WRB-2.0

Silt kills nearly all fishes eggs, so they don't lay eggs in places likely to silt over. Largemouth bass prefer wind protected bays, shallow water 1 foot to whatever good light penetration depth there may be. Smallmouth and spots tend to prefer main lake wind protected areas and secondary points close to the main lake, with sandy or gravel bottoms. Bass lay eggs in more than one nest as a general rule. The cooler the water the longer it take the eggs to hatch; 60 to 62 degrees about 14 days, 63 to 65 about 10 days, 66 to 68 degrees about 7 days. The warmer the water gets, the faster the eggs hatch, however the warmer the water the more egg eating preditors, like bluegill and carp, there are to steal a meal. WRB

Most experienced bass fishermen have caught a lot bass on plastic worms during the time they have been fishing and so have I. The hook setting techniques that successful bass fisherman develop work very well under the conditions they fish. Where there is a contest between theory vereses practical experience, experience wins the majority of the time. I made a simple suggestion to try hook setting a wooden board, to prove a point any fisherman can do at home. I also made a suggestion on how to evaluate rod strength by trying to lift a simple dead weight object like plastic bottle of drinking water; where 1 pint equals 1 lb (1.04 lbs) or 1/2 gallon = 4 lbs (4.16) and 1 gallon = 8 lbs (8.32). Very few fresh water bass fishing rods can apply more than 4 lbs of pressure or lift 4 lbs of dead weight...it's alot force or lifting power. 8 lbs of pulling or lifting force requires a very heavy flipping rod. Breaking 20 lb test line for example doesn't mean you applied 20 lbs of force. The rate or speed the force was applied or impact force, is what breaks line and sets hooks. Bass rarely close their mouth and lips tightly together, unless biting with the lips. The basses mouth is slightly ajar open, even when crunching down on your plastic worm or jig, they use thier tongue against the back of the mouth, so there isn't any need to pry the lips open. Improving my personal hook setting percentage would be very difficult, as I miss very few strikes and catch a lot of big bass with the methods discribed and proven by experience. WRB

Several bass boat mfr's and marine dealers will sponsor excellent seminars featuring top BASS pro's. We have "Bass-A-Thon" a 2 day free entry event sponsored by Anglers Marine is SoCal every year with several of the Elite pro's and Lowrance doing hands on seminars, plus the newest tackle and lures avaible for sale. 2008 BAT was held 2 weeks ago; KVD, Swindle & Zona , McClelland and Bennett. Ckeck with your boat mfr for any seminars being held where you live, this is how the pro's make their living off season. WRB

There are a lot of very good hooks on the market today. 3 pounds force applied to a very sharp hook point is enough to penetrate any basses mouth tissue or your hand. Using the reel set method discribed you can generate up to 8 pounds of force to the hook, using standard med/hvy or hvy bass rod with 12 to 15 lbs test line. 8 pounds is enough force to drive a sharp hook point passed the barb in pine wood for example and can break most bass rods. I have used the reel & sweep hook set when casting jigs for a very long time, successfully. Rod sets are low percentage when casting long distance using jigs or worms. The snap set into slack line works well for most worms, cast within 30 feet or so, as long as you keep the rod loaded. Largemouth bass do not bite worms or jigs with their lips, they vacuum the lure into the back of the mouth by pumping water through the gills and crunch down on it with abrasive cartiladge between the tongue, located just above the throat. They reject the lure by blowing it back out. If the hook point sticks tissue, they shake it out. The weight attached to the hook, pegged or a jig, helps the bass to shake it out, if the line is slack. A sliding sinker simply moves away form the hook, applying little weight to the hook point. This is why reel setting is effective, you keep the hook point in the tissue, until you can put enough pressure on it to penetrate passed the barb. WRB

Try reel setting; point the rod at the worm or jig, reel until the line is tight, then sweep set with the rod. Do not hold try to hold the hook! Hook setting is all about moving the sharp hook point into the basses mouth tissue. The issue with T-rigged worms is the worm can fill the hook gap, preventing the point from penetrating tissue. After rigging a worm, try pushing hook through the worm and slide the front down into the hook bend with middle of the worm. If you don't have a wide enough gap, all you are doing is pulling a soft plastic lump out of the basses mouth. I agree that the Straight shank worm hook tends to catch into the top of the basses mouth much easier than off set hook designs. Catt has answered this post in detail. WRB

