Bass_Akwards

So my deal is this. I have no boat, I have no electronics that come with a boat. I have no topography maps of my ponds. What should I be looking for in terms of finding and catching big fish? I know all about cover. Weeds, Lilly pads, and other topwater gatherings for bass. But what other types of things should I be looking for? I try to keep an eye out for points and fish them, but is there other stuff I'm missing? Are there tricks for perhaps knowing what's under the water geographically speaking, from looking at the geography on shore? Ridges, holes, bumps, etc etc? What about the lack of shad? Lots of people talk about locating the shad, and you'll locate the big bass. But what if my ponds dont have shad? They have bluegill and croppy. Should I be looking for schools of bluegill or something? T

I don't understand why you'd stop at strawberry licoriche? Why not the black kind too? Why not french fries? Why not string beans? Why not half a Snickers bar? What's so special about strawberry licoriche? I say try everything in your house thats shaped like, or kinda like, a Senko! I mean why not break one of your favorite CD's into many pieces, and super glue a nice long piece to a hook? Don't just stop at licoriche! I say spend at least 100 hours of fishing time experimentiing with texas rigging your dads favorite pen, a shoelace, some plastic from an old blender in the kitchen, pieces of an old dirty gym sock, or hell, why not try those new Gary Yamamoto power cords? You can plug in your radio with them, or tie one to a hook texas rigged. I hear their great! T

Guys, seriously, the info is so freaking great, and this forum is a god send. What do I do if I'm a "loser" and have no boat, and no shad? I fish from shore and never get to have the fun you guys get to have investigating all the beautiful topography of the ponds I fish. I catch a lot of nice fish and can't imagine how many and how big the fish would be if I actually had good electronics and a trolling motor, not to mention all the other goodies that come with a nice bass boat. In any case, what should I be looking for when fishing from shore? I always look for nice points, or suculant cover to fish, but is there anything else I should be lokoing out for to catch tons of fish? Also, the ponds I fish have lots of little bluegill and croppy and frogs and catfish and snakes, but no shad. Do other bait fish start congregating in the shallows in the fall? What signs from other fish besides bass should I be looking for, in the ponds I fish? (if there even are any) Again fellas, awesome info. Keep it coming, I'm like a sponge. Todd

Fivebass, can you elaborate a little? Are these your all year round favorites, or your fall favorites? I assume fall favorites because thats the title of my thread, so I'll ask..... Why are crankbaits better in fall than summer or spring? todd

That's weird Jugger, I'd think that a private pond that people are paying 155 a year to fish would have some monster bass in it. Like I said, the state record LMB in Colorado is 11.5 pounds, but I've talked to a few guys who have caught 10+ pounders in private ponds here in boulder. That blew my mind. I know that one of the places I fish now, Pella Crossing, has only been open to public fishing for about 3 years. It used to be home to a Front range fishing club who were the only people allowed to fish Pella. According to the ranger I talked to last week, those fishing club guys were pulling 8, 9 and 10+ pounders out of the lakes at Pella all the time! What makes me physically sick is when I saked the Ranger where the heck all those monsters were now, he told me that many of those bass club guys had them stuffed and mounted over the years. That's freaking terrible if ya ask me. t

Can you define "cold snap?" Is it the first cold day of the year? The first cold "few days" followed by a warming day or two? Is it when the temp drops to 50 degrees? 40? How long does this feeding frenzy go on? A day after the first "cold snap"?? A week?

For those of you who live in states where you have "fall weather" are you fishing the same baits as you do in the summer? I always thought LMB metabolism(sp) slowed down when fall came, therefore mellowing the bite and slowing good fishing down to a crawl. But someone just told me that in October, the bite actually picks up BIGTIME, because the LMB are stocking their tummies up for the winter. Which is true in general? Todd

Do fish eat TONS in the fall, to stock up for the winter months? Especially in October and late September? Someone told me that the other day and I wondered if it's true? What's the deal with the eating habits of LMB in the fall? I figured the bite would mellow after August. Am I wrong in general?(I know its not the same on every lake, everywhere) Thanks Todd

I tied an old sweaty basketball sock onto a nice gammy hook and used a 2 inch Senko(watermellon w/black flake) as a trailor. Didn't catch a d**n thing in 8 hours. Worst bait ever. Period. T

I absolutely adore buzzbaits and use them often, especially early morning just before sunup, or an hour before and after sunset is always a magical couple hours as well. I have a question though. Is counting to 3 mississippi a little long? In my experience waiting that long has lost me a couple fish. Counting to ONE mississippi is about what I've been doing. You never want to see the blowup and immediatly try and set the hook, thats for sure, but waiting about 1 second after the blowup, to let that bass get that hook fully in its mouth, has been landing me some good ones. Matthew are you sure your actually waiting about three seconds before setting the hook? When using frogs in the slop, counting to 3 mississippi, after a blow up seems perfect, but with buzzbaits it seems to me that's to much time. Am I nuts? Also, another retrieve that's nice, at least for me, is a steady retrieve for about 10 feet, after the buzzbait hits the water. Then, after about ten feet, give your rod (line) a little twitch, without stopping the bait. Do that the whole way in. I get a ton of topwater strikes juuuuuuust after I give it a little twitch to speed up the bait for a second. If you twitch it near a bass, it's almost like your bait has seen the bass, and was startled, thus forcing the natural "Time for dinner!" response from the bass. In any case, nice writeup Matthew!

