Big Hands

This is my current situation as well. I have to wait ten days after I put my boat in anywhere else to fish the lake that I can see from my backyard. And, that isn't counting the time I would have to quarantine from the time I have last fished my home water until the other lake will let me launch my boat. The other local lake I would like to fish most has a 35 quarantine period before you can fish there AFTER they have inspected and tagged your boat. That means that for me to fish there I would have to wait at least 35 days after inspection, and then another ten days after that to fish my home lake. That would be one day of fishing with at least 45 days of quarantine any time soon. . . . Yeah, naw. That's not happening. I know of more than one person that now has AT LEAST two boats so they can fish more than one lake. They have now recently started inspecting livewells and making us lower the motor briefly before they install the quarantine tag on our way out of the lake. I get the livewell inspection, but not so much the brief lowering of the motor. It gets lowered just for a second, and then they tell me I can put it back up (still dripping water) and I'm good to go. I'm not really sure what this accomplishes. The answer I got was that they were not sure why, but they were told to do it, so they follow orders as they need to in order to keep their job (which is understandable). That's the way we roll here in 2021.

I don't think a bass can tell whether or not it's hard or soft until they eat it. Several swimbaits are made in floating, slow sink and fast sink models (usually hard or baits with a soft skin). Whatever you do with it, it needs to be placed in the vicinity of the fish. Sometimes they will run one down and eat it, but when I see them follow it, they usually end up only being curious. BITD, we used to troll the AY See Plug (a hard jointed swimbait) at nine colors on lead core line (that would get it skimming the main lake points at about 25 feet deep). That is a hard swimbait made from a piece of 1-3/8" closet dowel that will only dive a couple feet on it's own. It was usually digging into the bottom when it would get slammed for us, but very few people ever knew to try to fish them like that. Ganterels and s-wavers are glide baits. Plenty of videos on how to fish them slowly and then impart subtle twitches and pauses that make them suddenly veer or u-turn. The Huddleston is more of a true swimbait and like most soft swimbaits, they will usually sink if given the chance. It kind of stays on course and the tail wagging is where most of it's action comes from. Some even rig them so they can drag them across the bottom. . . slowly. Find a spot where you can see your bait on the retrieve and watch how it behaves. There will be speeds where it looks like money and other speeds won't. It's easy to be skeptical of these giant baits. . . . until you get bit on one. Both types work and they both catch BIG fish, but only if you use them. I spoke to one of our local legends earlier this year (he's actually quite a bit more than a local legend) and he told me that he didn't get a bite the first 13 times he fished this year. Then he caught an 8 pounder and a 13 pounder in the same week. That's big swimbait fishing in a nutshell, even for the best of them. Still, the 'rules' are neither hard nor fast and they're meant to be broken.

The golf course pond across the street and La Mirada Regional park are where I did most of my fishing as a youth. I grew up within easy walking distance from Regional. The rest of my family still lives there.

Born and raised in La Mirada, but as close as that is, you can only see cool from there because it's only O.C. adjacent, thus not actually cool.

Burn him. He's a witch ;~)

I had tendonitis in both elbows and carpal tunnel in both wrist back in the early 90's and after 8 cortisone injections, finally had surgery in 1993. Whipping those evil 5.5' pistol grip rods was excruciatingly painful. Since the surgery (and several months of recovery), I don't think much about it these days, BUT I do have to be mindful of not overdoing it with baits that have a lot of resistance on the retrieve and/or are heavy to cast (bait and/or rod and reel)or that need to be cast repeatedly. I only throw those baits for a little while and then take a break. There is one crankbait that I have found that is somewhat large and will easily dive over 20' that isn't nearly as fatiguing as I expected it to be given it's size and how deep it will dive, and that is the Megabass M 7.5 (body and bill are 7" long and it weighs a little over 2 ounces). It is also somewhat resistant to snagging on the bottom. If it does hang up, it will hang momentarily, but it's usually the bill rather than the hooks so you can usually let up and free it or back up and get it free.

That looks (IMHO) well over 10-3.

On my home water (about 2,200 acres), the fish pictured has been caught several times over the past few months. It's distinctive 'shape' makes it fairly easy to recognize that it is the same fish. It was usually caught in the same area, but was most recently caught at least a mile away, but since the water has been receding nearly a foot per day since the beginning of May, it's understandable that it felt the need to completely relocate. This is a lake that sees a ton of pressure, especially considering it's size. And now, it's down 120' from full pool and still slated to go down another 20' to 50' depending on who you believe. To all the anglers I know, the fishing has never been more consistently good over this period. I have been able to fish at night a few times recently, and when I put my homemade fishing light into the water, the amount of forage fish that instantly show up is staggering. And then the predators intermittently slashing through. . . When I go fish in other places, the locals say that when the flood gates are open (lowering the lake by a couple inches) you may as well go play golf. I'm there to fish, to heck with playing golf. The conditions may change, but fish can still be caught. It's difficult to make sense of it all. We have a decent size bass (between three and four pounds) that seems willing to be caught on the regular, which could be an anomaly, but here we are. I call her "Muffin Top". We have a LOT of fishing pressure and yet the fishing is ridiculously good by normal standards, and we have water dropping as fast or faster, and further that it ever has in it's history, and yet again, here we are. My take is that in spite of what is often said about fishing being good or bad, bass have to eat to stay alive (spawning season aside). It's up to us to figure out how they want to be fed or fooled at a given time.

