Captain Phil

Going to a casino is entertainment. Attempting to beating the casino long term is a fool's game. As long as you realize that, I say have a good time. Unfortunately, casino gambling has a dark side. It is extremely addictive. Before you know it you are making regular payments. Once the casino hooks you, it is very difficult to quit. There is such a thing as having too many casinos. Casinos are sold to the public for the tax revenue. Who doesn't want their taxes paid by someone else? If you have too many, no casino makes money. For example, the worst place to gamble right now is Atlantic City. I am not familiar with Richmond and it's gambling options. If having a casino will make your community a better place to live, perhaps it's worth it. If you believe it will pay your taxes so you don't have to, you are mistaken.

Over the years I grew tired of fighting the front end back end tournament wars. If the man in the front wishes to, he can front end you all day. This is very common in club tournaments where egos override courtesy. Winning a tournament under these conditions is nearly impossible. For that reason I switched to team tournaments almost exclusively. On occasion I would fish Federation Tournaments as a non boater to help someone gain an entry. In those tournaments I felt I was fishing against the man in the front not the whole field. To me, there is nothing better than beating a local hot shot out of the back of his own boat. To answer your question, it is very common for the winning nonboater to win out of the winners boat. Finding fish is often more significant than skill. This is not always true, but it is more times than not. Being a non boater is a learning experience. Don't think about winning, think about learning all you can.

Rattle Trap

Over the years I have watched a number of my boats being built. My Gambler was a 1998 model. The entire boat was constructed of honeycombed composite. My 2000 Skeeter had no wood. I don't believe any bass boats still use wood. Pontoon boats often use wood in the floors.

Any spinnerbait can catch a fish. If you want to catch more fish, use premium components. Hildebrandt blades are by far the best. Use ball bearing swivels and thin wire. You want your bait to flash at the slightest movement and put out the right vibrations. Slow down. Stop whining and use a trailer hook. I fished tournaments most of my life. The cost of a spinnerbait never crossed my mind.

My wife and I fished tournaments together for years. Except for the times we fished in bad weather, she enjoyed it. Don't discount the value of women anglers. They often catch fish when you can't. They don't switch lures. They stick with what works for them. One of the best anglers I ever fished with was a female professional guide named Lynda Hawkins. She taught me a lot.

Zoom 4" Finesse worms.

When tournaments first started back in the sixties, they used a shotgun start where all the boats took off at the same time. This was very scary and downright dangerous. All the tournaments I have been in over the last 30 years or so used a staggered start. You may also be in a flight where they divided up the boats into groups with different time restraints. You shouldn't have much trouble with your boat. Keep your distance and use your head. Just because you are in a tournament, don't ignore pleasure boaters. Be courteous and think ahead. Remember your boat has more than two speeds. If the water is rough, back off.

A swimming worm is deadly on Florida bass. The first decent bass I ever caught I caught on a natural worm colored prerigged Creme worm with a spinner on the front. That was nearly 60 years ago. Since then, weightless worms have caught a ton of bass for me. The term swimming worm can mean many things. Pulled straight with a weight in the front, it's a swim bait. I fish Zoom Trick worms with 8 pound test and a small swivel tied 12-14" in front of the worm. This near weightless rig is weedless and catches bass when nothing else will. It's deadly on bedding fish. If the bite is tough, I use a 4" Zoom Finesse worm. This rig works great if you are fishing in the back of the boat. You can fan cast it out in the open and catch fish the guy in the front doesn't. Makes my day when the old man kicks their butt. ?

Trolling is a very efficient way to fish. Before tournaments and trolling motors came into vogue, most bass fisherman trolled. Buck Perry popularized this fishing with his Spoon Plugs. If you wish to see how efficient trolling is, drag around a Rattle Trap or your favorite Crankbait for an hour or two. You may be surprised. Trolling is outlawed in tournaments because it removes the angler from the equation reducing him/her to cranking in fish. What that older angler was doing was more drifting than trolling. At certain times of the year crappies tend to bunch up in large schools. By varying your depth and moving around, you can find these schools. Today, TV anglers use underwater sonar to scan 360 degrees around the boat. Some even use viewers to view the fish directly. You could make a case that fishing that way is unsportsmanlike. I suppose some day a bass fisherman will create a lure that swims round and hooks onto inactive fish and it will be all the rage. ?

Florida definitely has more fishing options than any other State. Every pond in Florida contains decent bass. Residential rock pits and canals are everywhere. At times of low water, Everglades fishing is amazingly good. Our bigger lakes suffer from tournament overload. Locals learn how to avoid the crowds and find their own fish. Where ever you live in Florida you are not far from the coast making inshore salt water fishing popular. For those with finances, offshore fishing is another option. From Stuart to the Keys, Florida has some of the best sail fishing in America. Fishing in Florida is different. It is very hard to have success in a few random days of vacation. Hire a successful full time guide. He can't control the weather or the fish, but he knows ways to make you happy.

