king fisher

A lake I fish is deep with steep banks, and bluffs. I have caught nice size bass on a variety of lures, but have never been able to find a particular area or pattern that consistently produces. I have spent several hours watching the bass and baitfish, from high up on the banks. The large bass seem to spend a majority of their time slowly cruising up and down the bank, a few yards out just below the color line. The water is there is about 40 feet deep when it changes color. The larger bass will be barely visible for a short while at around 6 feet deep suspended over the deep water, then disappear again into the darkness. The bait fish are mostly Tilapia that hug the shore in 6 inches or less water. My theory is the big bass hide suspended in the shadow of the deep water, while hunting the shoreline. When a Tilapia happens to swim to far from shore and the bass is cruising by it is a bad day for that bait fish. This would explain the randomness of my success in the past, because the baitfish and bass don't seem to school up in classic locations like points, humps, etc. When I catch a bass I simply have been lucky enough to present my lure in front of the bass while she is swimming by. The Tilapia don't seem to school up on the shore, they are simply in a line along the shore on random stretches' of shoreline. I have spent way to much time strategizing how to catch these trophy bass consistently, and the Bait Monkey has convinced me I need to try a large glide bait. The theory is with the glide bait I could cover large portions of the shoreline casting parallel to the color line, and even if I don't get a strike I would be sure to get some follows which could lead to catching many bass on other lures. Does anyone have any recommendations on which glide bait to try? I would like to keep the cost under $75 but might be convinced to go up to $100 if I need to. I will only want to try one for now, but will buy two of the right one in case I loose the first one. The banks I will be fishing are almost snag free rocky banks, so unless I cast one off or break off a giant bass I don't anticipate loosing any glide baits making the original cost a little less painful. I will be fishing the lure 4 to 8 feet deep most of the time. The water visibility is 6 to 8 feet, water surface temp, 74- 80 degrees, sunny most days, the main bait forage is Tilapia 4-6 inches in length. The size of bass I will be targeting are 8-13 pounds, but bass up to 15 pounds have been caught. I have the gear to fish baits up to 6 0Z, and am not interested in catching smaller bass so I wont mind fishing larger baits if they are recommended. The Tilapia are mostly light colored, but there are some that are dark. I wont need an exact match of a Tilapia color. Lighter bluegill patterns will work fine for matching the color. I have done some online research and am leaning towards lures with a wide glide pattern designed to be used in open water, but am open to any suggestions. Most of my online research has been done watching videos, and sometimes it is hard to determine if on lure is recommended simply because that person is sponsored by a particular company. In other words. I trust the opinion of the members on this forum more than fisherman on You Tube. Glide baits are very expensive, and I have been resisting the Bait Monkey for a long time, but this particular lake and time of year has me rethinking my anti glide bait ways. I will appreciate any suggestions, including the opinions from those that think glide baits would be a waste of time and money for this situation. I still have a chance to shake the Monkey off my back and fish the lures I already have. The best success for larger bass I have had on this lake so far has been with deep cranks, and C rig.

1. Work less, and fish more. Not even close to achieving that goal so far this year, but I have high hopes for next month. 2. Catch a bass over 11 pounds. Where I live that could happen on any cast. 3. Kick the Bait Monkey to the curb, and become more proficient with the lures I already have. I will work on this goal, after I receive my next order from Tackle Warehouse.

I can use left or right hand on spinning, and fly reels, but prefer left. I look like I am having a seizure if I try and reel with my left hand on a bait caster. The reason being, when I learned to fish, all spinning reels were left hand retrieve, and all bait casters, other conventional reels or my Zebco 33 were right hand retrieve. My muscle memory for any reel that is on top of the rod is for right hand only. My first fly reel was right hand retrieve, so I had no choice but to learn how to reel with my right hand with it. Being it was on the bottom of the rod, I was able to adapt my fly fishing retrieve to spinning reels once they were made with handles that you could switch to either side. It has always been a goal of mine to learn to retrieve a bait caster with my left hand, but now I find myself subscribing to the theory, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. I haven't officially given up but I don't foresee any left handed bait casters arriving in the mail anytime soon. I hate to admit it, but I did turn my first spinning rod upside down and reel backwards until a friends dad told me I looked like an idiot and needed to grow up and reel with my left hand. Since then, I cringe every time I see someone reel that way, especially since now all you have to do is change the handle.

Jitterbug. First top water bass, great memories, and the last time I ever had any extra cash in my pocket.

