king fisher

I wouldn't change the gear you are using. If you are already getting bit you may change how many bites you get by switching gear. I would start by changing your hook set, then try changing gear if that doesn't work. I don't set the hook the instant I feel a strike with a bladed jig. I like to wait until I feel some weight of the fish, similar to the way I set the hook with a topwater bait. Most of the time a bass will hit a moving bait, and turn to run off with it. If you wait for them to turn and run, which you will feel as some slowly increasing weight rather than a sharp jab, you will get a solid hook set in the corner of the mouth. Don't wait to long, because they can spit it at any time. I like to feel the sharp strike, wait for the rod to load a little then set the hook hard. This works for me, but of course may not work for you. We have all seen the old video of a bass inhaling a crankbait and quickly spitting it out without the angler even realizing he was hit. This makes people think they have to have a more sensitive rod, and set the hook lightning quick. In reality that bass is gone. There is no way to detect, then set the hook on a bite that happens that fast. It is better to give a bass a second to turn, and make sure you hook the ones that don't instantly spit the lure out rather than try harder to catch the ones that do.

Don't let the Monkey win. No trailer.

The first one is a Manns Pogo shad. I don't know on the second one.

I took my boss out for the first trip since April. We caught a few rooster fish and snapper on the first day. We spent the next two days off shore covering many miles of ocean, but not finding any fish. Finally on the way back home, we landed a 250 - 300 pound Blue Marlin. I should have let the marlin go, but fishing had been painfully slow, I didn't have any fish to give my crew, and my wife was looking forward to some fresh fish. I should be a politician. I am constantly criticizing other captains for keeping bill fish, and this is the second time this year, I come pulling in to the dock with a blue marlin, and lame excuses.

I buy whatever the Bait Monkey tells me to buy when he tells me to buy no matter the cost.

I can use as many hooks as I want to in Nayarit, There are also no size restrictions, or limits. You are supposed to have a fishing license, but I have not met a single angler who has bought one for fishing in freshwater.

I even get skunked on partly cloudy days as well as partly sunny days.

It may depend more on what prey is available, and what the bass are hunting. When I still hunt for whitetail deer, cloudy rainy days are best. The low light, and wet ground make it easier for me to be quite and get close to the deer. When I am glassing for mule deer in open country, clear skies make for better use of optics. The bass are the best hunters in their environment. They will use clouds, or clear skies to their advantage. They have to eat, and will not go hungry. They can't hunt down and eat your worm if you are not on the water.

I'm always living on the very edge of a backlash. That extra foot doesn't mean anything to the bass, but for some reason means everything to me.

I would bring line and rods that will best fish the lures you are fishing. I know you don't want to be undergunned, but it doesn't do you any good to try and fish a popper or midsize crankbait with 20 lbs. test line and a broomstick rod. If you fish 15 pound test line on a medium rod at home for a certain technique that is what you should fish with in Mexico. The bass are bigger, they fight harder, and the brush can shred you line, but you can't fish a technique with to big of gear, because you are scared of losing a big bass. Yes you need to bring heavy gear, but also bring some medium size line and rods, to maximize your ability to fish more techniques. I use a medium fast rod, with 15 pound test Fluorocarbon for squarebills here. I landed my personal best on this setup along with many other DD bass. I choose the size of my tackle by how well it will fish the bait I intend to fish, not the size of the fish. You can catch a bass on a flippin stick with twenty pound line, throwing a 3/8 oz popper, or it is possible to work a jerkbait with a heavy rod, and 20 pound line, but you will hook and land more bass with these lures on gear that is designed for those techniques. Don't leave you bass fishing common sense at the border. A 3/8 oz bait casts best on a rod designed for a 3/8 oz bait, regardless of how big the bass are. A crankbait will dive deeper on lighter line here in Mexico, the same as it will in the States. You can't catch them if you don't hook them. Many techniques such as spinnerbaits, can be fished on medium or heavy tackle. Err on the side of heavy for those techniques. A 3/4 oz spinnerbait will cast and fish well on a heavy rod and 25 pound test line. Most of the time you will be power fishing, with lures that work well with heavy gear. Bring the heavy gear for your main setups, but be prepared to downsize some, not much, but medium with 15 pound test will catch you some giant bass.

Crankbaits.