Welcome to CA and thank you risking your life for our freedom. You will find CA bass fishing a lot more difficult than you imagined and rewarding if you take time to learn new presentations. Don't hesitate to ask any questions, be glad to help. WRB

Prevention is the best cure. Bass will swallow live bait or soft plastics if you allow them too much time before setting the hook. When you feel a slight tap, swing, the bass already has the worm/bait in the back of its mouth and will either blow it out or swallow it. With practice you will stop gut hooking the bass. It is better to miss altoughter than trying to figure out how to unhook a gut hooked bass. Regardless of what you read, a high percentage of gut/throat hooked bass die of the stress of handling and bleeding out. If the bass looks like it is in trouble, it more than likely is going to die, so keep it and enjoy a good meal. WRB

Do you BBQ them on your Webber mounted to the rear pedestal post, like most Texans do? You can use one of those beer can cookers and just shove that big pig face down, no need to even fillet it. WRB

The message was; the right lure in the wrong place = 0 bass. The wrong lure in the right place = some bass. The right lure in the right place = a boat load of bass. Both the right lure in the right place (location) is the winning combination. How do you determine the right lure and location? Find the prey the bass are feeding on, fish that location with a lure that mimics the prey. Or as some bass fisherman do, use the prey the bass are feeding on. I prefer lures, more of a challenge. Knowing how bass relate to seasonal periods will get you in the right place, knowing what the bass are eating, will tell you what lures to use. You better be patient if you are guessing where they bass are and what they are eating. WRB

Yes and no. It depends on the fishery, if harvest is needed to prevent over population on smaller lakes and ponds, then harvesting the smaller 2 lb bass is helping. Catch & release has become a cult for some fisherman and isn't always the best choice. If you wound the bass fatally and it's bleeding or the bass has rolled over in the livewell, the survival rate is very low. Why toss it back for turtle food, take the fish home and eat it. The thought of over harvesting a 20,000 acre reservior by keeping an occasional bass for dinner verses a highly fished 2,000 acre reservoir, goes beyond reason. Watching tournament fisherman release nearly dead bass is troulbing as watching the same fisherman take home a trophy size bass, both are wastefull. Practice selective harvest by eating a few smaller bass and releasing the trophy bass. Practice C & R by taking good care of the bass you put in the livewell; proper DO and temperature levels are essential, not optional. There isn't any reason to put bass in a livewell that you don't plan on weighing in during a tournament or taking home to eat. release the bass immediately, not at the boat ramp. WRB

They didn't STOP planting trout in cali. The DFG did stop planting some lakes for about a month, most lakes are now recieving their DFG trout stocking, depending on location. The CalTrout people watchdog the DFG stocking program closely to insure locations with "native trout" do not get planted trout stocks and this has been ongoing for decades. The current issue was a law suit by college students and that is still being processed. WRB

Fourbizz; don't know what happened to the other pages on this thread? You asked about Lower Otay and Hodges having large baitfsih like shiners and the answer is they don't. Both lakes had bluegill, crappie, green sunfish, channel catfish and threadfin shad, for baitfish forage. The reason FLMB were transplanted into San Diego city lakes was to improve the average size of the bass and the number per angler hour. The 1950's were a drought period for San Diego and the fishing had dropped off significantly. Threadfin shad were introduced in 1953 to help improve growth rates, then (1959) the FLMB were introduced to improve the average size from 1 1/2lbs to 2 1/2 lbs, the FLMB grew faster than NLMB. Trophy bass was fishing not planned. In fact the FLMB program was considered a failure in regards to better overall bass fishing. The FLMB proved to be harder for the average angler to catch and rates per hour dropped. The giant bass that started to be caught in the early 70's, changed California bass fishing. Both Lower Otay and Hodges are old and small; 1897 Otay; 1,100 surface acres, 1917 Hodges; 1,234 surface acres. During the early 60's all the local lakes were down 50% and raised due to rain fall to full pool by 1968. The new flooded lake basins help the growth of the first generation FLMB. Lake Hodges was closed to public fishing during the 60's and opened in the early 70's. Lower Otay was open Wednesdays, Saturday and Sunday, closed the other days and closed to fishing in Sept, opened in March, each year. Ideal conditions for the FLMB to grow to giant size. Today, both lakes have good overall bass fishing, giants are rare. WRB * giant bass in CA is 15+ lbs.

