WRB-2.0

Cocoons fitover polarized sunglasses Tom

What seasonal period are the bass in? My guess is spawn or post spawn. You are a shore angler so seeing beds shouldn’t too difficult. If you see dinner plate size beds the bass spawn is over. Post spawn bass don’t chase down faster moving lures more then a few feet away from them. Baby bass or fry are on the menu and Blurgill. Soft plastics like 5” Senko #301 is a good Blue gill size and color fished unweighted. Cast beyond the the small beds. If you see a larger active bass bed use the lure. Owner Zip n Ziggy in baby bass is excellent post spawn-early summer lure worked on coves. Slip Shot rigged Roboworm Sculpon MMIII and Hologram Shad and cast all around points. That is all you need for a few months. Tom

Spro King Daddy is 3 1/2”, 1 oz. Tom

Top water you visually see the strike, hook setting is a timing issue usually about 1 second delay. Crank baits you can feel the lures wiggling bouncing the rod tip, strikes vary from the wiggle stops to the bass loads up the rod, hook set is reel fast and sweep the rod back, Soft plastics with sliding sinker (Texas rig) strike are difficult to detect because the engulfs the soft plastic and either spits out or eat it with or without moving. The classic strike is a tick indicating the engulfed plastic. The pressure bite is the bass has the soft plastic and isn’t moving, The engulf and bass moving can be slack in the line after the tick if the bass is moving towards you or you feel and see the line moving. Hook sets is reel the rod tip down and swing back firmly. Swing jig is similar to a crank bait without feeling the lure wiggle, feel pressure set the hook. Bottom jigs are the most difficult to detect, similar to Texas rig soft plastic but jig rejection is more common so set the hook faster. Good fishing, Tom

Any questions you may have look at the various forums and sure we can confuse you beyond any hope, welcome to BR, Tom

Addicted makes fish landing cradle that look good. Made domestically 42” long check if they make a 31” long cradle. My thinking is attach one side to the boat and a handle to the opposite side. Hold the handle similar to a landing net, lead the bass into the open end and lift up the handle. The cradle has inch rule. To weigh attach a scale to the handle. No handling the fish. Tom

Let the worm/Senko on slack lack line then drag hope it. Tom

Don Iovino was shaking (doodling) finesse worms in the 70’s developing his Phoenix Doodle rods ideal for today’s shaky head jigs. Tom

Has anyone tried this new FC line? Tom

Long before the Neko rig this was called the Nail weight back in the 70’s or 50 years ago. It’s always worked and I posted a detail post on the nail rig several ago on this site, Glad you all discovered it😎 Tom

VMAX Tank MR series are dual purpose deep cycle marine AGM is various sizes and used them for over 10 years before selling my boat. Optima 34 is a dual purpose AGM. Tom

Look at iconic via Lithium Hub site. 2 ea 50AH 12V in series for the TM and a 30 AH 12V for a house battery. Several brands of marine deep cycle AGM cranking batteries are available gr 24 is popular. Tom

I have contemplated this issue for years. The very old landing net with a hoop and handle is the problem regardless of what the net is made of . The musky anglers use a different designer to the length of the fish and seems to work good. my thought is a bass size cradle is attached to the side of the boat with a closed end. The bass is lead into the cradle with a handle to lift the cradle to close it. The bass can’t flop around in the fine mesh cradle when lifted against the boat side and the lift handle could have a built in scale calibrated to the cradle weight. Easy to take a photo without lifting the bass. Tom

1st all lithium marine 12 batteries use cells made in China. A few domestic lithium batteries have cases made and assemble the batteries in America. Iconic assembles assembles the battery and controls the end product. Why do you need 3 100AH batteries? Some OB’s warn not using lithium for cranking battery and older onboard chargers are compatible, look into it. 2 50 AH in series will run you boat all day. Tom

Lots of variables like are they a team working together, length of bait both could be up front, color of chatterbait etc. In a team effect the odds are nearly equal. Back seater is in the back and normal casting practice is don’t cast forward ahead of the front seater who has total control of boat positioning, the back seater odds are low using the same lure/color. The back seater in this situation should change lures to a spinnerbait or square bill crank bait to cover water at the same pace the boat is moving. Back seater may be out fished by the front or out fish the front seater, but definitely up his odds. Tom

Look for a 12V and 24V switch, the older TM’s have that option. Tom

Why do you need a local custom rod builder? All my custom bass rods were made out of my State by custom rod builders that used rod blanks I was familiar with. Lamiglas is a rod maker that offered custom build rods for decades. When Lamiglas stopped building custom rods they had me get in touch with Alex owner of ALX rods to build what I wanted. Alex is easy to communicate with, builds his own blanks today and offered 90 free trail plus a good warrantee. Site sponsor DVL has a good reputation so give them a call. Tom

