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Decided (later than I wanted) to hit Conesus today, since my home lake (Silver) sucked for me last weekend. I wasn't expecting much with high skies/post frontal conditions. Morning bite was unspectacular, but actually better than I thought, I put about 8 small keepers up to 2lbs , and a pair clone of 3.5 lbers in the boat by lunch time. Took a lunch break back at the truck, and headed back out. Ran some new water that I didn't fish in the morning, and the better fish seemed to have the feed bag on in the afternoon. I caught 18 fish over three lbs between 3-6pm, with my best five being a 3-12, a 4-3, a 4-4, a 5-3...............AND a new personal Conesus best, heck best anywhere, 7-1 SLOB!!! That beats the pair of 6-10's tied for first since last Aug. That's three years in row I have tied or beat my PB, but I think this one might stand for a while.

Didn't think I would be posting in this thread again so soon. Caught today on Conesus lake, 7lbs 1oz. on a jig. Rod was a 7'6" H Abu Vendetta, reel was a gen1 Abu Revo STX (thanks for the good luck Shane!!), 50lb power pro braid, 20lb Seaguar red label fluoro leader.

So MCS, AK, and I have been thinking about how to up my odds, here's what we came up with...

Find the baitfish, the bass will be close is true everywhere. The problem is you locate the baitfish, see bass feeding on them and they do not react to lures. This happens when bass are focused on a abundant baitfish like threadfin shad for example. You either net shad and fish live bait or try spoons or A-rigs etc. Dropping water levels usually pulls bass off the bank into deep water, raising water they move up. Fall can be boom or bust, you need to be versitle and mobile willing to search for moving bass and try different lures. Tom

6 pounds on a wacky rigged shim e stick in smokey shad.

I would like to learn the real reason why I live in Idaho and not Florida.

Giant bass are top predators where they live and tend to repeat feeding habits and locations seasonally. Like must predators they are dominate where I fish, unless the lake is shared with striped bass. Casitas doesn't have stripers, Castaic now has stripers, but not when I was catching giants there. This is important because you need to know what fish is dominate, allowing the bass to go where ever it wants to go. With practice you can look at a good topo map and have a good idea where pre spawner's and spawner's will be located based on the type of lake and prey available. To answer your question, I always approach a spot thinking there is big bass in the area. This means you do not want to alert the fish to your presence or spook them, they can be very wary, a learned response is they stop feeding and move into deeper water. Slow down a approach with stealth, like you are stocking a trophy animal, because you are! I try to visualize the bass looking for prey, then present my lure to mimic that prey anticipating the strike. If anything feels odd, I crank the reel a few turns quickly and set the hook if there is any resistance. This is my normal approach to high % locations, I only meter the area with sonar after I have fished the spot to determine if any bass are there or suspended nearby. If I meter bass, then I return anywhere from a few minutes or hours depending on what I metered. I usually have a milk run of known spots and fish each one with the same approach, if knowone is fishing the spot. Keep in mind these lakes are small and high pressured by knowledgable bass anglers, often a few pros. There are very few secrets today, so you just blank out the other boats and keep focused. Bad weather is your freind during pre spawn, it keeps a lot of anglers off the water and quites down the ecosystem. Fewer boats increases your odds and the bass tend to stay active for longer time periods. Every giant bass that I have caught wasn't a loner, it was feeding with other big bass, unlike the popular thinking big bas are loners. If you catch a big bass, keep fishing! Tom

CAST... Huh, why didn't I get bit on that? CAST... Ok, now why didn't THAT get bit CAST.... I don't understand bass, why didn't that get a huge explosion? CAST... Perfect spot!! I'm awesome! What?!?! Why didn't that get crushed? CAST.... OK, if there was ever a time to get bit, it was on THAT! CAST... Great.... a dink. :/

