Bazoo

Thank you ALL for the kind words!

At the river spot I frequent, there is a guy that lives up the road that comes down. He tries to get me to give him fish. Others do, but I don’t. I know if I give him any, like a legal but small bass, then he’d want it if I caught a 5lber. im not opposed to keeping some to eat that’s for sure. But those that keep everything they catch, I don’t know why but I don’t care for it.

My buddy Ryan is the same way. He doesn't eat fish, but loves to fish.

An old man at church said, all the crappie I catch as bycatch, just bring them to him. He said all I have to do is freeze them in water, and he'll do the rest for a fish fry. It crossed my mind.

Very interesting discussion, thanks all for contributing. I met these Chinese guys down at the river one evening. They were over here working on a new factory that's being set up. They caught a drum while I was there. Into the bucket it went. They couldn't speak any english, but we were able to communicate through a translate app on the phone. They seemed to really love fishing, so I ended up exchanging numbers with them. Shortly after I left I got a picture of a trophy smallmouth. I'd say it was 3 if not 4 pounds. I asked how much it weighed but they didn't weigh it. A little later on I got to thinking about it, so I asked what they did with it. His reply was "delicious".

Interesting discussion, thanks all for sharing. chuckle@ I don't eat a football after a touchdown. I don't eat a lot of fish. I only fish for bass, and I don't like the taste of the one I ate last year. If I routinely caught walleye, which I hear is the best eating fish there is, I'd likely eat a few.

I fish a lot and I can't help but to talk about it with those I encounter. From church family to strangers in the grocery store. They all imply or assume that I keep and eat the fish I catch. I get comments like "Bet that one tasted good", and "I know who's going to be having fish for supper". I like fish, preferably from Captain D's, but I don't fish for food, I fish for the sport. It seems this is odd to most everyone. Anyone else get a lot of those comments and attitude?

I added a couple extra pics I had, but just uploaded.

Thank you all for the kind comments.

I've not been posting a bunch because of some life issues. My van tore up, and I had another car, a Chevy Tracker but it needed some repair before I could drive it. This took a while, and as a result I only fished 2 times in 3 weeks. During that time, I went through a spell of poor service too, so I wasn't able to check in as often. Well, after I got my Tracker running, I took it to town and went fishing. I went to the heavily pressured public lake that I've mentioned several times. I like fishing this spot because it's a challenge. It's fun to catch a fish here and there when others say they've fished it, sometimes for years, and never caught anything. I'd learned some about tying soft split rings with braided line, and I thought that this trick might just be something that'd give me an edge. I tied my favorite gold crankbait thusly, and had tried it a few times with no luck. It does feel differently though. It pulls through the water with less sound, less vibration, and overall is just "different" feeling. Well, this day, I was by myself, I started working my way around one of the holding ponds that is attached to the north end of the main lake. These ponds are connected to the lake via a small channel, which the city dams up to hold the fish in case they need to work on the dam at the other end of the main lake. This particular day, there wasn't a crowd, but there was 4-5 other people fishing. I fished a split shot rig a bit, with no success, so I switched to the crankbait. I caught a nice 1lb10oz bass. I worked my way down about 20 yards, making a few casts. I was working the squarebill crankbait at a medium speed, probably just nipping bottom on occasion, in about 4 feet of water. I was sweeping the rod tip sideways to move the lure, but not letting the lure pause between sweeps, rather, just letting it slow down. About 10 feet from shore, I felt a strike. I set the hook. I saw my line moving sideways to the left, I began reeling, and the fish ran directly towards me! I reeled as fast as I could. This bass knew all the tricks, he went right for a bush! A skinny bush, but a bush nevertheless. The shore line in this spot is about a 3' drop off. I held my rod out with my left hand as far as I could to persuade the brute to come free of the bush, all the while thinking... I am glad I have 12 pound Big Game mono, and not something lesser! The fish emerged from the bush and just sort of submitted, swimming right to the shore's edge and the surface, looking right at me. I could see it was a very nice fish, and guessed 3-4 pounds. By this time, someone was walking by. Three younger guys. I'd played the fish maybe 30 seconds, but it seemed like 5 minutes at this point. I was thinking... how am I going to land this thing without a net? I was reluctant to flip it because I didn't think it was hooked good enough, and I couldn't tell for sure, but I know there are some 6+ pounders in there, and I didn't want to chance losing this trophy regardless of weight. Well the passerbyers saw the fish and congratulated me. They offered to help, so I let one of them hold the rod, while I collected my possibles, which consisted of my tackle bag and another rod, that were about 30 feet away. I returned to the rod, and took it in hand, then I proceeded to walk up the shoreline about 40 yards towards the nearest spot I could reach the water, pulling the fish with me. The fish knew his environment well, and lunged for another bush, then a large stick that was in the corner. After I made it around the bend, it wasn't far until the water was at foot level, and I was able to swiftly slide the fish from the water right up onto the shore, which consisted of short grass. Without further ado, here is my new personal best, a weighed 4lb7oz, with my scale registering 3/4oz light. I'm quite proud of this fish. I know that it's not the largest fish in the lake, but for me it shows that all the hard work I've done to learn the lake, and how to fish pressured waters is paying off. Up until the above fish, I thought that the following was my PB, but I had not weighed it. I estimated it at 5 pounds based on my box that I had previously weighed. Then, I caught this one: and I weighed it at 3lb14oz, so I was pretty confident that the fish above was closer to 4 pounds, rather than 5. Now, after catching the fish in the first picture there is no doubt about the one I didn't weigh. The new PB fish was physically larger, and it was noticeably heavier to hold. Shame there wasn't someone handy to take a picture of me holding it. I unhooked and released it. I thanked God, and I hollered whooo! Then I got a text message from a friend that heard me holler. He said "you at the lake? I heard you whooo!"