In my neck of the woods, friends don't let friends bring spinning rods on party boats (if this is what you meant by "on a boat") unless they are very experienced and/or are willing to separate themselves from the masses fishing at the stern. On a crowded party boat, for the sake of fishing harmoniously when elbow to elbow near the 'hot corner' I try to abide by the 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do' maxim. If I just have to be 'that guy', I will try to find an uncrowded spot up near the bow and do my thing there. I like an 8' boat rod, but as an actual surf rod, it's on the short side (again, in my neck of the woods) because it makes it more difficult to keep your line out of the waves and it doesn't cast as far as an 11' to 14' rod will. If you want or need to be a one or two rod angler, it's understandable to make do with a 'spork' of a rod/reel combo. Maybe 'swiss army knife' is a better descriptor. And that would be an understandable route to go if you're planning to only have a couple of arrows in your quiver. None of us planned to have as many rods as we do, but here we are. If you do this a lot, it goes from 'swiss army knife' to 'horses for courses'. It's part of the journey I guess.

I usually work it all the back to the boat if that is at a depth that will hold fish. I could be fishing parallel to a bank less than a boat length from the bank and be over 35' to 50' though and then I might fish it a little ways and then reel it in to cast at the shoreline. Did that two days ago and a bass ate my texas rig roboworm within 10 feet of the boat. I actually got a couple more similar strikes like that on that day.

Fourth of July when I was a teenager, I was fishing a golf course pond, and saw a HUGE bass (I estimate it was between six and eight pounds and I had never seen one that size in person before that day) sitting in a gap between the tules. I had my rod setup for bluegill because that was all I had ever caught there. . I ran back to my tackle box and tied on the only bass bait I had in my tackle box; one of those Creme pre-rigged grape worms with the propeller in front. I ran back to the gap, and the bass was gone. I tossed the worm out into the area where she had been sitting and just let it sit there a few minutes. All of a sudden, I see the heifer slowly swim out from the reeds, and she takes up a position directly behind the worm, but seemingly staring at me, frozen on the shoreline. . . staring right back at her. I had no idea what to do, so I just stood completely still. Then, she opened her giant worm hole and began flaring her gills. The worm started fluttering, but not really moving and did so for about three full seconds before she sucked in so fast, it was like it was there and then it wasn't. I have never seen anything like it before or since that time, nor have I seen any video of anything like it, but I certainly saw it that time plain as day. So, J Francho, it would not surprise me in the least that there is sometimes something going on before they actually ingest the bait. I have heard people say the same thing about a crankbait that doesn't quite feel right just before a strike and I would imagine a bass following it closely could have an effect on the way the bait swims through the water.

Yup. Directly under a boat might be the one spot where they rarely have a lure presented to them. The odds might be better with a longer cast (I definitely believe this to be true), BUT if you have a lure anywhere in or near the water, there is a chance that an aggressive beast could take a swipe at it at any moment. And, some of those rule-breaking bass are absolute pigs.

Never up, never in. You miss catching 100% of the fish you don't cast at. My good friend is an excellent angler, but I think his confidence is one of the things that makes him as successful as he is. "There's got to be some fish in here" is a phrase I have heard from him often. And sometimes he is right and sometimes he isn't. That's fishing.

I fished a local golf course pond as a teenager in the 70's. We had to sneak in over a fence that wasn't more than three feet tall right next to the road. The pond was pretty close to the fence there, and about a third on the bank was obscured by reeds, so they had to actively come to see if anyone was fishing and most of the time wouldn't bother. You'd have to hit a ball sideways off of the 10th tee to have a chance to bounce backwards off of something that isn't there to hit us, so not much chance of that happening. We would roam most of the shoreline when we fished it at night. Still, I would assume that the answer will always be "no" the first time you ask, and isn't likely to change due to civil liability, at least here in the nanny state where I . . . live. Reminds me of the time in the mid-80's when we vacationed in a condo on the golf course at Hanalei Bay on Kauai. A kid is walking down the road inside the resort and he has a rod with a largemouth bass dangling from the line. I went out to ask him about his catch and he first tried to tell me he caught it in the bay, LOL. I was like "Dude, that is a largemouth bass and they don't live in the ocean." Then, after a couple more tries at convincing me that he caught it the bay, he finally cracked and told me he took one cast in the golf course pond with a bubble and feather and the bass ate it almost immediately. He was scared he'd get into trouble for fishing the pond. I just wanted to know where the bass were biting.