There are a lot if dedicated trophy bass anglers around the country. California, Florida, Texas are 3 states that have or had giant bass populations, bass over 15 lbs. the bottom line is you must have giant bass populations is good numbers to be able to catch numbers of these very rare bass. You can spend a life time trying to catch a DD bass and not achieve that goal if the lakes you fish never produce bass over 10 lbs. Fish Chris is another member of this site who consistantly caught giant bass, Big O is catching lots of DD's and just a matter of time until that elusive 15+ strikes. Big O is spending lots of time targeting big bass and that is the key; gotta fish for them where they live. I started fishing for the world record bass back in the 50's when I read the story about George Perry's 22.25 world record from Montgomery lake, GA in 1932. The summer I graduated from high school, packed up my car and drove from California to Georgia's Montgomery lake to fish for WRB, the lake wasn't there anymore, dried up! So I fished Florida's lakes and rivers for a few weeks and learned something; summer wasn't a good time to fish for big bass and Florida had lots of bugs, snakes and alligators. At the same time period Orville Ball was stocking Miramar and Upper Otay lakes in San Deigo with FLMB! Returned home, went back to school and keep fishing for that world record bass, came close and believe I had potential fish hooked, just didn't put one in the boat....still trying for a 20+! Tom

One piece. I prefer every aspect of weight, sensitivity, and looks over a 2 piece.

waiting for my son to post , Tues night Merrimack river. weightless Rage Tale craw inching it across the bottom near some stick ups that are still green, green color craw.

I'll be learning how to be a dad this winter

That is my 18.6 lb FLMB from Casitas back in '81. Hair jig w/ pork trailer, 12 lb Trilene XT, 4500C, Lamiglas jig rod. This bass was a pre spawner in 17' of water off a major point. Made a long cast and she ate the jig on the fall. Although it's tail was so worn, it did jumped a body length out of water...spectacular! This bass also made a run under the boat and out the other side for nearly 20 yards. I thought this bass was a world record bases on the head and shoulders until it was in the boat. Very exciting bass, old girl that had lost some weight but still had a lot of grit. A rent boat angler took the picture as I was getting ready to release this bass and didn't get a copy until several years later, otherwise no picture of this bass. Tom

Imposter!!!!! Those fish are touching the ground!!!! Sorry LMG, I had to do it. I will put down your catches. Actually... hold on... Congrats you have moved up to 2nd place at 88" you culled out that 16.5" fish. AWESOME!! Will the real LMG, pls stand up.

6lb7oz on a Umbrella Rig.

Wife's donkey: I don't have a pic of my nine so an eight will have to do:

That dude ordered a poppy seed bagel, and wanted butter on it. Very disturbing.

I guess I'm a quantity guy. I subscribe to the theory that a day filled with average sized fish will usually result in one or two big fish too. I still get a huge kick out of catching a 12" fish so until that thrill goes away I won't avoid them.

I don' t get the attitude comment from his videos. Everyone I have seen he comes across as a blue collar guy that really gets excited with big fish. His excitement almost gets in the way of finishing the video. What behavior have you noticed that I haven't picked up on?

Did you look at his avatar?

Butch Brown's PB is 19.3 lbs to the best of my knowledge.My top 5 are; 17.4 Casitac 17.4 Castas 17.6 Castiac 18.6 Casitas 19.3 Castaic Butch catches close to a100 DD's a year, since 2000 and I am lucky to 5 a year since 1995. Next time I talk to Butch will ask him how many 17+ he had caught, my guess a lot more than I have! Tom

Fat chicks. All day.

Here is a picture of a couple of Blue Cats my wife and I caught last year on the Mississippi. Mac M

This would ruin my day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VlOxlSOr3_M

Two things Raider.... If my wife could do that, I'd be dead by now. And, Rear end and elbows baby! Gone.

I live about 50 minutes from the Great Smokey Mountains National Park which is full of trout streams. I do quite a bit of fly fishing and I know that trout don't need very deep water to survive. As for the dirtiness it really depends on aquatic life, pH, and water temperature. I have caught 22 inch trout from a stocked stream that is dirty to the point that I wade only waist deep. Hope this helped!

In order for me to land them I had to pull them out of the water with the "swing" method. As long as they arent in sand and rocks, lol. The one that I caught when the sun was down actually spit the hook as soon as I got it out of the water. I jumped for it as if it was a fumbled football, lol.