I think one of the things that I do that most others do not, is I research. I read a lot about any subject that interests me. Guns, casting, reloading, hunting, fishing. I'll read about a dang crankbait for 2 hours. I retain information I read normally. I also watch a limited amount of youtube videos from such people as Greg Hackney, BIll Dance, Roland Martin, Ott Defoe, and Jimmy Houston. I pick a lure or technique, when and how to use it, learning everything I can about it, then I employ it. I have confidence from the start normally with a lure I've researched, because I have learned from others experiences. I read here a lot, and I thank you all for contributing to my knowledge.

Howdy from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

On my local public lake, there are 2 sections. The main lake, and the holding ponds. The ponds are connected to the main lake on its north via small channels. They were constructed to give them a place to store fish when they drain the lake for dam maintenance. I fish both, but primarily the holding ponds, which see a huge amount of pressure. Several dozens of anglers starting about 4:00pm until dusk. Some are catfishing, some bobbers for whatever, some crappie, and some, like me, for bass. You never catch bass on worms when you're fishing for bream. Those that fish with live minnows often keep the bass, so they only get to make that mistake once. If you watch the normal bass fishermen, they are lazy, they can't cast accurately, and they often give up after about 30 minutes of not catching. They don't fan cast, they don't fish their lure all the way to shore. I've caught several fish right at shore. They have realized that most people pull their lure 6' from the shore, and are living right under folk's noses! The lures others use are a plethora of various things, but often it's whatever is hot and new. Whopper ploppers are quite popular. I have had success in those holding ponds by being more stealthy than normal. Often I'll fish for a while then I'll take a break and give it 5 or 10 minutes rest. Or I'll switch to a soft plastic worm and fish it so slowly that I only make 1 or 2 casts in 5 minutes. I do get fish that way. I've had limited success with squarebill crankbaits. I don't think those are as popular as other lures for some reason. I've had luck with them right out of the package, but I've had better luck with them when I tie the hooks on. This changes the sound. The other day I caught a new PB in the holding ponds. 4lb7oz weighed, with the above hand-tied squarebill crankbait. That old fish was in a spot everyone fishes, myself included. No telling how many times it'd been caught, but It didn't have a mark on its face, so it hadn't been caught in long enough that it'd healed completely. For me to trick that bass, I was proud, because I know the pressure it sees, including my pressure. I don't just do what everyone else does. I fish my own way, and like hand-tying hooks, I'm always looking for an edge and something to be a bit different. I've had my best luck fishing soft plastics with weightless lizards, split shot finesse worms, and fat albert grubs rigged on a light texas rig. Three things that most people don't fish. Most others that fish soft plastics fish a senko or clone, or some kind of texas rigged crawdad. I've never seen anyone else fishing weightless or split shot. I've noticed that when I catch a fish, I will rarely catch another in the same spot. Most of the time, the spot dies off. I have occasionally caught 2 right behind each other, but it's rare. The fish have learned that when one goes up to stop feeding. I've had pretty good success in spots that are harder to access, or harder to cast from, such as the woods. But I've also had success in the regular spots because I do things differently than others. I've had the best luck by starting out with a subtle soft plastic presentation, then switching to a crankbait. Whenever I've used a crankbait or other hard bait first, then switch to a soft plastic, I don't normally do well. I've talked to many anglers that say they've never caught anything and have fished there for years. And have talked to people that have only caught a very limited amount and nothing large. This lake is closed at night, so I speculate, that a majority of bass have gone nocturnal, though the one time I was granted permission to stay later (it was winter), I didn't have success. I have noticed I do the best when I'm fishing alone. If a buddy is with me, if we are together, we rarely catch anything. Partly because we are talking and not focusing on a perfect cast or technique. Partly because the bass are seeing too much action. When we have fished together, I've had success going behind my buddies using a curly tail grub on a texas rig.

The Ky LMB record came from a local community pond, 6 acres I think, where nobody expected it. It certainly opened my eyes to the possibly to trophy fish being in the spots least exected.

What you describe is a technique in deer hunting where deer are pressured. You'll have a friend come and drop you off to your spot in a tractor, on a 4 wheeler, or in a truck. The deer often know you're there if you walk in, but having a truck come through and leave is not of alarm to them. Very interesting, thanks for sharing. First, to give the bass a high exposure limit at the onset is just conditioning them to not bite later on. If they were only given 1 or 2 bites each, I bet the test results would have shown that after the rest periods, there was either significantly less change or NO change. This brings up a point. A theory I'm working on. I think bass, or at least some bass, do not associate being caught with a "non-food" item. With a real shad, a large one... bass grab it, it tries to get away, maybe they have one occasionally slip out of the jaws on a bad strike. So on a lure, they see a shad, they grab it... and instead of that shad getting away, that shad grabs them and pulls them sideways. The bass probably thinks "that's the feistiest shad I've ever ate" until until they are on the thumb.