jhoffman

I fished a tournament last weekend. I was running down the lake wide open when I looked over and saw fish breaking the surface, pulled up shut the motor down and filled the boat in the next half hour. I wasnt even intending on fishing where I put my three biggest fish of the day in the boat. Paying attention is the key to everything in life.

I generally dont give full on advice, Im not their paid guide. Ill tell a guy at the dock that I caught them on jigs or cranks, shallow or deep but thats about where it ends. I dont go into what bait, why, what location. I hate dock talk personally, I feel like it messes you up, I know it does me cause even if I try not to listen it sticks in my mind. Maybe Ill start wearing headphones to the pretournament launch or ear plugs.

Ive gotta have some indication theres a reason for predator fish to be there. If I see baitfish on my graph im fishing, I dont care if theres no big fish mixed in. A lot of guys just fish when they see fish they think are bass and or pound the bank. A lot of times Im not marking bait actively chasing the schooling baitfish when I catch them. I just need to know the fish are there, if there is bait, they are there. It could be a timing thing, it could be a pressure thing. My local lake if youre there at daybreak you probably still wont be first. Around 7-8am when most have finally decided to roll out of bed you can look around and see hundreds of bass boats pounding the shore and or known holes. They just assume theres always bass up shallow and always bass on certain pieces of structure. The road beds here are famous, everyone knows to fish it and you will see fish on the graph. The problem is, they turn on and feed for a half hour, that varies a little each day. If you dont have that time pinpointed, you could fish it for 6-8 hours and never catch a fish to leave, have a guy pull up and start smoking them. You think it was bad, he thinks its a gold mine. Unless he knows better, he will be just like you and the memory of that will bring him back time and time again. Ive never really been able to find grass in this lake until I started to think about it a little harder one day when I pulled up some grass. This lake gets dropped for winter, so the upper end has no vegitation. The lower end however, stays almost full pool. With the ice forming, the grass line is starting between 10-14ft. Once I found that little piece of the puzzle I started lighting fish up. Try a change in presentation. Conventional and written wisdom says slow way down and go big or small. Two weeks ago, if you werent bringing a jig across at a good pace, you werent catching fish. Dont ever think for a second that bait size dictates fish size, its not even true with swimbaits. Sometimes I go so small that yes I am fighting off rockbass and crappies but once I burn them out and they let it alone I start catching the bass. Im a firm believer most of us move way too fast most of the time. Slow down and really fish an area. A 100 yard long stretch of water isnt something you should burn up in five mins then dismiss. If you see the bait and youre not catching fish, its your presentation or timing. End of story

Wouldnt we all love to have oxygen injection systems in our boats. Problem is, youre running out of room fast with todays goodies. Bigger stronger batteries, hydrolic pumps, the gas tank. Unless youre willing to mount the bottle on the deck the avg guy wont have it. They also are not cheap in any sense of the imagination. Maybe when I get to the point where I can afford any boat I want and justify it with wins and have every other accessory I want I would then entertain an oxygen system. Someone needs to scale it down considerably and make it so that You can carry just enough to give them a timed shot once in awhile, say maybe every two hours it kicks on and runs for five mins. Us guys fishing these tournaments where youre lucky to win $500 if you win are getting to the point of negative returns with what we have in it, winning just means you spent less for the year, youre never really ahead.

I tie mine with kevlar fly tying thread. I have NEVER had a jig I made come apart. They either got so dull or were lost before that ever happened.

wider better... tinboats.net

One time before I owned boats I took a girl fishing. I just bought a new reel for the rod like fifteen mins prior. I baited, casted out and turned around to help her. There went the rod, still had the receipt in my pocket. Dropped a very expensive fly rod in a creek when I took a spill, got it back a week later broken, manufacturer replaced it.

Im guessing if you think youre on fish, you probably are, its very possible you are missing the strike. Its lightening fast at times, whack, set the hook.... missed. The speed at which a fish can inhale and reject something is unreal. In my days when I loved fly fishing there were times it got to where I would just set the hook at even a flicker of a change and my hooking percentage sky rocketed.

12+12+14 = 38

Hang in there, the lake I get to fish the most can be a bear. Ive been at this bass fishing thing for a long time. I got a boat filled with the best baits you could want and theres still times I struggle. Its been a little better as of late but dont ever compare what youre fishing to what you see on TV. You dont have the eletronics, the time, nor the location to go out there and catch big bags like that all the time. Heck theres guys in the elites show up at a weigh in with ZERO fish, imagine throwing down $1k+ and not even getting a single fish in the boat. Dont even tack on the travel, the wear on you and your family to fish a practice plus the event. Make no mistake about it, if you can even grind out fishing from say daylight till 3pm, thats a feat in itself as it takes ultra patience if youre not smashn fish.

