Captain Phil

Poling was created for salt water flats fishing. Those waters are very skinny and clear. There is also a substantial current. Flats fish know they are vulnerable. Any noise like turning on a trolling motor will easily spook them. An experienced guide that knows how to effectively pole a boat can steer the boat against the tide and hold the angler in the best position for the cast. When a fish is spotted, the pole can be used to hold the boat so it doesn't run over the fish. When fishing with live bait, I use two poles to stake the boat in position. Two poles keeps the boat from swinging. Attempting to pole in heavy cover will make just as much noise if not more than using a trolling motor. The best way to avoid spooking bass is to use the wind to drift and make longer casts. I don't believe boat noise is as big of a negative in bass fishing as it is in flats fishing. Most if not all of the bass I catch flipping are caught practically under the boat. The only thing that will be hurt by poling is your back.

Perhaps a little inside information would help? The life of a bass fishing guide is not easy. You can't control the fish, the weather or the skills and expectations of your customers. The days are long, normally starting before 4 AM. In the evening you are spooling reels, repairing your boat, your equipment and following up phone calls. The pay is terrible. By the time you pay for your boat, fuel, insurance, advertising, tackle and all the rest, you could make more money working at Walmart. You want your customers to have a good experience. Most don't know anything about real bass fishing. All they know is what they see on TV. People come to Florida expecting the catch big bass. The best way to ensure your customers are satisfied is to fish with live native shiners. They aren't always easy to obtain, so you have to raise your own. This requires even more time and expense. Wild shiners are expensive. More money is made selling shiners than catching fish. Communication is key. Ask a lot of questions. Tell the captain what you expect. Be realistic. Find someone you like. Spending a day on the water with a jerk is not fun. If you are going to fish artificial lures, you are better off with someone who fishes a lot of tournaments. If you are going to fish Florida in the winter, you will be dodging cold fronts. Take some warm clothes. If the Captain does a good job, tip him appropriately. Satisfied customer from Minnesota.

I built my first Flasher from a Heath Kit.

Some of you may enjoy this little story. In the late sixties, organized bass tournaments were just getting started in Florida. I fished my first B.A.S.S. Federation tournament out of Walaka on the St. John's river. I was fishing out of a 15' Terry Bass Boat with a 70 HP Johnson. Most of the boats were faster. This was before high performance bass boats. One guy had an inboard ski boat with a bass seat in front of the windshield bolted to the deck. It was a flare start and everyone took off as a group. Wakes were everywhere and it amazed me no one capsized. It scared the heck out of me. When I got home, I sold my 70 and bolted on a 135 Johnson. This didn't make my boat much faster, but it did look faster. It also made it a terrible handler. Once while fishing Holiday Park in the Everglades, I saw a 15' Terry Bass with a 150 Merc and stick steering! I never saw that boat again.....

I'm old enough to remember fishing with a depth flasher. Don't laugh, Google it. Anyway, I have owned more fishing electronics than most. Lowrance is by far the best. My experience with Hummingbird has been dismal.

I have fished with many professional bass tournament angers. Maybe it's a Florida thing, but I have never seen one use a power pole for anything except holding a boat next to a dock. Back when I was guiding, power poles would have come in handy when shiner fishing instead of staking out with two push poles. When fishing with artificial lures, not so much. So many things we do today are driven by marketing. Today, everyone wants a wrapped boat that you can see coming a mile away. Back in the day, we painted our names on the side of our boats in big letters. When I was fishing tournaments, I didn't want anglers to know where I am fishing. I preferred invisibility.

The question I have is "Why do you want power poles at all?" Are you going to use them or do you believe they make you look better at the ramp? We have been fishing without power poles for millennia. Now every bass boat has to have two of them. If you're fishing a tidal flat I see the benefit, otherwise I think they look hideous, they're in the way and they're something else that can break. Did I mention the cost? School me...

Buy the biggest motor the boat is rated for. That way you can concentrate on fishing instead of wondering what you should have done.

I haven't fished with Marsha since we moved to Central Florida 25 years ago. Both her and her husband Lenny were classy people who loved fishing. They used to kid me about bass fishing saying their bait was bigger than my fish. ?

This isn't about bass fishing, but it's on the current subject. Years ago I had the pleasure to regularly fish with Marsha Bierman. You should Google her. Among her many accomplishments was developing a light tackle stand up sport fishing method for huge marlin. It always amazed me how much drag she could put on those fish without breaking off. She would literally whip those big fish into submission. I once took her snook fishing in my flats boat. On that trip, she hooked a 25 pound snook in Mosquito Pass out of Everglades City. On the first jump, she pulled it down so hard the fish gave up and came to the boat. She told me you have to show the fish who's boss.

I never met the Linders, but I felt like I did. I first heard the Linder name about fifty or so years ago. I was a young guy just starting to fish bass tournaments. I fished a National tournament out of the north end of Okeechobee. One night in practice, I was standing in a line waiting to use the phone. (no cell phones back then). The person on the phone in front of me was Johnny Adams. He and his brother Jack were the top anglers in Florida back then. I heard him tell his wife to buy all the chartreuse bladed Lindy spinner baits she could find and bring them to him. The next day I bought all I could find myself. This was the first time I ever used a spinnerbait with painted blades. I ended up almost winning that tournament. I would have but I was stupid and beat up my fish in practice. As I recall, I cashed a check for $500, which was good money in those days. After that, I started looking for Lindy baits. I found Fishing Facts magazine too. That magazine was the first magazine that actually taught fishing. It was much more than photos of anglers holding big bass. It was also slanted toward Northern Fishing. Undeterred, I bought a bunch of custom hair jigs and and found that Southern bass liked them. I used their worms too. When you leave this Earth, the best you can hope for is you will have added something useful to it. The Lindys changed fishing forever.

