WRB-2.0

Congratulations Paul. I remember that bass photo, great picture. Tom

I put sun screen on before leaving the house and always wash my hands after applying sun screen when touching up exposed shin areas during the day. I also wash my hands after handling attractants, not because of odors, don't want anything slippery on the hands that could cause a major problem; casting the rod overboard, loosing control of the steering, getting on the glasses or sonar screen, etc. WRB

Everyone thinks that SoCal doesn't have seasons, it's always warm. That maybe true to some extent, the bass do have seasonal periods, even in the warm climates like CA and FL. Winter Pre-spawn Spawn Post-spawn Summer Fall Six seasonal periods based on water temperature. It's important to recognize seasonal changes as they affect what the bass prefer eat and where they tend to locate during each period. My favorite season is pre-spawn and I bass fish all year. WRB

Try to have spares of everything. Check your batteries and make sure they are fully charged. If you are using lights with wire hook ups; duck tape them down so you don't trip on them. A simple clip on shop light with yellow 25 watt 12VDC light and 12V cigarette lighter plug in works great for lighting the bank or inside the boat when needed. The LED cap lights are great, last several nights and easy to use. Take along a warm jacket, rain gear and anchor. Try to fish close to where you launch the first trip as most marinas areas are very good for night fishing. We can only run 15 mph max at night, so check your local laws. The red/green is on the bow, white light above the big motor on the transom. Also try to have as few rods out at a time, one is all you can fish with at a time, the others tend to get kicked overboard or stepped on. I tape a small flash light to my net handle, makes netting bass easy. WRB

Shewee http://www.shewee.com/ There are several similar brands available for woman to use. My old LA Rams beer mug is perfect for peeing into. WRB

Fizzing bass takes practice and skill to perform properly and is rarely needed during the summer period. In most, but not all, bass lakes the summer thermocline is above 35 feet and so are the bass. If the bass are deeper, then fizzing can be helpful, done properly. The livewell care is essential during the warmer water months. http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/fish-care-in-the-livewell.html http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/bass-fishing-hydrogen-peroxide.html Both above videos featuring Sure-Life & Doug Hannon are excellent. WRB PS; Lane was doing a deep water brain damage study where bass were needled and released from water over 40 feet to 60 feet to determine long term mortality do the starvation. One side affect may be loss of memory and ability to catch prey after fizzing.

Bends Mender is a good needle. http://www.***.com/descpageBMA-BMDNP.html You don't need to fizz bass unless the air bladder is over inflated due to extreme depth change quickly. Bass caught in less then 30 feet of water rarely need to be fizzed. Bass also rollover due to stress caused by poor handling and livewell maintenance' high water temps with low DO levels. WRB

You can't effectively fish a bottom bumping jig in a weedy shallow pond. Try a light weight 1/8 oz shaky style jig worm that you can swim and let drop into open pockets. WRB

Take a look at the water temperature variations thread on this page, it has some related information. WRB

Are you fishing a big reservoir like Clarks Hill or small pond? WRB

Most high land and hill land resevoirs develop a thermocline during the summer. Power gerneration lakes may develop multilple DO rich thermocline layes created by current or water moving through the dam. Smaller lakes and ponds will develop thermoclines so dense that the DO is completely gone below the layer as decaying vegetation and algae consumes all DO. The upper water looses DO as it warms above 90 degrees and massive fish die off occur, if the lake or pond doesn't have an aeration system or no wind to mix DO. By using your sonar or from years of experience, you can determine the life zone or preferred depth the bass are using. Anyone who has ever swam in a lake during the summer can tell that the deeper water is colder than the first few feet of surface water, unless the lake is very shallow. The topic* was about a disgruntled fisherman fishing deep structured lakes. Deep is always a relative term depending on the lake classification and location. The thermocline on lake Casitas for example, the time I fished, was between 18 and 28 feet, depending on wind and time of day. You can catch bass at 30 feet when the TC is at 28', but when it bends and raises, you may blank at 25' feet and need to fish shallower. If there is a double thermocline, then the deeper TC works all day. There is nothing to prevent a bass suspended at 25' for example from swimming up to the surface, the air bladder expansion is well within that range. There is no reason for the bass suspended at 25' to swim deeper into low DO water without prey. It's hard to fish too shallow, easy to fish too deep, during the summer on deep structured lakes. No thermocline, the bass are not restricted and can go to any depth they choose. WRB PS; whoops, wrong thread.

SoCal you need a spinnerbiat that works in and around brush early when the shad are hiding tight to cover. Smaller 3/8 oz shad colors like Bushmaster from Markey. Buzzers work better more often than a spinnerbait. Winter; slow rolled Ledge Busters work OK and the twin spins are very good. WRB

Anglers Choice has some tournaments schedules; 805/933.1271, Jim Reyes. The quagga mussel issue has shut down all other tournaments to the best of my knowledge. Moonlight-Midnight events every 3rd Saturday, July , Aug & Sept., for fun fishing. Call lake Casitas for details. WRB

Freshwater sculpin (collidae) are another bass baitfish we tend to overlook. Sculpin are rock dwellers, usually mottled brown with black patches and tan colored bellies. Sculpin are colder water baitfish that bass target during the winter period, but also year around. Soft plastics often replicate the size, color and movement of sculpins, unknowingly to the bass fisherman. WRB

