WRB-2.0

Alligators, snakes and no trespassing signs should keep busy. Maybe a sunshine stae fellow BR member can teach you ropes! Tom

A jig is a hook with the head molded onto to it. A Texas rig has a sliding bullet weight above the hook, Florida rig has the bullet head pegged against the hook. A punch rig is a heavy Florida rig. A Carolina rig has a egg sinker sliding above a swivel, the swivel has a leader with a hook on the end. All of the above can be rigged with a soft plastic craw......take your pick. The differences are how the hook presents the soft plastic craw to the bass when on the bottom or falling down or pulled through the water column. A stand up style jig head presents the hook point upward, all the others the hook can lay on the flat on the bottom at rest. Tom

You should consider neoprene reel covers all the time to protect them when traveling. Tom

I will differ from what has been posted, a pitching jig/flipping rod would be good for C-rigging, not so good for cranking deep diving lures. A good crank rod should be slower action for 2 important reasons; 1, ease of casting, the rod loads up slower and cast far better than a fast action rod. 2, playing bass around the boat, the slower action rod is more forgiving when a bass is lightly hooked with treble hook lures, the primary reason anglers loose good size bass at the boat. Buy the good rod that serves your primary presentations, the rod you will use more often and less expensive rods for use with secondary presentations, if you re limited in budget. Tom PS; BPS, KVDC710MHCC crankbait rod is under $100 and go with St Croix rod for pitching/flipping and C-rigs.

The PR844C is a salt water Popping rod that can be used for spoons and crankbaits. I use the PR845C for smaller crankbaits between 3/8 to 1/2 oz and for my structure spoons, slower action rod with good backbone.The CR723C is only 6' long, a short rod in today's bass fishing. I wouldn't bother with the short rod, very application specific, the popping rod is worth about $100 used, if in perfect condition. Tom

A few well known brands are mom & pop type tackle companies; Huddleston Delux swimbaits, 3:16 swimbaits, MS Slammer, Rago swimbaits, Basstrix, Roboworm are good examples. Don Iovino products and Uptom's Customes both one man operations. Supporting your small local bass tackle shop also supports your small local tackle makers who are the innovators of basing tackle. Tom

I can tell you how this was done before personal sonar units became available around 1960. Structure that is connected to shore like points are fairly easy to fish using fast sinking lures that you have some idea of the sink rate per second. Cast and count down the seconds it takes to hit bottom. Locating structure isolated form shore is more complicated. You can troll a deep diving lure like Buck Peery did with his spoon plugs. If you own a anchor, you can drift with the anchor down a specific depth, we painted our rope in 5' increments and set out 30' of rope with 20 lb anchor in areas we guessed where the structure was at 25' for example and the boat would stop when the anchor hit bottom. This worked 2 ways; we knew where the structure was and the anchor held the boat in place to fish the structure. We then made notes to triangulate where the structure was; power line pole, green cabin, lightning structure tree etc. My suggestion; buy an inexpensive depth finder, it will save you a lot of time. Remember fishing deep is relative to the lake you fish. You do not want to fish too deep or under the thermocline level where no bass live, then you are fishing dead water. Tom

Context is important.Tom

Toho isn't a deep structure lake, it is a shallow low land lake. Outside structure is usually clam beds, or harder bottom areas than the softer bottoms. The bass tend to be cover oriented and locate where bait fish are more condensed or where some slight current is created by wind pushing water. There are man made channels, that's is about it in regards to any sharp structure breaks. Tom

Two things to remember; 1. Everything your see on your sonar screen is a history of what you passed over. The only real time info is located on the right edge of the screen as it prints out. Locate the general structure using your big engine, then use your trolling motor to relocate the fish on the structure. 2. Bass feeding on bait fish are moving, not stationary bass like bass holding on cover type targets. Structure spoons can cover more deep water faster than other types of deep lures when bass are feeding on baitfish around structure.. jigs, drop shot worms etc., are better for stationary bass on deep structure. Tom

