WRB-2.0

Try to keep in mind that fall to a bass is different then relating this to the leaves turning and fslling off the trees. The bass calendar is regulated by water temperature and length of day light. The closer to the equator the shorter the day light become and the warmer the air temperature are. Further north from the equator the longer the day light hours and colder the air temperatures are. What does this have to do with a bass calendar? Regardless where you are located the summer to fall transition takes place and the entier ecosystem starts to change. The water cools and the night temperatures drop and the day light time period reduces. The cooler surface water is heavier than the warmer water below it and the cool water sinks to cool down the water column and compresses the warmer lighter layer down to from thermoclines. The weeds/grass die due to a combination of less day light and colder water. The DO levels drop where weeds die off, the baitfsih and crayfish leave the cover zones and start to school up and migrate to new locations. Wind will mix the water column and reoxygenate the shallow water areas, baitfsih will seek the shore or shallow cover like wood and rocks during the night and move out into open water areas during the day light hours seeking food and the bass will follow. If the water cools fast and windy conditions prevail, the lake can turn over, then the system needs to reestablish thermal layers, the fishing can be poor for a few weeks while everything makes adjustments to the change. When the water column cools down to about 55 degrees it is then the cold water period or winter. The surface water continues cool and pushes the warmer water down to the deeper thermocline and the bass/prey fish do deeper to locate the warmest water they can find with good DO levels. The surface water can continue to cool down in the colder climates until the water reaches 39.4 degree and then get lighter weight and floates as it cools to 32 degrees froming ice. As stated; find the baitfish or other prey abd the bass shouold be there. WRB Barametric pressures and fronts are separate topic to be discussed.

The suggestions to not add anything to unopened bags is your best choice. when you open the bag, put the dry worms into a zip lock style bags to store. The best additive is dry salt in the bag when storing. You should add attractant to the individaul worms as you fish them, do not store them in attractant. When the worm is in the water it doesn't need an oily slippery coating, just something to mask your sent. Some injection molded plastisols used to make some worms will age harden, most of todays are made with a softer plastic. Early plastic worms were packaged in mineral oil and glucerin to make them slippery and more fisherman appealing, but it doesn't help their shelf life and can degrade both the worms and plastic storage bags. WRB

There is so much we don't know about bass vision and fishermen tend to believe bass see colors like they do. IMO bass see colors much differently as experience over 50 years has proven more than once. Consider high contrast colors at night. If you read the late Bill Murphy's book; In pursiut of Giant bass, he relates a night fishing tournament where the bass would only bite dark brown with a blue blood line. He and his partner had 2 bags of what they thought were the same worms and could only catch bass from the one bag of worms. When they finally looked with a flash light to see what was the problem, one bag was dark brown with black stripes, the blue strips. You would think the black striped worm would have been better. I can't tell you how many times that the bass would only bite black with blue flakes one night and black with red flakes the following night, go figure. bass have excellent vision within the sight window and use bith their ears and lateral line to detect water movement and sound. The problem with a C-ring is you maybe fishing to deep. If you want to use a C-rig at night, shorten the leader distance to 8" to 12". bass tend to move up and roam the shallow water breaklines during the summer period. Largemouth can be in 1 to 10 feet of water and smallmouth on the deeper breaks 5' to 25'. Also suggest that you use a worm with a tail the pushes a lot of water; like a gator type curl tail or big paddle tail. Weights with rattle built in are also a good choice at night. WRB pS; I have fished with a few pros like Aron Martens who are color blind and rely on how they see color in the water.,If they can't see the worm they change to another color and have no idea what color they are using.

Starting at the upper north narrows; 1. NW spillway flat ledge. 2. NE point breaks and rockwalls. 3. Visitor center point, N-side breakline. You need to find a 5 foot elevation map to detail specific structure. WRB

I don't know where the 37 to 43 degree water temperature came from? Water is at it's heavest at 39.4 degrees, after than it get light in weight and floats until it freezes. Bass can not tolerate water colder than 40 degrees, FLMB 46 degrees. Suggest you Google; The Weather Doctor, Weather Phenomenon Elements. I would list the URL but don't have the needed characters on my key board. You can have surface wind turnover in the summer and fall, winter ice out turnover. Lakes that stratitify into upper Epillmnion, thermocline and lower Hyolimnion can turnover under a variety of conditions unrelated to where they are located. For example a California lake that has a upper layer 70 degree water with a thermocline established can turn over when the Epillmnion upper layer cools to 60 degrees, if the 60 degrees water outweighs the balance of the water layers below or a day of high wind tips the balance. What normally happens is the upper layer water cools slowly and drifts down through the lower layer until the water near the thrmocline is compressed between the Epillmnion and Hypolimnion until the upper layer is outweighs the cold lower Hypolimnion and the water column flips over bringing the cold Hyplimnion water with very low DO levels to the surface. All the fish must then try to find comfortable water temperature with good DO levels until the lake settles. Fishing is bad until they are recondtioned to the change. Sometimes the same lake just reaches a balance with a well definned deep layer of warmer water above the thermocline and the fish stay there all winter without the lake turning over. Tom

