WRB-2.0

First understand that the larger bass are not boys, they are girls. The next factor to consider is the larger size bass are adults, not juveniles and have lived over 4 seasons. These larger bass can go anywhere they are comfortable and eat nearly anything they choose. The one thing these big girls do is spawn ounce a year, which means pre spawn and spawn cycle is the time these larger bass are vulnerable to being caught then at any other seasonal period. The next 2 months in your region will be your best opportunity to catch larger bass. You can rely on finding the magic panacea lure or learn where the larger size bass are located. Study the lakes you fish, find out where they spawn and locate the deeper staging areas where these bass hold during the pre spawn period. These bass will be in deeper water than the younger and smaller bass. Swimbaits are a choice, jigs works good, big soft plastic worms are good, a smaller size A rig can be very good and don't overlook a wake bait. All those lures will catch big bass fished correctly in the right places. Tom

Baby bass are part of the food chain from the fry stage to about 6" length for adult size bass and one reason low percent servive out of the billions of eggs laid and millions of fry hatched each year in most lakes. Baby bass lure colors are a good pre spawn choice. Although eggs hatch at a much faster rate in warmer water above 67 degrees, the bluegill and sunfish are also in thie shallow water spawning areas in high number and can overwhelm the male bass trying to protect the nest 24 hours none stop. The survival rate of late spawner's is low compared to the early spawner's, one reason the biggest bass in the lake tend to spawn early or deeper than the average size bass. Tom

The air bladder isn't under the skin, unless you believe the body cavity inside the rib cage is only skin deep. More then likely someone is seeing stomach contents moving. Tom

1. Male bass start to move into shallow water spawning zones before the female bass to search out bed sites.This generally occurs when the cold water warms to about 60-62 degrees. The female will move up and cruise about 2 days later, if the weather is stable, no cold fronts and wind to cool the water. Males stay with the bed sites unless the conditions degrade. 2. Female bas visit bed site areas and the male bass tries to attract the female to his site. If the female is interested she may work the bed site to her liking and hang around before laying eggs. Sometimes more than 1female is interested in the bed site and lay eggs into the one bed. After laying eggs and the male fertilizes the eggs, the female moves away, the male stays to gard the eggs/ nest. 3. Egg hatch time is about 10 days at 62-64 degrees, 5 days at 67 degrees at the depth the eggs are laid. The warmer the water the faster the eggs hatch. The males stays with the fry about 2 days, then attacks and eats a few before leaving. The fry are on their own from then on. Not all bass spawn and some females spawn more then once every few days until all the eggs are gone. If the water drops, that spawn is lost. If severe weather drops the water temps, most of the spawn is lost. This is called low recruitment year classes. Post spawn lasts about 1week for a bass to recover after spawning, some don't recover. Tom

I agree most anglers under utilize the eye sight and hearing when bass fishing from a bass boat. Most bass anglers rarely look beyond the lure. The angler looks for good targets to cast at, watches their lure action a little and miss totally any bass following the lure or movement as the lure hits the water, unless they are sight fishing for bed bass. They have no idea that several bass looked at the lure during the retrieve, then turned away...simply put; blind fishing.Some angler will hear a big splash from a jumping fish, often believe the fish to be a bass without seeing it. The hear a sound but don't see what made it, they see water movement and have no idea what made the water or aquatic plants move. Musky anglers pride themselves with the number of rises or follows they had, because they now know where the musky lives. Few bass anglers bother to look into the water and see what is below the surface. Tom

Hate to burst you bubble but FluoroClear and Yo-Zuri isn't a copolymer line, they are both a hybrid of polymer with coextruded fluorocarbon jacket. A copolymer is 2 polymers blended into 1 line material. P-Line CXX is a copolymer along with several others. Tom

Described the reel set for drop shot, except bed bass, when a snap set is faster. Also posted the Owner 5133 down shot hook several times for weedless style drop shot rig and agree this strong light wire hook is awesome for the drop and slip shot rig.Tom

Lakes with good waiter clarity are usually the better night fishing lakes. Catt, a member who fishes Toledo Bend a lot at night for decades always recommends to fish night with the same lures and colors you fish during the day. If all you fish with is black, then black will work for you, however other colors and lures may have worked better....keep an open mind! Dark color surface lures create a dark silhouette against the night sky is the traditional thinking and they work well at night. However bass have no problems finding live prey at night that are light colored: frogs have light colored bellies for example. My own experiences is using darker colors like black/red deep diving crank baits, black jigs and worms and they caught a lot of bass. Fishing a night tournament that started at 6 PM we used our standard day time colors and caught a lot of bass, the bite continued well after 10 PM on a very dark night and we never changed to darker colors and kept catching bass. The bite died off, when changed to the traditional black with blue or red highlites and didn't carch anything for for an hour. Picked up the shad colored crank bait and started catching bass agian. Everything will work in the dark, you just need to try it. Tom

