WRB-2.0

Only look bigger through the eyes of Texans. WRB

I'm surprised your buddies aren't helping you more, some friends. Plastic worm fishing starts with the rod, reel and line, must match the type of worm fishing you are doing; weeds and cover. Lets start with you describing what tackle you have? Then we can go from there. WRB

OK, freakish works. The deal with thin air is it doesn't hold heat during the night and 30 to 40 degree changes are normal. Warms during the daytime and cools fast during the night, the water doesn't get above 70, or maybe just above that at the surface. One reason the trout did well. NLMB don't eat big bait often, so the trout plants must be small size; 5" to 7" with a few 9" to 12". FLMB will eat a 12" rainbow like a gum drop, NLMB tend to eat the smaller size baitfish, it's a genetic thing. The freak evidently decided anything it could swallow was a good meal. Still a square 23" bass is freakish. A 6" Huddleston would be the ticket there. WRB

What lb test line? what soft plastic, size and make?, what style hook, mfr and size? The components are very important with drop shotting. The worm needs to be able to float the hook when fishing at an angle, like casting from shore. I would suggest trying the slip shot rig; Use either an Owner size 1 down shot hook or Gamakatsu wide gap weedless finesse hook, size 1. 6 to 8 lb mono line. 1/8 to 3/16 mojo style weight and glass bead with peg-It to hold the bead in place or a Carolina Keeper. Place the weight about 24" above the hook. If you want to drop shot, then use the same hooks, 3/16 or 1/4 oz weight and place the hook about 18" above the weight. Use high flotation worms like 6" Roboworms. Nose hook the Gamakatsu and Texpose the Owner hook. WRB

I was surprised to see the Colorado record at 11 lbs 6 oz, thought it would be about 8+, due to the altitude of most the state being around 5,000 feet. Thin air doesn't hold heat well. I don't know about saying giants are freaks of nature, they result because of everything coming together for that fish to grow, then be caught at the prime time in it's life. Lets just call them rare and few and far between. I caught a 12 lb NLMB out of a 2 acre rock quarry pond that was crystal clear, 40' deep and had a year around stream running in and out, plus springs. Ideal habitat, lots of baitfish and had a good big bass population, located in SoCal. This bass was over 27" long. Altitude has a big affect on bass, cold climate and short growing periods. Big Bear lake is a lot like Colorado lake; 7,000' and freezes, 7 miles long, 70' feet deep at the dam. Lake record is around 8 lbs. Big Bear is located in SoCal. There is location and then location; sea level verses higher altitude, big difference. WRB PS; maybe the 23 is a typo for 28, or the fish swallowed something very heavy.

The San Diego knot is good for fluorocarbon line, similar to the Eugene knot, you must moisten fluorocarbon line when clinching either knot tight. Palomar knot works good for monofilament line. The Uni knot and braid knot are good knots for braid. WRB

Catt is trying to give everyone good sound advice. Lumping jigs with plastic worms can be difficult because bass can spit out a jig faster than you can drop the rod tip and set the hook. Here is some advice on hook setting soft plastics; worms creatures and jigs with larger size soft plastic creature trailers. The hook setting technique is dependant on how far you have made your cast and how deep the lure is. IF the cast is within 30 feet or so and not deeper than 10 feet or so and you are using a soft plastic that is over 6" long or bulky enough the fill the basses mouth, take the time to quickly lower the rod tip, reel in the slack and snap set the hook. The bass tends to hold onto a mouth full of soft plastic, so you have a few seconds to make a hook set. IF you have made a longer cast over 30", you should consider the reel and sweep set. You will have more bow in your line the further away it is from your rod tip. This means to take up the slack and bow in the line you need to use the reel to tighten the line very quickly and sweep the rod back against the snug line to get a good hook set. The reel moves more line faster then the rod can. IF you are casting a jig with a smaller 3' to 5" trailer over 30 feet, you have less time to get a hook set, so don't lift the rod tip up high, keep it closer to the water when retrieving the jig, this reduces the time needed to reel in the slack line and sweep the rod that is already in position. The reel set with the rod pointed at the jig creates the highest hook setting power the the hook point. Rods are designed to bend and that is exactly what they do and you loose most of the hook setting power because the line only moves a fraction of the distance the rod tip does. The old cross there eyes rod hook set, doesn't apply much movement or force to the hook point, unless the lure is within 30'. How long will a bass keep your lure in it's mouth? who knows, the faster you can get the set the better, the more bass you will hook, when fishing plastic worms and jigs. WRB