The spawn is governed by the transtion of longer day light period and water temperaure of 62 to 67 degrees. Tournover is a condition caused by the upper layer of colder heavy density water over balancing the lower layer of warmer less dense water. It takes a combination of wind and cold water to tournover a lake and mix the thermal layers together. Geograpghic location doesn't play a major factor. For example high winds can turnover a Florida lake in mid summer and ice out can turnover a northern lake in mid March. The lake must first develope thermoclines to have a turnover and not all bodies water stratify into layers, due to depth, springs, current etc. WRB

To answer that you need to first determine what seasonal period you are fishing in and what type of lake. Lakes or impoundments called reservoirs are more than likely what you are trying to fish using a topo map. Reservoirs are classified by the terrain they are located in. For example if you are in a geographical region with flat terrain like Nebraska or southeastern coastal areas you would have flatland in Nebraska and Lowland for the coastal classification reservoirs. If you have rounded hills you have Hill-land and mountians a High land reservoir. Each resevoir has a primary purpose; water storage, flood control, power generation etc. The water level fluctuation, possible current, temperature and depth are important factors to determine where bass locate. For example a high land power generation reservoir that damed a major river and flooded samll towns, farms, road ways, bridges, etc., would be very different from a low land resevoir used to control flooding. The water may fluctuate 20 to 25 feet during seasonal power generations on the high land lake and 1 or 2 feet on the low land lake. The vast majority of bass fisherman fish the bank and the water always reaches the bank. So lets start by looking around the bank of the lake using your topo map, You can also use Google maps, sat over view to look at the lake. The deepest part of any reservoir will be near the dam, The topo map will be in elevation graduations of 5 feet to be worthwhile for surveying bass locations. Steep elevation changes have the line close togther to indicate how fast the elevation is changing. Start by taking a high light marking pen and outline the current lake level by flowing the elevation of the know pool. Because it is now the fall to winter transition period in most of the country, outline the lower third of the lake to start with. After outlinning the pool level, count down 10 lines for the lake level 50 feet below the sure water level and use a different color marker and high light that level. Areas where the lines become further apart indicate the bank is getting flatter and protruding out into the lake forming a point or flat. Flat areas that are located on otherwise steep banks are good places to start looking for bass. Underwater islands indicated by circles of lines that are within the 50 foor detph you marked are also good places. Saddles that connect humps or island together are good places. Roads the are cut into the bank within the 50 foot depth are good places. Any other odd looking structure of indications of building, farms, towns within the 50 foot depth zone are good places. Following the cold water period when the lake warms to about 55 degrees the bass will move toward shallower water in the upper areas of the lake or up into creek arms etc. The break lines near shallow known spawning areas are places bass stage for pre spawn. Thats topo map 101 for a high land class reseveroir. WRB * 50 foot zone is only a reference point for discussion, using a high land lake for reference. You might use 15' for lowland, 30' for flatland and hill=land, 100' for canyon, etc.

