Captain Phil

Sixty years of tournament results are proof someone always finds a way to catch fish. Some years ago I spoke with two State game officials who were sampling the Harris Chain bass population. The shock boat pulled up beside a small pad island that I often fished. When they hit the generator, bass to eight pounds popped up all over the place. I had no idea there were that many fish in those pads. This doesn't mean fish are everywhere. Successful bass fishing is finding fish that will bite the way you fish for them.

Here in Florida, purple variation colored plastic worms have caught more bass than all the other artificial baits put together. There is no wrong way to fish them. If that is the only bait you ever used, you would catch enough fish to make you happy your entire life.

As a general rule, good top water lakes are clear. I believe clear water fish feed more by sight. Bass that live in darker water feed more by vibration and sound. The Harris Chain has every type of water imaginable. If you fish in the open lake when the water is murky, you can throw a top water lure all day without a looker. When the water clears up or if you move to a clear canal, the top water bite gets better. Clear water bass will move farther to your bait. The bass strike zone in a murky lake could be inches.

I have the exact same problem on my pontoon boat with a Merc 40 four stroke. It's real intermittent. Works for weeks at a time, then stops. I mess with it for a while and it starts working again. Must be a battery or wiring issue? Let us know if you find a solution?

There are two factors to consider when choose a fishing rod. One is function and the other is pride of ownership. From my experience, function is not a factor of price. I once fished in a Federation Tournament with an angler who had a box full of $500 reels and $350 rods. I beat him out of the back of his own boat with a $50 spinning outfit. This angler believed outspending the competition would make him a better fisherman. Evidently, the fish had different ideas. When I buy a fishing rod, I go to where they have a large selection of rods I can hold, flex, touch and feel. I may try every rod in the store. I am not fond of fiberglass as a rod material. I want a light graphite rod that won't wear me out. I want a rod with decent backbone and a sensitive tip. I don't look at the price until I find one I like. If it's under $150, I may make the purchase. If it's over $150, I keep looking. Most of the rods I use now cost around $50 from Bass Pro Shop. I wasn't always like this. In my younger days, I wanted the most expensive of everything. That's pride of ownership. I guarantee a skilled angler can catch fish just as well with a $70 rod as a $350 rod and it doesn't hurt as much when you break the tip off in your car door. ?

Back in the nineties, our State officials stocked grass carp in the Harris Chain's Lake Yale. They did this as part of the State's "War on Hydrilla". The grass carp ate all the hydrilla. After that, they ate up all the shoreline cover including the reeds and bullrushes. They turned that lake into a featureless bowl of water the color of coffee. The great fishing this lake was known for went away. Some of the grass carb were nearly 40 pounds. I know because I ran a few bow fishing trips at the time. They ended up using plastic fences in an attempt to restore the shoreline grass. Eventually, the State recognized the problem and started using air boats to net out the carp at night and the lake has recovered. If your State talks about stocking grass carp, tell them this story.

Most salt water rod and reel combos are bigger and heavier than their fresh water counterparts. I can't see why it wouldn't work as long as using it does not wear you out. Casting and retrieving all day with a heavy outfit is tough on your body, especially your wrists and elbows. A heavy rod may not have the sensitivity to feel light strikes. On the other hand, I use fresh water tackle for inshore salt water fishing. As long as the drag and line capacity are up to the task, it works for me.

Billy Graham once said that he wasn't afraid to die, he feared the process.

The news report said Pete was an observer in this tournament, so he wasn't fishing alone. The problem is no one thinks they are old until something happens. When it does, you are a long way from help.

Pete Lammons, former NY Jets Super Bowl winning player, died by drowning after he fell off of a fishing boat during a Major League Fishing Event on the Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department confirmed Lammons’ identity and an autopsy was ordered. As a 74 year old, this news report made me reflect on my own life. While we do not know all the facts, there are some things we all share. No one wants to admit their own mortality I no longer fish alone. I stopped when my old fishing buddy slipped and fell off the dock at his own home. If his wife had not come by at that exact moment, he wouldn't be around to tell the story. Pete was a long time tournament participant fishing his 57th MLF tournament. There are worse ways to die than when you are doing something you love.

