RPreeb

I have a 3 piece Ocean Master travel spinning rod from Bass Pro that I bought when we moved to the Bahamas. Used it for 2½ years fishing tidal channels and flats for snapper, jacks, bonefish, and barracuda. It still looks like new, and I landed some nice 10+ pounders on it. It's paired with a Shimano Spheros 5000 spinning reel.

Went out yesterday hoping to maybe interest an early spring bass, but not a hint that there were even any bass in the pond. I didn't catch any catfish either, but after I switched from a T-rigged worm to a crankbait (Rapala DT-Flat - kind of a red craw color), I caught 2 walleyes and a white crappie. Water temp couldn't have been much more than 40°-45°, but all 3 fish hit it pretty hard.

Here's another look at Mt. Evans from Guanella Pass on the west. Mt. Bierstadt is in the upper right corner, then the Sawtooth connects to Mt. Evans proper across the center of the photo. The drive over Guanella Pass is a nice one too. Most any road you take in the mountains seems to have something to offer. My Garmin GPS near the top of the pass:

If you do make it out for that, the Mt. Evans road is only open through the summer. They try to open by Memorial Day, but sometimes the weather at 14,000 feet doesn't cooperate. It usually closes again by mid September.

Took the canoe out for its maiden voyage today. Beautiful day, 70° and only a light breeze that kept starting and stopping, coming from every point on the compass. Never fished this pond/reservoir (100 acres) before, but there are supposed to be both largemouth and smallmouth in it. If there are, then they are all still in hiding. I tried worms weightless and T-rigged with 3/16 tungsten bullet... nothing. Tried a jerkbait... nope. Switched to a DT Flat crank and caught a 17" walleye and an 8" white crappie. After a bit I switched to a 6-8 foot bluegill crankbait and caught another walleye, then it seemed to shut down. At least that was the last action I saw. All in all it was still a good day, despite the lack of bass.

If you ever get out here, you can drive to within about 75 feet of the summit of Mt. Evans. It's the highest paved road in North America, ending at about 14,130 above sea level.

@senile1 Did you ever get to Mt. Evans when you were in Colorado? These are from about 40 years ago, the first one is 1979, the rest are from the 80's. Where he's looking down is a couple thousand feet, almost vertical (he's standing at a bit over 14,000 feet). There were several nannies with kids on the narrow rocky ridge that runs from the peak of Mt Evans across the Sawtooth to Mt. Bierstadt. Bristlecone Pines:

Don't know how good it is overall, but I caught a couple on a popper out of Pine Lake In Eldora last May just bank fishing at the State Park campground. Watched guys in small boats fishing along the shore both evenings we camped there. It's a pretty little lake, just a short drive north of Ames.

I watched last night too. Saved it on my Hopper to watch again somewhere down the line. Great show Hank and Glenn! Nice 5 pounder too, Glenn!

Not a clue at this point. When I get out there, I'm first going to paddle around a little and see what I can find out just looking around. The 100 acre pond has about 500 yards of rip-rap at the dam, with a lot of brush around the rest. Some of the brushy areas are partly flooded, so I'll work that with something. I also plan to try slow fishing a jerkbait and see what happens. Mostly I'll just be doing a lot of guessing. I've never fished this one at all before. I don't have any electronics, so if I can't see it, I don't know what's there. The smaller 2 acre ponds which I have fished this last year, for them I know that weightless 4" ribbon tail worms get bit, as do 5" senko type worms, and I've also caught them there on poppers. I'm expecting that fishing fairly slow with weightless plastics, or T-rigged with a 3/16 tungsten bullet will probably be my best bet. I've never fished this early in the year, so my challenge just trying to figure out what's there, what they might want to eat, and how to present it. It's only a couple of weeks ago that there was still ice on all 3 bodies of water. Getting skunked is a definite possibility, but on a sunny, 70° day, just being out in the canoe will be reward enough.

I went out today scouting some of the water closest to home. Should have taken a thermometer with me, but since the air temp was only 48° at noon, the water can't be too warm. This is Tamarack Pond, one of the 2 small ponds (2 to 2½ acres) that I use for practice. I caught some small LM here last year. I haven't wetted a line yet this year, but I'm thinking that Thursday I'll take the canoe out to a 100 acre pond just a few minutes north of this one - that will be it's maiden voyage if the wind cooperates.

I'm right there with you. My wife still hasn't noticed that there are 3 rods in my study where there used to be only 2 (new one is a St. Croix Premier with Tatula CT 100 6.3:1). I'm hoping that by the time she spots it, I can honestly say "That one? I've had it for ages!" With luck, she'll pretend to believe me.

And the OP last visited 7 years ago...

My real problem with this is that reading anything on my phone in sunlight is a pain. Units like the Garmin Striker state that they are optimized for reading in sunlight. I know that my Garmin golf GPS needs no backlight to read it clearly in daylight - completely different from most backlit electronic displays.

My heaviest rod is rated to 3/4 ounce. My heaviest lure is a 7/8 ounce Whopper Plopper 110. I just haven't run into the need for anything much larger so far. The bass around here just don't grow that big, so I mostly use weightless or lightly weighted plastics, or small to medium sized hard lures. I can't justify buying another rod for one lure, so there it is. I'm also not losing any sleep over it. It doesn't take a lot of effort to modify my wind up enough to handle the extra load.

