WRB-2.0

Lets break this down into spoon categories; Surface spoons like Johnson Silver minnow with weedless hook the rides upright. Casting spoons the are designed to wobble when retrieved horizontally, like Daredevil and Krokadile spoons. Verticle structure spoons that are designed to fall down through the water column with a dieing baitfish action. Vetricle swimming jigs, like ice jigs. Verticle weighted blades, like Silver Buddy. The horizontal casting spoons can be used any time bass are targeting surface or shallow baitfish. The verticle spoons and lures are better suited for deeper water presentations where you can lower the lure down to suspended bass and baitfish schools. To properly fish the structure spoons, you need to learn how to read your sonar unit to locate bass or rely on birds to find baitfish schools. The structure spoon is simply lowered down to the depth the bass are holding and jigged up and down through the baitfish or feeding bass. Tackle should be med/light action and your drag needs to be set about 2 to 3 lbs to prevent ripping the hook out of the basses mouth tissue. If you are going to be fishing deeper than 35 feet, you need to read up on how to "fizz" the basses air bladder. After reading the above basics, come back with a specific question about one of the above and we can focus on that presentation in more detail. WRB

Bass will find the conditions that best suite the survival; prey and comfortable water temperature. During the cold water period bass tend to locate where the warmest water is with baitfsih available. Find the baitfsih, the bass will be near them. Locations depend on a lot of factors; lake classification and type of bass you are targeting. Your inexpensive sonar sounder is OK for determining the depth, however will not allow you to separate fish signals from bottom clutter. A high quality unit like a Lowrance X510 color sonar unit can separate bass from bottom clutter, cover or structure. A camera can identify what the arc's are, whereas a sonar unit can only returns signals. With experience it's easy to see fish tight to deep breaks, ledges and channels on sonar. The key to bass location or depth is the thermocline, if one exisits. The thermocline is the first warmer water layer below the surface colder water. Most reservoirs will have mulitple thermoclines that can be picked up by a good sonar unit as a dark line. If you can't locate the thermocline, then locate the life zone. Life zones are the depth the baitfish are holding throughout the lake. Bass and other predators will be close to the baitfsih, so fish at that depth where structure elements are located at the depth the baitfish are holding. WRB

Northern and florida strian largemouth bass start to make beds and spawn when the water temperature at the depth they are spawing (between 1' to 15' depending on water clarity) reaches 62 degrees F and continue the cycle until the water reaches about 67 degrees F. Smallmouth and spotted bass about 2 degrees less than LMB. Bass move up and start to roam spawning flats about 15 days before the full moon and thats is a good indication the spawn is about to start. The larger female bass will be holding on staging areas near deep water, next to the spawing flats. You can fish a top water lure any time you see surface activity or baitfish shallow. WRB

The women did everything wrong; managed to cast a soft plastic creature, detect and hook the bass, then played it incorrectly and put the big bass in the boat. She kept the pressure of the bass, wore it down and landed the fish without loosing it. Yes, she reeled agianst the drag and kept the bass out of the water longer than she could hold her breath and as a result the bass was stressed. However the tail was working, the dorsal fin was extended in a defensive posture and recovered quickly when released without rolling over. I would say the bass looked better than 90% of the C&R photos posted in most magazines and sites. That was a typical how big bass get handled by excited fisherman. The big difference is they didn't put the bass in a live well, so it more than likely will survive the handling. I would estimate the bass at 10+lbs. WRB

I'm a Jr member on this site, not a jr bass fisherman; Charter life member BASS, fished the 3rd All American, IGFA record holder, over 300 10lb+ bass, several bass over 17, pb 19.3. The article archives are excellent, however you don't have the In-Fisherman articles that I have written or the vast amount of seasonal period information available. I appollogize for making reference to another site, however I have no interest to spend the time to repost information that is availble. WRB

I know folks really frown on suggesting other sites to visit, however I have posted a lot of seasonal information regarding bass location and habits elsewhere. Take a look at TBH site under Tips & Tactics, seasonal periods by Oldschool. Also look at the posted sonar by Doc Sampson under Electronics. This is an board topic with pages of information that would be very difficult to repost. Keep in mind that Buck Perry was promoting his Spoon Plugs, however he did awaken lots of fisherman to outside structure elements. In regards to migration routes; IMO most of the stuff that has been written is guess work. How bass behave may be predictable within the same classification resesrvoir, natural lake or river system, one generalized statement doesn't come close to fitting all bodies of water bass live in. Most of my experience is with high land, hill land, canyon resevoirs and natural lakes. If you want to focus on one lake classification, I would be glad to answer more specific questions. WRB