California politics are beyond comprehension, even for those of us who call the state our home. This issue will be resolved, as it affects a wide range of people and businesses. The thought process that planted rainbow trout are the main food source for giant bass in California lakes is off base. The original FLMB plants were stocked into some San Diego area city lakes that didn't have planted trout; lakes Lower Otay and lake Hodges are two examples, that have both produced giants over 18lbs (Otay) and 20lbs (Hodges). Clear lake is a northern natural lake that doesn't have planted rainbow trout and is a world class bass fishery. Lake Castaic (main lake) is still plated with trout and that fishery hasn't produced a giant bass in over 10 years, due to the striped bass population, introduce in the late 90's.. It is true that planted trout can help FLMB grow fast, however they can and have grown to be giants without trout, if the lake has good forage. WRB PS; Rainbow trout were only native to the High Sierra mountain range; creeks, streams and rivers drainage. That means northern and central California had native rainbow trout. Southern California's trout where first stocked into Big Bear lake back around 1900, from the McCloud river in northern CA. Today you would be hard pressed to locate any native trout in Caifornia, other than the golden trout of the Cottonwood area in High Sierra's and Lassen strain of the McCloud river.

There is a lot of science availble on bass hearing, just Goggle the subject. What should be of interset to bass fisherman is how to take advantage of the senses of hearing that fresh water largemouth bass use to detect prey and warn them of danger. Water transmits vibrations better than air, so bass can hear sounds via vibrations better than we can, plus they have 2 senses of hearing; lateral line and inner ear. The lateral line is used to feel lower frequency vibrations that travel further distances. The inner is used to located sources of higher vibrations close to the bass. A crankbait for example produces both low and high frequency vibrations. The lures body wiggling or wobbling as it moves through the water, the hooks banging around. the diving bill striking objects and wobbling back and forth, all produce vibrations the bass can feel and hear. Adding glass or metal BB's inside molded plastic crank baits increases the vibrations. Large metal BB gives off lower frequency and small glass BB's produce higher frequencies. Can bass tell the difference if a crankbait has internal rattling BB's? Yes they can. Any object moving through the water, displaces the water in the form of sound waves. The bass can feel your boat and the engines propeller from a great distance away, however depending of how much other noise is in the background, determines how the bass react to the added sound. On very quite waterways, boat noise will alarm the bass to your approach. Lakes that have a lot of boat movement, the bass get conditioned to background sound. So it is very important to be as quite as possible, when low boat traffic is on the water. It is also important to use lures that make sound when there is a lot of other background noise on the water or poor light conditions to help the bass locate the lure. The bass can hear a crawdad walking along the bottom or a baitfish swimming nearby with their inner ear. Bass can feel a school of baitfish swimming with their lateral line from a longer distance and are alerted to the approaching baitfish before they see them. Sound, like sight, is one of the basses most important survival senses and highly developed in bass, to both find prey and avoid predators. WRB PS; Human vocies above the water do not travel into the water, however voices alarm other aminals that do hear airbourne sound and their reactions can alarm bass to above water predators, as they splash into the water or fly over. Any boat hull noise is directly transmitted into the water and bass will hear and feel those vibrations.

The Salt river lakes; Apache, Canyon, Saguaro, Roosevelt and the Colorado river canyon lakes, like Mead, Havasu and Mojave tend to have deep water walls. The advice to cast your deep diving crank bait parallel to the rock walls is good. Look for irregularities like outcropings, pockets, cravices, salt cedar trees and shaded areas. The bait fish are shad, so use shad color cranks during the day time and black/red cranks at night. Structure spoons and spider jigs are also very productive on these river lakes; smoke with red flake is your best choice for spider jigs. Pleasant, Alamo, San Carlos and Bartlett; you are better off using a spinnerbait in lieu of a deep crankbait and drop shot worms. WRB

Good reply; however what do you mean by staging? Do mean suspending? Bass only stage when moving up from pre spawn to spawn, where I live for example. We all talk a different language from region to region, the question may have been simply stated. One of the best night lures is the plastic worm, Texas rigged. Try Berkley's black power worms at night, when the bass are not hitting your top water lure. WRB

Good thread. It's always helpful to know where or what region someone is from to give accurate replies. When I first signed on to this site, I didn't indicate where I'm from and need to update that information; SoCal. The moderators need to keep members from attacking each other and making harmfull remarks. It doesn't take too long to figure out who to help and share information with and who is looking for an argument, therefor someone to avoid. When you don't know where someone is from or what classification of water they fish, ask. Being a good sportsmen goes a long way to earning the respect of fellow members. WRB