My 1st reply noted defining cover is more complex then structure because few agree what cover is. For example is a floating dock cover, a dock on pilings cover, those are only 2 man made structures on the water surface that could be cover but the pilings are structure. My personal definition for cover is anything growing organic in or on top of the water is cover. Man made cover replicates natural organic cover like weighted down brush or fish attractors. A tree that has fallen down into the water is cover in my book. How do we find isolated structure under weed mats? Boat with sonar, opening is the mat where plants can’t grow, visually when the water is low exposing the bottom structures, time studying the lake. What appears as a large weed mat is actually made of several different aquatic plants that have reached the water surface. Most aquatic plants have a preference for water depth, what soil type they root in and some don’t root. Plants don’t root in rocks, sand or clay unless some soil is present. Study the plants in your lake. Different groups of plants are preferred by bass so edges where they come together can be called a edge or isolated cover. Every lake is different for example a man made impoundment vs a natural lake. Every bass species are different in; Largemouth differ from Smallmouth and Spotted are different. Each bass species prefers different structure elements and cover types. It isn’t simple to define bass habitats. Tom

My 1st “swimbait” back in the late 80’s was a Lamiglass 8’ HMF custom that I used for about 20 years. This was Dobyns gen1 DC 806 SB before Gary started his business. Perfect rod for Huddleston 8” ROF 12’s. 2nd was a Okuma GS H 7’10” used for jointed wooden Swimbaits with treble hooks , good light weight rod. 3rd was Irod I bought at a local (Bass A Thon) from Matt Newman when he was a start up, 8’11” HMF 2 oz-8oz. rated and lighter weight then my Lamiglas rod, excellent for my 8” & 68 Hudds. I fished those 3 rods for decades catching a lot of DD bass. if you are new to swimbait fishing the 3-10 oz Irod is essential coupled with a 300 size reel w/ 5.8:1 ratio Shimano! Line today would be 25# Tatsu/..016D, 25# : .016D Armilo is no longer available. Tom

What I used to determine if a swimbait rod was decent for casting heavier lures is add the suggested lure weights for that rod ie, 2 to 6 oz = 8 div by 2 = 4 oz the maximum lure weight for that rod to perform properly. Length is dependent on average casting distance, longer is usually preferred. Tom

Go to TW, Baits, search bar “tubes” lots of choices from flipping tubs to giant tubes Tom

Like lots of terms used by bass anglers isolated structure needs to be defined. The entire lake bottom is structure of some type. Man made structures like bridge and dock pilings could be called isolated structure or structure. My view point is an underwater island or hump is structure and a large boulder or rock pile located on the hump is isolated structure. There are hundreds of different types of isolated structure, could be a stump in lieu of a boulder for example. Cover is another term to define. So use the isolated rock pile or stump with a weed bed ( cover) growing on top. You can’t see the isolated structure but it’s there and so are the bass, that is the spot you want to target. Remember that green aquatic plants produce dissolved oxygen during day light and provide shade cooling the water temps comfortable for bass and other fish. The isolated structure provides the bass a place to hide and is home to prey, win, win, win for predators like bass. Tom

Where are you located? If the lake water is within 10 degrees of the water the shiners were in should be an issue. What king of shiners? Golden are big and fragile but smaller shiners are easier to keep healthy. What kills live baitfish fast is over crowding and losing scales. The old style bait bucket kept in the water works better then a live well and a round bait bucket works better then rectangular live wells. Aeration battery operated stone helps a lot. Get a small fine soft dip net to capture the shiners, not to handle roughly and don’t return any shiners back in the bucket or livewell. Please use light wire circle hooks! Tom

The majority of the LMB in Castiac were transplanted from Van Norman a aeration reservoir located near I5 & I405 Freeways. The 1971 earthquake required the Van Norman dam to be condemned the lake drained the bass transplanted into Castiac as the dam was being completed 3 years before opening to the public. The Florida strain was part of the state wide introduction of adult size 2 to 3 lb bass planted into both Castiac and Casitas in 1973. It was the perfect storm for Castiac a virgin ecosystem with lots of new flooded cover, tons of crawdads and Threadfinfin Shad and trout to feed on with zero fishing pressure before the lake opened. The Elderberry for bay accident was catastrophic for the upper main lake dumping thousands of Striper up to 40 lbs into the lake changing the ecosystem forever. Tom

Lakes Castiac and Casitas produced 20+ pound FLMB. The 2 lakes are only 40 miles apart but 2 very different ecosystems. Lake Casitas is owned and operated privately by board members of city of Ventura and Ojai as a water storage reservoir. Opened in 1958 to the public for camping and fishing. Casitas is less then 3 miles from the Pacific Ocean therefore has a cooler coastal climate with oak covered hills. Water supply is rain run off and Ventura River. Lake Castiac is owned by the city of Los Angeles as part of the Feather River project to transfer water from Northern California Delta River system to Southern California. Castiac is located in a drier hotter climate zone with few trees mostly chaparral brush with steep canyons. Casitas water levels are fairly constant affected by drought conditions and local politics. Overall Casitas has more stable ecosystem. Castiac water levels vary radically up to 150 vertical feet year to year with water being supplied by the MWD for the city and county of LA use. How bass thrived in Castiac is a mystery, tremendous fishing pressure coupled with draw downs and refills. Stripe Bass from the water supply system has over stressed the fishery imo. Casitas will recover it’s a more stable ecosystem with crazy political issues to overcome. Tom