WRB-2.0

I will try using my phone. Northern LMB are wired to be cover oriented and look for prey that is dermasil living near or in cover. When a reservoir has pelagic bait fish, non native to NLMB, the bass must develop techniques to prey on open water palegic bait fish. Thread fin shad are palegic baitfish that use cover during darkness to hide, where the bass are looking for dermasil prey; perfect storm for the bass during low light periods. Thread fin being small also fit NLMB prey size preference and the bass adapt easily to following the shad out to deep water areas, however prefer feeding when the shad schools are near shallower structure. FLMB are wired to feed on larger bait fish like golden shiners, that are also dermasil prey that stay close to cover. When the FLMB transplanted into deep structured lakes with little cover, they also adapt to feeding on shad and will target the smaller rainbow trout that are pelagic and feed on the same shad schools. FLMB wired for larger bait fish adapt to preying on pelagic trout and pelagic shad in open water,and don't seem to need shallow structure to feed on bait fish schools. Tom

The big females are staged during pre spawn and that is Jan / Feb in Florida where you fish. Live bait is a no brainier and most guides would use golden shiners as mentioned. Lots of artificals work; swim baits, big worms, jigs should work. Mid summer your chances are very slim due to the available natural prey the big bass can eat whenever they choose, they are not driven by the spawning urge and very weary of fishing pressure. Tom

Go big good advice for deep structured highland reservoir like San V. NLMB may not take advantage of pelagic bait fish like thread fin and trout on off shore structure. Thread fin will seek cover at night; trees, brush, docks and move out to deeper water as the sun floats phytoplankton the shad feed on. All types of bass will follow and feed on thread fin, however only near structure elements...FLMB don't seem to be structure defendant as NLMB. The map posted is good for this discussion, however a 5' elevation map looses a lot of detail, try to find 1' or 2' elevations if possible. Tom PS; San V dam is being raised 90', most of structure elements shown will be under water in a few years when the lake opens.

Good advice HighHawk. Roboworms are another good soft high flotation worm and both the ox blood/red flake and MMII are good summer colors for most lakes. The points near spawning areas are usually secondary points inside creek arms or more sheltered areas; good location for post spawn bass and some hold over spawner's that haven't transitioned to deeper areas. Tom

Algae isn't a weed, so you mean grass or weed mat! High acidic water the bass tend to be very dark in color, high alkaline lighter green coloration. Most reservoirs will be about 7ph or drinking water, the bass tend to be classic coloration. Bass can and do adapt their coloration somewhat to help camouflage with the shadows or bright clear water.Color changes takes a few weeks. Tom.

Fish main lake major points to start with. A major point is the longest point that intersects the lakes original river, stream or creek. Just look at a lake topographic map. If that doesn't help, then go up to the dam and fish the points in that area or points at the mouth of any larger bay. These are the easiest to locate and to stay near visually while you fish. Start shallow and fish deeper until you catch bass or meter them on your sonar. I would fish down to about 25 to feet to start with. Drop shot or C-rig and drag the sides of the point using a 6" curl tail worm any color you have confidence using. After you have the deeper water figured out, then look for humps that top out under water around the depth you caught bass on the points. Also islands create points and some have saddles joining a nearby island or the bank; fish those areas. Tom

I believe the eye problem is due to stress from either disease or being previously caught and mishandled. When you catch a bass from deep water the eyes are severely stressed from pressure changes. It's true that the bass eyes continue to grow, but not out of perporsion to the fishes head size. Bug eyed bass have a serious malady, it' not normal. The big "old" bass I have caught all have normal size eyes, about the size of a quater, big eyes, not bugged out. Tom

Bill Seimentel has a frog fishing Video where he is fishing open deep clear structure with no weeds of any type and catches frog bass. The frog is white and doesn't represent a frog, it may look like a baitfish on the surface to the bass! The mistake some anglers make is if the lure is colored like some type of baitfish or critter, than the bass must believe ithat is what the lure is! We don't know what a bass is thinking when it strikes a lure, we can only guess. Don't limit the lures presentation based on what you think the bass want; experiment and let the bass decide if a frog looks good to eat in open water or where ever you cast it. Tom

The fact you are fishing in Ontario Canada would indicate the bass are smallmouth? And the hump is a rocky reef? The weeds are conntail/cabbage? The water temperatures are surface measured from a TD? Smallmouth move around a lot and are not a primary predator if musky & pike are in the same waters. Bass, both SMB and LMB like cooler water about 70 degrees. Locate the depth the bait fish are holding. The bass have found another location where they can feed when prey fish are available and don't need to compete with the larger faster pike and musky or become their food source. Tom

