basscatcher8

When you do that your supposed to step up not pick a team as bad as the hometown ones. Before you get upset just remember this is coming from a bears fan thats already moved onto baseball season lol

Even if there is a little waste as the saying goes "Turtles gotta eat too". I imagine most survive or they woulda given up on it a long time ago.

I have a tin boat so I am just easy with my hatches and dont go stomping around the boat unless I have to but other then that I dont do much else to reduce sound. At a certain depth sonar is useless anyway so ill turn it off and just have the map up.

I want to get one but for making masters to then turn into molds. I think you could do some awesome things in the mold making department with one of these.

Power fishing to me has always been fishing something for a reaction strike. Cranks, buzz baits, spinner baits. Your just running it through an area to fire a fishes instinct to kill it, if nothing fires from a target your casting to move onto the next. And that instinct is there all year long no matter how cold or warm it is in the water. But like y'all have said its different definition for different people. That's whats great about fishing is you can do everything your own way and can be different from the next guy but your both right and both having success. That's why to me copying pro techniques doesn't make sense. You can take parts of what they are doing and work it into your own routine but they are doing what works for them you gotta find what works for you.

I bought three Lew's speed boat bags. One bag is my bass stuff one is my walleye/crappie stuff and the third smaller one is all my plastics. This works for a boat not as well for bank fishing obviously. But the platics can go into either of the bigger bags if I'm going on someone elses boat.

I love middle of summer fishing them weightless texas rig. I fish them like a buzzbait right on the surface. It doest make as much noise but sure gets their attention.

Thanks Wayne. I need to get out and practice more with SI in shallow water. If not for actually seeing fish for finding targets to cast at that might not be visible above the water.

Yeah I run a 998. I usually will mark spots on Google Earth then convert them over to a memory card and load them on my GPS screen. I've even made quick powerpoint presentations with overhead pictures from Google Earth so when I'm out in the boat and fishing an area I got a quick reference to look at with notes about what I was thinking when I was looking at the area.

Thanks guys these were the answers I was looking for. I've got the before you get there research down pretty good. Dig through google earth and dig through forums using buzz words and usually find information dating back 10 years. I know lakes change but you can look at info from 10 years ago and compare to posts from a year ago or so and see how things have changed if at all. But always seems like I actually get on the water and go stupid and forget everything that I had found. Think this next year I'm going to spend more time behind the wheel searching around a lake before I drop a line to try and up my success rate. I know the only thing electronics wont eliminate is the shallowest water and that depends on time of year and day. And I know nothing beats time on the water to figure a place out.. Thanks guys!

So I've been sitting down and reviewing notes and going back over trips in my head this year. I spent more time on new lakes this year than I ever have before. I always managed to luck into a fish here or there but wasn't really able to find where the concentrations were at. I'd usually start searching with my electronics and quit cause I was anxious to fish, which led to fishing water that I had no idea or confidence in if there were any fish there. I just figured I'd ask the group. How long do you typically spend on a new body of water with eyes on the graph and not casting before you decide its time to get at it? Do you wait till you see alot of life on the screen? Do you run down the bank till you mark a brush pile on your SI and go fish it or do you look at several areas where the fish would either be in transition or staged up and decide what would be your highest percentage for success? Just curious on how others think their way though this sport. I know we can all just run down the bank chucking lures but I'm just trying to find how guys spend their time efficiently on the water. Obviously when your going into a new body of water you've done your homework before hand and marked on a map primary locations where you think they would be at. I'm just curious where you guys go from there with it.

Like WRB said I dont stop unless I see signs of life on the screen. I feel like I'm wasting my time if I dont. Obviously there are other signs of life than whats on the screen. Activity shallow on the water surface will get me to stop to. But I usually stick with a tool until my head says maybe something else will work better. If your mind is on any other lure than the one your using your not concentrated and need to change.

I've been looking at doing something like that in the bed of my truck. Kind of a organizer where I can lock up my spare trolling motor and keep tackle im not using that day in and out of the boat.

I've got my boat specifically rigged to troll. Not just cranks but bottom bouncers with spinner/crawler harnesses work great too for locating deep fish. Dont even need live bait for em just throw a gulp earth worm on. I have a drift sock that I can rig off the back of my boat to slow down my big motor. I will usually let the terrova on the front do the steering and the big motor for pushing. I think the reason its frowned upon in the bass world is cause it is against the rules during the tournament. But lets face it when we see them in the tournament most guys know where there fish are already and dont need the method to land fish. I know a few of the guys that will troll cranks practicing to locate fish. I think alot of guys just fool themselves that its not being done when in fact it really is. I dont know about the rest of ya but I like catching fish and if a tactic is going to help me solve the puzzle faster im going to do it.

I'll have to go see if I can find that. I enjoy reading alot of their stuff, new and old.

Fishing alone means the boat control equation gets a whole lot easier. Mainly get myself into the best position to cast and to hell with the back of the boat unless its hitting something lol. As said before I start casting a whole lot more parrallel to cover.