Suggest you get Don Iovino's book "Finesse Bass Fising and the Sonar Connection". Everything you need to know about finesse fishing is there to get you started and learning to use your electronics on pressures lakes is essentail. To upgrade the size of bass, you may also need to learn to fish 6" swimbaits. WRB http://www.iovino.com/donbook.htm

Pre spawn is the time of the seasonal calendar when the bass move from deep winter cold water period to ledges near spawning sites and stage. The basic water temeprature for pre spawn is between 55 to 58 degrees, the bass will start to roam the flats about 60 degrees and move up to spawn around the first full moon when the shallow flats reach 62 degress or so at the depth the bass spawn and may continue until the water is about 65 degrees. Pre spawn is the magic period when the big bass are feeding aggressively. Keep you eye on the water temperature, not your calendar. WRB aka; Oldschool, TBH

See http://www.iovino.com/dropstop.htm for drop shat weight rod clip. WRB

The early Navonics maps where made using existing topo map data. The newer 2007 maps with 1 foot elevations are updates using actual sounding data and in puts from pro fisherman. The bottom line is buy the latest product with 1 foot elevations, when available for the lakes that you fish. Save your paper maps for a back up and surveying aide. I update mine every so often just to refresh my memory. WRB

If you are in Texas, I would suggest using a goos local taxidermist. The very best in the buisness is Robert Fish Mounts, however they are localed in CA, and face to face communication to discribe exactly what you want would be difficukt. WRB http://www.robertsfishmounts.com/

The lower 1/3rd of any high land or hill lnad reservoir is always the best lake zone to target during the cold water period. The fact this lakes water input source is located within that zone makes this an easy prediction. Deep water is warmer during the cold water period, due to it's depth. A thermocline will develop during the early summer through fall and that level is where the bass will locate. Find structure at the thermocline level and you should find the bass you are looking for. To reduce snagging when fishing rip rap ( broken rocks) use a lighter weight and keep it moving. This is why I suggested a darter head swimming jig presentation. Crank baits are an excellent choice to fish rip rap and jerk baits work very well. Structure spoons and darts are your best lures for fishing suspended bait. The predator fish like bass and walleyes herd bait up agianst the deep water ledges and the input water structure is a good place for that. There should be left over concrete and construction rocks, piled up near the transition areas where the dam ends and input area is located. I couldn't see an areation system looking at the photo, a dock with a pipe line and bouys. The DO levels will be dependant mostly on windy conditions, the lake doesn't appear to have large weed beds areas to produce DO. The prevailing wind is usually down the canyon towards a dam, another reason why the lower 1/3rd is a good area. WRB

Thread fin shad usually die off if the core water temperature reached 45 degrees, in small reservoirs without being spring feed or have a river inflow/outflow creating some current or warmer water. The fact the lake dries up once a decade and is located at high evelation, freezing occasionally, doesn't allow the fish to grow to larger sizes. Walleyes are very aggressive minnow eaters and the bass must compete with them for baitfish. The best area to target in this lake is the input flume, dam and lower 1/3 of the lake the majority of the year. The upper shallower areas for spawning. Try a darter head jig, 1/8 oz Owner, with the Roboworms mentioned. The dart jig is a very good suspended baitfish lure. Cast it parellel to the steeper bank areas and dam area, let it fall a several feet, reel a few feet and repeat the fall/reel retreive. Next time this lake is low you need to add some rock piles about 20 feet from high water line. The rock piles are about 3 feet high by 10 feet long with brush or tree limbs. Locate the rock piles on the sides of points where you can find them or use a GPS to mark the way points. The road beds are just dirt and no value unless structure like culverts or something is creating an edge is there. Good luck. WRB