I've been back reeling bass for years. Done right, it's much more effective than relying on a "stack of washers". Bass don't normally run far enough or long enough to be a problem. Try back reeling a 10 pound bone fish and see how that works! Today's reel drags are much better than what we had in the sixties. My opinion may be different if I was starting out today.

Bass don't all spawn at the same time. Here in Florida, the spawn can start right after Christmas. I caught my 11 1/2 PB in January. I have caught numerous bass over 10 in the summer. I have also fished bass on beds in early June. Since you are fishing from a kayak, I believe your personal results have more to do with the weather than the seasons.

Before I booked a charter, I always asked the client what they expected. If a client expected to catch a pile of fish, I would most likely recommend another captain. My best clients were anglers who wanted to learn new water or new techniques. It was always a thrill to receive a photo of a nice fish one of them caught after fishing with me. I didn't worry about giving away secret spots as most anglers who book a guide can't catch fish even if you put them on fish. Professional tournament anglers are different. They aren't looking for secret spots, they want to know how I catch fish on my home waters. Some of the anglers I have had sitting in the back of my boat have won over a million dollars lifetime tournament fishing. It's laughable that I could teach them anything. I always enjoyed fishing with knowledgeable fisherman. Booking a client who wants to catch bass like they do on TV is asking for trouble.

When flipping first became popular, we used 8 1/2 foot rods as this was the longest rod allowed in a tournament. If it was good enough for Dee Thomas, it was good enough for me. In time, we learned that heavy rods are tough on your hands, arms, elbows and back. I have been flipping with a collapsible 7 1/2 foot rod for about 20 years. When flipping, you rarely have over 6 feet of line off the end of your rod. You can pitch with a six foot rod if you like. Leverage is not that important when flipping and pitching. I can remember many times when a small bass went flying by my head on the hook set. ?

Purchasing an expensive rod will not make you a better fisherman. It will make you a better consumer. Lord knows we can use more of them right now. ?

Here in Florida, our winter bass don't get out of bed until 10 AM. It seems they're on the same time schedule as me. ☺️

Some years back, I used to fish Lac Seul in Canada every year in August. The fishing was always great. The two guys I fished with would troll for walleyes while I would cast plugs from the front of the boat. We caught boat loads of nice walleyes and always had enough for shore lunch. I caught pike all day long. Most were small with a few over 10 pounds. I read somewhere that the bigger fish bite better in the fall, so I made a trip back up the second week in September. The weather dropped into the forties with a 30 mph wind. Thank God I had a pair of fur lined boots with me! We didn't catch many fish on that trip. The fish we did catch were huge. I ended up with a 10 pound walleye on a big Cisco Kid plug and a 25 pound northern on a spinnerbait. Both fish are mounted on my office wall. You guys are tough!!!

It's so sad what happened to this great company. I was a Johnson Evinrude fan for years. When everyone was bolting on 150 Mercs, I stuck with my Johnsons. They were great engines back then and I never had one let me down. I finally made the switch to Mercury when they came out with the Black Max. I blew up a pile of black motors. Rods came out the side, triggers misfired and lower units granaded. In the early tournaments, Merc service techs would fix your motor for free. I remember idling around a marina before dark breaking in a new powerhead. All that has changed. Modern engines hardly ever break. I ran a Yamaha ProMax in tournaments for almost ten years without a single problem. My pontoon boat has a ten year old Merc 4 stroke and it runs like new. Service availability is the main problem with current Evinrudes. If you have the right mechanic, you should be OK. The question then is, What happens if your mechanic goes away?

I am intimately familiar with this phenomenon. It's all over my boat when I go to the marina. ?

Good question. Here in Florida, every body of water bigger than a puddle has fish in it. In Central Florida, most natural ponds are sink holes connected to subterranean springs. In South Florida, most of the waterways are man made canals or rock pits. Some waterway connections are not visible, they have underground culvert pipes. If they are not connected, people sometimes stock fish in them. My home in Pembroke Pines had a drainage canal in the back yard that was dug when they built the housing development. We used to bring bass we caught in Lake Okeechobee to stock the canal. I put more than one 9 pound plus bass in that canal myself. Every so often one of the kids in the neighborhood would hook one like that. You could hear them scream all over the neighborhood. When I was a kid, I fished a closed end ditch in the Opa-Locka airport. That ditch was about 15' wide, 300 yards long and no more than 8 feet deep. It was full of small bass. How they got in there, I will never know.

Excalibur Swim'n Image.

That hat is a new addition to my wardrobe. It looks silly, but it covers most of my head and is much cooler than a tradition fishing hat. I look like an old man sitting in a pontoon boat. If the shoe fits, wear it. ?

Anything will work, but I prefer shorter rods for top water lures and longer rods for buzz baits. I work top water plugs fast. A shorter rod is easier to manipulate, especially when walking the dog. My favorite top water plugging rods are the old style pistol grip handle rods. My casting seems more accurate too. Longer rods for buzz baits are desirable because you can keep your line higher above the water. I find this helps me to guide the lure around pads and slows down the hook set. Longer rods also increase casting distance.

The coldest I have ever been bass fishing in Florida was 17 degrees when our club had a tournament in Clermont. My hands felt frozen and I couldn't turn the reel handles. It warmed up a little when the sun came up. Here in Central Florida, it can drop into the thirties on rare occasion. We even had a tiny dusting of snow once on my back porch. It doesn't last long and warms back in the low seventies the next day. The cool weather in Florida kicks off our good fishing. All the bass I caught this week were fat and healthy. Before that, they looked pretty skinny.