Take a look at state record largemouth bass: Colorado is 11 lbs, 6 oz, NY is 11 lbs, 4 oz, MN is 12 lbs 12oz, which may indicate the maximum size of northern strain largemouth bass grow above the Mason-Dixon line or snow belt zone. The reason IMO is the growing seasonal periods are shorter. Bass were protected from harvesting in the northern states during the cold water period for conservation reasons. LMB that live in water less than 40 degrees are stressed, low metabolism and eat less. Targeting the big bass during the cold water period may be effective, if the state law allows you to fish for them. Small lakes and ponds are very susceptible to cold water die offs due to the lack of deep water sanctuary areas. WRB

Growing up fishing small clear lakes and rock quarry ponds helps to learn bass habits because you can see them. The first lesson learned is the bass in these smaller ecosystems are always aware of everything above, around and in the water. Bass that don't learn what can harm them don't survive to grow larger. Big bass in these ponds or small lake become extremely wary. The one seasonal period where they are less wary is during the spawn. The drive to survive is over come by their instinct to spawn. The best times to fish ponds is during low light periods, light rain or at night, if big bass are your targets. You approach the water as if the bass can see you, because they can, and stock them like a trophy buck because they are just as wary. Use lures that look and act like the prey they are looking for; large baitfish, frogs and crawdads. WRB

Linders are good people. LMB are not marathon swimmers, they make short burst of speed. The speedsters are tuna, wahoo and billfish; well over 40 mph with even faster jumping speeds up to 60 mph. We think of bass as being ambush only type of predator, however they can and do chase down open water baitfish like rainbow trout and it is amazing watching a big bass after a grey hounding trout. WRB

Chris, you are a lot more open to on the water fisherman then I am. I will talk to fishermen off the water or in a setting like this where I can keep a lower profile. Sharing information to help other catch bass is giving something back to the sport. Sharing a lot of photo's is good if you are promoting yourself or a product. Back in the dark ages we didn't have digital cameras and film camera tend to overheat when stored in a boat for a long time period. The old Polaroids fade to black in time. Sent you a pic of a giant bass in my old Lund tin boat, miss that old boat. WRB

Well and spring water tend to be about 60 degrees year around where bass can survive. The key is sustained big bass population verses boom & bust cycles. Small lakes and ponds suffer form recruitment cycles due to low water conditions or high water usage. Nutrients and cover play a major factor when the bass are fry and growing the first year or so. Water that freezes shorten the growth cycle or can end it, depending on water temperatures and DO levels. Everything being equal, it's the small lake or pond with the best forage and cover that can constantly produce big bass regardless where it is located. WRB PS; crappie spawn before bass, however the bass fry grow much faster.Adult bass eat small crappie year around. This issue becomes cover for both young of the year predator and prey to hide in and provide a food chain.

To answer the question; LMB can swim about 12 mph with burst speed to 20 mph. Bass rely on quick turns, not sustained forward speed to catch bait fish. The fastest bass reel with 7.3 to 1 ratio can attain a lure speed of approximately 4 to 5 mph and a bass can easily chase that down, if they want it. WRB

To see a bass bed you must be able to see the bottom clearly at the depth the bass are bedding and that can be anywhere from 1 foot to 8 feet or deeper. Start looking in the shallower 1' to 5' depth range. You can't see into the water well at low light periods and need the sunlight at least up high enough to penetrate well. The water must also be calm enough so the waves do not refract the light. Located a calm cove where bass are known to spawn, put the sun over your back so no glare is on the water. Wear a large brim hat to shade your eyes and wear good quality polarized sunglasses. You should be able to see the bottom clearly and fish moving around. Bass beds are not easy to see. The bed can be nearly any shape, usually round 12" to 36" area cleaned of any debris and usually will have something on the shallow side; brush, rock, tree, dock post, anything that helps to protect the blind area. It's easier to see bass movement, so look for a bass that swims off quickly from a spot, make a quite circle out towards deeper water and slowly come back to where the bass darted off from and look closely for a bed or the returning bass or another bass sitting near the bed site. When looking for bass, look for anything that moves, a flash of white or black straight line in the water. Fish look like skinny sticks in water from a distance, go by length, not girth to determine size. WRB

Good question and Catt nailed it. The only thing I would add is water temperatures; the colder the water the longer it takes eggs to hatch. The water temperatures are also measured at the depth the bass use to spawn, not the surface temp. Example; at 58 to 60 degrees LMB eggs require up to 14 days to hatch, at 65 to 67 degrees about 3 to 4 days. This is significant because the male must guard the nest from egg eating predators like crawdads, minnows, bluegill, other sunfish, carp and salamanders, 24 hours day and night. Males take a beating during this period because they don't have time to eat. Females will eat between egg laying, then move off to deeper water to recuperate. When the water gets over 67 degrees, the eggs hatch even faster, the problem becomes the bluegill and other sunfish move into the same nesting areas in schools to spawn, so the bass nests gets over run and few eggs survive. Deeper water is usually cooler and if the water clarity is good, bass can spawn as deep as sun light penetration will allow the eggs to hatch; 8 to 25 feet in some lakes, normally bass prefer 1 to 4 feet. WRB