You said the lake is at 7,000 feet, the map indicates 5,485, big difference. Also you indicated it freezes over on occasion. The water source is via an aquaduct, so this is a water storage reservoir: a small hill land or possible high land classification by the look of the surrounding land. If the lake freezes it doesn't contain shad. More than likely doesn't have a traditional creek channel due to the lack of a stream bed, so the lake bottom contour is fairly flat. The breaks will be ravines and whatever man made structure is under water. Does this lake have planted trout? Bluegill or crappie? catfish? Carp? You say it has spotted bass, so it must have a good crawdad population. Forget about baitfish schools, unless it is planted with silver sides, a small 2" to 3" minnow. Your primary area is the inlet zone and the dam itself. The points can all hold bass from time to time, so always check those out. Do you see any Grebes or other diving birds feeding out in the middle of this lake or just around the shoreline? The bass in this lake will target crawdads and young of the year blurgill or crappie. If it has trout, then you shopuld be using a swimbait. During the cold water period use black 1/4 to 3/8 oz jigs with 101 size small pork trailers. During the warmer periods use a dark cinnamom spider jig. Drop shot with Roboworms size 4 1/2" curl tail, oxblood red flake or Aarons magic. If the lake has a decent population of bait fish, then spoons are also a good cold water period choice. Kastmaster or Crippled herring in 1/2 & 3/4 oz chrome should work well, Change the hooks to size 2 treble, VMC red. Crawdad color small crank baits may also work at times. WRB

Start with Don Iovino's book; http://www.iovino.com/donbook.htm The best glass faceted beads and brass weights IMO are from Top Brass fishing tackle. I haven't fished a Texas rigged or slip shot worm in years without a brass 'n glass combo. The brass/glass sound triggers strikes, so why fish without it? Doodling is more of a verticle presentation where you are bouncing the weight with the rod tip, where a standard cast and retreive relies more on bottom contact and stopping to shake the rod tip agianst the slack line. Both doodling and shaking are excellent techniques year around and very good in colder water conditions. WRB

Looking at state record or lake record catches is a good yardstick. Comparing a Florida strain LMB to a nortern strain LMB is a poor comparison; similar to comparing a smallmouth or spotted bass. The general rule of a trophy NLMB is over 10 lbs, FLMB over 15 lbs., smallmouth over 8 lbs or spotted bass over 7 lbs. Subtract 2 lbs and you have what is known as a lunker bass and a fish to be proud of. WRB

Unless you live on the equator the days get shorter, the suns rays are are less intense during winter verses summer. So lets say you live in southern Florida and have 2 seasons;summer and winter. I bet a few Floridians will say they have a spring when followers bloom and bass spawn, and some may even claim some followers stop blooming and the grass gets a little off color during the fall, does that equal 4 seasons? Wonder how the bass know when to spawn? They don't spawn year around. The critters where you live have evolved in the area and respond to the slight changes that indicate seasonal changes are occuring. One reason the Florida LMB prefers larger bait fish is becuase they can find larger bait fish year around and grow bigger, then northern strain LMB. However due to the year round growth cycle, FLMB don't live as long a time period and can not tolerate cold water as NLMB, different bass for a milder climate. WRB

The key element to adding DO to water during the fall transition to winter is wind. Without windy conditions the small ponds may stagnate do to loss of DO from the decaying organic matter and fish kills can occur as a rssult, if no wind combined with unseasonal warm weather during drought conditions. The spring water is dependant on normal water table levels and we don't have that in several regions at this time. WRB

Even in the warm climate of CA the daylight hours reduce and night time temperatures lower to the point the leaves turn signaling fall is here. To the bass the shorter day light hours affects the solar heating of the water surface and colder nights cool the surface further. The cooler water is heavier then the warmer water below and sinks down further cooling the core water column. Weeds depend on sunlight to preduce oxygen (photosynthesis) and the shorter days with colder nights affect them just like it does the trees and their leaves begin to die back, even with warm temperatures. Water cooling, weeds dieing indicates fall has arrived, water warming and weeds growing will indicate spring has arrived for the bass. WRB

How do you know what type of fish your are meterimg? Set your sonar unit on manual mod. Adjust the sensitivety to the point you see the screen become cluttered with background dots, now reduce the sensitivety until there are still a few background dots. If you see a dark line or heavy dark zone about 1' thick somewhere between the surface and bottom, that is the thermocline layer and few bass will ever be below that depth. Now that your sonar is set for the water density at the moment, you can see your lure falling when you drop it under the transducer. The next manual mod you need to set is the lower depth limit, set that about 10' below the marks (arcs that indicate fish) or deepest bottom in the area you are fishing. Go find the fish marks and drop a 3/4 oz structure spoon down the the depth the fish are holding. A Chrome Kastmaster or Crippled Herring work well for this. Once the spoon reaches the deth the fish are holding or fit the line stops, lift the rod up about 2' and lower it and then repeat until one of those marks bite. All types of predator game fish will eat a spoon and this is a great way to target suspended bass. WRB

