jwo1124

even if the comorant, thanks for clarifying by the way, is hurting fishing in my area, I would be fine with it, since it is part of nature. I'm sure dumping chemicals and killing of oxygen supplying vegatation, and cover for fish is worse than anything a bird can do. I just think its lame since the pond is not really big enough for recreational boating, and I can;t really see anyone swimming there either. Maybe residents who live water front take there boats out and swim in the middle of the pond. But I just can;t see anyone swimming off the shore. I wish all people had the spirit that mostly all fisherman do when it comes to nature.

I am saddened when I saw the sight of a bare bank that used to be home to a thick spread of lily pads around the bank of a local pond. I guess they are trying to "restore" the pond and they feel that by destroying aquatic vegatation used by the wildlife will make the resdients around the pond happy. They labeled plants like hydrilla and lillies "nuscance plants". I'm really upset about this and hope that it will not worsen the fishery. I woul dlike to bring this up to the city hall, but I'm sure I'll just get pushed aside. A local man did drown in the pond after chasing a soccer ball in a few years ago...but they said that the man couldn;t swim. I guess they blamed the aquatic plants for this unfortunate incident. Its funny how 3 years later they are finnally doing something about it. They also useexamples of comodores (sp?) [the black birds that dive] Getting caught in the weeds, dying and rottening near peoples houses. I feel when you live next to a natural ecosystem, you must be prepared to deal with nature, which is not always pretty. I hate how man tries to control nature and cannot just co exist with it, respecting nature for the beautiful creation that it is.

Catching a few dinks is better than getting skunked...

The past couple days have been good. I started classes back at college this week, so I'm trying to balance out school and fishing, Yesterday I went to a small secluded pond I know of near my great great aunts house. Me and my bro caught 6 small bass on a strike king buzzbait in chartruese. It was sunny high 70's. barometric prob. rising since that marning it was cloudy and cool. We also caught a few small bass on shiners, since we went there to fish witht hem, but I didn;t have a bobber, so I threw a buzz while bro threw a shiner. I ended up catching two in 5 minutes when he hadn;t got a bite. Today I fished for about an hour by the boat ramp of a different pond. This one is much bigger. Today is in the high 80's low 90's and sunny. I had to take off my t shirt and get a tan cuz I was sweating. Nothing was biting the buzzbait, so I tried out a Strike King series one medium crank in a chartuese blue(bluegill) patter. After a dozen casts of not getting bit, I decided to burn the lure back to me, which worked. Thi smust have turned the bass on because I caught two small bass in about 20 minute susing this technique. After 12:30 when the sun was really high the bite turned off. I fished for about another half hour beating on that fishing spot but nothing. I think a couple bass from shore any day is a good day, since its hard to get a limit fishing from shore(this pond is highly developed by houses so spots are few and far between. I wish I had caught some bigger guys at least over 12" both were about 10". But I had fun...that must count for something right? With classes, and work on the weekend, I'm going to try to get out at least once a week now until it gets too cold to get em from shore. I swear, fishing is theraputic. They should do a study on it.

I had a lot of luck with a buzzbait yesterday. I went to a small local pond where that does not get pressured at all and a buzzbait out fished live shiners. I only caught small fish, although the bass population for that pond is small on average. The buzz also out fished a Pop-R, so through deductive reasoning I am thinking that all the strikes were just reaction hits.

I fished live bait today, and I do not reccommend fishing shiners and free lining(no bobber/float) Two dink bass swallow the hook before they even ran, I cut the line and let both go, I caught one with the hook in its throat after releasing it. SO hopefully it will survive. This really deters me from bait fishing, since your more likely to gut hook a fish.

Next season I am going to begin with more knowledge and more experience than this previous fishing year. I plan on carrying 4 rod set ups. Worm/Jig Rod - I am thinking about a braid with fluoro leader Flippin/carolina/frogging- I was thinking about straight braid, with a leader for C-rigs, but will braid mess up my frogging(the topwater kind, not the soft plastic kind). I know that fluoro sinks, which wouldn't be good for this application. And how will my jigging go if I just tie the braid to the jig? Will the bass notice the line? M and a H crank/jerk/topwater/ swimbait rod with 10 and 12 mono When using a leader for worming/jigging should I learn a line to line knot or just a swivel with 2 ' of leader? I am not good with line to line knots at all.

