JHoss

Too many responses to touch on all so I'll hit a few that jump out. Not argumentative at all. It honestly sounds like your an opportunist which I get more than someone who largely dedicates themselves to one species, bass. I reckon you could get that view no matter what species you're targeting? There's gotta be something that makes bass special? I didn't fish a tournament the day I was born nor did I fish at all that day. I actually didn't fish a bass tournament until I was in my late 20s. I had caught plenty of bass by that point, and there was nothing about them that made me more obsessed with them than other species. In fact, if given the chance to chase tuna, wahoo, rockfish, red drum, cobia, etc I would've chosen them over bass every time. But as someone who has always been extremely competitive, being able to combine that component with an activity I love created a perfect storm of obsession. I didn't ask a ridiculous question like "why do you like to fish?" I asked something that seems reasonable. Why do you like to fish FOR BASS? There must be something about this fish that causes so many to become obsessed. I can understand something like this. A specific instance that's forever etched in your mind and creates a lifelong love. Thanks for sharing this. I get this. Besides the competition of tournaments, my favorite part of bass fishing is figuring out the puzzle. It's not like saltwater where I can convince myself the fish left the bay for the year or the slack tide has them not feeding, I know there's the same population of fish I've been successful with before, I just have to figure out how to put the puzzle together today. Is the return you're seeking about numbers or something else? Do you only fish salt from the shore? I think the widespread use of artificials is one of the keys that makes bass fishing so popular. I've largely lost my desire to soak a chunk of bait on the bottom for hours on end anymore. Bass fishing has certainly influenced my saltwater fishing as well- I'm using more artificials than ever, using mapping and technology I learned from bass fishing, using techniques and patterns from bass fishing for saltwater species, etc. It doesn't have to be. I shared what I find so great about the sport- that I can combine a past time I love (fishing) with competition, which is a big part of who I am. I wanted to know what people who don't tournament fish are attracted to. Since yours seems to be relaxation, what is it about bass fishing that makes it more relaxing than crappie or musky? And I will add, I've learned far more from tournament fishing than I ever did just fun fishing. I fish local trails and have built friendships with other guys in the league. We may not tell each other each specific detail, but there's plenty of intel passed around at a weigh in.

I never said it couldn't. For people who feel that way, the question is why bass instead of another species? Same reason I would ask someone why the choose to play golf instead of rec league softball or cornhole. Something about the sport must make it better to them than the others- something about bass must make them better than others. All of this makes perfect sense. I suspect if I didn't grow up on the salt, I would've gotten into bass fishing sooner and maybe never dabbled with everything else. I suspected location would play a big role for many folks. Thanks for taking the time to give a well thought out and articulated response.

But what is it about bass that makes them the fish for you? Have you tried fishing for other species and settled on bass being the best fit for you? Is it the thump of them hitting a jig, the way they blowup on topwater, the jumps and acrobatics when hooked, all of the above? Clearly a slow day at the office! There's a reason all my posts on this site are Monday-Friday between 9-5. I've heard Ken Duke speak about Henshall and intend to check out some of his works based on Ken's advice. Thank you for taking the time to answer the spirit of my question.

@Crow Horse you've got that piece of plastic loaded to the cork!

Not trying to offend anyone, just trying to understand how the other half thinks. If you don't fish bass tournaments and don't ever plan to, why do you target bass? It's always seemed odd to me that people would target a species that is not often kept for table fare and is not the biggest/strongest fish in the body of water. I grew up fishing saltwater where most trips were focused on putting some food on the table. When we weren't targeting an edible species, we were targeting the biggest, strongest fish around. I can personally say that if it weren't for the abundance of locally available tournaments, bass would be a rare target species for me. I love the puzzle they present, but there are much better eating fish and much better fighting fish out there, so why does the black bass obsess so many?

I want to get better with my FFS. I think being more skilled with it would have made the greatest impact on my tournament success this past season.

When you say "gear", do you mean tackle or kayaking gear? When I fished out of the kayak, a normal load for me included about 50lbs of tackle alone.

A good analogy. But with any business, time is money. So not bringing the right tools to be efficient on the job would be like not bringing the right setups for the conditions you'll face and the techniques you need. You may get the job done, but will you be as good and efficient as the guy who brought every tool he needed? A good point I hadn't mentioned in my original post. But something to consider. I had a few instances in tournaments this year where I blew one up so bad I had to put it away for the day. I'd swap that technique to another setup that was usually slightly less suited for the application. Now I'm considering throwing a couple reels in the boat with varying line sizes for when this happens again.

I've done this a few times. Often times bringing a reel or two with heavy braid in case I get in a punching situation or something. 50 rods would certainly be on the extreme end, but I wonder if some of the highest level tournament anglers do just that. I'm not advocating for going that far, but I do like to have specific rods for my most confident techniques and a few more versatile setups for when I need to add a second rod for a technique. That is one of the things that make fishing so great. I wasn't trying to insinuate that you should fish like him, was just trying to make sure I understood your perspective and how it was in stark contrast to his. One of the great things about the internet and fishing is how quickly you can cut down the learning curve with such unlimited access to information and others' experiences.

