king fisher

I was flying my cub to a river in AK. Winds were calm clear sky all was good allowing my mind to wonder. The engine sputtered. I Reflexively lowered the nose and switched fuel tanks. Engine went back to humming the way it should. My passenger woke up from his nap and asked what was up. I replied I was just wondering If we should start with fly or spinning.

I use the 7 inch only because they don’t make an 8 inch.

I have seen salmon spawning with enough tackle to stock a shop. The mortality rate on spawning salmon is 100 percent so it would be impossible to tell if they could live for years. The salmon had travelled 100 miles up stream from where they were hooked so apparently the tackle is not doing much harm. I think the male salmon with most hardware probably gets the best looking girls. Fish are tough. I am sure the damage to my ego is far greater than the damage to a monster Bass that breaks off. Of course if it breaks me off it must be DD.

A friend told me about a lake with giant bass then showed me picture of his wife with one well over 10 pounds I went to check it out and there were signs no fishing allowed. I was gong to leave but decided I would talk to a man loading his truck. I asked him if it was OK to fish if I let the bass go. He told me he was the manager of the lake and I was welcome to fish as long as I killed any bass I catch. I was not allowed to keep tilapia. Only a few people had limmited permits to commercial fish for Tilapia, and they want the illegally planted bass gone. The lake is a big bass paradise that I have practically to myself and I don’t have to pay a dime. My friend who told me about the lake fishes salt water and only goes bass fishing a couple times a year. I don’t know how much money they make off of the tilapia but I would wager the double digit bass are worth more.

My favorite is the old Bagley Balsa B 2. I have a few left, but don't fish them much at my local lake because there are to many abandoned gill nets to snag. With the right touch, a balsa square bill can be worked through unbelievably thick cover, but are no match for a ball of gill net hung in underwater tree branches. For economic reasons I use a lot of Academy sports H20 squarebills. I prefer them over many brands of crankbaits regardless of cost. My problem with Academy is they don't ship to CA. Most of my gear is brought down by a friend that lives in CA and has another home here in PV. My only chance to get Academy baits is when I go to the states myself. I even had a large order sent all the way to a friends house in Alaska, and I picked them up there, and brought them down to PV in my luggage. Sounds expensive, but the shipping was free, and I had to go to Alaska for work anyway. This year I got hooked on 6th. Sense square bills I love the hooks, and the mini mag size has caught me two over 10, and dozens over 6 pounds. I have also landed many fish on all of their other sizes. It does hurt the pocket book, when I loose one but I never think about the cost when I'm on the water.

I don’t get a chance to bass fish very often. When I do I like to make the most of it. I leave the house at 4 AM get to the lake at daylight. Fish untill dark eat my lunch in the kayak. Set up a tent spend the night start fishing at daylight.Leave at 4 PM get home at 8 PM a very tired angler.

I do not have the experience to any give informative information on visibility of line for bass. When I bass fish I use all 3 types of lines for reasons not related to visibility. For Yellow fin tuna I do have the experience, about visibility of line and have strong opinions on the subject. I also assume tuna have equal size brains, so I wont consider brain size a factor. If you are fishing for tuna that have received fishing pressure from sport anglers, and have dodged nets their entire life, they will not hit a live bait tied straight to any braided line. Many days they will not hit a live bait tied to a mono leader, and some days I have had to drop down from 130 to 50 pound floro to get bit. If I go 300 miles off shore to a set of islands that are normally off limits to fishing, they will hit 130 pound floro and mono leaders, but not braid on live baits. If the baits are suspended under a balloon or kite making them only visible on the surface line makes no difference as long as you pay attention and keep the baits flopping on the surface. If I am trolling lures at 8 kts, on the surface or under the surface I don't care what type of line I have on and neither do the tuna. I will even use 200lbs. wire leader if Wahoo are in the area. Bottom line is while drifting or slow trolling live bait, the tuna have lots of time to decide if they want to eat, and take a very good look before they attack. If a lure is moving fast they quickly strike and line makes no difference. It is easy to tell if the line is making the difference because I will have several rods out with the same bait and hook, making the line the only variable. Some days are tough and going down in line size means loosing fish, it is difficult to land a 200 pound fish on 50 pound, but You have to get bit in order to catch. Pressured fish learn quick. I don't know how, or if they are smart or not, but I do know they adapt to pressure. 15 years ago an angler in my area would use 200 lbs mono leaders, thought kites were toys for kids, and wouldn't even know where to get a helium tank filled. Now even the small panga commercial fisherman have kites, helium, and fish light floro carbon. The fish have adapted some how, even if they do have small brains. I can only guess that the chance of a bass being line shy in clear water with slow moving lures would be higher when compared to fast moving lures especially lures on the surface. As others have said heavy line that would impede action or fall rate will have much greater negative effect than line visibility. In the muddy water I bass fish, I assume line visibility is not a factor. One more opinion formed from actual experimentation in a swimming pool. Braided line is highly visible no matter what color. In clear water white braid is the hardest to see especially looking toward the surface. Green is the most visible in a pool, but obviously may be the least visible mixed in with green vegetation or on a dark bottom ( I don't think using a black marker to mark the last few feet of line will help. Doesn't everyone say bass see black worms best?) Floro is less visible than mono, but not by much with my human eyes. I don't know how the fish see it, but I do know even poor Mexican commercial fisherman spend their hard earned money on very expensive fluorocarbon and the only reason is for visibility.