Charter life member of BASS. Don't like the changes ESPN made, however still the top bass fishing organization in the country. Being a west coaster and BASS being based in the south, doesn't help me very much directly. Get involved with BASS, join one of their federation groups and you should benefit from being a BASS memebr. I have enjoyed my 40 years with BASS. Welcome to the sport. WRB

As noted above, your tackle will limit the type of lures and presentation that you can fish effectively. Everyone starts somewhere and you choices are adequate for the type of fishing you do. Ponds can easily be over populated with bass if the forage can't support the population; this is one reason you catch the smaller bass. Another obvious reason is smaller bass are more active and less wary then the big bass. The jointed Rapala is a good choice for ponds, try a larger size in fire tiger color;J13 for example. Another pond lure that you didn't mention is a buzz bait. You will need at least 12 lb mono for the buzzer. Soft jerk baits like a Fluke work great in ponds. As mentioned the Senko's; water melon red flake should work. The problem with both the fluke and Senko is the hook size; try a Gamakatsu wide gap finesse weedless hook, size 2/0 and nose hook the Fluke, wacky rig the Senko, add a lead 3/32 oz sluggo lead nail weight to the head in of both the Fluke and Senko. Remember the first rule with pond fishing; be invisible. Pond fish are very wary of any movement around or in the pond. Wear camo clothing and keep a low profle; you must stock the big bass as if you are hunting. Low light periods are you best times, go early or late. Fish the deepest water in the pond first. Most pond fishermen see bass in shallow water and try to catch those fish. The big bass may come up to check what is going on, then return to the deeper sanctuary area. At night the shallow water can be good. WRB

Fall in the norteast; laydowns are temperary ambush sites for bass that are trageting baitfish and possibly crawdads, depending where the lay down is located and the weather. Look for a lay downs that intersects deeper water or soil transitions for higher percentage cover. The outside deeper ambush site areas are you best places to fish during the fall period. If you are fishing a cold front, then try the center more dense cover areas of the lay down. Wood cover can hold baitfish like shad during the dark hours and crawdads all day. Start deep and give the shallow areas a few casts to keep them honest. WRB

Lets roll the clock back 40 years to 1968, the early All American bass tournaments that Ray Scott held. At that time the only other tournaments were big bass events where the heavest bass won all the money. Scotts events where blind draw events and the heavest limits won the money. Todays tournaments are fashioned after the All Amercican events and the focus became catching a limit, rather than catching big bass, two very different disiplines. The other factor that the All American events established was a specific start and finish time you had to catch your limit of fish. Limiting the time and catching limits of bass, changed how tournament fisherman fished to be successful. The fisherman could no longer camp out on a specific spot known to have bass and wait for them to start biting. The tournament fisherman needed to have several spots to make a milk run or establish a pattern of lures and locations where you could catch bass at different times and locations. The weekend fisherman normally doesn't understand why a tournament fisherman tends to be running around the lake and fishing several different areas quickly. I fully agree with Catt in regards that most bass fisherman do not understand basics of bass behavior and prey types the bass are targeting. With todays electronics and GPS maps, most tournament fisherman have learned where to fish, they just don't know why the bass are there. If you don't know why the bass are located at that location, during whatever seasonal period it may be, you can't teach anyone else how to consistantly catch bass, regardless of how good you may be with your technical fishing skills or the quality of your equipment and tackle. Being both a trophy bass fisherman, that occasionally fishes charity tournaments, here are my thoughts on this topic; the tournament bass fisherman must be able to make good decissions to manage their time and know where to fish when. Both the tournament and weekend recreational fisherman should take the time to learn basic bass behavior; it's far more important to know why bass are doing what they do, than being skilled with your tackle and owning high tech equipment. I don't know tournament fisherman who are willing to share their bass behavior knowledge, they will offer to teach you how to use equipment and present specific lures. WRB