I use kites helium balloons, and helium balloons attached to kites for offshore tuna fishing. I have wanted to try a drone. The problems I have with the drones that I have researched are. 1 battery life is not long enough. 2 Landing back on a pitching boat could be difficult. 3 Is not capable of carrying a larger hard swimming live bait. 4 Not able to withstand the abuse of constant use on the ocean. 5 To expensive to risk losing. Some if not all of these problems have been resolved with a couple new fishing drones. I'm still waiting for friends to buy one first and give it a try. Helium is becoming more expensive and with both kites and balloons you can only fish down wind of the boat. I don't know how many times I just get the kites out, and see the tuna crashing the surface upwind of my boat. A drone would be perfect for much of my offshore fishing.

I bought a used Lunker Lure buzzbait that came with a lott of lures I bought off of Ebay a few years ago. I don't know what the original owner of the bait did to make it squeak, but it was the loudest buzzbait I have ever heard. It sounded like a thousand mice were swimming at the same time. That bait caught bass when no other topwater bait would. It was a sad day when I lost it.

I have seen times when bass fishing that color made a big difference, but I have never seen a time when subtle changes in color made much of a difference. A couple of times I have had bass only hit a lure with red or orange on it. The lure didn't have to be all red, but is sure had to have some red on it. I have witnessed rainbow trout be so selective, that the difference in color would not be noticable by a person simply glancing at the bait. In Alaska before the salmon spawn the rainbow trout will hit almost anything as long as it is driftern close enough to them and in a natural drag free manner. Everything from a minnow imitation to a large mouse pattern will get bit. Then the salmon spawn starts and they will only hit salmon egg patterns. Float a mouse pattern over their head and they wont even take a look. You would think imitating a salmon egg would be easy. An orange piece of tightly tied yarn, or an orange plastic bead looks to my eyes exactly like a salmon egg. A person can get lucky and catch some grayling and char on such simple imitations, but in order to catch a big rainbow you would be wasting your time. When I first started fishing salmon egg patterns, I would put glue on my yarn tied flies, trying to make them appear more realistic. I had heard about this deadly secret from a friend, and it worked ok but I was looking for something better. The next be revolution in salmon egg patterns was the use of plastic beads. It would take some time experimenting, but eventually I could find the right color of bead to have a good day of fishing. The real breakthrough came when someone figured out they could put a coat of pearl nail polish on a plain orange plastic bead and the rainbows would bite it even with a poor presentation. The difference was night and day. To this day I have never seen something make such a difference in any type of fishing. If something like this ever hits the bass tournament world, it will be banned med season. The word spread faster than a wildfire on a windy day. Within a week every bottle of nail polish in every store in Rural Alaska was bought up. Workers in the stores must have wondered what every rough looking fishing guide was doing looking over every bottle of finger nail polish. The color had to be just right, and the only way to tell for sure was for an experienced eye to actually see what the polish looked like out of the bottle. Many times guides would simply have to buy a few colors because they weren't allowed to open the bottles. At first a guide might be embarrassed and ask one of the girls at a lodge to pick up a couple bottles of polish, but after the full on rainbow bite developed, any guide worth fishing with didn't care in the least what anyone thought about him trying out fingernail polish in public. A guide would walk out of the store with a different color on every fingernail, and may a couple colors on his toes. We even had arguments over what brand of a certain color was best, Even the girls we had originally begged the bottles off of didn't know the names and difference like the guides did. Many could explain the differences in between a clear pearl, or a cloudy pearl color with more descriptive words than a legendary artist could. How the fish could tell the difference, or even care if they could, I do not know. But I will tell you they could. Throw an unpolished bead upstream of a big rainbow, and he might take a look but wouldn't bite it even if he had to move out of the away to keep from getting hit. Cast a painted bead in, and the same fish would swim five feet to pick it up. Even a painted bead with an ever so slight shade different color would not get a strike. No a person can buy any one of 100 different colors of beads, designed for imitating salmon eggs. The Bait Monkey loves taking craft beads costing next to nothing painting them and selling then in small packages at fly shops for big money. They all have that pearl haze over orange the trout want, and no longer does a guide come to a lodge at the beginning of the year, with a small pack of clothes, and a suitcase full of nail polish. I know there are many bass anglers that have their favorite green pumpkin soft plastic color, or maybe will only buy one brand of Junebug but I have never seen the Bassmaster Classic won by a certain shade of green pumpkin, and the whole rest of the field get skunked because they didn't have access to the one and only shade of green pumpkin I try and keep my color selection for bass fishing simple, and pray that I never meet a bass that eats salmon eggs.