I have a long time fishing buddy, Dave, that currently lives in Montana. He's a hunter, fisherman and an avid outdoors person. He's as tough as they come. I always feel safe around him no matter where we are. Some years ago we were fishing in a remote part of Ontario Canada. We were 50 miles down the lake when no one should have been out. The temperature was in the low 40s and it was windy. My friend collects Indian arrowheads that he finds along the lake shore. We stopped fishing long enough to check out a nearby spot where he had found some before. We beached his Lowe boat on a big rock and started looking. When I turned around, I saw that the boat had drifted off. I didn't know what to do as I watched the boat get further away. My friend is about 5' 10" 240 pounds and white as a sheep. He immediately took off all his clothes, dove into the freezing water and caught up with the boat. When he got back, he was standing totally naked on the big rock next to me. I asked him if he was cold (dumb question) and why he took off his clothes? He told me if he had jumped in with his clothes on he may have froze to death by the time we got back to camp. Living in Florida all my life, I never thought about that. We have laughed about that day many times. Sometimes what you don't know will kill you. Here's Dave with a nice bass.

There is a lesson here for anyone wishing to put on a bass tournament. My former bass club runs an annual big bass tournament each year on the Harris Chain. I MC'd the weigh-in during this tournament a few times. I get calls all the time from people who wish to run their own tournaments. The first thing I tell them is about insurance. Our club was a B.A.S.S. club. B.A.S.S. provided us with tournament insurance. We had a few instances, but nothing on this scale. I quit doing the public portions of the tournaments because I was afraid of personal law suits. Years ago, I fished a tournament on Lake Okeechobee where a boater was killed when the boats took off in the dark. You never want to have that experience. I'm not judging what happened in the above case as we don't have all the facts. The way things are today, anyone can sue you for any reason and there are attorneys who will take your case for free.

Simple Green

Anyone here remember Fleck worms?

Not necessarily. Normally the best fisherman will be in B.A.S.S. Federation clubs. The club I was in didn't have enough non boaters. That club was so competitive many non boaters were scared off. Tournaments were more like wars than fishing trips. Don't let your ego influence your decisions. The better the competition, the more you will learn. You will see many an angler with a big boat, twin power poles and a stack of $500 reels that can't catch fish. You will learn those things don't make you a winner by themselves. The best bass fishermen I ever saw were country country boys who have been bass fishing since birth. The first time I ever saw Shaw Grigsby, he was barefoot.

More bass tournaments have been won within paddling distance of the ramp than anyone will ever know. ?

Don't make the same mistakes I made early on. Never leave fish to find fish. You can't catch bass while riding around the lake. The most important thing in tournament fishing is "prefishing". Know where you are going to go and stick with it. Never beat up your fish in practice. Don't panic, especially if people around you are catching fish and you aren't. If everyone on the lake is throwing eight inch black worms, try something similar but different. If the bass get lockjaw, downsize your line and your presentation. Never give up. I once caught an 8 pound bass on the last cast of the tournament. Normally, all it takes is five bites to be in the money.

Start off with club tournaments and go non boater. Sit quietly in the back and observe what other anglers do. From some you will learn what not to do. Take what you learn on the water in your own boat. When you gain confidence, move up to team tournaments. Try to find a team member with more skill than you that compliments your fishing style. Winning tournaments these days is not easy. You will notice the same people seem to win most of the time. Those guys put their pants on the same as you. You can be a winner if you are dedicated to your work. Be open minded. Someone always finds a way to catch bass.

I once won a tournament in Rodman on a 4" chartreuse pumpkin Zoom lizard. It was in January, cold as hell and nasty. The bass wouldn't hit anything, so I went to a Mojo rig and 8 pound spinning tackle. I caught a limit of small fish when most everyone else zeroed.

The Rapala minnow has been a mainstay in bass fishing since it came out in the sixties. It became popular after a national magazine article was published. This made them hard to come by for a while. Believe it or not, some people were renting Rapalas. This bait and it's balsa counterparts are bass killers. The Berkley Bang-O-Lure is huge in Lake Okeechobee. It should be thrown on light tackle. If you can't catch bass on a Rapala, you should take up golf. ?

When fishing muddy or turbid water, you will do better with lures that give off vibrations. Paddle tail worms as opposed to straight, lipless crank baits and spinnerbaits. Fish will be close to cover and won't chase your bait. Make multiple casts to the same target. Try different speeds until you find what works.

Fishing tournaments adds another dimension to bass fishing. It's like a sport in a sport. As you progress, tournament fishing will make you a better fisherman. You will have a chance to gauge your level of success with those of other anglers. You will learn new techniques. You will learn to catch bass that you would never dream of catching before. You will travel, make new friends and have great adventures. You will also make a few enemies and have some bad days. You should read Tom Mann's book "Think like a fish". I think you would enjoy it. Tom quit fishing tournaments went he got older as he couldn't fish at the same level and his ego was hurt. There will always be some young hot shot looking to knock you off. They will have youth and enthusiasm on their side. You will have knowledge and experience. Give it a try.

It's been years since I used one myself. As I recall, I fished them without a trailer. The smaller size and those tiny blades were killer on bass that were used to a parade of 3/8 oz. spinnerbaits. Size is one way to change up your baits and make them stand out above the rest.

One of the best small spinnerbaits ever made was Don Butler's Original OKIEBUG S.O.B. Spinnerbait. They're dynamite. My bet is your bass have never seen one.