OCdockskipper

Palomar for hooks (Wacky, T-rig, dropshot) and small jigs, ICK for lures. I don't like making the giant loop needed for tying the palomar to a large lure. I am comfortable with the knot strength of both.

I would hazard a guess that the longer a rod is, the better chance it has being inadvertently damaged or broken. Car doors, ceiling fans, doorways will all be drooling at a chance to munch on a 10 ft rod. I don't fish tournaments and fish from a small boat, so I have actually been going to shorter rods while so many others go long. I get it for flippin but for most other methods, a longer rod is more difficult to use and less accurate for casting.

The lower right corner kinda looks like Jimmy prepping a pig for the sausage maker...

Bass Faux Shops (for those who aren't fond of Johnny Morris)

It creates a weird feeling, especially if you have had some anticipation in using the bait. For at least a few moments, your brain slips into the mode that NOW you have got it figured out. That happened with me with the Ned Rig. I didn't catch a fish on the first cast, but the first day I used it, I ended up catching over 50 fish on it. Towards the end of the day, I distinctly remember attempting to skip it under a overhanging bush, getting bit and thinking "They (the bass) don't stand a chance"

Another vote for Owners Wacky hooks, both regular & weedless model.

Agreed, it is all about finding the right match. Sometimes one may find that match early in their life, sometimes that match may not exist. There are many people who would probably have a happier life if they never get married or enter into a long term relationship. Unfortunately, too often those who don't find the right person blame the institution rather than the real reasons behind their poor choice.

This past week, I picked up a pack of 5" Senko's in green pumpkin/amber laminate, a color I had never noticed before and had never used. On Saturday, I switched my wacky rig to this bait and caught a keeper on the first cast. It got me to thinking about the lures/techniques that I had used in the past and which ones caught a fish on their very first cast. I can remember 3: Yo Zuri Snap Bean - On a slow day years ago, I noticed this bait in with my small crankbaits. Tied it on, made a cast that went about 20 feet. As I was thinking about what I would have to do to be able to cast it further, a small bass gobbled it up near the boat. Thought I had found the magic bullet, caught 1 more fish in the next 3 hours. Still can't cast them at all. Wacky Rigged Senko - The first time I read an article about skipping baits and how well a wacky rigged stick bait skipped, I decided to try it. My first attempt at a skip buried itself off the bow of the boat, a few feet in front of the dock I was trying to get under. As I untangled the snarl of line at the face of the reel, I noticed the line moving off. I reeled over the mess and ended up hooking up with a keeper. By the end of the day, I had drastically improved skipping and realized this was a method to get at fish that others pass by. Chatterbait - I was late to the chatterbait party, the conditions & cover at my lake don't set up well for spinnerbaits or chatterbaits. I finally relented, bought a Zman model in a bluegill type color and one fall morning, made my first cast with it. As I was amazed at how it felt like a crankbait when reeling in, a 8lb catfish hammered it. Once again, I thought I had found the secret. To this day, I have never caught another fish on a chatterbait and now rarely use it on my home lake. Any other success stories?

Welcome aboard. I grew up a few miles away from Laguna Lake (Rosecrans & Gilbert), I read they were doing some work on the bottom of that lake to slow the daily seepage loss of water. Is that project complete & how has it affected the lake?

I haven't yet, but I am spooling some 4 lb test on a rod for when I go Saturday, so I might then. The water clarity on my lake has improved significantly over the past few weeks and I am curious if 4 lb test will make a difference in the number of bites. Even though most of my gear is setup with 10 lb test, I don't even get spooled by big catfish when they hijack my lures because I usually chase after them. If I was stuck on shore it might be a different story, but there is no reason to not use your trolling motor & follow a big fish when he starts stripping line. Plus, it seems like the big catfish usually end up doubling back & swimming to to the boat during the battle. I often wonder if they even know they are hooked...

Congratulations, it is cool that you have a picture of it. Put that picture in a frame like business owners do with the first dollar they ever made.

That what works on each lake is different (similar to Scott F's). For me, when I was a teenager & learning, I was like Scaleface and had to rely on Bassmaster & other publications. I tried to apply what pro's & experts would do on Southern reservoirs to a Southern California lake that was nothing like those bodies of water. Throwing big topwaters & spinnerbaits shallow on a lake where smaller finesse baits in deeper water would have been more appropriate. Initially, I thought that the lake I was on just didn't have many fish in it, over time I found that I was just fishing the wrong lures in the wrong places.

Time for a new boat...

