OCdockskipper

It looks like those bass feed on footballs!! Great bag, congrats!! I broke 30 lbs last week to, but I had to catch 23 bass to do it...

I was by myself when I caught my PB, so the pictures I got of it really doesn't do it justice. I caught this one 2 weeks later on the same lake, it weighed in at an even 8lbs (4 oz less than the PB) but I had someone with me to get a better picture.

One thing I try to remember about bass, especially largemouth, is that their over-sized mouth's are their best weapon, both offensively & defensively. Something swimming by & not sure if it is food? Put it in your mouth! Something crawling on the bottom that might kill your babies? Put it in your mouth! Need to move something from point A to point B? Put it in your mouth! For a bass, his big mouth is basically a Swiss army knife. His evolution was based on his ability to stuff just about anything in his mouth. Other fish have different "tools", be it catfish with their barbels, swordfish & sawfish with their nose weapons or angler fish with their built-in little lure. For bass, it is their mouths.

My parents grew up in the Midwest, both were below average swimmers. Later, while living near the ocean in California and vacationing up at the Delta, they realized they couldn't competently watch their kids when they were near the water. So they had all 6 of us swimming competitively, all starting as early as possible (I began at 3). At the time, this also included life guard training (pool life guard, not Baywatch). It resulted in all 6 kids being extremely comfortable around both freshwater & the ocean. I believe the best feature of being comfortable in the water is the ability to stay calm while underwater. If you spend anytime in the surf, you are going to get turned upside down by a wave, which can freak out the uninitiated. As long as you just take a moment to get your bearings, it is not a big deal, although it does help if you can keep your eyes open underwater. Years of swimming in 1970's pools loaded with chlorine not only turned my hair green, it made opening my eyes in salt water easy. It is also handy when you do something stupid. On vacation years back, a tow rope for an inner tube got tangled in the prop of the boat we were in (it was an inboard with the prop under the hull). With the engine off & the keys in my wife's death gripped fingers, I jumped overboard in about 8 feet of water. I worked my way to the prop, and spent about 30 seconds untangling the rope. As I cleared the rope, I let myself drop down to the bottom, so I could push off towards the surface. As I did that, BONK, I cracked my head against the bottom of the hull; for some reason I had forgotten there was a boat above me. It didn't knock me out or cause any bleeding, but it did disorient me for a moment. I took a second, realized what I had done and swam out to the side of the boat. As I surfaced, the first thing I see is my wife, whose eyes are like saucers. She had no idea what was trying to come up through the bottom of the boat!!

Great story and the more I think about the potential issue of a year class missing, the more applicable it may be. If 2015 was a poor recruitment year, that would mean less 10"-12" fish would be showing up in 2017, which would affect the numbers of fish caught. The other bass would have more prey available, so most fish caught would have a belly as opposed to being skinny (which they are). With more prey available, the largest bass in the lake could be even more discerning about when & where they eat, lessening the chance to run into a lunker following the spawn. Now I have to think back to the spring of 2015 to figure out what happened!! Thanks again for the comments.

The stats are only for my home lake that I live on. I occasionally fish other bodies of water, but don't keep detailed notes on them because it is usually once a year or lease (no good for statistical comparison). As for fishing other locations, that is troublesome where I live. First off, bodies of water are few & far between and there literally are no public freshwater lakes here in Orange County that you can launch a boat on. Second, California lakes have regulations prohibiting you from launching a boat that was on another body of water within some time period (Tom knows the specifics) in an effort to stop zebra mussels. In other words, you can't bounce from lake to lake every weekend unless you have a fleet of boats, one designated for each lake. Third, to go fishing now, I walk out my back door, pull the cover off the boat and go. That convenience makes the process of going to other lakes seem like too much work . Most of the big bass from California are Florida strain, which are not in every lake. My lake has northern strain & since the lake is not connected to any other body of water, we don't get any other species washed into the lake. The forage base doesn't lead to a lot of bigger bass (three 8's & two 7's since the summer of 2014), but that is okay for me because I am more of a numbers guy than someone who focus's on catching the largest bass in the lake. I hope my original post wasn't misleading, for I am in no way complaining about the output of the lake. I am so lucky to have this lake nearly all to myself and an average of 19 bass a day, while down from the past, is still something many folks would love to have. There was just a noticeable change this year that caught my eye and I thought it would be a fun exercise to explore why.