Get the windsurfers phone number. wind sports people are the best weatherman on the planet. They pray all week for strong winds while you pray for light winds.

Boat with animals

A bullet proof vest. Because I would need one if I bought one more reel.

Predicting general weather over a large area can be fairly accurate depending on time of year and where you live. With a complete weather briefing and studding some charts myself, I would have great confidence in an accurate assessment 24 hrs in advance in non mountainous terrain, in winter. Add summertime temps. mountains, and large bodies of water, and accuracy goes way down. Predicting weather for small specific locations is even more difficult and inaccurate. I spent many years hang gliding. Predicting the weather for flying in Southern CA in the winter was good but I still spent many days sitting at launch hang waiting instead of hang gliding. Arrow towing in central Florida was a different story. We would all be sure the next day would be epic. Some days the weatherman was right, but many days he wasn't. The thermals made by the sun heating the ground we depended on for flying would start about noon. Some days they would cause clouds to over develop blocking the sun making for short flights. Some days they would develop in to thunderstorms which of course would be deadly, other days we flew for hours. The weather man would predict morning sunshine with clouds in the afternoon, with possibility of thundershowers in the afternoon, winds from light in the morning to 10 -30 mph in the afternoon. Those predictions were 90% correct. Problem was the difference between 10 mph winds, and 30 mph winds in a hang glider are significant. Fishing is no different. Sunny skies with a possibility of afternoon thunder storms can be a great day of fishing unless you happen to be in the middle of an afternoon thunderstorm. How accurate the weather man is depends a lot on what your expectations of accuracy are. Some places in the country are so difficult you could use a dart board to predict the weather.

It is easy to remember the times the weather service is wrong. More difficult to remember when they are right. I was always full of bravado when I made it through a mountain pass when flight service said VFR flight not recommended. I always quickly forgot the times I ticked my pants and kissed the ground when I finally was able to land on the other side. Predicting weather is not easy, and way better than it was only a few years ago.

Where are you live and the time of the year is a big factor on how accurate weather reports are some places can be very accurate three days ahead of time other places not very accurate even a couple hours ahead of time. When I lived in Alaska I had to fly over hundreds of miles of wilderness I would check with flight service two or three times before I left and look at the weather maps myself it was up to me to make the decision whether to go. Many times I pushed the weather other times I didn’t sometimes when I filed the flight plan they read me the weather again thinking that I missed understood them and I’d make it to my destinations other times I would either have to turn around or many times stranded on a gravel bar camping in the bushes weather prediction is not an exact science for anybody. Here in Mexico we all out get our weather through different online sources. Some people think by checking more sites they have more information. And because it’s on the Internet it must be correct even out to two weeks. I have my favorite site that is fairly accurate for winds and wave heights but I don’t take that as gospel and always have a back up plan.

I tie on the latest most expensive lure some one on tv says is new and revolutionary I purchased just for those times when not even dynamite works.

Live night crawler with bobber. Bring a stringer and a fillet knife. Relax. Catch some fish have fun and eat a good meal you didn’t have to buy in a plastic package. If fishing becomes your passion you will meat the Bait monkey soon bough.

I mostly use 6th sense Cloud nine series they work great, but do pull hard. Rapala DT series dive to advertised depths and do not pull as hard. Spro Rock Crawler is small in size, doesn't wear you out and crushes the fish, but I haven't been able to get one to dive over 12 feet. I use these and many more. I haven't found a perfect one yet, but the Bait Monkey wont let me give up the search.

My wife watched me take this picture. She asked why I had so many chartreuse lures. I told her that color was what worked best. She replied, if that is the case why do you have so many other colors. I told her there are days when I try chartreuse and it doesn't work. Her reply was on those days why don't you simply come home early, it isn't like you have to catch bass, you don't even keep the bass for dinner. Hard to argue with logic like that.

