OCdockskipper

A friend caught this bass about a week after we had been fishing the same area with Roboworms in the Orange Crusher color. Apparently it went through his digestion system fairly well...

If there is no brand name on the tail, then most likely it is a generic knockoff. Mister Twister, Gary Yamamoto and most name brand companies make a similar product that should give you the same results.

Glad to hear you weren't hurt. Never been hit, but had a near miss on the current lake I live on. It is a smaller, electric only lake where most of the boats are 16-20 ft Duffy party boats and I fish out of a 10 ft. Pond Prowler. Last summer, I decided to give night fishing a shot and left the dock at midnight. I had set up front & rear running lights, and set off to my first spot. No one else was on the lake and as I cruised up to my destination, I fired out my Jitterbug towards the shore. I began reeling it in & thought "That gurgling sure sounds louder at night". I paused the retrieve, however the gurgling continued. As I sat puzzled for a second, something caught my eye to the right & I tried to focus in the dark. I suddenly realized that a party boat with no running lights was coming full speed perpendicular to me, between the front end of my boat (where I was seated) and the shore. I quickly hit reverse on my trolling motor while simultaneously cranking in the Jitterbug as fast as I could. I heard the lure clank off the front of the boat as it passed about 10 feet in front of me, but I was too stunned to say anything to the driver as he zipped by. I did hear some giggling, my guess it was a couple of kids who were joyriding in their parents boat. I couldn't see the name of the boat and chasing them down didn't enter my head until they had gone around the corner. I was jumpy the rest of the night...

Okay, being of Irish & German descent as well, I have a different experience with the heredity of fair skin. Neither myself nor my 5 siblings burn like any of above descendants of beer lovers do. If I am out in the sun too long without sunscreen, any redness turns to a tan the following day or so. My wife, who is half German, half mix-of-everything, also rarely burns, even though she loses a tan during the winter faster than I do. Here is the rub, we have 3 kids who are so white, they are practically clear. And no, Jim Gaffigan was not our milkman. All 3 burn so easily and even by the end of summer, are never tan. The are always either white or red, and heaven forbid if they miss a spot with sunscreen. I blame it on their mothers mother...

No, I enjoy high horsepower cars, specifically American muscle cars. However I wouldn't buy one just because I know that I am going to be stuck in traffic. I would buy it despite the fact I could be stuck in traffic. That said, if I lived in New York City and never had an opportunity to drive outside of Manhattan, I wouldn't own a tricked out '69 Camaro in order to go to the grocery store & back. There are other cars that are more appropriate for that situation & environment. The joy I would get from sitting in the Camaro would be offset by never getting out of 2nd gear and being perpetually worried that it would be damaged. I would choose the right tool for the job, which isn't necessarily an econobox. Actually, in the above scenario, I would choose to move out of the city in order to enjoy the Camaro...

Then that's fine, no justification needed. I may have misunderstood your previous post where you said "...Poor fishing here is why I own 6 to 7 times more gear than I need...".

I hope this doesn't come across wrong, but I don't get the logic behind using more expensive gear just because the fishing is lousy. Following that rational to the extreme, you should use the most expensive gear at the local urban pond when you are shoulder to shoulder with folks trying to catch the one & only bass left in the lake and then use the cheapest gear when fishing Toledo Bend or Cayuga. If fishing is so bad where you are at, wouldn't it make sense to instead use the money that would have been spent on more expensive gear and spend it on gas/travel expenses to get to someplace where the fishing is better? Of course, that assumes that the fishing is indeed terrible where one is and it isn't user error in figuring out how to fish a particular lake. I have had over a dozen experiences where someone who felt they were proficient at bass fishing told me a certain body of water is lousy only to later meet another angler whom I discover absolutely slays them on that same lake. I would argue that the rational way to choose ones gear is based on where you are fishing and the methods/techniques you are using. If a more expensive piece of gear allows you to do something that a less expensive piece doesn't, then it makes sense to have it in order to be successful in landing numbers or certain sizes of fish. That said, if emotionally one just wants expensive gear, go for it. No need to rationalize it other than saying using it brings you pleasure.