Most of the time I will fish a spinnerbait, or other more weed less lure first, but for some reason I can't explain, I am not happy unless I leave one of my favorite crankbaits permanently snagged to the tree before I leave. It doesn't matter if I caught 10 giant bass off of a piece of wood, on a T rig, I can't resist the urge to give a square bill a try.

There were rumors of a good tuna bite south of PV, so my boss decided to go to Bara for one last trip this spring. The seas were rough, but we managed to get off shore for a couple days and Landed some nice tuna, dorado and one small blue marlin. Fished inshore on the way home. Landed Snapper, snook, and one small rooster fish. We lost a 300 plus pound tuna at the boat after a 2 hour fight in rough seas with 20 knot winds. It would have been my PB yellowfin, real heart breaker. For comparison, the biggest tuna in the pictures is 190 pounds. Even with loosing the fish of a lifetime, and getting beat up by the sea, it was good trip, everyone was happy.

They may be able to find their food, but they may also change the way they catch their prey. In muddy water. They may have to strike quickly without taking the time to get a good look at their prey or a lure. In clear water they may have the luxury of taking there time examining a lure or food before they attempt to catch it. FFS has shown how surprisingly often a bass will examine a lure and turn away. This may be why in clear water a more natural color lure may work better. A bright colored lure may be easily be seen as a fake. In muddy water a bass may have to make a quick decision, so a lure that they can easily see, is a lure they can easily catch. I'm not saying this is why chart. works in muddy water, and yes they do hit shad colored lures in dirty water so maybe it is only the fisherman that likes bright colored lures in the mud. Only the bass knows.

When I was a kid, Rapala only made their baits in four colors. Silver black back, Gold black back, Gold orange back, Silver Chart. back. I owned a few of their baits in silver black and gold black. My friend had one in gold orange. I was positive the silver, or gold colors were all I would ever own or need. My friend swore by his gold and orange, but I always believed the only reason he bragged about his orange backed one, was because it was the only lure he had. Then one year Rapala went crazy and added Perch, Fire tiger, and Rainbow Trout to their line up. I had to have the trout, and my friend bought a perch floater, to replace the gold and orange one he lost. We both caught many bass and trout with our new colors, and I couldn't imagine any need for Rapala to ever add another color. Now I own dozens of colors of Rapala lures, and if I were to be honest with myself, I probably would catch just as many fish, if I only had the original four colors for all my Rapala crankbaits, and jerk baits. Silver and black to imitate shad, Gold and black to imitate many minnow species, and craw fish, Chart., and orange back, for muddy water, or days when they want bright colors. I would go so far as to say, I wouldn't be handicapped if all of my other hard baits of any brand were those same colors. If I added the perch, and rainbow trout colors, I would be more than overloaded on colors, but a person has to splurge sometime. Does any one else feel they would catch just as many fish if they were restricted to only fishing the four original colors plus the perch and trout to make it an even half dozen?

If you adjust the zero adjuster, at least one of 5 things will will happen. 1. Diawa will void your warranty, and recommend from now on your purchase Shimano reels. 2. The Bass Police will come to your house, write you a ticket, search you home, and confiscate any unused Tackle, Warehouse stickers. 3. You will be required to go back to first grade, where you wont be allowed to graduate until you can read the words Zero, adjust, and explain the meaning of those two words. 4. Every time you cast and your lure falls short of your target, or you get a backlash, the Bait Monkey will whisper in your ear, I told you not to adjust the zero adjust, now you need to buy a new reel. 5. You will waste valuable fishing time, trying to get the adjustment back to zero. I speak from experience, I always have to adjust my zero adjust Diawa reels. I don't know if it is because I have a rebellious nature, or if I simply can't resist turning all knobs, and pressing all buttons on anything mechanical. Either way, I will swear with my hand on my tackle box, I can read.

I fish for stupid bass, I don't have the time or skill to fish for the smart ones.

No desecrating involved. Simply trying to learn how to correctly tie the Palomar. Egyptians used hooks with small eyes, and ran the line through the eye, then ran it back to form a loop. Because of the larger bass they fished for. The Mexicans used bigger hooks, and were able to double the line over passing the loop through the hook eye.

The Palamar was first scene drawn as a hierographic, on a tomb, inside a pyramid, sometime around 2500 BC. It was also drawn on the inside of a pyramid in Mexico around 100 AD. Most likely brought to earth by space aliens who invented it millions of years ago. The proper pronunciation was probably argued by fisherman in Egypt, and other ancient civilizations, similar to the arguments of modern times.