The fastest method is stringing about 10 to 15 at a time on thin wire about 1" apart and spray paint them. Hang the wire to let dry. This will take about an hour to do 200 rattles. Tom

Do not mean to hi-jack this thread; Certified scales are a problem in SoCal! Our lakes during the big bass period of the 80's and 90's didn't have any ceritfied scales at the lakes, you had to illegally* transport the bass to the closest market that had certified scales to sell produce and meat to get a authentic certification of weight and have a witness. A tournament caught bass may have a certified scale and lots of witnesses. Now it's easier to have a personal scale ceritfied by local Weights & Measures or send the scale to the IGFA each year. A witness is still a problem when fishing alone and in CA we also need a biologist to examine the bass for state records or world record applications. For that reason I released a lot of big bass because they need to die to get authenicated properly! No need kill a big bass if you know it isn't a record. * we can not transport live fish way from the lake in a livewell in CA. Tom PS; the South African post reminded me how much our sport owes Orville Ball, the man who came up with the plan back in 1959 to transport pure Florida strain LMB to San Diego CA city lakes to improve the size of bass for the general fishing population.

Without knowing anything about how you hold your rod/reel during the cast or what type of rod you have your problem may be due to your casting mechanics. There are some vedio's on site that demo the proper way to hold your rod and reel during the casting motion. The big issue is the reel handles should start out paralell to the water and you rotate the reel so the handles end up pointed up at 12 o'clock at the top of the casting motion and remain close to the position throughout the cast, casting right handed. I agree with Bo on holding the rod in front of the reel during the retrieve, if your rod has a foregrip and it should! Otherwise take 2 Advil and see your doctor. Tom

Nearly every lake on any tournament trail will have "USS Relief" floating toilets for emergencys when nature calls. Eating properly isn't always going to happen, however keeping regular and doing your business prior to launching the only way to prevent accidents on or in the water. Tom

Depends when and where you are fishing,. Florida where you live and fish a live golden shiner would be the ticket. More trophy size bass are caught in Florida with shiners then anything else. In SoCal where I fish the top giant bass are caught on live crawdads during pre spawn. They use live water dogs in Texas. I catch my giant bass on jigs, during pre spawn, jigs are a lure not a bait. Tom

Top Brass makes a full line if brass bullet weights and Don Iovino sells Top Brass custom painted in a wide selection, check them out, I use Iovino's painted weights or simply paint them myself depending on how fancy I want them or lazy I am. I do not like the bright brass finish.A real advantage with a hard weight is the nose hole never gets pounded closed, the weight slides a lot better. I also use the glass faceted beads with the brass weight; brass n glass makes a crawdad clicking sound. Tom

In SoCal and other deep structured lakes have cool water and good food supplies like Japan's lakes. The initial introduction of pure Florida strain LMB into a lake with excellent cover and year around growing for the young of the year bass, tend to have the best production of LMB over 15 lbs, with occasional bass over 18 lbs. We call this the boom period and followed by the bust period when the giant bass population crashes. Exactly why this pattern occurs or reoccurs is up to speculation. One factor is the first generation of FLMB grow very fast the first years, then target larger pelagic bait the resident NLMB avoided. The FLMB then spawn with northern resisdent bass creating a new strain like F1, followed by more generations of FLMB mixed with NLMB, the gene pool of pure FLMB gets diluted, the giants become fewer. When FLMB are introduced into a new reservoir when the lake in filling, the conditions are ideal to promote growth.and that is a one time event for only a few generations of bass.. We talked in averages, there are always exceptions; largest male bass that I have caught was 7 lb and 28" long, from San Vincente in 1971. The bass was examined by Larry Bottroff a biologist. The bass was a spawner leaking white milt, one reason the fish was examined and it had a big head with skinny body. Tom PS; emjaysmit your response was excellent. Good to hear form bass anglers around the world and didn't know you are getting 18+ lb bass in South Africa. We had a SA forum on TBH, that site has gone to the dogs. aka, Oldschool