I don't think this is anything new. I doubt Dee Thomas and Denny Brauer were working their baits all the way back to the boat- they were hitting that small spot and moving on to the next as quickly as possible. That's still the name of the flippin game. But to your point, that shallow water "stick and move" type fishing has made its way offshore with the advent of FFS. Why drag the whole point when you can see each brush pile or individual fish.

I've had the same experience as y'all. Of my 4 biggest bass (ones that were PBs at the time), 3 came on chatterbaits, and one on a spinnerbait. I think that fish get used to those loud baits more quickly, but the reaction bite is most likely to trick a wise, old bass most of the time for most people. I put that caveat in there because we've seen guys consistently catch monsters on more subtle techniques especially with the advent of FFS. BUT, I still think that 90% of the bass fishing population isn't skilled enough with their electronics and subtle baits to do that consistently. For those people, a reaction bait is more likely to get lucky and trigger a strike. I know someone will point out that greats like Clunn and Brauer consistently caught big fish without advanced electronics and using more subtle baits, but to me that's the exception that proves the rule. If you aren't one of the best in the game, you probably aren't going to catch your biggest fish on a subtle bait. Or maybe I'm completely wrong on all of the above and its just the power-fishing bias coming out in me.

I'm guessing that you don't fish many tournaments? If I'm just fun fishing, I'm far less concerned about having my system (rod, reel, line) matched to the bait I'm throwing than if I'm in a tournament. Just like I'm not as diligent about retying when I'm fun fishing or practicing. But when it's tournament time, I want to stack every odd in my favor and going technique specific may help increase my landing percentage by a few points, which could make or break an event. Have you ever heard Zaldain talk about "bracketing" jerk baits and color to dial in what the fish want throughout the day? If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like you do the opposite and keep rotating a variety of baits throughout the day even if the fish are showing a propensity to a certain bait or color? Do you use FFS? 20-25 gets real tight in my Weldbilt 1448. I tend to have to pile them up on the floor like in your second picture and then they get in the way of the tiller, block access to my rear hatches, and get all tangled up. I've found 16-18 to be the number I can comfortably fit in the boat and still access as needed. I'd be curious if your setup is laid out better or you just deal with the chaos a little better than me. I don't have a ton of confidence in cranks so I tend to have one rod with a quick clip for <10ft and another deep cranking stick with a quick clip for >10ft. But if I got on a bite like that in practice, I reckon I'd find a couple other rods to rig cranks on. Seems like folks who have a ton of confidence in a certain technique tend to duplicate that technique... shocker! Makes sense that with confidence and experience comes a mastery of the intricacies of a technique and the need for more variety within that technique to untap the full potential on a given day. I expected there to be a correlation between tournament fishing and carrying multiples of one technique, but it seems like there's plenty of folks on both sides who do or don't carry multiples, which is interesting to me.

Sometimes I find myself putting the trolling motor on high and covering water with a buzz bait. In that instance, it would be nice to counteract the forward speed of the boat closing on the bait with a higher speed reel. I could, also, see it working nicely for getting a spook in quick when the fish start blowing up 50 ft from where you just casted. I also feel like I'd lose too much of the torque I need to get a big fish out of heavy cover.

Do you start with 5-7 jerkbaits on the deck if you expect it to be a jerkbait bite based on season and conditions? Or start with fewer and bring more out once you know there's a jerkbait bite and want to dial it in? I am with you on this. Especially if I think I may be fishing one in dense grass and one in more open cover. I'm glad I'm not a big worm guy then! My boat is already full enough without needing 4 rods just for that. And our differences continue! We moved into our new house in December and the spare bedroom is still full of unpacked boxes and mounts that haven't found a new wall yet. So the real secret is that golden horseshoe you carry with you, huh? Wellllll guess I make a lot of bad decisions. At least the consequences to these bad choices are less severe than the bad choices I made in my youth.

Do the repeated applications change by season or lake for you? I take it spinner baits are one of your biggest confidence baits? I have a ton of confidence in them myself, but don't bother having multiple rods rigged for baits like spinners that only require one knot. I get it with T Rigs. I want to re-rig as little as possible on the water. Even more so for techniques that have multiple components like a T Rig or C Rig. Same two rigs for those 2 bottom contact baits? Or do you mix up a jig and T Rig for example? I'm a major tackle junkie. And I realize I'm not as talented or experienced as some of the guys I fish against, so I try to do anything I can to up my odds- one of those is cutting down on how much time I spend re-rigging during a derby. If I do have to change up a couple rods, I try to do it while I'm running from one spot to the next. Based on the posts I've seen from you and the numbers you catch, you need to be on the Elites or I need to come check out Maine. I wish I had the confidence in a jig to have just one tied on at all times. I aim to change that this offseason by not even bringing the stuff for a T Rig in the boat until March.