Another point - if you have ever seen a free swimming leech, it looks a lot like a 3" to 4" black ribbon tail worm. I know that back in the early days of plastics, they sold a worm (brown) and an eel (black), both otherwise nearly identical, pre-rigged with 2 or 3 hooks, red beads and a prop.

Steady work, but will they get any time to go fishing? I was a machinist, and when it got busy in the shop, I had some summers where my only memories are of working 70 hour weeks. The overtime money was great, and was part of the reason why I was able to retire at 60, but I will still regret the absent recreational opportunities for those lost summers.

I'm right there with ya, Catt. I was a journeyman machinist for 33 years. My tool box was filled with tools that could go the distance. My 3 personal micrometers - 0-1", 1"-2", 2"-3", were top of the line carbide tipped Mitutoyo inspection grade. At the time I bought them at the start of my apprenticeship in 1976 they were top of the line - couldn't afford to skimp on accuracy. They served me well in constant use until I retired in 2009. They were still accurate to .0001", certified annually by the inspection department in my company. Not all of my tools were top brand names, but all were top quality and performed well through many years of constant use. I still have those which could make the shift to home use on my bench in the garage. Respect for a good tool usually comes with experience. I buy good tools and cookware for the kitchen, good quality lenses and gear for my photography, decent but not the most expensive golf clubs, and I feel that with some assistance from this forum, decent lower mid range fishing gear. I now have 2 Tatula CT 100 reels, 8.1:1 and 6.3:1. I only have one St. Croix Premier, and one Ugly Stik, (and the BPS rod and Shimano 5000 series spinning reel that I've had since we lived in the Bahamas) due to budget and wife considerations. If I ever reach a point where I can actually recognize a deficiency, then I'll work on justifying it to my better half. For now I have decent and functional gear which I like, and which is suitable for my lack of experience or expertise.

From a newby to the modern forms of bass fishing, part of the difficulty in understanding the sport, or at least beginning to get a handle on it, is in its complexity and in the way it can vary from region to region. Ask a question here on the forum and get a dozen different answers from a dozen knowledgeable anglers, then realize that they are all right. This creates the dilemma of "Where do I begin?" Much of the advice here involves some knowledge of structure and cover, advice which is made more difficult to follow when a beginner is fishing without benefit of electronics. A lot of the tips are only practical if one is in a well equipped boat. Then too, trying to "think like a bass" is often futile, because bass don't really think. Their reactions to stimuli are based mostly on instinct. Unless you can pin down all of the variables in play on a given day, and understand how the bass in that particular lake are affected by them, you have to rely on a lot of guesswork. This point is driven home by what I see watching MLF tournaments. These guys are pretty good fishermen, yet while some competitors are catching 20-30 pounds, another can be getting skunked, or nearly so. Not that he doesn't know what to do, only that for whatever reason, he hasn't found the "thing" that day. It gives me encouragement on those days when I'm not getting bit.

I'm right there with you. I'll also add the overload of shopping for tackle. The first time I was in a BPS after deciding to try bass fishing after my 50 year hiatus, I left without buying anything. My head was spinning. The last time I had fished for bass the entire bass section in a tackle shop would have fit in one aisle at BPS. Now I have a marginally better idea of what I'm doing, and before I go to Cabela's, I have a general idea of what I'm looking for. I feel the same way when reading some of the articles and watching the videos here at Bass Resource. So much info, and so much of it that I am forced to modify because I don't (and may never) own the gear that the particular demonstrator is advising. Ultimately, I now try to watch for methodology and just pass over the advice on rods and reels that I just don't have. At least for this season, I'll also be doing without any sort of electronics, so a lot of my fishing will be pure trial and error, searching... searching... searching, just like I did it growing up. I expect to be doing a lot more fishing than catching, but that's just how it's going to have to be.

If you can do that without at least having to get out 2 or 3 times to check, then you're a better man than I am Gunga Din. You can't see the hitch with mirrors. My camper is immovable by hand, so I have to hit about a 1/2" window between too far and not far enough (I get about 1/2" more leeway side to side, because I can give it a kick if it's off a little and it will drop in). With the camera it's no problem hitting the right spot every time, without ever leaving the cab. To each his own, I guess.

We get them all year long... some just stay here, others migrate from up north and winter here. We get snow geese by the thousands too. Saw a few wasps buzzing around yesterday in our 70° sunshine. Haven't seen a robin yet, and that is unusual. Snow is forecast overnight tonight. Welcome to springtime in Colorado.

Regardless of stability, I prefer to sit. I did look at the SportsPal before I bought mine, but decided to go more traditional. I have an Old Town Discovery 133 - 13'3" long and 40" beam. It's heavier (78#), but it's virtually indestructible. Even comes with a center seat and the kit to install oarlocks if you want to row instead of paddling. I've paddled and fished from a canoe for 60 years, so I'm quite comfortable in one.

I have a 1.5 acre pond 4 blocks from the house with small LM bass, bluegill and catfish. Another one about 2 acres is 25 minutes away, and 2 reservoirs less than 1 hour away. None are particularly noted for bass (walleye seems to be more heavily fished in the reservoirs), but that's okay... that just means that the bass aren't pressured all that much.