As far as the fish go, I don't believe you will find many significant changes. New lures come and they go. Chatterbaits are a combination of two old standbys, the jig and the spinnerbait. If you caught fish ten years ago, you will catch fish now. I've got lures that I fished with 50 years ago and they still catch fish. Online shopping and access to information is the main difference. Boats and tackle are more expensive. 10% of the fisherman still catch 90% of the fish.

Some of the best bass fishing I have every seen came after a summer afternoon thunderstorm in Lake Okeechobee. Some of the worst storms were also there with 60+ mph winds, waterspouts and outrageous lightning strikes. We once had a club tournament at the north end of the lake where two club members were knocked down by lightning. They were lucky not to be killed. Be careful out there.

The lake you are fishing is similar to many small lakes in Florida. In order to grow large fish, you need large plentiful bass food. In a small lake, a 4 1/2 pound bass may be a giant. There could be a ten pound bass, but it's not likely you will catch it on a finesse worm. If you wish to target only larger fish, use larger bait. Instead of Zoom finesse worms, try Mag II worms. You won't catch as many fish. Those you do catch will be larger.

Back in the day, a buddy and I won a Florida bass tournament with a 20 fish limit that weighed 64 pounds. Since then, Florida has cut the daily bag limit to 5 fish per angler. Most buddy tournaments are 5 fish per boat. We have size limits as well. The problem is the State freely gives out "exemption" certificates to anyone running a tournament. I have long been a proponent of reduced bag limits and stricter tournament exemptions. Carrying a load of bass around in a live well all day kills fish, especially in the summer months. Cutting the angler limit to three fish would save a lot of bass. In my opinion, it would also improve the sport as pro anglers would develop better big fish techniques. I am encouraged by the new trend of catch, photo and release. Unfortunately, spectators want to see fish. I don't think showing them three fish instead of five would be a problem for anyone. Here's how it was done when tournaments first started.

Back in the day, the sign you were a great bass fisherman was the size of your tackle box. That was the wrapped boat with twin power poles of it's day. I once fished with a man who had an aluminum boat with a built in tackle box that reached from gunnel to gunnel. He must have had over 100 lures in those trays. Many bass fisherman have a side hobby of collecting lures. Some people become hoarders. My old fishing buddy never saw a lure he didn't want to buy. I would buy 2-3 of some bait and he would buy 2 or 3 hundred. His garage looks like a Bass Pro Shop. I used to carry the biggest tackle box they make filled to the brim with every lure style and color imaginable. My excuse was I might need all of them. In reality, I only fish with about 7-8 of them. My total tackle now would fit in a large pants pocket.

When I'm searching for fish, I use lures and techniques to cover a lot of water. My go to search baits are rattle traps and spinnerbaits. Depending on conditions, I may use a top water lure like a frog or Devil's Horse as a search bait. Once I know there are fish in an area, I cover that area slowly and thoroughly. Sometimes an area gets hot at a specific time and I wait them out. This is where local knowledge has an advantage. I once had a small area of pads where big fish would bite only around high noon. I tried fishing them at all other times without success. Like clock work, they would bite in the middle of the day with the sun directly overhead. Tournament and after tournament those pads gave up a 5-6 pound bass each day.

Anyone remember "Al Foss"? If so, you are older than dirt! ?

When Dee Thomas first used the "flipping" technique in tournaments, it was a revolution. Everyone knew bass were tough to catch after a cold front, his technique worked better as cold fronts position bass deeper into cover and they won't move to a bait. When I first tried it, I couldn't believe bass could be caught directly beside the boat. It seemed so simple that it couldn't work. It does. It takes time to cast a lure and reel it back in. During the cast, you may only be in contact with a bass for a short time. Flipping greatly multiplies the number of presentations you can make per hour. Each drop has the potential to trigger a strike. More presentations means more chances to get bit. If you have never done much flipping, it takes time to build confidence. When I was learning, I would try it for 15 minutes and go back to what always worked before. I finally left all my rods at home except for my flipping stick. Given no other choice, I found I caught bigger fish than I ever had before. If you don't think flipping is exciting, try hooking a 10 or 11 pound bass on three feet of line! Once that happens, you are hooked (so to speak). One of the best pro flippers was Denny Brauer. Watch one of his videos and you will see what you are missing.

