in the French magazine "Le Pecheur" maybe a year and a half ago. We hope to see you and your buddies coming over to fish together sometime soon...

Hi there, The pike-perch that island-bassin is referring to in his posts are not pike. They are the European species of Walleye, known as pike-perch or zander (sandre in French). They do have some sharp teeth, and they actually grow much bigger than the American Walleye, although they look pretty similar - the walleye is a bit darker, otherwise it would be hard to note other differences (scale counts etc). They are usually no problem with line, I haven't heard anybody having a line cut through their teeth, whether mono or braid, and they are often caught by bass fishermen over here. Pike would probably be another story altogether, but they wouldn't be the problem in island-bassin's problem as we don't have them here!

Congratulations for your beautiful fish! I just wish I had been more serious on bass fishing during the years I spent in the Northeast... :'(

I guess now that my buddy Vyron has become used to catching 6lb+ bass he wants to teach our big rainbows a good lesson He has been urging me to go for serious trout fishing (large rainbows) for the last few weeks and he has been building his trout arsenal. Judging from his performance on largemouth bass and zander (the european cousin of walleye), our big rainbows should go on red alert ;D! And I guess I have to get ready for some serious trout fishing too :.....

Hi Cart7, Thanks for the reply! We don't expect to have this sort of problems, as the climate of Cyprus is similar in temperatures to Florida, Texas, and S. CA. During summer daytime highs exceed 100F daily with lows in the 80s, and during a normal winter daytime highs are 70-75F with lows in 55-65F range. Rainfall is concentrated December through April. Even during the winter of 2003-2004, the coldest and wettest of the last 50 years, water temperatures did not drop below 55F. So we don't think that Floridas would have any problems here in this respect...

Hi everybody, Well, I believe it is pretty important to have a steady fishing partner who can complement your strengths and who is in the same mindset as you are. Although unlike most of you guys we have to fish from the bank (boats are not allowed on our reservoirs by law >), it is still much much better to have a partner who is not only a fishing buddy / companion, but a parner in the real sense of the word. We do a lot of walking on the shores, trying to discover new areas and so on, and it is when you are on unfamiliar ground or under tough conditions when the value of a steady, real partner can be seen. For the last one year my steady partner has been a well known member of this forum - Vyron, and it has been amazing on how many times, even though we could not see each other while fishing (due to trees or other shore obstacles) we found out that we handled each situation in very similar ways (last Thursday for example, we were on different sides of a sharp point, and when we both reached the point we found out we were both using topwaters - although we did not discuss together about it since we were not in sight of each other for 20 minutes!). And, of course, we both have slight differences in our strengths and weaknessess - For example Vyron is better than I am on weighted texas-rigged plastics while I am more productive with weighless plastics presentations. I am a good performer on lipped and deep-diving crankbaits while Vyron excels in jerkbaits. It is extremely rare that we find a situation where we cannot find solutions between us, and we are looking forward now to participating in a team tournament to be held on our reservoirs in March (still fishing from the shores). Needless to say, with this sort of communication, the fun factor also gets propelled sky-high! The above is not true with many of our friends that we often go fishing with, especially if one of us is absent. We still have fun and enjoy ourselves and the company of our other friends, but that telepathy-like communication and "mind-reading" is missing. And, of course, having a steady partner reinforces the friendship with this partner in areas other than fishing. I have been fishing since 1986, and I have been dedicated to bass fishing since 2002 (they now have to drag me to go for sea or trout fishing!). But the addition of a steady fishing partner and friend over the last 10 months has certainly added a new dimension to the pleasure of our favorite sport!

Hi everybody, Here is mine, caught August 28 2006 on a lipless crankbait. Not a giant at 5lb 10oz, but nevertheless a beauty, which was returned to grow more! Caught several more quite near that size, but still trying to break the 6lb barrier!

Thanks Keithscatch, I will get in touch with them. I am searching on behalf of the local goverment authorities, they seem now to be positive about such an introduction, and they will do all the necessary procedures, provided someone does locate the stocks for them! (They would search themselves, but knowing how bureocracy works here, especially in the goverment, by the time they completed the search FLMB would evolve into a different species)...