It's always a good idea to talk to the living. Tell your family what you want done with your personal items before you (or they) are gone. Better yet give things to the people you want to have them, while you are above the grass. More than likely the things you charish may have little real value, unless you let them know why it was important to you. At the end of the day it's important that your loved ones don't need to go through the suffering of disposing all your stuff. WRB

Back in the 70's several CA lakes were planted with Florida LMB due in part to the success that San Diego was having at lakes Otay, Miramar, San Vincente, Hodges, etc. Big Bear was one of the lakes the Florida's failed to survive due to cold water temperatures. Big Bear freezes over for a month or so. Considering Big Bear already had a good population of both smallmouth and northern LMB, the die off was a good indicator that Florida LMB have a lower thresold to cold water. The Florida's did extremely well in lake Isabella where the core water temperaures didn't drop below 45 degrees, doesn't freeze over, however has a tremdous amount of snow melt run off. Florida's definately have a lower stress tolerance to extremely cold water. Gillihand is one of the most respected biologist in the country and has written papers on tournament bass survival that every bass fisherman should read. WRB

The issue of bass survivabilty in cold water is somewhat complicated by the bass species. In general we think of largemouth bass as bass. Ther are several however, but lets just discuss the northern strain largemouth bass. The survival issue that kills bass fast is the improper level of dissolved oxygen (DO). Water can hold a maxium amount of DO verses temperture. Bass need a saturation level somewhere between 7 to 9 mg/I and can tolerate a wider range depending on the activity level; 5 to 12 mg/I is gennerally considered the limits for a short time period. Lack of DO is in warm water is the primary reason bass die in live wells. Water at 4C or 36 degrees is highly saturated with DO well above 13 mg/I and the levels decrease as the temperature increase to less than 3 mg/l at 85 degrees, without wind or vegetation adding DO. Yes a bass can survive 36 degrees and above 85 for vey short time periods, if the DO levels are OK. Some lakes can be frozen over a long time period, the ice prevents new DO from entering the water and the colder water under the ice draws the DO up from the warmer water ,plus the fish comsume it, then winter fish kill occurs from lack of DO. The ice factor limits the basses range and some bass are more tolerant to cold water; smallmouth bass and others are less tolerant; Florida strian LMB, for examples. The bottom line; cold water is the reason they go deeper to survive, during the winter where lakes form ice and hot water is the reason they also go deeper in the summer periods. WRB

For some reason I thought we discussed this issue. The physics involved with water are interesting. Water becomes heavier as it gets colder until it reaches 39.4 degrees, then get lighter or less dense and floats upward until it freezes into ice at 32 degrees (fresh water). If water continued to get heavier as it cooled below 39,4 degrees the lakes would freeze bottom to top, instead of top downward. Bass being a cold blooded and sun fish family animal will seek out the warmest water availble during the cold water periods. Lakes tend to layer, the upper layer is called the epillimnion, the middle layer mesolimiom or thermocline and the lower layer hypolimnion. All fish need dissolved oxygen (DO) to breath and both weeds and wind produce DO in the upper layer where bass live during the warm water periods. The lowest layer is cold (50 degrees or so) water that is viod or very low of DO. The fall transition to winter cools the upper layer as nights get colder and days get shorter. The cold surface water drifts down through the upper layer compressing warmer water through the thermocline until both the upper and lower layers are equal. The fall turnover can occur when windy conditions mixes the layers and you smell a rotten egg odrer of sulphurus gases at the surface and there is no thermocline layer. The bass will seek the warmest water availble, springs are about 50 degrees and deepr water stays above 40 degrees or all the bass would die. This is why bass go deeper in winter to survive. WRB

It wont let me search unless I register. That is something I would like to see though. There is a tutorial on how to post pics on this forum. If the pic is saved on your computer (which something that big ought to be), just click the "browse" button and it will allow you to attach your photo. Wayne Thanks, it was a scanned photo that a passerby sent me and need to rescan it on my home computer. TBH site is free, good information to check and a few In-Fisherman articles on lake Isabella and jig fishing several years ago that may also be of interest on giant bass fishing. Tom