How aggressive the bass is determines if the same bass will strike the same lure again. Bed bass will definitely keep protecting the nest site for example. Bass often feed in groups with bass of similar size so this is also a factor. If only one bass is feeding in the area you caught a bass or there is a high percentage more of the same size bass are there. There is a debate regarding releasing a bass caught may shut down a hot bite because the released bass gives off a warning. I have had a bite shut off after releasing a bass and have released several bass on one spot and continued catching bass. I do not like to put bass in my livewell and usually release a bass immediately, unless tournament fishing, which is only a few charity night events. Tom

Your map isn't a topo map it's a lake recreational use map and not enough detail to help much. This lake is small and you shouldn't have much trouble learning where to bass fish seasonally. If the wind blows over the dam and up the main lake basin, the area by the docks is as good as anything on this lake and the area just across from the docks. The major point that divides. this small lake into 2 arms or main lake basin where the docks are and 1 larger bay to the left of the dam is also a good area. The dam area and basin to the right should be good during cold water periods.The bass will move around this small lake a lot looking for prey and to spawn. The direction will determine the spawning areas, protected from wind. The inlet creek is always a source of food for bass and they will move up into that area at times. Start by the docks and fish up the direction towards the dam and fish the major point all the way around. The deeper water pocket near the docks is intriguing, could hold big bass. The creek bed may be silted in, still check it out. Go across the main lake basin from the docks and fish that area. The bass may use the 6' break line zone a lot during the summer day time. If the water has good clarity, nights could be good. Good luck. Tom

If you think bass anglers are color sensitive selecting lures, try marlin and tuna tournament anglers!Marlin are also thought to be color blind due in part to eye construction and myths, however both marlin and their prey tuna have very good blue/green color detection according to studies on these fish. Both marlin and tuna will at times use the surface to trap prey, as bass due at times, however both feed very effectively at depths greater than 100 feet and be very selective in color preference. When these anglers spend millions of dollars on tournament equipment, they also fund a lot of studies on these fish. Broadbill sword fish have the ability to see and feed at depths thousands of feet deep on sqwid and return to surface and feed on the prey fish, very interesting predator fish! The color spectrum of both ultra violet and infra red can not be detective by the human eye without instruments, we are not sure about bass and some other predators ability to see in these spectrums, there is strong evidence they may have this ability. The eye flicker rate of bass can be increased to slow down the prey higher speed movements to able the bass to see it clearly, like we see in slow motion. There is more to survival under water than above water and these animals evolve differently than we have. Tom

Hooking outside the mouth is very unusual with a drop shot rig, try the size 1 drop shot hook and wacky rig the worms. You are getting bites, otherwise I would suggest trying a nail weighted worm wacky rigged. You cut off about a 1/4" of the worms nose flat, insert a 3/32 oz lead or tungsten nail weight ( Lunker city lead nail weights are inexpensive). Using a size 1 drop shot hook Waky style about 1" back of the worm nose. Good rig for sight fishing, bed fishing or just controlled fall worm fishing. Tom

The highly skilled anglers that pursue giant trophy size fish of all species focus on details and color is at the top of the list. Long range tuna anglers are very particular about the color of the live bait they select: lime green verses olive green for example and avoid any live bait with red scales or red noses that indicate that bait isn't as healthy as others in the bait tank. Spent a few years fishing with live crawdads in the late 60's and learned to avoid dark reddish brown that indicated a hard shell crawdad that bass avoided where I was fishing and selected only the brownish green shell crawdads. Color is a Myth; when you get bit 10 to 1 you learn what works and what doesn't. The colors that matters is the color the bass prefer. Butch Brown for example paints his hooks to match the color of the swimbait to better blend with the lure, hard to debate success. When fishing hair jigs I take a lot of time to match the pork rind color to the hair colors, waste of time? The proof is in the pudding. The bottom line on how bass see colors hasn't been written yet, a lot of conflicting science. Tom

Bass see a wider color spectrum then we see and can see these colors in very low light. Bass also have the ability to see fast moving objects in detailed slow motion instead of a blurred motion Forget the black and white vision, it's a myth. However black and white are both high contrasting colors that are often good lure choice. Tom

When you say small hook, what size was the octopus hook? A nose hooked soft plastic worm drop shot rigged is usually fished vertically. The obvious answer is use a larger size hook: if you used a size 4 or 2 octopus style hook, go up to size 1 and use a premium make like Owner or Gamakatsu. If the bass are bed fish, they are not eating your worm, just striking it, the larger hook isn't going to bother these bass and you must hook set instantly as soon as you see the worm disappear into the basses mouth. Normally you can just reel set and rod sweep, however bed bass reject the worm too fast, you must snap set into the slack line. Tom