I would like to utilize this tool more than I do no, which is rarely. I heard Hank parker, on a number of occasions say that his favorite C-Rig plastic is a lizard. Twice on his show he told a story where he and his fishing partner were fishing c rigs and one had a worm, the other a lizard. He said the lizard consistently caught more fish. Do you think this is personal confidence or do you think the profile of the lizard has something to do with it. I would think a crawdad would be a better choice though. Maybe a lizard looks more helpless and "out of its element" and makes better prey for a bass than a crawdad who is at home in the water. Or is this just me giving bass human reason...?

thanks guys And I must say, I am apt to start fishing these three lures more often, as I really do believe they are the key to catching fish more often, in more situations. Jigs and plastics should be the first lures mastered by anglers wanting to improve their bass angling skills whether they want to tournament fish or not. They are just so versitile. The spinnerbait is just a good go to, whether used as a search bait, or thrown specifically to a "good spot".

dont worry about it man. Sometimes I word these incorrectly too, and it comes out in a way that someone could take offense too. I means sure a spinnerbait or something has the action built it. But for the most part, jigs, and plastics do take a substantial amount of skill to work correctly in order to entice a strike. I look up to tournament anglers, it's hard fishing for hours on end, especially when fishings tough. Keeping a positiv emental mind set during these times is what tournament fishing is all about. And anyone who can do that, regardless of what they use to cathc bass, is a heck of an angler in my book.

CJ, I didn't mean any disrespect. I knew what you meant when you said the real stuff. I was just bustin them man ;D I didn;t mean to upset anyone. I like catching fish on lures much more than bait, its just I feel that using bait gives me more of a chance to catch fish, and like I said I don;t get that much time to fish with work and school. Plus I'm restricted to shore which gives me another disadvantage. Not to mention two of the three ponds I bass fish in are heavily developed with houses and there are not too many places to fish from, let alone places that would hold bass. The third pond I fish is very small, probably a couple acres, its more of a marsh, but there are lots of bass. There is only one sport you can cast from shore there. Once I get a decent boat, and I can cover more water, I will expand my use of lures and my skills in using them. I don't just bass fish either, which kind of puts me off to stocking up on tons of lures, even though the bait monkey did get me to drop about 300 this year...and I think I bass fished a dozen times. I just like to fish, and since I'm shore bound most of the time, I fish for species that will be within casting distance from shoreline areas. Early Spring, it's trout and salmon,(even though they are stocked) late spring early summer its largemouth and other warm water fish that come into the shallows. In the summer I continue to fish bass but also go saltwater for Stripers. (I really only bass fish four months or five months out of the year. So guys up north here may go ice out to first ice, and guys down south might go all year long) Then in the fall in winter I go back for the trout and salmon. Even though we both fish for bass, we are in two different catagories.

Its more the price, I'm in college and wait tables at a local restaurant part time. The job pays well, and hopefully can save a good amount of money before next bass season. I may just buy a trailer for my 12' aluminum row boat so I can load and unload it myself. I don't know anyone that really like fishing as much as I do. This means getting up early fishing all day around 6 hours, and not complaining the whole time, or hating everyminute of it. The boat I have is only like 100 lbs, and the wind really plays a toll on it. I was thinking about getting one of those drift socks to slow the drift. You think that would put off bass? I think those things might be for more open water fishing. I'll save what I can, and look around beginning of spring and maybe something better will come up. I dont wanna put all my eggs in one basket as the saying goes. I did think that price was steep, didn;t even come with an outboard either.

there will be no part 2...I cut and pasted but something messed up and I lost a whole post page of text. It was darn good writing too. Oh well I just want to say I enjoy writing about my accumulated knowledge of bass fishing. I hope this can help some new to bassin. I am just a guy that likes bass fishing, so take this post for what its worth. I am fairly well read on bass fishing and been fishing more than a few times... I'm sure my experience and knowledge isn;t even in some of these guys leagues, but I'm sure I know more than some people, and being able to share what I know with someone else makes me feel good. Part two was really just when to use each lure...dang it!