The only reason the bass fisherman change to tungsten was due to environmental impact of lead weight, when lead was banned. Substitute metals were introduced during the lead ban period and tungsten was found to have the advantage of being heavier and harder then lead. The hardness caused and still causes line fraying if the weight has a sharp edge. Brass is another metal that is hard, not as heavy as lead and also makes a good lead substitute, less expensive alternative than tungsten. The lead ban still exist is some states, lifted in others and if you still use lead weights, check your states regs. Tom

Open water is water void of cove at whatever depth your lure is traveling in. Cover is aquatic plants, docks, trees, brush, floating or growing in or extending over he water. Tom

Since knowone knows what type of tackle you fish with, we can only guess what you may or may not need. It sounds like you are fishing for information and interested to try swimmers out. You tackle will determine how heavy the swimbait can be fished effectively. Your standard 6' 6" to 7' medium heavy bass rod with 15 lbs line can cast and retrieve the swimmers up to 6" and under 1 oz. the heavy bass rods rated up to 1 1/2 oz with 20 line will handle most swimmers 6" that weigh a little more. Heavier swimbaits require heavier tackle. So your tackle is important. Swimmers are not crankbaits, so you fish them slower, a lot slower then you think you should. The hard body swimmers work best in open water areas, the soft bodies are more versitle and can be fished in and around cover and bottom bumping. A lot of folks over look the Trash Fish soft swimbait design, now available from Berkley called the Sick Fish and it's a knock off, less expenses and works good. Get colors that are close to the baitfish in the lakes you fish, this is important. Swimmers can be waked on the surface or fished as deep as you want, no limitations. Tom

Swimbait are one of the lure types you need to know what the bass are feeding on and should try to match the length and color to be somewhat similar to the prey fish the bass are looking for. Swimbaits are not crank baits and usually do not trigger a reaction strike, it is more of a feeding strike type of lure. If you have toothy fish in your area, the hard swimmer would be my choice. Your tackle needs to be much heavier to use the swimmers that weigh over 2 oz, which may also factor into what type of swimbait to use. If the bass in your area are under 6 lbs, then there isn't any advantage to using the big heavy swimmers, I would stay with 5" to 7" , unless you are trophy hunting. 5" bluegill or crappie is big for any bass! Bottom bumping go with the soft swimmers, more open water try the hard ones. Remember to slow down your retrieve speeds, almost everyone fishes these lure too fast in the beginning. Tom

Hard swimbaits are more for open water presentations because of the exposed hooks. Hard swimmer come in top water or wake baits, slow sinkers with multiple body sections and deep running styles. The MS Slammer for example is hard swimbait used as a wake bait or shallow swimmer. Triple Trout and BBZ are mid depth swimmers that can be worked to make 180 turn arounds or swam at various speeds. Soft swimbaits come in a wide range of styles from the simple hollow bodies, soft molded fish like profiles to slow swimmers like Huddleston Delux. The soft swimmer can be rigged to be weedless and can cover more of the water column for near surface to bottom bumping. The right swimmer is the one bass are striking and only one way to determine that; try different types. Tom

LMB weight formula is length X length X girth = weight in lbs. Next time use your line to measure the bass; cut line to equal Lentgh ( mouth closed tip of jaw to ens of tail). Cut another piece of line the equals the girth. Save the line and measure whenever. Nice looking bass. Tom

Thinking the top 200 bass pros that make up the Elites and FLW tours are head and shoulders above your local winning tournament anglers simply isn't true. There is a lot more to becoming a successfu full time bass pro then catching bass, although that is a big factor. Marketability is one big factor that separates pro anglers. How many of the 200 pro names can you recall without looking them up? The names your can recall have marketing skills. Everyone of the 200 were local tournament anglers at some point in their careers and each one made the decision to bass fish for a living, a high risk adventure for most. The successful tournament angler at every level most know how to catch bass during the time allowed and under whatever weather or water conditions that prevails during the tournament. Only a lot of time on the water under various conditions like heavy weekend boat traffic etc., then making the decision where to fish and when to change locations and presentations is the key to getting a pay check. You can't live on tournament winning alone! Tom