It's sad story, but nevertheless, this must be some form of human nature. As mentioned in a previous reply, there is a tendency among many anglers to stretch the size of their catch a lot, sometimes due to ignorance of the actual weights, more often just to inflate their egos. Here in Cyprus bass fishing is growing rapidly in popularity, and over the last couple of years we have heard stories of bass that would have been candidates for WR! Of course all these bass have gotten away etc... Then you meet anglers bragging that they caught 5 Kg (11lb) bass and when they see you catching a 4lber they start drooling about that great fish, which is less than half of what they claim they caught. In a particular tackle store I was told of a great winter day with a string of more than a dozen 4-kilo bass being caught (on livebait), and they proudly showed me a photo of them. Well, none of those fish would exceed 1.5Kg, let alone 4Kg! Yet they insisted that those fish weighted more than 4Kg! We will have to live and accept that these people will always be around. Perhaps the best way to deal with them is to ignore them, prove them wrong if necessary, and, if the stakes are high (as was the case with the WA state record SM) move on and tell the honest truth as the guys in the story did. Needless to say, there is always the other side of the coin - certain people would do anything to downgrade someone's special catch, usually because they are envious they didn't catch the fish. Very recently a buddy caught his P.B. (6lb) on 8lb mono in an area full of brush. He played it very expertly and landed it without a problem. Yet, people who know him and are supposed to be friends of him insisted that it was only due to sheer luck as this particular angler was, in their words, "incapable" of catching such a fish. I was there and I must admit I admired him for his technique in fighting that fish - not a touch of luck there. I can imagine that in cases like records etc there would be people who would say that the record-catcher was a cheater due to their own reasons. I believe Bassmaster had a few months ago the story of what happenned with the WR smallmouth. Too bad that these things occur, but then, we don't live in a perfect world...

Hi everybody, Does anybody know of dependable hatcheries (state or private) that provide pure-bred Florida Bass fingerlings for sale? Any information (ie names, email addresses, phone numbers, anything!) would be very appreciated!

At least you are allowed to catch them... But it's kind of sad that all bass *must* be killed by law. We have the opposite sort of problem here, most people keep every bass they catch. Of course, bass being bass, they are often quite hard to catch. Yet, unfortunately, there are those days that they would slam any lure they see, and some people take advantage of it to catch a lot, even giving them away. I can think of some people that I should send over to Japan to satisfy their greed! Of course it is true that often exotic / introduced species do cause lots of damage. Here in Cyprus, we have had this problem with the red swamp crawfish. They were introduced in a small reservoir about 15 years ago, and now you can find them in many waterways. They are very useful as a food source for bass, but they did serious damage by outcompeting the local endemic freshwater crab, which has now become extinct in some areas where crawfish appeared. Even the bass did a lot of damage in one particular reservoir after they were inadvertently introduced there around 1998. The reservoir hosted the largest population of an endemic species of watersnake which is heavily endangered (only surviving in four areas in small numbers). After bass were introduced in that reservoir, within five years, no watersnake survived there. Fishing is now prohibited in the particular lake, but before one of the best lures was the 12 - inch plastic worms in watermelon / black or all black - colors vert similar to the two color forms of the snake... Oh well... I just hope things change in Japan before bass populations get hurt from the new laws...

Tilapia do occasionally attack bass lures. A fishing buddy caught a 1lb 10oz Tilapia on a 3/8oz spinnerbait at Asprokremmos reservoir here in Cyprus while fishing for bass. The amazing thing is that although Tilapia have a rather small mouth, it took the whole thing and was caught in the mouth!

Laggyman, what do you mean "It is illegal to catch Bass in Japan now"??? I thought that bass fishing is a very popular sport in Japan with many dedicated bass anglers there and a thriving bass tackle industry - we even occasionally order bass equipment direct from Japan. I know that they are considered as something of a pest in that they did damage to local endemic species, but even taking that into account, not fishing for them would certainly not alleviate that problem. The whole world has seen, in the face of Takahiro Omori, what sort of really dedicated bass anglers come from Japan. It would be crazy to prohibit bass fishing, they would halt the progress of a very popular sport...