When it comes to bass fishing, there are many different lures. There are over a dozen different soft plastics alone. Then there are crankbaits, jerkbaits, topwater plugs, buzzbaits, and an asrenal of other lures many of us have stored in our tackleboxes(god forbid if we only carried one). But what if we only could carry one? This is where the big three come into play. I thought of this today as I once again gazed at lures and fishing tackle online like a hungry dog looking at a family eating thanksgiving dinner. When I think of "Bass Fishing Lures", I think of the Bass (or skirted) Jig, the Spinnerbait (paperclip design, not in-line), and soft plastics (mostly the plastic worm, but we'll just use soft plastics to cover all the different shapes and sizes, not to mention colors...am I right?!? These are the back bone of every bass fisherman's tackle box(at least it should be). It helps to have diving and lipless cranks, topwater plugs, buzzbaits, spoons, in-line spinners, maribou jigs, jerkbaits, etc. but in order to catch bass you really don;t need all those. I am not saying discard these other lures, but use them as secondary lures. First let's look at the Jig. It's versitle, meaning it will catch bass in every season. It can be hopped, dragged, swam, jigged vertical, pitched, and flipped. It can be worked fast or slow, it shallow or deep water, for active or inactive bass. It has a compact, failry natural profile. Even though the jig is such a useful tool, it's not until a bass fisherman reaches a certain skill or experience level when he reaches for this trusty friend more than not. It takes patience and concentration to work a jig correctly, but pays off. Especially since big bass are slow and lazy(energy effecient to be politiacally correct), and so is the Jig. The jig is also a great bass tool because it is for the most part weedless and can get into prime holding spots like timber and vegetation that plugs and other lures wouldn't dare to go. Next, in a close second, and some may argue it's placing, is the soft plastic. I placed the soft plastic in second due to the fact that a jig comes ready to fish, where as soft plastics require accessories such as hooks, weights, beads, and swivels. Coming a long way since the Creme Pre rigged plastic worm of the early days of Bassin', soft plastics now come in so many shapes. Frogs, lizards, worms, leeches, minnows, crawfish, grubs, insects, and most recntly monster creature baits unheard of to the animal kingdom. On top of coming in all shapes and sizes, it can be fished many places, on many types of rigs. From the old faithful texas rig on a 3/16 - 1/2 bullet head depending on where we are fishing, dragging a carolina across the bottom on a 1 ounce sinker, wacky worming a senko, or jerking a weightless soft plastic slug go, shakey heading a ribbontail on a small jighead, or drop shotting with a small finnesse plastic. They can be thrown into the thickest cover, fished in rock piles, boat docks, trees, deep open water, and anywhere else bass lurk. Most come premade with scent and salt, which makes them more atrractive to finiky bass. And for the price of one lure you can get 6-12 soft plastics. There life like profile and movement just add to their attractiveness. Soft plastics can also be fished in every season as the jig. One should move from a 7-10" worm down to a 3" grub, crawfish, tube, or a 4" finesse worm in the colder months though. As we all know, due to the basses slower metabolism and there decreased nee dto feed often in the winter. Not to mention a smaller meal is easier for a bass to digest which takes energy to do. Finally, the spinneerbait. I like to think of the spinnerbait as the Jig's completely different sibling. As many of us have a brother or sister who is the complete opposite of us. One is the outgoing one, the other the shy one. One's the athlete, the other is the math/science geek, you get the point. It is the reciporical of the jig. The jig is worked methodically, slowly and deliberately. It is patient. The spinnerbait is a speed demon, an adrenaline junky, recklessly cruising the in the bass' backyard, doing donuts on his lawn. Just taunting it. He likes to move fast and dare the fish to chase him. The spinnerbait is another lure that is mostly casted by bass fisherman. It is a tried and tested favorite. There is a spinnerbait for every occasion from 1/8 - 1 oz. For clear or stained water, for night fishing, for sunny days, for cloudy days. The spinnerbait is also sort of weedless, not as much as the jig but more so than crankbaits and jerkbaits. The spinner is a great lure for the warm months when bass are active enough to chase down prey. Its great on windy days when bass will be out of hiding due to the wind breaking up light penetration in the water making the bass feel more comfortable to be out in the open. It is also a reaction bait which will get bass who aren't foraging, or actively feeding, and get them to strike just out of instict, anger, or fear. All in all, a formatable oponent, coming in third due to the fact it will only work half the year, mid spring - mid fall. There you have it. The top three bass lures. In my opinion any angler wishing to become a successful bass fisherman should always have one. There are times where a crankbait or jerkbait might be better than a spinnerbait, or a topwater plugs may be the best option, but 90% of the time a jig, soft plastic or spinnerbait, when in season, will land you bass. Continued into part 2

WHy are bow mounts so much more expensive than transom electric motors?

