WRB-2.0

The anal vent tail end of the area without scales is oval on most females and round on most males, not all. Female LMB spawn a few times and not all bass spawn at the same time, usually the spawn cycle last about 3 months and it takes several weeks to recover fully. Tom

Bass, fresh water largemouth or salt water calico?Tail size differences between 2 bass the same length could indicate a younger verses older fish, the older fish having a larger size. Length to weight ratio, a 18" bass weighing 3 lbs vs a 16" bass weighing 3 lbs, the shorter heavier bass from the same lake is usually a female. LMB over 4 lbs are, with few exceptions, female. During pre spawn to spawn females have eggs, males milt, otherwise no easy visual differences. In SoCal we have both NLMB and FLMB, Florida's grow much faster and have heavier body to weight ratio's. Tom

You pay a high price for thin wall high performance materials to reduce rod blank weight. Light weight rod components like 9 micro guides in lieu of 7 standard guides help to distribute the line load on the blank to improve performance. Light weight doesn't mean more durable, these rods are fragile compared to heavier wall lower modulus rod blanks that had full cork handles and fore grips, sturdier standard guides that help to protect the rod blank from damage. Use rod gloves with your state of the art rods to help protect them when not in use. Avoid stepping on the rods, abusing the rods putting them in the rod locker and never lift a bass into the boat using the rod, unless it's a heavy flipping rod made to lift fish. Weekend tournament bass anglers see the pros and copy them, the pro has a sponsor to replace broken tackle, you don't! Tom

The easiest way to know if larger bass are there was seeing them during the spawn, did you see any big bed bass? The quarry pond could be over populated with 12" bass, last years spawn. Start keeping and eating them. Now your best chance is fish after dark with 9"- 10" T-rigged plastic worms or jigs with 3"- 4" trailers, depending on the tackle you use. You can also try buzz baits as the sun sets. Tom

Fishing should always be fun not a grueling competition. If the tournament schedule is too demanding, cut back the time on the water, get your limit and check in. The last few hours rarely upgrade limits and wear you out fast. I only fish a few night charity event anymore, gave day tournaments 20 years ago. Tom

Roosevelt is the head water for the Salt River chain of lakes and the lake level fluctuates greatly. The past few years has been a drought and the lake is down over 50%, this means very little wood cover. November the water will be in the upper 50's, the bass should be deep on isolated rock piles. Structure spoons and heavy jigs work good.Drop shot and shaky or doddling works good. If the bait is near structure a deep heavy slow rolled spinnerbait or tail spinner works good. Tom

I repair or modify soft plastics with a Pro-Weld Wormizer, see Don Iovino products for details. Sometimes you run out of a hot worm/ color and need to reuse damaged soft plastics. The more expensive hand pours tear easier and repairing with glue is messy, smells and takes time to dry. Tom

Learn to tie good knots quickly instead of using a snap swivel on every lure you mentioned. The snap swivel causes you more trouble when casting your lures as it allows the line to tangle with hooks or blades in flight. Tying leaders on lures creates 2 knots to fail. There isn't an upside to use snap swivels with most bass lures with one exception; inline spinners. Using a good quality snap for deep diving crankbaits shouldn't affect the lures performance. Practice tying a few good knots like the Palomar and San Diego Jam knots, both take less than 30 seconds. Tom

Nope, cut everything off when I put the boat on the trailer and don't retie anything until I am at the lake. If Fishing every week week, then I would pre rig because the patterns don't change that fast. Without knowing what the current conditions are it's impossible to second guess what the bass are doing. Tom

Sunline Shooter was available in130 meter spools back in 94-95 time period from 1 distributor in the US. Shooter was the first FC fishing line in the US to the best of my knowledge and hasn't changed over the years, the price was $16. My rods were custom Lamiglas, reels Daiwa HTSA103, excellent rods and reels. Caught a lot of giant bass using that old stuff. Tom

Here is a challenge for all you long casters; get a hula hoop or whatever to make a 36" dia target. Any good caster should be able to hit a 36" hoop! Go to you local football field, set the hoop on the goal line, flat on the grass. Now walk back to the 30 yard line and cast your jig or crankbait into the hoop. When you have done this, walk back to the 40 yard line and repeat casting into the hoop. If you ever hit the hoop walk back to the 50 yard line and try from there. If you accomplish this task you are a world class caster. Very few anglers can hit the 40 yard hoop and only a hand full can cast 50 yards and hit a 36" target. Try this with mono, FC and braid, then you will know which line cast further. Fishing conditions usually have some wind and you are standing in the bow of a boat that's moving. Trying to cast 40 yards may seem easy until you try the football field challenge, you should be making accurate casts. Tom

Been fishing with FC line since '94, 20 years and know a few things about it, some good and some bad, it's not the panacea line it's claimed to be. Let's wait and see what shakes out with the newest FC lines before sticking a fork in mono. There was nothing taken out of context. No line has had more failures and knot strength problems than FC has generated. The processing is getting better and cost has come down somewhat. Tom

Quote from TT " Seriously, if FC line behaves poorly in abrasion test, you almost might as well save your money and use Nylon mono as your main line". I agree with this evaluation and use mono where abrasion resistance isn't a factor and use it where it is. Tom

Check out the Sure-Life Labs video on livewell management. When the lake surface water gets up into the 80's it's too hot to retain enough dissolved oxygen to sustain the bass in the livewell, if the water is being recirculated. To lower the livewell water temps to the low 70's, ice may be needed. Tom

Tackle Tour is doing line testing FPI for FC and MPI for mono line. Nylon is a hygroscopic polymer meaning it absorbs water, it's not porous. The Nylon polymer chain is strengthen when it absorbs water, the water isn't sticking to the line or coating the line surface. Nylon isn't elastic, it's tensile to yield strength is similar to FC, the difference is deformity, Nylon tends to have better memory without deforming after yielding. What causes deformation is pulling force when you cast and hopefully catch bass. High pulling force trying to break the line obviously deforms the line. Line conditioners like KVD coat FC so it will behave similar to Nylon, the conditioner absorbs water. Abrasion resistance is better with most FC line however hardness creates more casting issues. The question was about casting distance and it's been my experience with everything being equal that mono line cast further under fishing conditions. Keep in mind I cast on average over 90' and up to 120' using FC line when jig fishing, so I have a lot of experience casting FC line. The best Nylon mono line that I have used is Sunline Defier, FC is Sunline Super Sniper. Defier is expensive mono.