I wouldn't describe tournament fishing as fun. We fished some waters that we didn't especially enjoy fishing. If we weren't familiar with the tournament waters, we prefished until we had a plan. I can remember one tournament where we prefished for 40 hours to win second place. Consistent tournament winners work hard for their money. Many are guides who use local money tournaments to offset their expenses. When your boat payment is due and you need money to make your living, it's a whole different ball game. You do what you have to do.

The "chuck" goes back to a time before soft plastics. Back then, trailer options were limited to pieces of real pork skin. The gold standard in the South was a weedless Johnson spoon with a pork rind trailer. The trailer was either in the form of a chunk or a strip. Both had unique properties. Pork rind was a mess. It came in little bottles full of salt brine. It stunk and if it leaked, your lures and even your tackle box could be ruined. Thankfully, that's history. A chunk trailer gives a slow side to side motion more like a frog. A strip has a tighter wiggle like a minnow. I have used chunk trailers in pads and strip trailers in weeds. The best modern trailer in my opinion is a Zoom split tail plastic trailer. Everyone has their own favorite.

Back when I was active in tournaments, my partner and I fished mostly team tournaments. Working as a team, I would flip in the front and my partner would pitch in the back. This allowed us to work a larger area than we could alone. Some days the fish were near the edge and I would get more bites and some days they were back in and my partner would. We were only looking for five bites a day. It regularly takes a five fish limit of more than 15 pounds to get a check in one of these tournaments. Some days, it takes 25 pounds or more. To win consistently, you need at least one kicker fish. That's what flipping and pitching does for you.

From the angler's prospective, flipping and pitching are not the same thing. To the fish, they are identical. Both are vertical fishing techniques. When flipping, the reel is not used in the cast. When pitching, the line comes off the reel in an underhanded cast. Flipping is used when fish can be reached within the length of your rod. Dee Thomas was the first person to popularize flipping in a tournament. To accommodate him, 8' 6" was set as the max limit for tournament rod length. In reality, Southern anglers had been fishing like that for years. 100 years ago flipping was called doodle socking or tullie dipping. They used long poles with a short piece of line attached. This allowed them to reach far back in the cover. Because the rod length was limited in tournaments, anglers who wanted to reach further than their rod length developed pitching. I have spent most of my bass fishing life doing both. Flipping and pitching are big bass techniques. Other than using live bait, I know of no better technique for targeting big southern bass.

Over the years I have tried just about every spinnerbait made. Even made a few myself. A single Colorado spinnerbait is good for fishing drops. It works especially well when fishing steep banks. Throw it to the edge of the shore and let it helicopter down on a semi tight line. Most hits come when the lure stops and you begin a slow retrieve back to the boat. Single Colorado baits should be pulled slow or they will tilt sideways or turn upside down.

Keep this in mind. The higher the price, the greater the first year depreciation. Why not buy a used boat? Many people buy a boat and don't use it. Especially now. As soon as this Covid thing is over, I suspect the market will be flooded with unused boats. When most people make a large purchase, they don't think about the day they will sell it. In time, everything gets sold.

Trackers are decent boats for the money. They come as a package and their quality has improved in the last ten years. If the package they offer fits your needs, it's hard to fault them. Before I purchased my last aluminum boat, I looked at all of them. I was going to add my own electronics, so construction was my main criteria. I'm not into fancy stripes and pretty doodads. I wanted a boat that could take some abuse. I settled on a Lowe Roughneck. One look at the thickness of the Lowe stringers sold me. I fished that boat in fresh and salt water. It sat outside most of the time. I sold it to my son who fished it as well. When he sold it, people were lined up to buy it.