I''m sure most people have seen these 2 person plastic bass hunters or Crawdads that are aimed at small budget or small water bass guy. I was think about getting this small 11'6" boat for myself or me and my bro to take out on local ponds. http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/standard-pod-wrapped.jsp?id=0031062&navCount=1&parentId=cat21340&masterpathid=&navAction=push&cmCat=MainCatcat21276-cat21340&parentType=index&indexId=cat21340&rid= Its about 250 lbs. and has a lot of great features as seen on the website. A live well (probably not too big, but would be good to keep bait in, pre wired for electronic, bettery and storage compartments. Its $2700 brand new with free shipping to the lower 48. Thats for the boat and trailer. I'm thinking this would be a good investment since I could take the boat out by myself, which I cant do with my aluminum one I load out of my truck bed(needs two people to do it). This will definately up my skill level as I'll get familiar with reading the fish/depth finder and finding underwater structure. I'll also be able to use more techniques fishing from a boat rather than from shore. Get to cover more water, find more fish, etc. I figure after throwing on a fairly priced fish finder and a trolling motor on the front I'll be in business. Does anyone have or know someone who has this boat or a similair small craft like it. If so, is it worth the money? I could buy this new, or get an old boat trailer combo from the want ads.

Your best bet is to read a few rod articles from the bass resource archives. In a nutshell, you want to use a fiberglass rod when fishing with treble hook lures, and a fast action graphite when fishing single hook lures like spinnerbaits and jigs. I like the cabela's whuppin stick for my glass rod right now. Its suprisingly light and sensitive for a glass rod, plus since its not a big name rod its cheaper since cabela's doesn;t spend multi millions in advertising and sponsering pro anglers. You'd be suprised how many Bass Pro and Cabela's rods that are 20-60 bucks are just as goos as 70-100 rods by other companies. I would say no comparison to higher end rods though, just an opinion as I never fished with a Kistler or G Loomis or a like rod.

I have noticed that a lot of posts on here, mainly by people new to bass fishing or fishing in general, are about what types of rods they should get. Now if look at G.Loomis, Kistler or other high end rods, you'll notice that the same 150-200 dollar rods come in 5 to 10 different styles. For example go to this link... http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20166-cat20372&id=0043237121872a&navCount=1&podId=0043237&parentId=cat20372&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=IH&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat20372&hasJS=true Here is a Kistler Graphite Rod for 130 bucks. If you were to buy each "special application rod" you'd be spending over 1300 dollars on rods alone. Now for a seaoned tournament angler, who fishes for a decent pot, this expense might be worth it. But how many of us on this forum fall into that catagory. Maybe we fish one or two local or regional tournaments, or a club derby for a couple thousand that if won, would end up paying the bills. For Joe Average(I know no one wants to be average, or think of ourselves as average, but many of us are just that) I have concocted my four basic rod set ups that will cover pretty much all bass fishing applications. 6'6" MH 1/4-3/4 #10-17 Fast Action for Plastics, Jigs, Spinner/buzzbaits 7' H 1/2-1 1/2 for Floating frogs, carolina, flippin I would reccommend a braid with a fluoro leader(mono with the topwater frog) 6'6" M fiberglass rod 1/4-3/4 for cranks/topwater/jerkbaits with 10 or 12 lb test 7' H fiberglass for heavier cranks/topwaters/ and jerkbaits, or big swim bait plugs. I'm sure a more seasoned knowledgable guy could find better rod specs for each application or lure, but we are talking about joe average who has a few hundred bucks to spend, and fishes a couple times a week and maybe the occasional tournament. Next season these will be my four rod choices. I think they will be fine and get the job done. If anyone has any contructive criticism I am all ears. If you buy mid grade rods, especially with the Bass Pro or Cabelas label, you can get all these four rods, and maybe a fifth for about $200. Probably be close to $200 more on reels...better pick up some more shifts...

