Shad_Master

huskertko, I remember reading a quote from the guy that started the aerobics craze back in the 80's -- he advocated that people who couldn't find any other time to run to go out on their lunch break -- he said, "honest sweat doesn't stink".

If it is happening regularly from the same location, it is probably gas escaping from rotting vegitation.

Last year I was fishing at my local pond at night and caught a small bass just as it was getting too dark to see good. He was hooked in the gullet, so I cut the line and put him back rather than trying to get it out and risking more damage. Two days later I was fishing in the same spot and caught a fish that still had my hook in his gullet (I could tell cause of the Power Pro still attached to the hook) I was able to get the old hook out rather easily and he swam off to be caught again. Obviously having the hook in his mouth did not stop him from feeding and it looked like the area around the hook had started to scar over making it easier to get it out than normal.

I'm a lunch "hour" fisherman, too. I leave my desk, stop by the local convenience store, pick up a Dr. Pepper and some peanutbutter crackers and can be on either of three lakes by 12:15 -- if the fish are biting I might stretch it out and get back by 1:30, if not I'm back at it by 1:00. Of course this depends on the weather and how busy I am at the time, but without this fix I am usually not at the top of my game in the afternoon.

There is an older guy (older than me that is) that I fish with some time and he has been tracking the lakes around here for a long time. He used to carry an electric chain saw in his boat and would actually cut the trees on the water, letting them fall along the break lines. He also carried several sand bags and would drop these to anchor them down. We fished a tournament together about a month ago and hammered large bass (17" to 20") off of his brush piles that had been there for 10 years or more.

Thanks for the input guys, I did have a trailer hook on, but would have needed to have about 10 get one of these guys hooked up (LOL). Also, I did follow-up with a worm and managed to catch some fish, I had just never seen so many blow-ups without at least one decent bite before. Mattfly, those subtle changes may have been an issue, but I was following up on what has worked in the past and was surprised at the outcome. I'm particularly interested in your comment about tweaking the blades to add or subtract splash -- can you elaborate on this a little more?

Got up early yesterday and headed out the to the lake -- started throwing a buzz bait in an area where it has produced well in the past. Had about two dozen blow-ups that missed the lure by 2-3 feet. Tried slowing down, speeding up and stopping to let it sink but no takers -- any ideas what is going on here?

What I have come to learn (especially this year) is that in the summer months, bass will hold in "deeper" water and then move to "shallower" water to feed. If the bass are holding on the edge of the break then they are looking for somthing to eat but will ready to move back deep either when they are fed or when they are spooked. I don't that an up hill presentation will catch more bass on a consistent basis and sometimes you have to move to the other side and try it that way.

You forgot baby ducks (Cabellas has lure for this, but my wife won't let me buy one).

We had a day-and-a-half of rain about two weeks ago -- first decent rain in more than 6 months. Just as it was ending I pulled up to the lake (bank fishing) and there was noone in sight -- caught 18 basses in about an hour with the smallest being about 12" and the best three being a 15", a 16.5" and a 17.5". Never moved from my initial spot. Rain is your friend, brother.

One other thought about the bucket -- if this is public water and you are keeping fish that are below legal size you can be ticketed by the Game Warden -- this happened to a bunch of people at a local lake here over the Memorial Day Weekend -- one dude got a ticket for $750 for no license and bucket full of illegal fish.

Around this area, one of the primary forages for bass is blue gill. There is a particular lake that I fish a lot and has been producing big bass in large numbers. But it is also jam packed full of blue gill. I have noticed when I fish from bank in the evening that the blue gill bite starts out pretty strong and then slacks off as the sun starts going down. About that time the bass bite starts picking up. I am assuming that this is because the bass are comming in shallow to feed on the blue gill and other critters that hang out in the shallows. My question is, if the blue gill are biting is that sign that are no bass in the area? Are they scared off by the presence of the bass or do they just become more wary and are less prone to nip at my lures?