Wild shiners like the golden shiner are common in a lot lakes from Florida the native region all the way out west where fisherman have introduced them as baitfish. Shiners are very similar to herring, they both like cool highly oxygenated water and can be just under the surface to just above the thermocline, similar to bass. Shad are open water baitfish and use cover for shelter and feed on plankton, shiners feed on tiny aquatic life. The best way to learn about these baitfish is catch them. Shiners like the same areas as bass; hard bottoms with weed edges in about 12 feet of water during the summer. Try chumming with ground up chicken based dog food*. To catch shiners use a ultra light rig with 4# mono, gold #16 treble hooks and small gold swivel. The swivel acts like a weight. Make a dropper rig with 2 gold trebles, one about 3" below the swivel, then longer 18" leader for the other treble hook. You can bait the lower treble, shiners will hit the gold treble without any bait. Fly line the rig and let settle into the chummed area and twitch the rig. Shiners can be fished using the split shot rig like a plastic worm. To catch tilapia use fresh frozen peas for both chum and bait. Baitfish are fun to catch and learn about them at the same time. WRB PS; * mixture of Alpo and whole oats.

During the summer all the structure or bottom of the lake that makes up the structure that is below the thermocline doesn't have any bass or baitfish the bass feed on. Fishing too deep where there isn't any bass is a waste of time and effort. The ideal place during the summer is where the thermocline meets structure and cover, this is where bass are most likely to be. The first question a structure fisherman will ask; what depth did you catch the bass? WRB

Most bass fisherman start to fish in the spring and stop in the fall, a few fish year around. This is due to regional location and commitment to other sporting activities. The bass however live year around in the same lake, river or pond and locate where ever they can survive; food, shelter and comfort. The only seasonal time that changes those factors is during the spawn when food, shelter and comfort are not a factor. Bass being cold blooded animals are affected by the water temperature, water temperature controls nearly everything in the basses life cycle. When the water gets to warm to hold sufficient dissolved oxygen levels, the must find cooler water to breath; the upper temperature limit is around 85 degrees and low DO limit about 3 mg/l. A good sonar unit can display where the colder more dense water meets the lighter warmer water layer called the thermocline. The layer is displayed as a dark line at one depth or a fuzzy grey zone at one depth, depending on the density of the water change. You can also look for a depth zone where baitfish are suspended, as both bass and baitfish prefer to be near the thermocline, unless moving shallower to feed or escape predators. In the fall colder surface water mixes with the warmer surface water the result is called a turn over when the low DO water below the thermocline is pushed towards the surface. Bass fisherman who fish year around learn to adjust to seasonal changes and bass locations. WRB

Summer period water temperature is extremely important. The surface emperature isn't important, the bass don't live on the surface. Lakes in the summer layer into water that can support bass and water that can't. The upper layer of water that supports bass cools as it gets deeper and at a depth where the water temperature changes rapidly within a few feet is called the thermocline. Think of a layer of a sheet of plastic, below it they can't. If you are fishing below the thermocline layer, no bass will be at the depth. The summer thermocline makes finding bass easy. Determine where the thermocline layer is and fish at or above that depth. The ideal depth changes during the day due to wind bending the thermocline and early or late in the day the thermocline tends to rise a few feet. WRB

We have had a good exchange on crayfish, crawfish, crawdads or whatever we call them. Good information and links to look at for coloration and habits. No reason to shut up, good reason to continue with other prey type information like bream; bluegill, pumpkin seeds, green sunfish, copper nose, shell cracker or whatever else this group of prey fish maybe called. WRB

We have a few closed reservoirs that have big bass populations that I would love to fish. Bard and Bouquet Canyon, near where I live are top on my list. The closed area near the dam at Casitas, where they film celebrity pros catching big bass, is another that place. WRB

Starting to look like we are whipping a dead crawdad. http://danhex.com/uploads/crawfish_biology.pdf Good article related to bass fishing. Crawfish Fallacies; crawfish do not hibernate. Take it or leave it, it's a mute point. WRB

I don't fish tournaments very often anymore and like to fish weekdays if possible. This last Saturday fished with my son on a special moonlight event; you can stay on the lake until midnight. The bite has been extremely tough during the day for every one, even the guides who fish with live shad. We know where the bass are located: 18 foot breakline, that is not the problem. As soon as the sun went down we started hearing the bass splasing that had move up into the brush. The deeper bass out on the ledges still would not bite, so we moved to the bank. It was a scratch bite, meaning you had to keep moving. All our fish were on black/blue neon big unit* worms in the brush. We had 5 bass for 23 lbs, only a few limits were weighed in. You can locate bass, but they don't always cooperate. If my son wasn't fishing with me, I may have stayed on the outside bass and had a long night. A few keepers on the bank turned into a good night on the water. WRB * Reaction Innovation

What do crayfish do in the winter? I made the statement that crawdads hibernated in one of my In-Fisherman articles and received letters informing me that I was wrong and I accept that. If crayfish don't hibernate in the frozen north, they shouldn't in the climate where I fish. WRB

During the summer most lakes stratify and you need to determine at what depth the thermocline is or deepest depth the baitfish are suspending. You don't want to fish too deep or more than a few feet below the baitfish or thermocline. Bass have a lot of choices for food during the summer and it's a good time to fish because the bass are active more often. The hot weather bothers the fisherman, the bass just go deeper to cooler water. Try a split shot rig or finesse Carolina rig like a slip shot and very slowly drag or cast a 4 1/2" to 6" finesse curl tail worm on 6-8 lb mono or FC line. Start at the shallow water and work a ridge or point all the out to deep water, the back up to shallow water. Try several areas until you locate bass. Slow but effective. Ounce you locate the bass, then try other techniques. Roboworm oxblood w/red flake or morning dawn should work where you fish. WRB

The bass died of old age before FC line, finesse fishing and swimbaits were invented. WRB