Bass will move into new flooded areas as the water raises and move out as it falls back. The reason is newly flooded cover is full of prey. This occurs daily with tidal water, power generation reservoirs and seasonal with rain patterns. Tom

Fish are fish and every lake has a wide variety, not all marks are going to be bass. Tom Now that I'am back home and not using the IPhone, let me explain what the arc you see on the sonar screen is. Your sonar signal is an inverted cone looking straight down and moving at the speed of your boat, like a spot light point down into the water. As the very edge of the signal cone approaches a suspended fish a faint signal retun starts to display and as the cone passes over the fish the signal get stronger and wider; the arch shape is created as the fish passes out of the cone. The longer the arch is the faster the cone passed over the fish or the fish passed through the signal cone. The cone diamter is about 1/3rd the depth where the signal was return from...18' deep the cone is about 6' in diameter at the lake bottom and about 4' where you marked the fish is a small area. Don't turn down your signal strenght too much, you will loose a lot of details like fish. Adjust the signal strength so you see some back ground clutter. By the way the sonar doesn't reflect off the fishes skin or meat, it reflects off the air bladder, the most dense, or strongest suspended signal returns is air inside the fish. Carp or any fish with an air bladder look just like bass to sonar. Tom

Fished, outside deep structure using markers for about 40 years. Rarely use more than 1 marker, occasionally 2. I always toss markers about 25' to the right side of any fish or structure element I planned to fish, keeps the anchor line away from where I am casting. Fast forward to 2005 when I finally got my first sonar/GPS Map Lowrance LCX-19C unit. It didn't take long to learn GPS way points are far better than markers. Learn to use your electronics, Navonics maps and GPS way points and icons, no reason to have a marker floating on the water to try and find In windy conditions and loosing site of it trying to fish and control the boat. GPS way points don!t move and you can return whenever you want back to the exact point. Use the split screen feature sonar and GPS, stay on whatever way point or icon you marked...easy with a little practice. Tom

Most bass boats have divided live wells that are about 15 gallon each. If the live well doen't have a divider, then it will be about 30 gallons total. If your live well has an aeration system, like Oxygenator, there isn't a need to add more DO. Keeping the water temps below 70 degrees is still good. Lake surface water is warmer than just a few deeper water and down where the thermocline is during the summer in deep structured lake the water average about 70 degrees and one reason bass locate at that depth. Sure-Life products are well engineered and Catch & Release is a safe additive. Bass held in live wells start to release toxic waste when stressed, another reason to keep them cool and oxygenated. Tom

You obviously have not lived on a farm or hunted much. Your goal should be not to waste the meat and how to keep the fish fresh before cleaning it. Bass or most fish can't breath air, they breath dissolved oxygen in water. This means every second out of water they start to suffocate and become extremely stressed in about 1 minute and should be returned to water to refresh their gills. If you plan to kill the fish, do it quickly, then put the fish on ice. You can give the fish a hard hit with a solid object on top of the head between the eyes, then put the fish on ice and it will die quietly. Tom

Livewell management requires alot more than adding 3% over the counter hydrogen peroxide to you livewell. Check Sure-Life Labs vedio, Lane and Tony put this out before Hannon did his and there is a link on this site somewhere. During the summer warm water period, the lake surface water is too hot to sustain bass and the hot water looses DO (dissolved oxygen) levels very fast, the bass sufficate in the livewell as a result. You need to maintain both DO levels and water temeratures; 65 to 70 degrees is good and DO levels around 7 to 9 Mg/l. Adding 1/2 cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to 15 gallon of livewell water with the lake water circulation OFF and adding ice to keep the water cooled, plus adding Catch & Release will keep you bass healthy all day. JUst keep an eye on them, if they start to roll over act fast; add more ice and 1/4 cup of H202 to raise the DO levels. The cooler water holds higher level of DO, the bass are less stressed and use less DO...it's a win win. Tom

Bass anglers get very upset when you talk about eating bass, so tread with caution. It's far better to eat a bass then to through it away for turtle food. Fillet the bass and cook it like any other fish, it's good. Samll lake bass can get over populated quickly if there isn't any harvesting going on, it's all about balancing the resource with available prey per arce; not enough prey the will stunt and stop growing, very abundant prey the will keep eating and growing. General rule is the girth should be 80% of the length; less than 75% the bass may not reach their full potential weight. This rule applies to adult size bass over 18" in length. Tom