Absolutely!! In addition to enjoying bass fishing, it is part of my personality to keep track of statistics and analyze, something I enjoy to while away the time. I also know that sounds foreign to many, that stats and pouring over numbers seems like work to those who don't enjoy it. My interest in tossing this information out to the other forum members is not necessarily to increase my catch ratio, but rather to try to understand why something is different. That might be a fruitless pursuit, much like mastering golf. Even if I don't necessarily figure something out, I find the process enjoyable.

Good observation. I recall an article saying ponds & small lakes typically support 100 lbs of bass per acre (someone please correct me if that is off). So if this lake has 10,000 lbs of bass and half that weight is 1-2 lb fish, that comes out to 3333 fish in the keeper range (the rest being dinks or big-uns). So maybe I have just caught every fish in the lake !! In regards to pressure, I typically fish once a week and it takes me a full summer day to fish the entire lake (unless I am catching a bunch in a certain area, then I don't make it around). Sometimes I may not hit certain coves or areas for 3-4 weeks. I'm curious how that kind of pressure compares to a major reservoir or large body of water that receives much more traffic but spread over a much larger area. I know I have re-caught fish, I even had a friend catch one that was in the midst of pooping out a Roboworm he had stolen off his hook the week before!! I often wonder if any of the big fish I caught had are retreads, the 5 biggest were all within a lb of each other (8-4, 8-2, 8-2, 7-8, 7-8). They were all caught in different areas, the closest 2 maybe 50 yards away, all spread out over a 3 year period (2014-2016). Two were caught within 2 weeks of each other, but they were at complete opposite ends of the lake. All were caught on different lures with the exception of one of the 7's & one of the 8-2's being caught on a TRD, however all five were caught on slow moving plastics as opposed to moving baits. In fact, I have yet to catch one over 5 lbs on this lake on a moving bait, which may explain my leaning towards plastics. While I am pretty sure there are schools of bass year round here, during the post spawn I will see alot of schools of wolfpacks cruising the shallows. These schools will number from a 1/2 dozen fish to over 40 (which is an awesome sight to see). When I find a school offshore, it typically doesn't result in more than 2 or 3 fish, so either these fish school in smaller packs or move on pretty quickly. Oddly enough, none of the fish over 5lbs have been offshore, all of those fish were relating to a dock or retaining wall in 2-7 feet of water.

Great questions to make me think, thanks. The swimbaits were soft, Keitich or BPS speed shads on an open darter jighead. I throw soft plastics probably 70% of the time, mainly due to the predominant cover being docks and pontoon boats. I have had a history of sometimes fishing a moving bait around these areas with no success & then doubling back with a slow moving bait and picking up fish, so I might be giving up on moving baits a bit too quickly when they don't produce. I have thrown larger Berkey & Roboworms with limited success. That could be a mental thing for me, my confidence on this lake is smaller sizes (Zara puppy vs. Zara spook, etc). It is funny you mention jigs, they produce real well in the 6 weeks of winter we get (mid December through January). Last week I caught 19 bass, 17 were on a finesse jig with a Batwingz trailer. However, their production seems to fall off compared to plastics as the spawn begins. In the summer, when the weed growth is at its highest, I have been punching a jig into the holes of the pondweed with limited success. However, that limited success may be due to my lack of experience punching more than the method itself.

Yes, probably 1 or 2 bass a trip (10%) are over the 3 lb mark. Healthy 3 lbers too, right in the 18" range. What I haven't gotten this year is the occasional fish that tops the 20" mark. BTW, these are Northern largemouth, not Florida strain and despite being a California private lake, there are no trout available to make an easy meal.

That's funny because I often think about moving (back) to Canyon Lake!! I think that while you may have a bit more fishing pressure and have to put up with skiers in the summer, Canyon Lake may actually have a better population of bass based on a wider range of prey (especially the threadfin shad) and access to deep water. Lake Forest prey consists of just bluegill and thrice a year stocked crayfish and is just a carved out bowl with a maximum of 12 ft depth, no feeder creeks or points to work with. The grass is always greener...