That ice goes in your tea not on the ground

5lb6oz Baby Bass Pop-R but obviously i have a ways to go based on these posts...

with your medium action rod, i would first suggest using jigs with a smaller hook, or better yet spool on some braid. with fairly stained water, line should not be an issue. fishing no more than 6' deep, a 3/8 jig or lighter will do the job in most cases. fish the jig much the same as you would a plastic worm. a jig can also be swam much like a spinner bait, especially in these shallow water depths. as far as color, black and blue always works well in stained water. brown and orange, and black and chartreuse are also good options in stained water. hope this might help. bo

He can do that AND wet his knots. No problem using a net. I use one and it has saved me from losing bass a few times. Don't need a huge net, heck, a trout net would help in a pinch.

I have had one of those Berkley spooling stations for eons. Very handy. Bill for spooling braid, just a little to moderate tension and you will be fine. Too much tension and it will dig in itself. Just like Mark said.

Reel in the palm of my left hand, pinky & ring finger on the exposed blank, thumb over the top. Thumb & index finger of right hand on handle knob, pinky resting on other knob. Rod @ 11:30 with line semi-slack & brain in hyper drive.

not sure about the tv part, but the alarm clocks could be explained by the power going out, even if only it flashed for a second. as for the tv, i grew up in a house with a ghost that liked to watch tv. it would rock in the rocking chair and flip through the channels...

Tightly ~ A-Jay

A $50 rod will give you plenty sensitivity. A $100 rod gives you yet more sensitivity, and more precise actions. A $200 rod pretty much gives you everything you'd NEED sensitivity wise, and precise action. Add in some serious build quality weight reduction at that point as well. Anything more, is simply nice. The difference between my Legend Tournament rods and my Dobyns Champ Extreme are very negligible. The fit and finish on the Dobyns is a bit nicer, but I'd expect that. The dozen plus Avids I own generally get the job done just as well, too. I don not feel sensitivity is overrated, but the requirement of a $400 rod to get "proper" sensitivity is. There's plenty of options in the $100-200 range that are awesome. Factor in the used market, and anyone can get a nice stick without breaking the bank.

Don Barone came to my house today to pick up my extra new rods I never used today. It's for an awesome cause and I'm glad I could give back to support this great cause. It's all about restoring faith in kids at the time of there need when they have lost everything. Natural disasters can happen to any of us no matter where we live. Going fishing as a kid kept me from getting into trouble from a teen to my early twenties. Plus its a great sport and I feel the need to give something back to our sport. In helping kids I know of no better way to give back. Don Barone and the ones who run and support the tackle the storm foundation are awesome too. My hats off to them. God bless, bigbill It's always the season for giving.

If I can't catch them with a rage trailer it's time for me to throw something at them besides a jig.

I had a fiberglass but went back to aluminum and my next boat will be aluminum too. I like to get into places others can't and the lighter boat is easier to pull, even though my truck is big enough to pull any glass boat. There's less upkeep involved and when I get back into the thick stuff I don't have to worry about gouging the gel coat on a big glitter sled. The nice tin boats have the same features as a nice glass boat and fish very nice. It's a preference thing and aluminum boats suit my needs better than glass so I'll continue to fish them. There's nothing wrong with either, but for the OP's price range I'd be willing to bet he could get a nicer, newer tin boat than what he'll get in a glass boat.

Yep, SEC fans are officially delusional!!!!!!!!!!!!

find some current, find the current breaks, find the shad. that's all you need to do this time of year. once you find a school the fishing can be lights out this time of year. topwaters, squarebills, swim jigs, spinnerbaits and jigs underneath the schools of shad are great baits on the river. hopefully the grass isn't too bad running down river from up north this weekend. there's a cold front that just came through on sunday but it looks like it will be more than steady for the next week with temps dropping very minimally. should be great fishing.

Sam, You will always have an open invite to ride with me on campus for a night. We have some buildings that will make your skin crawl!

You think you've got it bad? You should check out Redlineroberts coffee shop

Castaic Lagoon, Cali That dude is on another level from the guys that are on another level.

I love catching a bunch of little fish.....said no one ever. Give me big fish.

how I have this nice Ranger, down imaging units with GPS, over $2,500 in rods and reels, storage compartments stuffed with tackle, piles of fishing magazines and I still cant get a bass to bite.

Just one more cast... Just one more, then I'll leave... an hour goes by... if I catch one on this cast... Oh what the heck...while I'm here....what's it gonna hurt?

Or what she looks like out of it

How did Kate Upton get into that swiming suit?