This guy was a California bass, maybe he had Indiana roots . A friend of mine has a koi pond and told me that every year, a (different) dragonfly will show up mid summer. It will stake out the pond as his territory, chase off other males and mate with whatever female dragonflies who show up. He has had a bass in that same pond for a couple of years and even though the bass is well fed, it goes after any dragonfly whenever it nears the surface of the water. He said it never has jumped to try and get it, but will track them as they buzz by. The lack of breaching that may have more to do with the size of the pond - one wrong leap and he is a fish out of water.

I too think that poppers and small prop baits can resemble a dragonfly struggling on the surface of the water. Another startlingly effective choice is a 4" stickbait, rigged wacky style weightless, as long as the cast is a long skip cast. The bait skipping across the water and then making a slow sink (to me) resembles a dragonfly or other prey skipping along, making a wrong turn & then drowning. I occasionally get strikes between skips, but most are as it comes to a stop. And the strike isn't the typical soft mouthing of a stick bait, it is a rush to grab what they must believe is prey that may soon escape. I often refer to this method as "reverse topwater". The cast and the initial sink is the presentation, as opposed to working the lure back to the boat. I think an added benefit is it cues the fish to focus on something going away from the boat instead of towards it. It gets them looking the other way.

I've known that bass eat dragonflies and have figured that a 4" wacky rigged stickbait skipped across the surface of the water is most likely seen as a dragonfly to bass. However, I saw something today that made me realize how these mini-helicopters may be higher up on the largemouth's food choice list than I originally believed. Mid-day, I was passing in front of a dock when I noticed 30 feet or so ahead of me a group of dragonflies zipping low over the surface of the water (we tend to have the most dragonflies here from mid summer to early October). They were about 5 feet from the shore in an area that was about 2 feet deep, an area that was pretty much coverless. Before I reached the end of the dock, I saw something shoot out along the shore and in an instant, a keeper bass was airborne flying through the dragonflies. The bass's jump was dolphin-like, he got alot of air and was definitely keying on the dragonflies. Despite his effort, I think all of the dragonflies escaped by zipping in various directions. The bass cruised back to the shoreline and the dragonflies, as they are wont to do, shot back down to the surface, hovering low over the water. Again in an instant, the bass shot over & catapulted himself through the mini-swarm trying to catch one. I sat back and watched this for about 45 second as the bass made a total of 4 runs at the dragonfly herd and got enough hang time each run to make Dr. J proud. I don't know if he finally caught one or got tired of missing, but he ended up swimming off into deeper water. I never made a cast while this was going on, it was too much fun to watch.

I looked at the leaderboard following the final event and saw that the winner had at least 1 auto fill for every event since Wheeler and didn't make any choices for the last 3 events. I think B.A.S.S. will have a PR problem on their hands if they award a new boat to someone who kinda gave up competing halfway thru the season.

If I can alter the question asked to "What places have a higher friendly folk to jerk ratio?", I would answer the South and the states not on the East or West Coast. There are nice folks here in California and there are jerks in the 'flyover states", but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Has this lure been field tested by a Kenyan prince?

(To paraphrase Steven Wright) I have the world's largest lure collection, which I keep scattered in underwater brushpiles throughout the lakes & rivers of America...

I don't think that laptop will work well on bed fish, probably better to use it on bass in a school...

For a small pond, I would shape it so that every portion of the pond can be reached by a cast from somewhere on shore. A good way to accomplish that is with a few narrow fingers that extend into the pond at different areas This will also give you more shoreline for the same size lake. I also remember seeing a video where the pond maker (I believe it was Hank Parker) recommended the main areas of cover be rock piles instead of standing timber or brush piles. Rock piles will be less likely to fill up with broken line & lures, are easier to fish with a variety of techniques, require less maintenance (think vegetation management) and will last for decades.

Oddly enough, a beaver is usually what stops me from leaving the house at night in the first place...

Are we allowed to push them in the water & motor away as they tread water? If so, then the list would be much different than if I had to play nice. The "Play Nice" list: Gulf Captain - Lives fairly close, seems like a nice guy and is one of 6 people in all of Southern California that likes bass fishing. Scaleface - Close in age and has a similar history with bass fishing as I do. Slonezp - He was dead on about what a jerk a certian pro is, something I didn't believe until I met the pro. Bluebasser & TeamNine9 - Their posts convinced me to try the Ned rig, so I owe them.

You have stumped me. I can't figure out what the " *** " in the line "since the *** of plastic baits" stands for. I don't know any 3 letter synonyms for the word "dawn" or "beginning", so I don't know if that is what it stands for. Is it a 3 letter cuss word? That would be unique. An East Coast slang maybe, something that hasn't yet made it out to the West Coast? This is going to bug me...