My first couple years of bass fishing were spent in kayak tournaments. An Ascend 12T first and then a NuCanoe Pursuit. I only owned 6-8 combos when I had the Ascend but I brought every one of them every time. By the time I got the Pursuit I had maybe a dozen and usually carried 10. That Pursuit had integrated rod tubes so I could hide 4-6 in those, a couple on the deck, and a couple in rod holders. I'd like to be more like you, but my boat looks like a tackle shop exploded by the end of most days. I start out extremely organized, but as things come out, they stay out until I'm back on the trailer.

One of the more consistent anglers in my local trail is a big drop shot guy, and the only person I know who regularly has 2-3 drop shot rods on his desk at a time. I'm comfortable drop shotting, but hearing people talk about carrying multiple rods with hook and weight differences shows me that I've got a lot left to learn about the intricacies of the technique. It's crazy how different people's fishing styles/mentalities are. I STRUGGLE to narrow it down to 10 rods on the deck leading up to a day of fishing. It's not uncommon for me to have 6 rods on each side of the front deck, another 3-4 sitting in the bottom of the boat hanging out the back, and a few more in the rod locker. BUT, I pay the price having to fight with them when they get tangled and have broken a few trying to navigate my cluttered deck. I'd love to be able to keep it more simple, but I'm gripped with the fear of not having what I need or wasting time retying in a tournament situation... may explain why I pulled 70 lbs of soft plastics out of my boat a couple weeks when I unloaded her for the winter.

How many setups do you typically carry? Seems like you have a bigger boat than me based on your signature.

I believe John Cox wacky rigs a fluke when bed fishing if he thinks the fish have seen a million senkos, jigs, and T rigs. I haven't tried it myself but can see how a Caffeine Shad could be deadly presented that way.

How many rods do you normally carry on a trip? And do you have multiple rods set up for the same technique or one rod per technique? Does that change with the seasons? I typically carry 16-18 in my 14' Jon boat and its extremely rare to start a day with more than one or two techniques repeated. On the occasions I do duplicate a technique to start, its usually a T Rig or frog and I know they'll play from prefishing. If I narrow down a pattern or two throughout the day, I will start cutting off things that haven't worked and experimenting with variations of what has. So, it's not uncommon to end the day with 10 rods on the deck but only 3-4 techniques on those rods.

A chatterbait is one of my go-to confidence baits and after a lot of experimenting, I settled on a 7.4:1 Curado DC on a glass rod. I like the higher speed reel for catching up to fish and imparting action with the reel like you mentioned. I find a half turn that's noticeably faster or slower than the rest of the retrieve really gets that bait to hunt and trigger strikes. I agree with most that I like to keep the 8:1s dedicated to flipping or topwater for the most part. I haven't tried a 10:1 yet, but suspect there's one in my not-so-distant future.

I do for spinnerbaits, but not the others you listed. I can slow a bait down or speed it up with the speed I turn the handle, but I want more torque for a bait with a decent bit of drag like a spinnerbait.

I always heard this associated with saltwater growing up near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Usually it was because an east wind pushed clearer ocean water into the bay, so we figured fish were more leader-shy being able to see better in those conditions. When I spear fished, an East wind was ideal because that clean water made it easier for us to hunt in 4-5' of viz than the 1-3' we normally dealt with. Often times we would try hook and line for a few hours with no luck until we remembered a fish can turn down a bait, but they can't say no to a 7/16" stainless steel shaft at a few hundred FPS. I've never let an East wind stop me from going bass fishing, but maybe that's because there's not an option to jump in and spear them.

I got a big shipment from GLF a while back including some of their smaller Drop Minnows and Hover Minnows. I plan to give those a good run this winter in hopes of building some confidence. I imagine the ring perch will be willing to eat those too when that run starts on the local river.

Seeing as I couldn't hit many home runs when I played high school baseball, I try to make up for it now by swinging for the fences whenever I can. Fishing T Rigs, other texposed baits, jigs, and frogs and I'm shooting for a 10. I d**n near fell out of the boat last weekend hitting a 10" pickerel that ate my T Rig. Moving single hooks baits I'm usually aiming for a 5 but there's a couple digits of variance based on how hard they hit and how much attention I'm paying. Maybe a 2 or 3 for spinning rod techniques like a drop shot or wacky. Flukes are probably the weirdest for me since I fish them texposed on a spinning rod. I'm probably a 6-7 there but trying to be more fast than powerful, so the sweep doesn't tend to be as long. As a converted saltwater guy who used to laugh at the hooksets I saw watching bass fishing on TV, I finally get it. Swinging for the fences is half the fun.