A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean. I know it was a movie, while the movie is a movie about life with some fishing thrown in, the book is about a fisherman's life. I was working as a big game guide in Alaska when a client gave me this book. He said he gives them to people every time he goes on hunting or fishing trip. Within a week every person at the camp had read A River Runs Through it, and said it was one of the best books they had ever read. Two years later the movie came out. I haven't met a fisherman yet that doesn't like this book.

Have you fished for other species of fish? If you haven't maybe you should start off fishing for something in your area that is more willing to bite. Stocked trout, or panfish will hit a worm under a bobber almost any time. They can be fun, easy to catch and taste great. Once you get hooked on fishing then spend some time chasing bass. If there are bass in your area they will hit the worm under a bobber along with other species. Fishing is supposed to be fun, but can frustrating at times. If it gets to be more frustrating than fun, change it up until it is fun again. If you are already an experienced anger who now wants to specialize in bass fishing, than just keep fishing. Your day will come.

Not to take away any credit to Doug Hannon. He was an incredibly skilled angler that new far more about bass fishing than I ever will. He also caught more DD bass than I will ever dream of. I have great appreciation for his angling skills. This was his favorite lure.

I am reminded of the old story about the tortoise and the hare but with a twist. The tortoise may have won the race, but I would wager the hare had more fun. Fish how you like to fish. If you are not having fun, try something else.

The Bait Monkey lives at my house all the time.

I think you need more bobber stops.

If you ever come to Mexico to bass fish, you can leave that box at home.

Believe it or not, I actually caught big bass when I was a kid trolling from shore. I fished a small lake where the bank was steep and dropped off 5 to 10 feet within a couple of feet of the shore. The bank was rocky, with some irregular small bays and points. I would walk to each point and cast a spinnerbait parallel to shore. This stretch of shoreline was my big bass place and if the wind was blowing hard could produce all along the bank. One day I decided to fish while walking between points. There was a cattle trail along the bank, and the walking was fairly easy. I would cast my spinnerbait out, hold my rod out as far as possible, then walk slowly feeling my spinnerbait bounce along the bottom. If I couldn't feel bottom I would slow my walk, until I started making contact again. When I would get to the next point I would slowly reel the lure in and make one cast back towards where I had been and a couple towards the the part of the bank I had not walked yet. Then would start trolling to the next point. After going to the end of the 1/2 mile bank, I would work my way back doing the same thing. I left my tackle box on the bank where I started and when I got back to the box, would change lures and do it all over again. I landed my PB that lasted for 43 years old while trolling a black and yellow Colorado blade spinnerbait from the bank. Yes, I like to cover a lot of water while fishing from shore.

I would wake up realize it was a dream and go back to sleep.

I often use braid for my main line with C Rigs. It works great most of the time. The biggest reason I use braid is the same rod I use with my C Rigs, I also use as my flipping and punching rod. If I'm fishing around sharp rocks, I don't like to use braid for the mainline because the rocks cut the braid. I may still use the same rod, but will go braid to leader, on the mainline. I don't like to do this because now I have basically two leaders, but I only have so many rods in my kayak. If I plan on fishing a place where I know the rocks are bad, and I'm going to use a C Rig I will bring a rod with Fluorocarbon for the mainline. If the rocks are bad, and I have to use the rod with braid, I check the last foot of line for damage and retie often.

A 7 foot medium fast for poppers, spooks, and ploppers. A 7.5 foot medium heavy fast for buzzbaits and any other baits over 3/4 oz. Both rods are used for many other moving baits. I do not have any rods specifically for topwater only. My baits include Pop R, Storm Chug Bug, Storm Arishi Cover Pop, Heddon Zara Spook, Rebel Jumpin minnow, River2sea Whopper Plopper, Berkley Choppo, Arbogast Jitterbug, Cordell Redfin, Heddon Torpedo, Heddon Spit'n Image, Smithwick Devils Horse, and Megastrike Cavitron buzzbaits. On some lakes and streams I will take a medium spinning rod, with original floating Rapala's in several sizes.