For the weight I am using with it, I can cast quite a ways, at least on par with my spinning gear, and generally more accurate too. I have used my two Curado BFS reels on different rods, and the heavier of the two is OK compared to the ML Phenix Feather, but there is a difference. It makes me curious what an even lighter power rod could do. ===================================== I would like to see some common terms emerge as what has been referred to as finesse for decades, at least to me, doesn't mean quite the same thing as BFS although I feel there is some degree of overlap. BFS seems to be what I would have previously referred to as 'ultralight' which doesn't mean the same thing as finesse. . . to me. Now that BFS has been used as a marketing term and has the word 'finesse' in the middle of it without any other word to distinguish from what we know as finesse, it makes things a bit muddled for me. Maybe it's just me. . . muddling things up in my own world.

Looks like he was . . . . . sick of work.

We have both largemouth and smallmouth in the lake I regularly fish, and they are often mixed in with each other. When they are, I usually catch two or three LM to each SM and they will both eat the same dropshot rigs. The lake I fish is a steep banked canyon reservoir with mostly rocky structure. Senkos and Jackall flick shake worms wacky rigged, and an assortment of Roboworms in straight and curly tail varieties along with Keitech Easy Shiners and Swing Impact in sizes ranging from 2.5" to 4" are all good producers for our LM and SM. I have days where I don't catch SM, but do catch all LM, and often catch both, but I haven't had any days where I caught exclusively SM. And, the dropshot is probably the best overall bait to fish with here if you want to get bit consistently. Of course I am 3,000 miles away from you and your local denizens of the deep may have their own localized preferences.

I have the Curado BFS and the SLX MGL 70. Two fairly different reels IMHO. The MGL is much closer to a regular everyday baitcaster, and the BFS is a much different animal.

In California, in most waters, you can't buy minnows (or even crawdads) to fish with. You have to catch them yourself, and on the same day you're fishing with them. So, they outlawed them without really outlawing them because most people can't catch them or won't do what it takes to catch them and keep them alive long enough to fish with them. You can fish with nightcrawlers, red worms, or meal worms, but they don't seem to cut into the ability of getting fish to strike artificial baits. That is especially true for me with the weightless wacky Senkos tossed right up against the bank.

The Silver Max is basically a Black Max with a 'rocket button'. I have a Black Max and two Pro Max reels (a step up from the Black Max and the Silver Max) and a Fuego CT. I'll just say that I am surprised to read that you have had better performance from The Silver Max than you have from the Fuego CT. All of my Garcia Max reels mentioned above are no longer in my regular rotation, and the Fuego CT is. Sometimes the bearings are lacking in lubrication on new reels. I'd look to carefully get a couple tiny drops of a quality reel onto the spool bearing and end cap bearing and try it again.

If you're from California, you may be familiar with Turner's Outdoorsman. They have a house brand called the Californian CBX that are an excellent value at $109 for their 7'1" M spinning rods (I got mine on sale for $94). The 7'1" M that I have (I also have two of their casting rods) weighs a scant 3.65 ounces, has a very comfortable reel seat, and it fishes nearly as well as my Daiwa Kage and Tatula rods that sell for up to $80 more. They have been out of them online for quite a while, but the individual stores have had several models in stock throughout the 'unusual circumstances we are currently dealing with'. The Daiwa Aird-X would probably be my second choice, and they are considerably cheaper. I much prefer them to the Dobyns Colt rods, JMHO.

I grew up about five miles from Laguna Lake. My nephew fishes there and another nearby 'city pond' type lake that I won't broadcast the name of, but I'm sure the OP knows which one I am referring to and it's pretty close to Laguna Lake. The advice above is spot on, but also don't be afraid to try some things like topwater or a spinnerbait. I think a lot of local anglers used to haul fish home from other lakes (when it was legal?), but it is very much illegal to haul bass from one body of water to another here now. I think all the park lakes in the greater LA area have been getting pounded for years and even moreso lately, so the bass are generally pretty spooky these days. My $0.02: If you are able to, go late at night. Also, I know it's an hour drive in good traffic conditions, but if you can drive up to Castaic, the upper lake has been very good to shore anglers throwing a dropshot for the past few months.

Part of me is inclined to say that we can all see it plain as day and you could probably have it lanced or cover it with a hat. But that isn't normally how I like to conduct myself, even when someone low-key infers that someone else is stupid for trying something just because they don't see the point of it. =========================================== I have three medium spinning rods I use for finesse fishing and regularly have at least two of them on deck for that purpose. They have either #10 or #12 braid and usually #7 or #8 fluoro leaders. But I also like certain aspects of fishing with baitcasters and the concept of using a BFS-ish type setup for some lighter duty applications appealed to me. Smallish crankbaits and lightweight texas rig plastic worm rigs are the two things I use with the two Curado BFS reels I have. One is used on a 7'1" ML Phenix Feather and the other on a 7'7" MH, that is more like a M that I believe is a Phenix Feather blank (Phenix doesn't make an actual M Feather casting rod). I like both rods with the Curado BFS, but have been favoring the ML rod. The drag on the Curado BFS is very light and sensitive. I don't see myself ever using anything heavier than an #8 leader with it (maybe #10 max if I feel the need for abrasion resistance moreso than line strength). Even with #8 leader, it needs to be cranked down harder than any other baitcaster I have used. But is is very sensitive and I like the clicker on the drag too so I know for sure that line is being played out. It's a niche setup for sure, but for the fishing that I do, I am really enjoying it and using it often.