I bought my first boat a 1979 terry flat bottom on a feb day 4 hours away when it was below freezing, couldnt even hear it run. It came with an air cooled briggs 5hp motor, 1 seat, rear mount 30 trolling motor, trailer and no battery for $600. The motor was almost new. I decked it, carpet, switch box, battery and ran lights on it. Replaced the trailer bearings and went fishing. It got so many complements on the water it was unreal. OH, I did replace the wooden internal transom which was a nightmare also. People could not believe a 14' boat could be that nice, I mean it got compliments daily. When I was done I broke even with what I had in it materials wise not counting my work at about $1800. The decking/carpet and the transom took me a combined 60 hours. I fished it for two years and kept it covered when not fishing, the day I sold it, looking at it you wouldve thought I just finished it. I didnt even use marine plywood because of the treatment in it with fear of it causing corrosion on alumnium. I just decked it with normal plywood and put about 8 coats of thompson water seal on it before carpet. The transom obviously was just treated. Once it dried I coated it in a thin layer of epoxy. I wish I could see what it looks like now ten years later, I bet if the person maintained it, it probably still looks excellent.

Not worth the effort, how many can you really need at a given time, 2-3 max

Believe me, I entertained it too. If youre looking for something a little stronger try the zman or elaztech strike king one, it fishes well. NOTHING is like a real senko, they just dont fall right. I dont know what the formula is for that plastic but he has it right on the money, the salt content is another big question. Id rather have a box full of senkos that drop at the right speed then a box of crankbaits, I love crankbaits but NOTHING and I mean NOTHING outfishes a senko.

I agree with the no fishing theory. Ive seen guys come out of ten million dollar homes and yell at guys for fishing. One guy was giving another angler a bag of crap for fishing his dock. The guy just stood there and took it, but even though it wasnt me I couldnt keep my tongue tied. He said to the guy "We pay tens ouf thousands of dollars a year to have a dock on this lake and all you bass fisherman do is pound it all day long" I was close enough that it enraged me. I replied "Oh imagine that, a private dock on a public lake and you expect people not to fish around it. How about you go back inside your ten million dollar home and be thankful for what you have instead of throwing your status around like anyone cares!" I cant stand people like that, I have it therefore I can say whatever I want to whomever I want. I wanted to fight that guy so bad after that and it wasnt even me he was talkn too. On the flip side I can understand not wanting line under your dock to get in your motor. I really can, but to treat someone like youre better than them cause you have money will never fly with me. A simple system like above gets the point across. Heck where I live people fish ON THE RAMP.

Yes, they cant resist those big slow worms. Ill tell ya, today anyone fishing slow on the lake I was at didnt catch much because those fish wanted a jig rocketed off the bottom. Know how I figured that out, paying attention when I was reeling up to cast again. The people who come to the weigh in week after week with big fish arent fishing the same bait in the same holes every day. One cant honestly expect to watch a train of bass boats go down a bank and then think fish are gonna just bite whatever they throw in the same old fashion. I fish deep to shallow on every trip and its rare I cant buy a bite but it does happen. The more time I spend on the water the clearer the picture becomes. It might be 3-4-5 hours till I figure it out. The guy who launched at daylight and is home in the AC at 10am will think the lake sucks. You start hanging your head after 3 hours of no bites and youre done before hour 4 comes because youre missing the minor details. A buddy of mine went out on my most hated lake the other day at 3pm, hes got a great work schedule. He called me 4 times the following morning till I answered so he could tell me how his afternoon went. Apparently they boated 19 bass with multiples over 3lbs in a really hard to fish lake. He said he left at 6:30 right as a tournament blasted off. His words "All I could do was laugh pulling the boat on the trailer, they completely missed the bite, it shut off at 5pm."

Not I, I need 200,000,000,000 different lures to carry around and fish the same stuff every day. I love having a power boat, I almost like driving it as much as fishing. In fact, Id say a lot of guys enjoy the driving part as much or more seeing how they fly up and down the lake all day burning up 30 gallons of gas.

I too loathe my local lake... sayers dam. Theres fish in it but the amount of traffic that lake sees is borderline crazy. Sometimes during the summer there is 2-3 different tournaments A DAY.

Gizzard shad in southern central pa, lake raystown and alewife

My guess is the cartridge doesnt have enough pressure or the slide spring needs replaced

Rabbit Hair breathes, movement without imparted movement

Doesnt surprise me at all, almost every stream in erie has a plant on it. 16 mile is downright disgusting. The susquehanna smallmouth have shown the black spots for years, the knew there was a water quality issue for awhile. Heck, theres virtually no tournament fishing on it anymore, it once was one of the best.

TufLine might be a board sponsor so Ill thank them for that but after the free sample I tried Ill pass.

Over the weekend we were at the inlaws when the father in law said, saw this article thought you might be interested. He doesnt fish.... "Intersex fish found in the susquehanna river" in a small local paper to the area. It peaked my interest, it seems as though after years of trying to find out why the bass population is crashing they might be on it. The biologists opened several species of fish from the river and what did they find inside the fish? EGGS in MALE smallmouth where there should be sperm. TERRIBLE news I googled the same topic and it looks like its hitting the papers as far as the west coast. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-intersex-fish-20140705-story.html Thats probably the worst possible news that fishery could receive. I have to wonder if my local lakes are experiencing the same issues as the bass just arent there in areas that fill from running creeks and rivers. Didnt scour the article above but they said they found it in the entire basin of multiple rivers. Heres the kicker, its ONLY really effecting the smallmouths, estrogen in the water!

Not sure but id definitely check with the insurance company if you have it insured.

I try not to kill fish period, I get enough killn on the land