When bass are feeding on slow moving prey on a snaggy bottom spoons are a bad choice. When they are feeding on shiny bait fish in open water they excel. Trout spend more time in open water, so spoons are used for them more often. Bass spend more time on the bottom in snags around cover so spoons are not as popular for them. If you can manage to wiggle a spoon in front of an actively feeding bass and not get snagged the bass will bite. In-line spinners work best fished Shallow. Will catch anything that swims in small streams. Excels in current but will catch lots of bass in calm water too

My recommendation may sound crazy but works well for me both salt and fresh water. 9 foot lamilglass rod M. Fast. 3/8 - 3/4 ounce lure rating. Diawa coastal 200 reel. 40 pound Diawa J 8 braid. Rebel Jumping Minow lure. I have landed many bass up to 9 pounds and over a dozen salt water species on this set up. The rod and reel are mid priced and the lure is dirt cheap but walks as good as any. This set up casts almost as far as one of my surf rods. Super Spook would be my second and far more popular choice for lure. Don’t be intimidated by such a long rod. They are 2 piece and cast a mile.

I’m tied up at the dock right now in Nuevo Vallarta as hurricane Nora is coming through should be hitting the peak here in a couple hours I have an arm in a sling making me feel worthless but my trusty deckhand is managing to take up my slack so far all the ropes are holding and nothing is blowing away. Power is out all over so my wife’s at home with no power i’ll run the generator on the boat so I’ll have power but I’ll be outside most of the night in the weather taking care of the boat I captain and doing what little I can to help others. Good thing Nora is a small hurricane compared to what the guys in Louisiana are going to have to go through everybody stay safe.

I have no doubt that for some anglers 1/16 oz of worm weight difference can and has been been the difference between getting skunked, and filling the boat. I'm sure that the difference has won or lost more than one tournament. My problem is I am not a skilled enough worm fisherman to know which one to use. so I rely on random luck when I choose between the two. Now if you ask me if there is a difference between 3/8 and 1/2 ounce spinnerbaits, My reply would be a complete night and day difference, and I would give 101 reasons when, where, and why to choose one over the other. Add blades to the equation and that discussion could easily go down an endless rabbit whole. I am currently working on my worm fishing skills, and hope to someday be able to use experience and skill rather than intuition and luck when deciding on a worm weight. My problem is the big Mexican bass. where I fish have never seen any lures, and love to crush crankbaits, spinnerbaits, and top waters. Making it hard for me to be patient enough to learn to fish worms. I guess I could have worse problems.

If you want your braid to last forever buy hollow braid. Currently 65 pound is the smallest anyone makes (Jerry Brown may make smaller, I'm not sure.) but for frog fishing, or punching it works great. It only takes a couple minuets to splice hollow braid to hollow braid, if you have the right size needle with a loop. A hollow to hollow braid splice is 100% strong, and is so small it is almost impossible to find where the splice is. When the last few feet of line goes bad, simply cut it out and splice in however many feet you need to replace. You can also insert a floro leader in to hollow braid for a knotless Leeder connection if you really want to get fancy. All that said, for most of my bass fishing, I agree with the OP and just say no to leaders.

When I lived in Alaska I was constantly looking for new places to fish. I always carried flagging tape with me. I would check out an area where I thought I could land, go in light no gear minimum fuel. Once safely on the ground I would clear what ever I could to make the runway longer and mark the best approach with the flagging tape. I stranded myself more than once having to wait a day or two for the wind to change in order to take off again. I always made it back and have great memories of fishing places never fished before. A good friend or mine found a great place and we were worried other pilots would see our tracks and start fishing there. We got the bright idea to place driftwood in strategic places that made it very difficult to land but possible and safe if you new exactly how to do it. Worked great for years as long as we were flying Cubs. One day may friend tried it with a Cesna 180 and hit one of the logs he put there to deter others. We dessasembled the plane and managed to fly all the parts out with bigger pieces duck taped to the fussulage of out Cubs. It took many trips and we had to stash gas at gravel bars along the route but eventually managed to fly all the pieces out and not even the Wildlife refuge manager ever found out about the crash. I miss those days when there were still unexplored streams and I was young and fearless. Now I spend my spare time exploring unknown lakes in Mexico that have D.D. bass. I have located two that receive 0 sport fishing pressure, and a couple more that do get fished, but no lodges or guides. I just got a lead on another one where a local commercial fisherman caught a bass that was 6.3 kilos. I plan on fishing that lake as soon as I am able. The summer is my slow season for work, and I had planned on exploring a dozen unknown lakes, but I injured my shoulder and haven't been able to fish for over a month. Looks like I wont be able to bass fish for two more months, then I will be busy with work. I guess the best thing I can hope for is the bass will only be bigger by the time I get to give the lakes a try next year. I guess I could have used way less words and said exploring new fishing and hunting spots is my favorite thing to do.

Original floating Rapala, Hulla Poper, Tiny Torpedo, small Jitterbug, and best of all a live grasshopper.

If I forget my camera I will catch many fish. If I forget my scale, I will catch big fish. If I forget both I will catch my PB. I don't bring anything special for luck, I do try my best to leave all my problems on land.