The best place to determine what maybe going on in almost any lake during the colder water periods is to meter the marina where you launch your boat. Marinas are usually located near deep water, stocked on a regular basis by other bass fisherman and hold bait fish. Take a few minutes before running down the lake and leaving catchable bass. Fishing outside water takes time to learn and a good knowledge of your electronics to locate structure, cover and baitfish. Birds are your best indicator where shad schools are, look for the diving type of fish eating birds. Watch what direction the birds are swimming and try to locate structure that intersects the depth the birds are diving to catch shad they are feeding on. Major points are the easy and most productive structure to locate. Underwater islands or humps that intersect the proper detph and are in the area of shad scools are great spots. Shad schools are usually about 10 to 30 feet in diameter and not difficult to find around birds on deep highland reservoirs. You don't want to try and keep up with a shad school. You want to be in front and waiting on or near structure when the school is pushed up onto it. My favorite spoons are; Crippled herring and Mr. Champ by Luhr Jenson, Acme Kastermaster and Megabait 3/4 oz jig spoon in chrome/blue and black back silver colors. Add #2 Owner white chicken feather treble hooks and you are in business. 2 each of the above should get anyone started. Night fishing isn't a good time to spoon fish. The shad go under cover at dark, then move out and school up during mid day. You are better off targeting bass with trditional presentation during dark or low light hours. WRB PS; I hadn't fish one of my favorite lakes for a few months and desided to go because it was forecast to rain and this lake is good then. I did what we all do, asked around what was going on and learned that the bass were biting jigs and plastics early and a 50 to 60 foot drop shot bite later. I metered the marina because it's a habit and noticed a 18 to 20 foot thermocline, 71 degrees and lots of baitfish. Didn't fish in the marina and headed towards the dam area because of a mind set to fish jigs and swimbaits. managed 2 jig fish in 3 hours and nothing on the swimbaits. Was a good day, no rain and the cloud cover broke up and a little disappointed. Went and started to jig fish some points when a bass came up and chased a shad. Metered the area and noticed the thermocline was at 18 to 20 feet and realized that I had be fishing under that depth most of the day. Put on a spoon and instantly started catching bass on the point I hadn't had a bump on jigs. Had to leave at noon and went back to the marina and meter some big marks at the entrance and caught 3 big bass within a few minutes. The day turned out to be one of my best all year.

Lets recap this thread. 1. You don't have a lake that is turning over. 2. You are fishing a large highland power generation reservoir. 3. The is a thermocline somewhere around 30 feet. 4. Fish the shad schools with spoons. What are we missing? You haven't taken anyones suggestions to help solve your problem. Try going back and reading what has already been suggested and you will start catching bass. Forget about the surface bass and target the bass between 25 to 30 feet down in the lower 1/3 rd of the lake on major points. WRB

Suggest Google "The weather doctor", weather phenomenon and elements; lake turnover. When a lake does turnover it will take about a week for the system to settle down and reestablish termal layers, DO and patterns. You need a good sonar unit to locate baitfish schools, or look for birds like greibes diving and coming up with a shad to swallow. WRB

Turnover is fairly rare this early unless you have some freezing temperatures during the night for a period of time or very strong prolonged windy periods. When a lake turnsover, the majority of the water column turnsover at the same time. What you may be seeing is decaying vegetation weeds/grass due to the lower light period of shorter days and colder nights. When bass push up shad to the surface, they are using the surface to trap the baitfish. You maybe only seeing a few scattered shad, but the schools are there somewhere. The shad aren't seeking higher levels of DO, they are feeding on zoo plankton. The shad hide during the dark hours in brush or whatever and school up as the sun light brings the plankton toward the surface or up in the water column near or just above the thermocline, if the lake hasn't turned over. It's normal for school size bass to push a shad school toward the surface or over points or humps to reduce the places the shad can escape. Larger bass will take advantage of the structure and target shad that have been injured. The best lure for fishing shad schools IMO is a structure spoon that has bright relection and the size of the shad being targeted. Fish the spoon in the lower third of the shad school for larger size bass. WRB

lake Casitas is a small highland resevervoir created by daming the Coyote and Santa Ana creeks, not the Ventura river. The bubbles you see in deep cat area are springs, not caused by any fish or turtles. Bass, catfish, carp don't have lungs, they have airbladers to keep them nuetral boyant and gills to extract the dissolved oxygen (DO) from the water into their blood stream. The "air" in the blader is gases produced from the digestive tract. During the fall the weeds/grass are dieing and decomposing creating the bubbles. We have very few turtles out west. WRB

You need two different rods IMO. The crankbait should be a 7' med/mod-fast to allow more bend in the upper 1/2 of the rod for ease of casting and hook setting. A 6 1/2' med/hvy fast action rod works well for everything else. Whatever rod you plan to purchase under$100 will be made off shore in Korea or China, so go with brand that gives you good customer service, they are basically all the same blanks within the specific price bracket you are looking at. WRB

The classic Texas ot T-rig is a free sliding bullet weight and worm hook. The worm being nose hooked, then the hook eye pulled into the nose of the worm and the hook point placed back into the worm body to protect it from snagging. Texposed is the same as Texas with the hook point resting on top of the worm body. Doodling is a finesse Texas rigged worm, adding a glass bead between the sliding bullet weight and hook, Brass 'N Glass is doodling with a brass bullet weight and glass bead, Texas or Texposed hooked worm. Florida rig is the Texas rig with the weight pegged. Carolina rig or C-rig uses a sliding egg sinker, a bead and swivel with a leader and hook tied to the swivel. Split shot rig is simply a round split shot clamped onto the line above the hook with a worm Texposed hooked. Slip shot is is like the doodle rig with the bead pegged to stop the (mojo) weight above the worm, similar to a finesse style C-rig without the swivel. Wacky rigged worm is a worm hooked through the egg sack or miidle of the body. trick worm is fishing a worm without a weight, or just a swivel for the weight. nail rig is a weightless wacky hooked worm with a nail weight inserted into the nose of the worm. River2Sea has come out with tungsten nail weight. Gamaksutsu wide gap weedless hook is used to wacky rig a worm. Dart head jigs rigged Texposed have been around for decades used to swim worms for example. Hope this hepls to clarify worm rigs a little. WRB