Lebron James will drive you to work? When does the man find the time??

Decades ago, Larry Flynt had two strippers carry in bags of pennies to pay a $10,000 contempt of court fine. If I recall correctly, the judge made him sit in a vacant office adjacent to the courtroom to count & stack all of the pennies. Once that was complete, the judge fined him $10,000 for contempt of court again...

Great video. A couple weeks ago, I came across a smaller school of fry that were a little bit larger than that (spawn here was months ago) who were real tight to the shoreline. As I looked around, I saw about 4 or 5 juvenile bass herding them against the seawall and taking turns chasing after them. I believe the juveniles were from the 2015 spawn, none were larger than 8". My immediate thought was that the sophomores were hazing the freshmen...

From the picture, it looks to be the dreaded invisible bass...

I do over 95% of my fishing on my home lake, with an occasional trip to waters out of state when visiting family or on vacation. Part of that is because I live on the lake & it is so convenient and part of that is because there are so few waters here in Orange County, heck even in all of Southern California. I find these other local in-state waters to often be crowded with folks who have no issue cutting you off or moving in on a spot that you are currently fishing. I guess that comes with over 20 million people in an area about the size of West Virginia.. I have found that doing most of my fishing on one lake allowed me to get better at various techniques and finding fish. Knowing a body of water so well allows you to experiment and get instant feedback as to what you are trying to learn. If I didn't know the lake so well, it would be tough to know if the lack of success with a particular lure or method is because of what I am doing or because I am not near fish. I can eliminate variables and gain confidence. This has made me a better fisherman when going out of state, for if I only have a few hours for a day or two to fish an unfamiliar body of water, I now have confidence in a multitude of ways to catch 'em.

X2, especially when there are weed beds that are 3 or 4 feet below the surface in 5 feet or deeper water. The jerkbait lets me get closer to the fish without diving into the weeds & on my lake, they produce better than squarebills in this scenario.

I was out on the lake yesterday and around mid-morning, a woman in a kayak paddled up to my boat just as I was making a cast. "What are you fishing for?" she asked innocently. I pulled down my buff so I could speak & be friendly and told her largemouth bass. "What do they look like?" was the next question, to which the fishing gods immediately took over and provided me with a strike. "Let me show you" I replied as I set the hook, feeling as cool as one can be to provide a bass on command. She wowed when the fish jumped & tail-walked across the surface and said "Oh My" when I lipped the near 3 lb'er and showed her its gaping maw. I spent a minute telling her about bass, how they are great sport-fish, how they can be caught on lures and that when they get really big, their mouths allow them to eat just about anything. "I think I'm going to learn how to fish for bass. I don't even know how to tie a hook" (yeah, I know, I didn't correct her & tell her that you tie knots...). This sentence provided me with a dilemma. Had she been under 30 and in a bikini top, I might have offered to be her personal tutor. Unfortunately, she was closer to Glenn's age and even kind of looked like him. That made a light bulb go on & I replied "There is a website called 'BassResource.com' that has all kinds of information for beginners to experts. Check it out, they have videos & info to help you get started". "That's cool" she said, "I learn better with videos". She began paddling away, thanking me for the info while all the time I am thanking Bass Resource for being the ultimate wing-man & taking one for the team. The only problem is if she does follow through & ends up reading this post, she may paddle out again next week & punch me for my description of her appearance...

I think I tied that yesterday, also on a Rapala lure (X-Rap). This guy was such a stud that he didn't bother nipping at the rear feathered hook, he went straight for the middle of the bait. "...Get in my belly..."

If the lake has enough fountains/bubblers to keep the shallow water oxygenated, the warm weather may drive a majority of the bass under the docks as opposed to the deeper water. I found this especially true if the lake is relatively clear and the docks are fairly low to the surface of the water. In this case, more forage is shallow & the bass follow, whether it be to feed or to just sit inactive in the darkness & safety of the dock overhead. The trick is to get a reaction strike far under the dock...