I'm mainly a river fisherman. And its taken having the good electronics to learn about fish movements in these bodies of water. I read on here all the time that rivers are easy you know the fish will be in the bank by cover out of current. Thats how I always fished. After having SI for awhile and doing alot of riding and catching I've learned that they will venture out and be in the main river. Obviously during low water periods there are more of them out from the bank than during high water. I've also begun to enjoy the weekend pleasure boat traffic on some of these bodies of water. It seems like the more the water gets stirred up from the pleasure boaters the better the bite gets. I can only attribute that to baitfish getting stirred up and the bass know this.

My first year back to focusing on fishing more has gone well. I'm by no means just a bass fisherman and definitely chase multple species through the year. So far this year I've become more comfortable with Side Imaging and using that to locate fish. Using harnesses to locate walleye using my electronics and covering water efficiently. I am also getting more comfortable reasearching and fishing new lakes. I come here to learn more about the biology of bass. There are alot of wise folks on here that talk alot about fish movements and behavior. I really enjoy reading those discussions. I just cant get into the bait monkey craze of i gotta have this bait or that bait. I'd rather learn the movements and behaviors and then just match up a bait to that rather then making sure i got the newest this or that. I visited 3 new lakes this year and didnt get skunked on one of them yet. Not saying I set them on fire cause I did have some 1 fish days, but I still managed to locate em on a new body of water. I got back to Bull Shoals lake on the 4th of july weekend this year and that place has always been a thorn in my side not able to find fish on my own always managed some with guides but not well on my own. I spent that weekend on the lake all over new spots and managed to pull in some keeper walleyes without help from any of the guides and I considered that a big win. My biggest thing to work on for next year is recognizing an opportunity and going after it. I can think of three times where I caught a fish and didnt stop to think about what was going on with that fish and just kept moving on cause it wasnt what I wanted to see. I was crappie fishing on a lake and wasnt finding many but managed to snag a small walleye. I thought cool and then the wife lost a nice walleye shortly there after. If I would of stopped and thought about it I woulda said forget the crappie for now and searched that area for where those two walleye came from and load up. Instead I kept moving on. On the river here a couple weeks ago I was running a rip rap shorline and casting a buzzbait and had a smallie take it and again I should of just put the breaks on cast that buzz bait a few more times in the area then pull the football jig out and just search the area really slow. Instead I kept the buzz bait in hand and just kept moving on. Came back to that area with someone else the next day and we fished slow then just cause I had someone else with me and we just killed fish on that spot all day. So my biggest thing for the future right now is just recognizing an opportunity like that in front of me and exploit it to the fullest. I also took up bow fishing this year and managed to shoot one carp. Seems like every other time I've been out the water has been too muddy to see anything. Hoping to jump into a couple bow tournaments next year and get better at locating and shooting with the bow. To summarize its been an AWESOME year and aint over yet lol.

^^^What he said......I'll get mine installled one of these days.

I ran into a situation similar to this on a new lake to me I was fishing last week (Delavan Lake). I pulled up to the first spot and started fan casting a white chatterbait to see if i could get any reaction bites in the area to show me signs of life. I was casting with the shore to my back out and had a 3 pounder follow my bait clear up to the boat. I tried the killing it method and she just turned away and swam back. I made a few more casts and gave up and turned around. Next cast I cast towards the bank right at the corner of a dock and immediatly hooked a 3 pound largemouth and got her aboard. At this moment I should of just stopped and got something slow moving to sit over this grass bed and just combed that area real slow since I just had two bass show themselves to me. But intead I just kept moving on. I had several pike in the area follow my bait as well with no takers. The more I think about it I should of tied a texas rig on and found the weed bed edge and gone along it and I should of tied a spinner bait on or something other then the chatter bait and run that over the top of the grass beds. Those followers are frustrating when you get to your 3rd or 4th in one day and you just cant find the magic key to bite.

I figured about all species will bite a night crawler. Why not drop down real quick and figure out what those arches are. Has worked pretty good for me.

I do. I run lindy's and drop shot rigs with crawlers for bass on the local river here. Some folks refuse to throw it in the bass world but if you just wanna go chill and have fun reeling in numbers and dont ever know whats biting its a really good time. Smallmouth get aggresive on crawlers and you will wear your arms out. The fun for me is the actually locating the fish right now and use live bait to learn my electronics and what I'm seeing. But like everybody there are days you want the challenge.

I went up to Delavan yesterday. Only managed one fish but it was nice. About 3 1/2 pounds right off the corner of a dock on a white chatterbait. Got plenty of follows from largemouth and pike on the chatter bait but never got em to commit. Was burning it over the top of the weed beds. Tried several other baits in several areas but never did find em fired up anywhere. Was shocked how busy this place was for a tuesday. This was my first trip ever to this lake and I will definitely be back.

Now they have the officially license Senko Mold from Do-It but still nobody has been able to nail the plastic mixture correctly yet.

I've been doing more of this than anything to define spots. Its obviously not allowed in tournaments but when your out fun fishing it doesnt hurt to do. Might even snag dinner while your at it.