I try to mix it up, not only in bait selection, but in how I fish different areas. On the bait side for example, a Ned Rig is my top producer, but that consists of TRD's, hula Stickz, finesse Shadz and Berkley Moneymakers (I will be trying the TRD Hogz & Roboworm ned worms this month as well). I do lean towards the more natural colors (green pumpkin, California Craw) because the water is fairly clear. It is interesting you mention fishing them the same way, for i cut out a little diagram on the different midwest finesse retrieves and keep it out in the open as a reminder to keep mixing the retrieves up. I do notice that every year, there is a lure that will produce better for a few weeks than it had previously and then return to being average. In 2015, there were a few trips in the fall where jerkbaits absolutely slayed them. In 2016, 3" swimbaits had a few consecutive trips where they were the clear bait of choice. Topwater-wise, 2015 was the year of the Zara Puppy but I found that in 2017 they much preferred prop baits over walking baits. I have to be careful not falling into a habit of going back to those baits just because they worked in the past under the same conditions, because as you suggested, it does seem like they become conditioned to specific moving baits after a short while.

I hadn't considered the year class potential issue but that may be a contributor. 2 years ago the late spring & summer had alot of overcast days, so weed growth was less that year. Maybe that year class had less places to hide, got eaten by predators and the drop in 12+inch fish is showing up now as they would be coming into that size range. There is only 1 other fishing boat on the water with any regularity, a couple of guys who go out for a few hours about twice a month or so. Other than that, it is mostly folks fishing off their dock for catfish in the summer and folks who pile 8 people into a pontoon boat and go out in the middle of the lake as if they are trying to catch tuna . But that is SoCal for you, bass fishing really isn't on the radar here.

875 for 2017, a down year due to less trips and a lower catch rate Edit - actually, I forgot to include the bass I caught in the spring on a trip to Georgia & Texas (63) as well as the ones during our summer vacation (54). Adding those in bumps the total to 992

With some of you buried by feet of snow, I figured I'd give you some fishing statistics to mull over to distract you from being stuck inside. The numbers of LMB I caught on my home lake dropped this year and rather than go through the typical questions, I thought if I made comparisons available, it might reveal a pattern or oddity that I am not seeing. At the very least, it may raise a question that I didn't ask myself. So without telling you too much about the lake or conditions, here are some numbers for the last 3 years: 2017 - 875 bass on 46 full day trips (19 per trip) 6 trips with 30+ bass (top day 38) 0 bass over 5 lbs 2016 - 1552 bass on 58 full day trips (27 per trip) 19 trips with 30+ bass, 4 days with 50+ (top day 60) 3 bass over 5 lbs (largest 8 lbs, 4 oz) 2015 - 1357 bass on 51 full day trips (27 per trip) 21 trips with 30+ bass, 4 days with 50+ (top day 69) 2 bass over 5 lbs (largest 7 lbs, 8 oz) Additionally, here are the lures that caught most of the fish each year: 2017 2016 2015 Ned Rig 47% Ned Rig 34% Ned Rig 31% Stickbaits 14% Stickbaits 20% Stickbaits 23% T-Rig Plstcs 12% T-Rig Plstcs 11% T-Rig Plstcs 22% Crankbaits 7% Swimbaits 9% Jerkbaits 8% Topwater 6% Crankbaits 8% Topwater 5% The 100 acre catch & release lake was built for a housing development and is private, so the water never fluctuates over a foot either direction. The only noticeable difference in the water this year from the past two was earlier weed growth (bushy pondweed mostly) and more of it. Over the summer, we had less overcast mornings & days, meaning more sunlight for the vegetation to flourish. As for the bass themselves, they are extremely healthy. It is rare to catch a skinny one, most have a belly and there are rarely any kinds of sores or infections on them. So does this look like an aberration, a down year that will be the exception or is it possibly the beginning of a downward trend?

Statistics for "breeds most likely to bite" are all over the board, based on what I find to be sloppy comparisons. Bites from small dogs are often not reported while other breeds (Pitbulls, Shepherds) are often mistakenly blamed for bites actually done by another breed (mistaken identity by the victim's who aren't real familiar with breeds). In any case, Chihuahua's are typically the worst biters in most surveys, something I don't find surprising at all. Large breeds will typically give a warning growl or bark before resorting to biting, little breeds seem to bite first and ask questions later. In my 50 plus years of owning dogs, the only one that ever chased and/or bit someone was a small mixed breed terrier (nipped a paperboy on the heel as the young man was riding a bike delivering papers). The most intimidating big dogs with the deepest barks have all been softies around people.

That is a LMB in his underwear. If you had caught him when he was fully dressed, he would have had darker black lines along his side and a tophat on.