Simon Says you wrote: Slack line, with slack line the senko will fall vertically with it's nice little wiggle all the way down, a taunt line kinda ruins the action You either don't know what vertically means, or you don't know how a Senko works. Vertically is defined as " being in a position or direction perpendicular to the plane of the horizon; upright; plumb." A senko falls horizontally, which is part of the beauty of the lure. Because of it's density and aerodynamics the thing casts like an f14 fighter jet. It's little wiggle on the way down is super sweet like you said. I've literally jumped in the water after a Senko, mouth first, just cause it looked so good to eat. I'm almost scared to see what will happen the first time I use a fat IKA! t

Are baitcasting reels mostly used for huge fish and super hardcore structure? I'm sick of my open faced reel and was thinking of moving to a baitcaster. I fish slop often and have to pull 3 -4 pounders out of it. I've lost a few bigger fish this summer, snapping my 10lb test in thick weeds. I'd like to slap some 20lb braided on a nice bait casting reel, but wanted to know the pro's and con's you guys have experienced using a baitcasting set up. Do you guys like baitcasting better than open faced? If open faced is an option for me, what set up can I get, that's not to expensive? Do I generally need a longer, stiffer rod than I use with my open faced reels? I'd like a versitile set up that I can fish in lots of different situations for different sized LMB. Whatcha think? T

sweet thanks. im gunna try 'em all and see what happens. t

Any thoughts as to who makes a great weedless swim bait?

I went to Senkos anonymous and was also cured.(i think) The guys at the meeting put me on some brush hogs, and I've absolutely been slamming 15-18 inchers 5-15 feet off shore in the medium heavy slop. I've been texas rigging the watermellon/black flake hogs with weight and letting them go to the bottom fast and stay there. I use little twitches and short pauses and the action i get is truely sweet. I was fishing a shoreline yesterday, and there was an angler to my left and and another to my right . Both guys were about 50 yards away from me. There was also a handful of other guys fishing the 25 acre pond as well. There were also a few floaters out there fishing. NONE of them was catching anything. But I knocked off 5 very nice bass in about 90 minutes fishing those hogs through the weeds near shore. I fished senkos and yum dingers the hour prior and had zero luck. I have to admit, catching bass where no one else at the pond is throwing their line because either they dont know how, or don't have a bait like a weighted texas rigged brush hog, is really fun. Every time I caught a fish, people from all over the pond could hear it. No one else was catcing a thing and there I was for about 90 minutes, just hammering them. Everyone on the pond would kinda look my way and try to see what I caught. Then they'd tirelessly cast with no results. Until, WHAM! *** Backwards crushes another bucket mouth in the slop, where everyone on the pond can hear it splash as I reel her in. You could almost HEAR them thinking, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GUY CATCING THEM ON! BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ........ FISH ON BROTHER!!!!! TODD

Two questions. I fish from shore, because boats scare me. I'm kidding. But I do fish from shore, and have been casting into some deeper water lately. Usually I fish in water no deeper than about 10 feet. I adore it because LMB will come for a top water bait or a soft plastic crawling on the bottom, because theyre never "too far away" from my bait (vertically speaking) 2 questions... #1 I'm curious. Should I be afraid of using soft plastics like Brish hogs, Yum Dingers, Senkos etc, when I'm fishing in 20-30 feet of water and there are possibilities of the fish being suspended 10-15 feet above my bait? #2 Should my presentation be more aggressive jerks and shorter pauses? How do you fish it? Todd

Nice Jugger! The Colorado state record is 11.5 pounds! My biggest is about 4 pounds and about 19 inches. Do people catch huge bass at the private lake in Berthoud? How much is it to join? How did you hear about it? t