You have the opportunity to go fishing every day while your wife is at work. What's the problem?

Every lake I go to I pay by donating tackle. One lake is prone to snags, with lots of tackle steeling old nets. The tackle fee at this lake is at the very limit of what I can afford. Another lake has less snags, and I usually only have to pay a small token fee of a lure or two. As with most things in life, the lake I have to pay the most at, also has the biggest bass.

It would be easy to make a bait that looks exactly like a shad, the difficulty is making a bait that looks alive, and imitates the way a shad moves. A statue of a German Shepard could be made that looks exactly like a reel guard dog, but if I put it in my yard it wont be a good replacement for a live dog, that runs, growls, and shows its teeth. Most good lures are good because of their action, which is much harder to imitate, than the looks. Trout flies made out of hard plastic came out when I was a kid. They looked exactly like the flies that they were supposed to represent, lasted forever, and were cheap. Problem was they didn't have the buggy looks, and action, like flies tied with hair. They looked more real sitting on a table, but floating on the surface, of a river, they didn't look like the real thing. A silver spoon may not look like a shad hanging on a tackle shop wall, but twitched while fluttering towards the bottom, the spoon may look exactly like a shad to a bass in the water. Even a live shad, wont get hit if it doesn't act the right way. Lively live bait works, while slow swimming wore out, bait doesn't even get a look. There are many lures out that do a good job of imitating a shad as long as the angler does his job of imparting the correct action. There is always room for more lures, so maybe some one will make a lure that looks exactly like a shad combined with the magic action anglers are looking for.

I had a scale that always weighed light, so I bought another scale, and it is off by the same amount as my old scale. What are the odds, that both scales are off by the same amount? I know they are off, because my estimates are always dead on, I even get within an oz or two on the ones that get away.

I have used a few lures made by Nomad, in salt water. Some of their lures are the best in their class, like the DTX Minnow is the most popular lure for Wahoo, on the West Coast. I have had excellent results with the DTX, but have also had many of them break, or not run well for no reason. The ones that work, do so well that I don't have a choice but to buy enough of trhem, to cover for the bad ones. The other lures in their Saltwater line, that I have tried, have been OK, but not exceptional and not very consistent from lure to lure. I would suspect that their fresh water lipless baits, would also be OK, but not any better than other proven brands and if the quality control is similar to their saltwater lures, not worth paying more than you would for a Rattle Trap, or Cordel Spot. I haven't tried them, so I may be completely wrong. I am only guessing from my experience with other lures in their line up.

Keep it, and order another one for your wife. Maybe you will get lucky, and they will send you the wrong one again. If you are really lucky, you may end up with a whole quiver of rods, before they finally get the right one for your wife.

No. I can't even catch the bait. The success I have had fishing lately, I'm not even sure using dynamite, in an aquarium should be considered cheating.

Exact opposite of when I fish from my kayak, which looks like the Bait Monkeys permanent residence. When fishing from shore, I bring, one rod, a fly box with #3 inline spinners, and a small box with floating Rapala's. Everything I need for the day fits in a fly vest. When I fish from shore it is usually on a small stream, and I like to be highly mobile.

Thanks Catt. great advise. I now know why I am not a good T rig, or jig angler. The only time I have enough patience to pause 30 seconds, is when I grab a coke or a sandwich. I must learn to slow down, or eat and drink all day.