** my 2C on the subject WRB PS; Kerr & Long are without question phenomenal bed fishing experts.

Spoons are the oldest lures known, date back centuries to pearl spoons with bone hooks. Vertical spooning is common deep structure presentation for those bassers who fish out away from shore. Bassmaster has an article using 4" to 5 1/2" structure spoons and that size is not common for bass, however common for lake trout jigged vertically. As mentioned, out west we spoon structure for bass when the bass are targeting shad. The spoons should be about the same size as the baitfish; 2 1/2" to 4" and 1/2 to 1 1/2 oz is the size best to represent threadfin shad. Adding white and chartreuse feathers to chrome size 2 treble hooks helps to trigger strikes. You can cast these spoons and work them back through the depth zone the bass are holding on, it's not always a vertical presentation. WRB

If interested; PM your email and I will send you the In-Fishermen article, a picture is worth a 1,000 words. WRB

I agree with approaching major points inside out as pointed out earlier, during most seasonal periods and during day light hours. The In-Fisherman article "Horizontal Jigging" published back in 1995, illustrated exactly how to approach a point from the inside and suggest a casting pattern that works well. Chris is right; big bass become conditioned to boats approaching form deep water and move out to deeper water when they detect a boat or become alarmed. Big bass also use the point to trap bait fish against and the escape rout for a bait fish is swimming up to the surface, deep to shallow. At night or during low light periods, the bass can be up tight in shallower water, so the traditional approach; casting from deeper water parallel to the bank can be an advantage, if you approach quietly. WRB

If you could control the weather, moon phase and traffic pressure, you would fish during a light drizzle, warm temperature, little to no wind, around the 2 days before and after the full moon, during the day. At night you would clear the sky and keep everything else in place. Since we can't control weather, we try to fish on week days when those conditions are present, weekends if we must. Lunatics live in Minnesota; the state bird and insect. Obsessed, yabetcha we are dedicated or addicted to bass fishing. High pressure is you can't get a kitchen pass, low pressure is when you are on the water. WRB

Agree with Catt. Pressured bass usually means just that; high traffic, the bass are being pounded by a lot of fishermen. The barometer issues are a topic that could fill a book and we still would not agree as to the direct affects on bass. Generally low pressure is a downward change of a few millibars of atmospheric pressure, high pressure is the opposite. Frontal conditions are related to pressure changes, however also with temperature changes, IE; cold front is the back end of a cold weather system; cold air being pushed by higher pressure. The primary affect of lower atmospheric pressure is clouds are usually associated with it and higher humidity combined with lower light, can increase activity, the opposite is true with high pressure; brighter light due to wind clearing the air, can decrease activity. Structure to me is anything on or above water or the lake bottom that is permanent. Cover is something that grows or floats on or in the water. We will never agree on terminology, it's regional; like grass and weeds. WRB

Over the years the 2 line colors that have stood the test of time for bass fishing are; clear and dull green. Florescent yellow, florescent blue, pink, red, coffee brown all have been hot at times. The big unknown is; does line color affect the bass bite? I use clear fluorocarbon and light green mono. I can see the clear fluoro better and use it for soft plastics and jigs. Mono for crankbaits, top water and spinnerbaits; it cast better, less expensive and reaction strikes are easy to detect. Cajun line isn't any stronger than any other premium mono IMO. When determining line strength there are a lot of factors to consider; line diameter is often over looked and very important. Knot types are another factor; Palomar works good for mono, poor for fluorocarbon for example. Getting way off track. Color is a choice each fisherman makes to suite his/her own preference, the bass don't seem to care. WRB

With the water under 55 degrees the largemouth bass are still in the cold water period, not pre spawn IMO. The fact they are schooled and deep on sandy bottom also means they are not there for warmth, they would be within a foot of the surface. Pre spawn cruisers that move up and cruise, then move back down are very catch able fish. Bass suspended just off the bottom durinmg a transition period are usually adjusting their air bladders after coming up from deeper water during the cold water period. About 2 days and those bass will be active feeding. When bass are inactive, use in their face small natural looking lures to induce a strike. Always remember; if you can see the bass, they see you. I would back off and blind fish them with a casting jig or slip shot rig, during the mid day and use a swimbait/wake bait during the low light period. Fly lined big night crawler or crawdad is hard to top, if live bait is your thing. WRB

See commits noted ** or OK, as a few suggestions to your list. I would add to be very quite and hunt for big bass like you would a trophy buck. Most bass fishermen don't fish where big bass live and have little knowledge of big bass behavior; study them. WRB