The term jig can mean different things. Fresh water bass jigs for example come in several styles, shapes and sizes. Shaky head jig; ball head or pea head with a worm as a trailer. Spider jig; stand up head with soft plastic spider skirt and grub with single or double tails as a trialer. Football head; can be used as a spider jig or jig and pig or bum wirh silicone, live rubber or vinyl skirt and worm, or with soft plastic creature trailer. Arkie jig, similar to football except with weed guard. hair jig, similar to the above, except deer hair used as skirt. Etc., etc, etc. The skirt style gives the jig head color and profile, plus movement that help to convince the bass to consider it as prey. The jigs trialer gives the jig a profile and color, plus additional movement to increase possiblity for the bass to strike it. It's common for live bait fishermen to use plain jig head without any skirt and add a minnow to catch game fish, including bass. IMO the trailer is more important than the head or skirt. The trailer should create the illusion the jig is something to eat, the jig and skirt delivers the trailer to the bass in a manner that gives the bass an opportunity to strike it. A high floatation pork trailer is the best possible trailer for jigs, however they take a care to prevent drying out during the day. If you add a 3/4" length of plastic worm to the hook shank, you help prevent the pork trailer from fouling the hook point. You also need a pig blanket ( sponge) to keep the pork trailer wet when not using it. Beginner jig fisherman should start with spider type jigs IMO, they are easier to use and work well. Yamamoto 4" twintail Hula grub and 1/2 oz football head makes an excellent combination. WRB If interested in pork; http://www.superpork.com/

Any lure that equires the bass to swim fast to catch it is called a reaction bite lure. Reaction type lures create te elusion that something looking like prey is trying to escape and maybe injured allowing the bass to catch and eat it. Crank baits, or diving plugs are reaction type lues. So are spinner baits, buzz baits, spoons and surface disturbing top water lures with propellers. All the reaction type lures work when the bass are active, willing to strike a faster moving lure. The mistake most bass fisherman make is believing that bass are active the majority of the time and they just need to find the right size, color, action etc to get the bass to react. This simply isn't true. Bass are actively feeding about 10% of any given day. This means that bass are less active the majority of the time and spend about 50% of the time doing absolutly nothing, suspending/resting. Keep in mind there are several schools of bass doing different things at the same time throughout the lake. To target active bass you need to know when they are actively feeding, what they are feeding on and where. Present a crawdad looking crank bait to bass looking for crawdads and your strike rate increase greatly. Crawdads for example hide around and in rocky areas like rip rap and thats is a very good place to use that type of lure. If the bass are actively feeding on shad, then a shad color and profile lure works well. How deep you fish is dependant on how deep the bass are feeding. If you see surface action, then a deep running crank bait may not be the best choice, a shallower running crankbait or surface lure would be better. If the bass are deeper a spoon may work better falling throught the shad school. When the bass are less active, then slower presentations like soft plastics, jigs and swimbaits work better. If you cast and crank all day you may run into some active bass somewhere. A better plan may be to take a look at soluner tables to determine when active time periods may occur and watch for feeding activity like birds and fish chasing prey. Nothing can replace time on the water to become familar with the lake you are fishing. WRB

The lake must be city owned if they opted to alter the dam. The only option you have is contact the a state department to determine who has juristiction over public waterways; the city or state. If the dam was condemed by the state as unsafe, then you don't have a prayer to restore it. Dams are not a high priority today, with the trout folks, unless you can get public support to restore it. Good luck, you are fighting an uphill battle. WRB

Try to finesse these small pond bass. Good finesse presentations are slip shot and drop shot rig for small soft plastics, Underspins and small minnow lures like Pointers and original Rapalas. The 3" reaper soft palstic presented using a 1/8 oz slip shot rig on 6 to 8 lb premium mono when shore fishing, is a very good technique. If the reaper is hard to find, then a 4 1/2" curl tail worm from Roboworms work well. Remember to use a light wire hook like Gamakatsu or Owner size 1. WRB