Knock on the door of the closest house to the pond. If the person that lives there isn't the land owner, they will probably no who is and where they live. Try to find out something about the land owner, without asking to many questions. You never know, your kid may play on the same football team, as his nephew, or something else you may have in common, went to the same college etc. When you show up at the owners house to ask permission, make sure it is not at a time they would be busy. Do not knock on a farmers door during harvest, or a ranchers house during calving season. Don't drive up in a brand new expensive pick up or sports car, wearing expensive clothes. Drive a vehicle that looks like what the local people drive, and wear the same kind of clothes that you expect the person answering the door to wear. Make them feel like you are one of them, not some one from a different place. Pay attention as you drive up. Do they have an antique car, an old motorcycle, boat, fruit tree, and what type of crop they are growing. After introducing yourself, the first thing you do is ask them about something you have noticed. Nice wheat crop, what variety do you plant? Nice Herford cattle, have you always raised Herford's? Is that a 36 or 37 ford, parked by the barn? etc. Once you have exchanged some pleasantries, such as your name, where you are from, the weather, crops, motorcycles, etc. then state your business. Simply ask him for permission to fish his pond. If he tells you yes, that is when you ask about something you found out while doing your home work. Are you related to the Smith who has a son playing football for the local community college? I saw a trophy at the local barber shop with your last name on it were you the one that won the county trap shooting title 5 years in a row? You don't only want permission for one day, you want to try and start a friendship. You never know he may own more ponds, that he only lets family fish, but would be willing to make an exception for a new friend. If he politely says no, than politely ask if he doesn't mind telling you the reason. If he is wishy washy on the reason, or says he only lets friends and family, then it may be time to bring up the cousin you played football with. I have had more than one no turn into a lifetime yes. Be careful not to be pushy, and always ask if it would be ok if you stopped by an ask again another time. He may need to check with a relative before giving permission, and the next time you stop he may say yes. If the answer is a firm no, then thank him for his time, mention again, what nice cattle, car, etc. he has and say good by. You always want to be appreciative, even if he is never going to let you fish. He may have a neighbor that you want to ask permission someday and if you offend one person in the community you may offend them all. I once had a man tell me straight up hell no, get off my property, but I kept my composure and politely thanked him for his time, while complementing him on his garden. On my way back to the car, he yelled at me to ask his uncle down the road. He said he some times lets people hunt. His Uncle let me hunt, and the next year, I was able to hunt on the hell no guys place too. If you do fish the pond find out if you can keep fish and if they would like you to keep some for them to eat. When you are finished fishing, always stop and tell the owner thanks, offer them some fish, tell them something you noticed that you appreciate unique to their pond,( nice fountain, did you build it etc,) send them a thankyou card in the mail. At Christmas time, send them a card, and a gift. The gift should not be expensive, but represent something that they will relate to you. When I hunted in Alberta, I always sent the land owners smoked salmon from Alaska. I was from Alaska, connecting me with the gift, and who doesn't like smoked wild salmon? This may sound like a lot, or a little like a con man, but is really simply trying to become friends with the land owner. I used to duck hunt in Alberta, and became friends with many family's I met there. One family still sends me a Christmas card, even though it has been years since I was back. They tell me about their kids, cattle prices, corn crop etc. and they always asks me to come back to hunt some time. I actually feel bad that my life has changed and I don't have time to come hunt on their property. Basically you should knock on their door, but do some homework, be prepared and know exactly what you are going to say.

Mexico bass fishing is great, but there isn't a 10 pound bass waiting to bite any lure every cast, like some believe. Like anywhere else it takes lots of work to get a decent bass, and sometimes I get skunked. I had to get up at 3:00 AM, drive my POS car 3.5 hours to get to the lake Thursday. I would have gone to another lake, but my car has had some difficulties, and I didn't want to drive that far, and be 30 miles out of cell phone range for three days. I started fishing at daylight, and didn't land a bass until 9:00 AM. Landed the big one the next cast, I fished hard all day for three days, didn't land another bass over 2.5 pounds and I lost so much tackle, the Bait Monkey is still doing his happy dance this morning. The afternoon winds blew 20 -30 KTS. and started early at 11:30 AM. I had to set my tent up after dark, and take it down before daylight every night. The last time I camped there, the police drove by, saw my tent,, and tried to shake me down for some money even though the place is public, and I have a perfect right to camp there. I gave them some sodas, and once they found out I was just a crazy, gringo, with a big orange kayak they acted like my best friend. The lake is a favorite place for the teenagers, in the local village to come and party, so I camp a ways away from the launch- picnic party site, but I still don't want to draw any attention, so I don't put up camp until the party is over, making it a short night sleep on the weekend nights. Long story short is I love bass fishing in the secluded unknown lakes of Mexico, but it isn't the same experience anglers read about at the first class lodges. I did have a DD break me off on a barbed wire fence. Because of that fish, I will be back soon, POS car, cheap tent, and my latest tackle order.

I Quit buying tackle once. Worst day of my life.

Friday was the first day I was able to bass fish this year. Photo is of second bass I caught, first bass wasn't even a pound. She was 24.5 inches long, 7.4 pounds caught on a Texas Rig Green Pumkin, Mag Trick Worm. Very skinny, hope to catch her again later in the year. Fishing for larger bass was slow. Lots of small ones. Most bass were caught in 15- 20 feet of water on T rigs. A few spinnerbait fish, but couldn't buy a bite on most moving baits. Very rare for me to fish soft plastics this much, but I have to let the fish dictate what I throw. I sure hope next year I can start fishing before the spawn. I don't know why I let a little thing like work get in the way of my bass fishing.