I find it funny that you refer to artificials as " the real stuff". I like using lures once in a while, but I like to get the most out of my time on the water. If I had ambitions to fish tournaments any time soon and I needed to hone my skills with lures in order to compete, I would practice with lures more. But since I just fish recreationally, and between college and waiting tables 4 nights a week, I don't get a lot of time to fish.(classes during the day, work most nights and weekends) So I want the odds in my favor. I know that livebait fishing is looked down upon by tournament guys who only(or most of the time) fish artificials, and I'm ok with that. But, in defense to people who live bait fish, locating the fish is the biggest part of success in fishing whether you bait fish or not. I will admit it takes a little extra to get a bass to strike an artificial, but most of the "fooling" the fish is done by the lure designers and not the fisherman. Plus, I don;t have a boat with electronics to spot bait, fish, depth changes, structure, etc. SO I just go to a "good looking spot" and throw some bait and hope I was right. It is a better rush though to get a strike while robotically retrieving your lure, more so than just watching your rod tip bounce or watching a float go down.

The Massachusetts Wildlife governing body states that Pumpkinseed sunfish can be used as bait. I believe that these bream, as most call them, live side by side with bluegill. Does anyone know a sure way to tell them apart. The pics I've seen make pumpkins look speckled, where bluegill are not. Has anyone used these as bait. I would think they would be a good big bass bait, since many bass waters are infested with sunnies. I would figure that 3-5" small bream/pumpkinseeds would be the best bet, since any larger and the bass may not be able to swallow them. Not to mention this will aid in the over populations of sunnies at the ponds I fish. Hopefully this will let the minnow population boom, which probably provides bass with more food.

Dont be hard on yourself or the lure. It could just be that the fish weren't biting or there were no fish where you were fishing...etc. I read that a basses forage will typically be between 30-60% of its size. So a 12" LM bass will typically eat prey from 3.6-7" in length. Larger meals take a bass more time to digest and makes it inactive and vulnerable, therefor most fish, unless they feel they have a safe place to retreat to and digest a large meal, may not eat a larger offering in the 7-10" range and may opt for many smaller 3" fry or minnows, frogs, crawfish, insect etc. This is my theory not fact, the prey size is fact though, I saw it on a website, dont think I still have the link though.

I recently search amazon.com for fishing books and came up with a few bass fishing books. The easiest answer to your question would be as many as possible. Sure, some books will have overlapping information, but who cares. I'll try to fish up the book titles when I get home later today and post them up here. For now go to amazon.com and search bass fishing in the books department.

I am not a big scent guy. I have one bottle of Garlic YUM spray that is about 8 years old. I'll give my spinner or crank a couple sprays at the beginning of the day. Once at night aI was fishing with a shallow crank from shore late spring of this year. After about 10 casts to a spot without a bite I sprayed some YUM on, and within the next two casts I got a fish. I dont know if this is a coincidence or not. I heard bass hardly rely on their sense of smell anyway. They mostly use sight and lateral line/sound to detect prey, and then they use taste as they strike the object in order to see if its edible food. But then again, what makes fish go nuts over live bait? I would say its the smell...so I guess the question goes unanswered.

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm stuck casting from the banl until next spring when I get my boat registered and back in the water. The ponds I fish have baitfish, I don't know if their shad though, I think they're shiners. There is also a big perch, bluegill(or bream as the southerners call them), and crappie population. Sure a bass isn't going to eat a full sized perch or crappie, but they will dine on the new first year ones that were just born past spawn. I am seeing a lot of 2 inch bass fry swimming around shore, so I'm guessing most of the first yearer's for bluegill/perch/crappie will be about this same size. Try throwing cranks/jerkbaits in natural forage colors. As far as what to look for...it's tough. Most fish will still be staging out in deeper 10-15' water during the day coming up the water column or into the shallows dawn and dusk to feed, so that's you best bet to go fishing from shore.

I posted abou tthis awhile ago on a different forum and I figured one was like Berekly XT and the other like XL, I'm not sure if this is fact but I think someone agreed with me....but that really doesn;t mean anything.