One thing to keep in mind while c-riggin from the bank -- you likely won't reach real deep water so you won't need as long a leader as you might if you were fishing from a boat. This will make it a little easier to control and hold down on those "surgical overruns".

Chances are good that what you had was a turtle -- they will sometimes go after your soft plastics and bite the bait right off your hook.

There is a local city park that has a small pond on it and I use it for my "test" pond. I know I can catch fish there just about any time I go, most are pretty small but there are some lager ones, and so I use this pond to try out new baits that I am introduced to. It gives me a chance to learn how the bait works in the water and give me some confidence to try it out when I hit the big water.

I tried this in a tournament last year when we could see fish suspended in a flooded forest but they wouldn't bite (btw the tournament was won in that area by flipping to the trunks of cedar trees, but that's a different story). It seems to me in order for this technique to be effective you have to have some wave action going on in order to get the best action from the Senko. Also, it seems that you have to be an avid line watcher, cause they are less likely to pull the bobber under (like a blue gill) especially if they are suspended. Just my $.02.

If you are using this approach to "learn" as I have in the past, my suggestion would be use only one (maybe two) types of baits on each outing. Make sure that you don't have your old standby as the second bait and force yourself to keep trying until it works (some times it doesn't) but you will be surprised how quickly you will learn if you are not distracted by what you already know.

On one of the recent "People Who Fish" shows, one of the Murray's (Billy or Bobby) was discussing the C-rig and his advice was to make the leader the length that you can move the bait in one drag. He was "dragging and pausing" long enough to reel up the slack (and of course catching fish on every cast) . He also suggested that the "lift and drop" worked best for baits like Flukes or Senkos, but draging and pausing was the preferred method for any type of creature bait.

Here in the Nebraska/Iowa area -- keeper size for Bass is 21" -- safe to say not many are "kept". The tournaments that I fish in are "paper tournaments" (catch the fish, measure it, record the length/point and release -- one "trophy" sized fish may be kept during a season) and we use 12" as the minimum length with an increase in points once you reach a 15"+ fish.

As for tournament fishing, I suppose it depends on the rules for that tournament. Most rules state that you can only have one rod/reel working at a time, so this would seem to be legal. I have never tried this but one of the guys in my club buys the pre-rigged worms and thows away the worm and uses the rigging to put a fluke on each hook. He buys the ones with the little propeller beads on it and has reported catching more than one fish at a time on this rig.

I don't mean to be argumentative -- I was just simply interested in where that information came from -- my experience has been a little bit different -- I spend almost every lunch "hour" on one lake or another and usually catch fish during that time, but my bigger ones have either come early morning or late evening (some times even after dark).

I have been hearing this for years, but have not found it to the case for me -- what is the source for this claim? Is it personal experience or has it come from some book or article?

There is a local guy here in this area that is making his version of the CB, only he is using a round blade instead of the "coffin shaped" one. One of the guys in our local club recently caught his limit using only one of these knock-offs. He is marketing them and selling them at the local Scheel's where he has an inside track with the management. Don't know if he has taken them to another level or not.

I stopped by the lake on the way to work this morning - the wind was already up to about 18-20 mph so I pretty much had it all to myself. I was working the shoreline where I have been catching a lot of bass lately, but also I have to contend with the BlueGills pestering my worm. I kept moving down trying to get away from the BG's and still have a decent shot at a bass. As I made my cast, I had a sense that this was the one and sure enough I got my bite and landed a keeper sized bass. This got me to thinking, I know that some fisherfolk have the attitude that each cast is going to be the one, but in reality most are not productive (check out the cast count on the Day On The Lake TV shows). There was nothing spectacular about that particular cast, but the feeling was just right and it paid off. How often are you relatively certain that this cast is going to pay off?

I have heard two schools of thought on missed strikes with frogs -- one says if the fish blows up on it and misses, just let it sit to see if he will come back -- the other school is that you want to jerk the frog erratic-like to simulate it trying to get away. I have tried both methods and can't say that either one works all the time, but both will work on occasion.