This is Captain (short for Captain America) & his sidekick Dumbo. Born on the 4th of July, Captain believes it is his job to protect any person or beast in his vicinity from any threat. Unfortunately, he loves all persons & beasts, so nothing is ever really a threat. Captain was a rescue, we initially thought he was just some kind of cream colored shepherd. As he continued to grow & grow, we figured out he was an Anatolian Shepherd. That breed originated in Turkey, a mix of Mastiffs and Kangals and were bred to guard sheep by hanging out around the perimeter of the flock and fighting off any bears or wolves that show up. That DNA is definitely in him, his pastime is laying around and keeping a watchful eye on everyone else. Despite his muscular physique, he is not athletic, just bull-in-a-china shop strong as he walks through things. I would like to take him fishing, but he would most likely sink my boat... Dumbo, also a rescue, is some kind of retriever mix. One of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet, he is dumb as a brick. We believe he is either gay or has an interior design background because he constantly takes potted plants, solar lights and other decor and sets them up in his doghouse.

Being on the downhill side of 50, I don't have much use for most fishing videos to learn. In fact, I find I will often read the transcripts of the videos that Glenn posts as opposed to watching them. I find I learn better when I am actively participating rather than passively watching. An example of that is how I learned about the Ned rig. It started with a simple, tongue-in-cheek comment by Bluebasser86 who wrote something like "Nothing to see here, it is just hype " when talking about the technique. For some reason, that throw away line piqued my curiosity and I began picking up information reading about it from others on this site & from Ned himself. Videos on the subject seem to be lacking (for me), although I did find illustrations helpful. I do enjoy watching shows like MLF for the entertainment value, but it seems like many of the videos (as well as some TV shows) try so hard to be cool or different that they come across as annoying to me, so I turn them off.

My PB would have been a 10lber, but she refused to eat 2 lbs of lead weights that I offered her...

10lb Nanofil with 8-10lb P-Line Flurocarbon leader. I have dropped to 4lb leaders in the past, but on my lake, I have yet to notice a difference with the lighter ones.

That Micro jig with the ZMan Batwingz is an awesome combination. When dragged, it scoots over the cover just like a small mudbug and then as soon as you stop it, the buoyancy of the elasticel lifts the back end up exactly like crayfish do when a predator approaches. Watch it in shallow water & it is amazing how well it replicates a crawdad. I'll confirm that as well. My home lake has only LMB, bluegill, catfish & carp and not only has TRD's caught all four species, it has caught large ones of each (8lb LMB, 2lb bluegill, 15lb catfish and 12lb carp are tops for all four). I have also caught a freshwater clam and a lawnchair with it, but I don't think those are typically sought after species...

I fish from a smaller boat and am often sitting rather than standing, so rods in the 6' to 6'-6" range feel the most comfortable. As for specialty rods, I do more skipping than long range bombing of lures, so most of those rods are shorter, not longer. A rod that I can keep pointed straight down as opposed to some kind of angle yields longer & more accurate skips for me. I even have a heavy 5-6" spinning rod that I put 20 lb braid on that I use as a small frog rod (frogs that are really too light to use on casting gear). The heavy rod & braid work well in the not-overly-thick weeds that show up in our lake in the summer and and the shortness of the rod allows me to fire the small frogs way back under docks on sunny, summer days.

I have seen a bass in a Koi pond use different strike techniques depending on what he is eating. For Goldfish or other prey that could quickly get away, the attack is quick & savage. Even if he misses, he tends to knock the prey around & stun it, so he can nail it on the rebound. However, when he eats nightcrawlers or steals the meal worms intended for the resident bluegill, it is a very slow slurp (both as they sink or if they are floating on the surface). No rush, he just takes his time and glides over to eat it. Sometimes when the koi food pellets are bunched up on the surface, he will hammer those, causing them to break apart. He usually will suck one or two of those in, mouth it for a few seconds and then spit it out. I think these are a case of mistaken identity. Another surface prey he is aggressive towards are dragonflies. When they are dipping into the water, he will follow after them, and crash through the surface. He may have bad aim, I have never seen him catch one. I don't know if this behavior translates to truly wild bass, but this pond boss has a few different techniques up his sleeve (well, if he wore a shirt...).

The image of Tom in a singlet, doing handsprings & cartwheels as he jumps into a 1969 Dodge Hemi Challenger and tears down the quarter mile are now seared into my brain...