The bass go to where the water is warmest and has prey available. For example a power plant outflow has warm water discharge, so that is one place the bass tend to go. Deeper water in the winter is usually warmer then the surafce or shallow water, so the bass locate in the deeper, warmer water. Warmer is relative to the lake or river. For example the surface water, down to about 5 feet or so can be 40 degrees or colder and the water 25 feet deep in the same lake may be 45 degrees...5 degrees warmer. During the late winter, the sun can warm the surface water in wind protected areas, so the bass will come up for the few degrees of warmer shallow water in the afternoons. During the cold water period, the bass eat less and smaller high protien food; like crawdads, are prefered. This doesn't mean a easy larger meal won't be targeted by a hungry bass, if it is easy to for the bass to catch. This is one reason jigs, structure spoons and worms fished slowly where the bass are looking for crawdads or smaller baitfish, work so well during the winter. Out west, the lakes get planted trout during the winter, so trout type swimbaits work well because they look like an easy meal for big bass. WRB

Smallies like black hair jigs with small 101 JR size frog or Super Pork Tadpole JR. Use a 1/4 oz round jig fishing rivers. Sworming Hornets 3/16 oz underspin with a tiny Fluke trailer in chartruese also works well, slow rolled along the bottom. WRB

Wishful thinking that artificial lures are anywhere near effective as the live bait big bass are targeting. I stopped using live bait, 30 years ago, directly as a result of the numbers of big bass being caught. For the record; it doesn't bother me if live bait is being used, just not during the pre spawn and spawning periods. Bill Murphy was a live bait fisherman and lure fisherman, who taught me how to fish live crawdads for example. Big night crawlers are very effective big bass bait, when fly lined with no weight. Live waterdogs, big golden shiners, live bluegill, live shad and crawdads are very common live baits that I don't fish with anymore, it's a personal choice. Make no mistake; using lures only is a big handicap for the trophy bass fisherman. WRB

Welcome to bass fishing. We all had to start somewhere and today you have the internet to help you with answers to your questions, This site for example has feature articals for the new bass fisherman to read. You apparently live in Eastern Penn and fishing river and small lakes, to very different environments for bass. During the warm summer period months, getting out early was a real advantage because the baitfish and crawdads are active close to shore, near or in cover. As the sun comes up both baitfish and crawdads go deeper and become less active. During the colder water periods of late fall and winter, the baitfish school up and the crawdads stay in deeper water. There isn't a lot of prey for the bass near the shoreline or in cover, so the bass move deeper to be near their food sources. Bass are cold blooded, meaning their body temperature is the same as the water and the bass slow down and eat less when the water is cold. The bass become less active and will become active for only a short time period, about every 3 to 4 hours. The short cuts to learning to bass fish is to ask the successful bass fisherman in your area what they are using and how deep they are fishing to catch bass. If you are polite, most fisherman will be very helpful. Don't ask where they catch their fish, few fisherman will tell you about specific locations. Don't try to learn more than 2 presentations at any one time. The best to start with IMO are; soft plastic worms, use the split shot or slip shot technique and drop shpt with small 5" to 6" finesse worms. Stay with the basic colors; night crawler browns and green with red flake. You can drift these rigs slowly on the bottom, around points on the main lake or anchor and let the current slowly move the rig along the bottom in the river around bridges and deeper holes. The second lure to use is a crankbait, the lure with the deep diving bill. Agian I would suggest 2 lures; a Bomber model 7A, that will run about 8 to 10 feet deep and a 200 series Bandit that runs about 6 to 8 feet deep. Colors; fire tiger and crawdad brown. With your small boat and motor, I suggest you to learn to fish a crankbait by trolling. The speed you troll should be the speed the lure is swimming with the best action, so let a few yards of line out and look at the lure along side your boat, a slow walking speed or 2 mph is about right. Cast the lure about 50 to 75 feet behind the boat and try to stay in about 10 to 12 feet depth, the lure should bump the bottom once in awhile, but not a lot. When you see shallow water ahead, or the lure is bumping the bottom too often, move out to deeper water so the lure doesn't snag, then move back to the 10 to 12 foot depth. make lazy S turns about 10 feet to one side, then back agian about every 100 feet or so the change the lures speed. This will teach you what bass strikes feel like and where the bass are located. Once you catch a few, then go back and try casting the crankbaits and also try the soft plastic worms in the same area. You may also want to make or buy a lure knocker to retrieve crnakbaits that have snagged into the bottom or whatever. Stay with these two presentations until you are consistanly catching bass. These 2 presentations should keep you busy until the spring, then add spinnerbaits and buzzers to you presentations and fish the weed/grass beds, early and late, continue with the soft plastic and crankbaits during the mid day hours. Good luck. WRB