Isn't post-spawn weight loss in females a combination of dropping the eggs & not eating for a while? I caught this female off a bed in the late part of the spawn this year, she was 23" long & weighed 5.4 lbs. She wasn't grossly thin & she put up a good fight, she just didn't have that fat stomach you see on prespawn fish or later in the year when they have fattened up. Based on the other large fish I have caught on this lake, I would have expected her to be about a pound or so heavier if her frame had been filled out.

I noticed something recently that happens here in Southern California, not sure if it is a regional thing or is nationwide. 30-plus years ago, the focus of a wedding was on the marriage ceremony (very formal), with the reception being a casual simple event. Every wedding that I can recall going to in the late 70's/early 80's, all of the ceremonies were in a church with the reception in someones backyard. That seems to have completely reversed. The marriage ceremonies are much less formal, while the receptions are these outrageously planned events costing huge gobs of money and run like a theater production. I sound like an old man saying this, but I believe the focus of the day has changed for the worse.

Plastic, the ones used on Carolina rigs. I'll rig it up this weekend with just the swivels. I used some BPS barrel swivels I had (again, ones I had used for Carolina rigs). I'll run one up & down the line a couple dozen times to see if that was the problem.

While a majority of the time the deeper docks would be the first choice, it really depends on the lake & what the forage are doing. On my home lake, there is a seawall that surrounds the lake and much of the foundation has been undercut over the years. Bite sized bluegill and green sunfish are always tight to this undercut, in as shallow water as possible. Often the bass here will hang out under a dock (regardless of the depth), looking towards the seawall and waiting to make a run to flush out the baitfish. A well presented jig or plastic skipped under the dock into the seawall usually gets bit.

No, that is a thin largemouth.

If you are talking about a traditional side view image, I believe the unit would have to be turned sideways in order to go from top to bottom on the depthfinder screen (or you would have to tilt your head to read it. I don't have a down scan depthfinder, but I believe those do go from top of the LCD screen to the bottom (because the depthfinder is giving you a "looking down" image). However, it would make sense to have the depthfinder on the bow to be mounted to the left (port) side of the front of the boat, so that the right side of the LCD screen is towards the bow. Then when you turn your head to look at the screen, it will be moving in the same direction as the boat. As an aside, how long until depth finders don't use a screen and instead project an image off the bow of the boat showing whats under the water (similar to a "heads up" instrument panel in some cars)?

We spent a few days in Phoenix in July of 2014 and I fished the 3 ponds at Papago park (right next to the Phoenix zoo). While I caught fish out of all 3 ponds, I caught the most & biggest fish from the top one (closest to the canal). The water on that pond had the most color and a KVD 1.5 square bill in bluegill pattern was the most effective lure. 5 of the fish I caught out of out of that pond ended up being over 3 lbs and even though there is a lot of shoreline cover, they all came from open water. The lower pond was the clearest (& largest), there a Rapala X-Rap jerkbait in steel (a bluegill color) was most effective for me. Most of the other anglers seemed to be using plastics &/or jigs, which is why I am guessing I had good luck on the reaction lures. The only fish I caught on a plastic worm was right next to a piling of a wood platform on the lower lake.

File this under extreme vagueness, but as a teenager back in the late 70's, I remember reading an article in either Field & Stream or Sports Afield about a man who knew Lake Powell better than anyone else. Apparently he had worked on the river for years before Glen Canyon Dam was built, and as the lake began to fill, he took thousands of photographs to supplement his memory. The article was about how he guarded those photos for a decade or so & never let anyone else see them until his later years when he made them publicly available.

Following the suggestion of Etrout72, I used a Double Fluke rig for the first time today. I tied it with the two swivels & a (carolina rig) bead between them as opposed to just the two swivels alone. It worked well, but I noticed the line would fray just above the knot from the mainline to the main swivel, enough that I had to continually retie after 40 - 50 casts. The bead & the second swivel were loose & slid like they were supposed to, so I am not sure if the bead was causing the fraying or something else. Ironically, I chose to add the bead thinking it would protect the knot. For those of you who use the Double Fluke rig, do you use a bead & why or why not? Also, does it sound correct to suspect the bead as the cause of the fraying or does that happen with just the swivel too?