There are so many different types of "jigs" used by bass anglers and we tend lump all jigs under the Arkie style brush weed gaurd with a trailer added as a "bass jig". The OP's question about using a trailer is a good one. Jigs with skirts give the jig life, color and will catch bass with or without a trailer. We add trailers to give the jig a profile that represents something the bass may be looking for as prey: crawdads or a baitfish and will catch bass with or without a skirt. Dart head and shaky head jigs for example work better without a skirt and only a trailer (worm or soft plastic minnow) most of the time. A dart head fished vertically for suspended bass works very good and over looked by most "jig" anglers. Food for thought. Tom

What it boils down to is castibilty, how well does the line cast for the presentarion you are using. With bottom bumping lures like jigs and soft palstics my choice is FC line because it gives me better control of what those lures are doing. I DO NOT like FC line regarding castibily and knot strength, it's improving every year. Technically FC is monofilament line but bass anglers consider Mono being Nylon line, not FC, hybrid or a copolymer. Deep diving crankbaits, where I fish them in deep rocky structured lakes, ease of casting far out weighs a few inches difference in diving depth. The thing FC line does better is it has less drag going through the water, therefor less belly in the line. This advantage is a possitive with bottom bumping lures like jigs. The draw back with FC when making hundreds of casts, when using crankbaits, is the line strectches and weakens over time and should be changed after a few outings when cranking. Mono line also weakens with use and changing Mono is less costly than FC. Fewer casting issues, longer cast for me, stronger knot strength and less cost. I use 10 and 12lb green Berkely Big Game for cranking and 25 lb for big swimbaits. Tried FC several times over the years for both cranking and swimbaits and go back to Mono do to poor performance issues with those 2 lures types. Tom.

Casting distance is related to the rod, reel and line being used. Distance is important when casting deep diving crankbaits for example. Crankbait rods are longer and slower action to maximize casting distance, the more parabolic the rod, the better it loads up tp launch the lure. Mono line has less memory, stays on the spool better, flows out of the and through the rod guide easier with less friction/ line slap resulting in longer cast with everything else being equal. This is why I use mono on my deep diving crankbait and swimbait rods, when distance can be a factor. Tom

Don't use that rod for casting 8" Hudds, the Okuma 7'11" heavy guide special swimbait rod works very good with heavier swimbaits. With a swimbait you are trying to cast a long distance and make lots of casts. Tom

If you recall or go back and review your inquiries regarding NRX rod power I posted they are about 1/2.power under rated compared to other rods, your are fishing a 4 power rod comparing it to St Croix MH F. Try Tangle Free original line conditioner and adjust the reel weight 4 on - 2 off. Sunline Shooter has more memory than Super Sniper,go with 10 lb, equal in diameter to Gamma 8 lb. Tom

First you should define what a giant worm is. I use Owner 5103, 5/0 straight shank hooks for worms up to 9" to 10" Owner 5132 CPS 6/0 hook for fatter nose worms 10" to 16" Can't see any reason to flip or pitch giant worms inti heavy cover, too long to work well, unless you are talking about brush or trees. The 5132 eliminates issues with the worm filling the hook gap. Tom

Use all your senses and tools available. Tom

Take a look at South SF Bay Area lakes. Coyote is a good bass lake, Loch Lomond is near Santa Cruz never fish it, Lexington lake off hwy 17 has a few big bass, you will need to do your home work to locate reseverviors in and around the mountains near the South Bay. San Luis Rey and fore bay is a good striper lake. Can't help as I live in SoCal and only go to the delta area to bass fish. Tom PS, Calico bass fishing is good in the coastal ocean at Santa Cruz.

Shimano Calcutta/Cardiff 5.8:1 for swimbaits, deep diving crankbaits and spinnerbaits. Daiwa Tatula R100XS 8.1:1 for everything else including jigs and worms. This year I changed from 6.3:1 to 8.1:1 for my low profile light weight reels and happy with the change. The reason is line recovered per handle turn during a long cast is similar to the larger diameter wider spools of the round reels. Tom

The spinnerbait is one of the most versatile lures we use for bass fishing. The inexpensive variety will catch a few bass because bass react to such a vast variety of lures. Spinnerbaits like other lures you need the combination of speed, flash and depth to catch more bass consistently. One size and style doesn't fit all presentations. The obvious is quality components, not so obvious to the angler is why bass strike a spinnerbait or avoid striking it. Two anglers that are expert spinnerbait anglers are KVD and Rick Clunn and suggest you read whatever they have published on this lure. Last year RC gave a seminar at our local BAT, the year before KVD did the BAT seminar, both talked about the blades used for various applications. What blade to select for the color and size of the baitfish the bass are targeting, plus speed and controlled depth. There is more to spinnerbaits than a inexpensive or one size can offer. Tom PS, BAT is Anglers Marine "Bass A Thon" held each year in Nov. I use Nichols spinnerbaits, not inexpensive, there are several good mfr's available.