Dave Nichols makes A wide variety of spinnerbaits blades, you might to check it out. Copper is a good choice for single spin night spinnerbaits. Blade type, size and color all make a big difference. The most over looked blades are Indiana type when you want fish a little deeper than using a willow blade, slightly faster speed than Colorado and pushes more water to give off big bait vibrations. Tom

While I respect Hannon's view point on mid day big bass feeding activity, keep in mind where he is located and how he fishes. The majority of bass anglers fish for northern strain largemouth bass in man made reservoirs that are deep structured lakes. Bass are bass, except they are not bass; they are sunfish. Smallmouth bass have different feeding habits than largemouth and northern largemouth have different location preference and prey preferences than Florida strain largemouth. Most bass anglers will catch their PB during the spawn period and sight fishing is far better during mid day sun than another time. It's also true that bass see better during good light conditions and this isn't to a lure anglers advantage. I, like most bass anglers, prefer to fish with lures, not live bait. Low light and darkness helps me to catch bigger bass. Yes, I have caught big bass during the mid day period, however far more during low light conditions. My 5 top giant bass were all caught during the day....in cloudy or light rain conditions. During the summer my average bass size goes up when fishing at night . Summer night tournament weights are nearly double compared to day tournament weights. Yes bass are sight feeders, however they are easier to catch on lures during low light periods. Tom

+1 astute observation;giant bass can only achieve maximum weight when prey abundant and bass are the primary predator. To successfully catch giant bass there must be a good population of these special fish for anglers to have a chance of locating a bass active and be skilled enough to catch it. Tom

+1 on night fishing or during low light periods and using big worms. Post spawn is over about 2weeks after the spawn, your bass are doing their summer period thing. Lots of young of the year baitfish available, the bas don't need to work hard to find prey and eat when they want to. If catching keeper size bass is your goal, then use 6 to 7" worms, 10" if larger bass are your targets. A Carolina rig should allow you to cover a lot of water from shore, target the deepest area with some open water with rocks, like the dam area. A mojo style cylinder weight or a salamander weight will get through rocks better than an egg style sinker and 1/4 oz should be a good size. Tom

Whoops looks like I posted a reply about pit lakes by mistake for another thread. Most of the reply on pit lakes would apply for a small local drinking water 25 acre lake. Being in AZ the heat of the day is a major factor, so aerated deeper water is a must and you need to survey this lake similar to the pit lake, except bottom structure will be very limited, any rocks will be a magnet area. 25 acres could be big enough to have thread fin shad, if it does than they become very impotant and the primary food source. If not than crawdads, bluegill, chubs, don't think too many frogs or salamanders will be around due to the heat issues. Local lake bass are accustom to people walking the shoreline and simply move away into deeper water to aviod the shore activity and not as weary as pit bass. You still need to keep a low profile and any shadows off the water where bass maybe holding. I would try big 10" to 12" Upton's worms, jig with craw trailer, baby bass color wakebaits, bluegill swimbaits, buzzers and spinning baits very early mornings or any time at night or late evening. I would also split shot 6" shad color worms if shad are in the lake. Tom

Whoops; looks like I posted your pit lake reply on Catching big bass...Mikey5string thread. Tom

Pit lakes are not like any other type of small lake, they usually very clear with steep banks around 3 sides and a road bed the gravel trucks used to enter and exit during the operational period. This is a man made retangular shaped pit filled with water. Weed growth is usually sparse due to low nutrients and usually located around the edges, any weed beds out away from shore is a good area to target. Boulders too big to remove during excavation get pushed along side the road bed. The pit lakes are almost always spring fed and may have a small stream. Forage differs with the region; bluegill and other small pan fish, minnows, chubs, , crawdads, salamnders, frogs, worms, water snakes, small bass etc make up the food chain. Pit bass know every inch of their domain and will know when you launch your boat or walk around edges. You must move slowly and become part of the environment to catch weary big pit bass. This why you need to survey the lake bottom and look for those isolated structure elements that hold big bass and quitely approach them. Night and low light periods offers you cover of darkness and it's when those big bass roam looking for prey. This isn't that difficult, you should be able to become an expert on the small lake in a few weeks. Good luck. Tom

Swiwbaits (wake type plunker or slammer) and 10 to 12" worms at night. Tom

Spend some time surveying the small pit lake with your Sonar unit. Keep in. Mind that the sonar cone area will be about 1/3 the depth; 2 to 3 foot diameter, you can troll a Bomber 7A or similar diver that run at 8' or so while looking at bottom structure. You can also.Google Earth the lake sat over head, print a copy and make notes as you survey.