Rain water has very low levels dissolved oxygen (DO). The water column temperature before the rain may have been in the upper 80's and because there was a deep water pump system*, the thermocline may have been very shallow. The result is very low DO levels in the deeper depths where the water temperature was cooler, so the fish were up near the shallow thermocline (first temperature breake between 2 to 4 degrees). The colder rain water is heavier than the warmer lake water and sinks as it cools the upper layers, disspersing what little DO that was available. The fish simply sufficated from lack of oxygen (DO). Usually a windy cold front follows the rain and the wind mixes up water column and raises the DO levels. Must have been dead calm and warm weather after the rain. The fact that catfish also sufficated indicated that the DO levels were extremely low and and the fish were more than likely very stressed before the rain, due to the warm water conditions, blue stone treatment and low DO at the cooler depths, where the fish would normally relocate. WRB * the deep water aeriation pump is there to suspend decaying organic material allowing sun light and oxygen to further dissolve it and keep the water clearer. However this can reduce dissolved oxygen further without surface aeriation to prevent stratification.

The formula for bass; length X length X girth divided by 1200 = weight in pounds. I have weight hundreds of largemouth bass over 10 pounds using this formula for nearly 30 years and never measured a bass with a girth exceeding it's length. Smallmouth girths rarely exceed 80% of their length. If the bass was 22 inches long, 80% of 22 = 17.6 22 X 22 X17.6= 8,518.4 div by 1200 = 7.09 pounds 22 X 22 X 22 (100% girth) = 10,648 div 1200 = 8.87 lbs pounds 22 X 22 X 25*= 12,100 div by 1200 = 10.08 lbs * 25 inch girth reported. The 7.09 lbs is within 5% of the bass shown in the photo, IMO. If the figures were transposed where 25" length and 22" girth 25 X 25 X 22 = 13,750 div by 1200 = 11.45 lbs. The photo of the bass clearly shows it isn't 25" long. WRB

Odd way to ask a question; are you asking if low barametric pressure where higher humidity and cloudy conditions is common verses high barametric pressure equals low humidity and clear skies are the result? Humidity is the percentage of water vapor to air; 70% humidity is 70 % water vapor in the atmosphere. High humidity defushes the light and generally increases the predator fish like bass to be more active, not less active. Radical changes in barametric pressures that push out a high pressure dome that kept the skies clear and humidity stable, like a storm, creating very low barametric pressures will increase the humidity until it reaches 100% and turns to rain. As a result of the change to higher humidity with lower barametric, the lakes ecosystem becomes very active, flying insects, active baitfish feeding and predator fish eating the bait fish etc. As the low pressure system passes and the barametric pressure increases, the humidity lowers and clear skies return and this is called a cold front because of the cold windy conditions building up the higher pressures. The low humidity during the cold front increases the light and the ecosystem becomes less active, no flying insects, bright skies, windy conditions, the baitfish and predator fish become less active. This why it's a good idea to fish deeper water that is less affected by the bright skies and windy conditions, following increasing barametric pressures or cold fronts. If you are talking about fishing in 95 degrees with 90% humidity, then I would say you need more beer and a shady place. WRB

White is a high contrast color agianst a dark bottom where jigs are fished. Jigs also make a click sound everytime they fall and hit a rock. Jig trailers push water and when a jig abruptly stops, the trailer raises up giving the elusion of life to a bass watching it, like a dying baitfish. White jigs can be very effective, just like black, white is a high contrast color and a good choice for night fishing at times. WRB

Springs, underground water often send up a stream of bubbles throughout amost every like, from time to time. Weeds/grass decaying in the fall is also another source of ramdom bubbles. You see the bubbles when using your sonar as a line arcs commonly mistaken for fish. WRB

You are apparently not the legal owner of the property, so the state DNR isn't going to stock the ponds for you. The ponds must be deep enough not to freeze solid and allow the bass to survive. If the water temperature get below 40 degrees or above 85 throughout the water column the bass or prey fish can't survive. The dissolved oxygen levels must also be within sustainable levels to support bass. It sounds like nearby ponds support bass OK. Try getting the owners permission to stock the bass and do it on your on. Read the fish and game regulations and determine if transporting game fish is legal where you live. WRB

Thank you for the positive response, it makes taking the time to help worthwhile. Basic bass behavior is the same regardless where they are regionally located. It's just important to know what the lake or river classification is to focus on specific locations determined by the prey source availble and seasonal period. You might want to look into a topo map in 5 foot elevations and locate where the creek channel made turns and any ledges or structural elements that big bass would hold on. The structure by the dam holds big bass with the prey fish around it. WRB