Buzzbaits in the early morning and also at dusk from when the sun goes down below the tree line untill after dark. Look for weed beds and cast a weedless senko near it. Don't be afraid to fish the shore at high noon with senkos, brush hogs, and other soft plastics. From 11:00-2:00 is a great time to fish for big bass. Especially because half the fishing world thinks fishing during the day is worthless. How wrong they are! Todd

thanks guys! Fun info! todd

First off, LMB are really tough, so it should be fine. Secondly, I don't think you should stop using an age old, great top water bait like your weedles frog, just cause you made a fish bleed. It was probably a fluke, and to take such a fun lure out of your arsonal doesn't do you justice as a fisheman. Just an opinion. However, if the incident was kind of traumatic for you, then by all means don't use a weedless frog anymore. But thousands of people have caught LMB with weedless frogs and 99.929037519845% of those fish wound up just fine. Lastly, if the fish had died after you released it, it most likely would have fallen to the bottom of the pond, as it is heavier than water. As any animal decays, gasses build up in their bodies. With your bass the gasses would have caused the body to rise to the surface after a few days probably. todd

I know how many LMB's and what size bass you catch depends on close to a billion factors including the strain of fish, the yearly water temps, competition between fish & food supply, oxygen supply etc etc etc. The point of my question isn't because I want to know if I'm catching more or less fish than anyone else, I just want to know because I'm curious. Simple. Please tell me 1. What state you fish mostly 2. How many fish you catch per hour or per outing(your best guess) 3. Average weight LMB you are catching when you catch one(your best guess) 4. Average length LMB you are catching when you catch one(your best guess) 5. The biggest LMB you've caught this summer 1. I live in Boulder Colorado. 2. I've been averaging about 9 bass every 6 hours. If I go fishing from 12:00pm-6:00pm I've been getting about 8-10 bass per outing. If I fish after work from 6:30pm- 10:00pm I'll catch about 4-5 LMB's 3. The average weight has been about 1.5 pounds or so. Yesterday was a good day. I went fishing from 12:00-6:00. I caught 8 bass. 6 of them were 15 inches or better and 2 pounds or better. 2 were about 1 pound. the biggest was 18 inches and 3.1 pounds. The biggest LMB I've caught this summer was 4.2 pounds and 19 inches long. You?

Sounds good. I fish from shore and it seemed the Bush Hog didn't cast that far. All the apendages(sp) catch the wind and keep the casts short, so I just might T-rig it. How do you guys retrieve it? Do you fish it like a plastic worm? Can they be fished in open water nowhere near trees, slop, brush, or any vegatation? Or do they work best being pulled through some weeds? T

Just got my first bag of Brush Hogs. Today the water was cooler and it was a little windy so it wasn't a great day to try them out for very long. I only casted with a hog 5 times or so. I texas rigged it weightless and retrieved it with quick jerks and 3-5 second pauses as well as a steady slow retrieve. No bites. No biggie as I know I'm gunna slay some bass with them sooner or later. Anyway, are you guys C-rigging them? T-rigging them with weight? Or fishing them weightless? Also, when/where/what types of conditions do you find they work the best, and when do you find they don't work as well? You guys rock! Your help is very appreciated and has worked wonders already. Todd

First off let me say I just started fishing Senkos about a month ago, and they have seriously been amazing. They've caught dozens of LMB's from .5-4 pounds. (4 pounds is very large for my ponds) Senkos catch them in the morning, at noon with bluebird skies, and at night. In any case, I've also noticed that i get a lot of "Nibbles" on my retrieve. You all know what I'm talking about, the little "Tap, Tap" on your line you feel when a finicky bass isn't sure if he really wants to waste his/her energy on your soft plastic. My retrieve is generally veeeeeeeeery slow. I hold my rod tip straight up in the air, and reel as if the worm is crawling slowly across the pond floor. I keep a very slack line and wait for a bite as I reel in. Like I said, with this retrieve I'm getting a ton of fish, but I'm also getting a ton of "Nibbles" without being able to coax the fish onto my hook. What happens is I'll reel in, feel the "tap tap" on my line and either... 1. Stop my retrieve and let the worm sit still 2. Keep my retrieve going the same pace 3. Stop my retrieve for a second, and then use small jerks and pauses Is there anything I can do when I feel the "tap tap" on my Senko, or other soft plastic, to entice those finicky bass onto my hook? If it happens 3 or 4 times in a row, should I just... 1. Try a different retrieve from the start? 2. Try a different color or size worm? 3. Try a different lure altogether? 4. Slam three beers and Yell at the fish to "Get on the d**n hook, dammit!" Thanks guys! Todd

I heard a pro, I can't remember who, talk about "if you pull your boat up next to the slop and are about to fish a nice weedless frog, and you don't hear that kissing sound, there's no bass under there" Just thought that was interesting. I went fishing this morning. Heard the kissing sound on this pond every second. Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss over and over. I threw a frog into the thick weeds and slowly put the frog into a hole in the weeds. A monster came up for a beautiful topwater strike, with a beautiful splash. I pulled up hard and set the hook. He was on for about 2 seconds, before he jumped out of the water. A 4 pounder at least(a very nice size for Boulder) then he went down into the weeds. I kept a tight line and SNAP! My 10 pound test trilene went bye bye.