Bass are not the only predator in the lake that eats other small fish or crawdads. '76 I caught a 37 lb musky at Lake of the Woods Ontario Canada fishing for smallmouth bass with a 1/8 oz black hair jig. My son caught a 26 lb channel catfish at lake Castiac when he was 10 on a 3" reaper using a split shot rig. I snagged a 30 lb class channel cat under the pectoral fin with a jig at Casitas that I thought was the world record bass. Caught lots of blue and channel cats on a variety of bass lures; crankbaits, spoons, plastic worms and jigs. Caught a 7 lb class rainbow trout on a purple worm, you never know what hits your bass lure sometimes. Tom

While I agree with The Senile post as it relates to classic deep structure high land ot hill land reservoirs, it is also common knowledge that is well documented and everyone who is on the water with a Navonics chip in their sonar unti has those areas pre wired today. What I look for when studing a topo map with the features so clearly identified is isolated small holding or feeding areas within those obvious structures. The depth of productive isolated spots is dependant on seasonal factors. What I am looking at are tight lines that indicate a steep dropping structure with a wide spot between the lines that indicates a flat area about 10' to 20' wide. These small flat spots can indicate a saddle on the point ridge, a step zone on a steep break, that usually will have a few large rocks or some brush that established before the lake was folded. Tom

The one thing that I know for sure is; I don't know what colors bass prefer and why the prefer them under various light conditions. When I started bass fishing in the 50's I knew everything about bass lure colors! Surface lures were green frog colors, shallow diving lures were white with a red head and deep diving lures were black with white skeleton patten, because that is what worked for me back then. By the 60's my horizons widened to add fish colored lures like bluegill and crawdads and my best colors started to fade, replaced by newer choices. Plastic worms and vynl jig skirts became my new lures and colors of choice; black, brown and purple worms and jig skirts were obviously the colors bass preferred under nearly all light conditions. In the 70's soft plastic hand poured worms with translucent colors and metal flakes or neon blood lines came along with living image life like baitfish pattern lures came of age and my color preferences started to get complicated. Add spinnerbaits with multiple colored blades and it was obvious that bass don't know what they want. This continued to the late 80's when swimbaits with exact rainbow trout color became my choice of lures and colors. I got into making silicone jig skirts with an unlimited combination of skirt colors and came to the conclusion that the jigs with natural deer hair dyed black, brown and purple combined together worked far better than any of the silicone or living rubber jig skirts....for the first time I took a step backwards, and decided bass do know what they prefer, we just need to figure that out on a day to day basis. It's a myth that bass see colors like we see colors, they see better then we do. Keep an open mind about color preferences because it will change. Tom

It's a mistake to generalize the affects of water color verses water clarity and then make a leap to select lure colors based on subjective water clarity. As I mentioned a secchi disk is scientific and standards exits, however not in the bass fishing world where subjectivity rules. As bass anglers we all collectively have very different experiences on what lure color works under specific circumstances, however we can't agree on the circumstances. Someday we will understand more about how bass actually see their underwater world, today few knowledgeable fishery experts agree. What is known is bass are sight feeders and see better underwater then we can above water and in very low light. Bass use this exceptional vision to their advantage over the prey they eat. The bass also uses their sense of vibration and sound detection along with a lesser sense of smell. Tom

Water color and clarity is subjective. When you look at the sky, it looks blue due to the moisture content, same with water at an angle to sunlight. You make a secchi disk to objectively determine water clarity or depth of light. Tom

The red dot and red areas is the femal bass showing evidence of spawning activity, these are normal conditions, no concern for alarm. Tom

Matt lures makes a carp swimbait!

There are prey that bass feed on seasonally, most are obvious and listed by your local fishery management sites. Some anglers forget bass are predators and will eat a wide variety of critters like dragon fly and their nymphs called darner nymphs, hellgrammite, small water snakes, baby turtles, salamanders, frogs, worms, small birds, young ducklings, suckers, leeches, lizards, sculpin, young of the year; catfish, bass, carp, crappie, trout, bluegill, green sunfish, crayfish, minnows like shiners and chubs, several shad species, herring, peach etc. The prey that is most abundant and easiest to eat is the prey bass prefer. Tom

These bass are spawner's and by the shape I say males making and guarding the nest that may have been caught a few times and bounced on a boat carpet. Tom

The lowly soft plastic worm has caught more fresh water bass than all the bass lures combined. The Finland lure, now known as the original Rapala changed artifical lures forever and caught more fish then any other lure all over the world. When I take a new bass angler fishing, it's the soft plastic worm that gets the call, only because I don't like to use live Canadian night crawlers, they are a no brainer for catching bass. My go to lure is a hair jig with pork trailer, not the most productive lure in my boat, just the one I am most confident will catch big bass year around. Love to use swimbaits, when the bass are targeting them. Also use big soft plastic worms a lot, when night fishing or fishing flat bottom areas with brush. I prefer jigs on steeper rocky areas. Tom