merc1997

i have always fished with the thought of fishing at the right depth, at the right speed to trigger a strike. with that said spinner baits have lots of variables in retrieve speed and blades. experimentation is a great teacher. different types of blades factor into the illusion of speed. different styles of blades also have different vibrations, just as crankbaits have a variety of wobbles. when i am night fishing after the spawn, and bass are roaming flat points, i will use a number 5 to a number 8 colorado blade. this is chosen because colorado blades put off much more vibration than willows do and will call bass into investigate your bait from a greater distance. bo

tom, i was glad that you included the fact that the water temps for spawning need to be at the depth the bass are spawning, not the surface temperature. every year in my area, people will swear the bass are spawning because the surface temperature is 65 degrees. they need to a bit of wading and swimming, and they might learn something!! great post!! i hope those that are wanting to learn will copy this post and keep it for future use. bo

most big bass are lost because of not being hooked properly and the hooks comes out. some, because the line gets broke, and that can be just the way it goes, or because of knot failure. if you are using heavy enough line, and your lure has hooked the bass properly, and by this i mean through the top of the head, not in soft tissue, you can put all the pressure you want to on a big bass. when dealing with lots of trees and brush, a big bass is going to "tree" you most of the time during the battle. many people lose that bass when this happens. here is why. they keep pulling the bas and snug it up to the limb, and when that happens, the bass can never free itself. unless your line is strong enough to break the limb or tree that bass is gone. the best way to deal with this situation is to not just keep pulling until you have the bass tight to the limb, but just maintain pressure. if the bass pulls down two feet, pull it back two feet. most of the time with this constant pressure the bass will eventually swim itself back out. i have landed several dd's at lake falcon, and have not lost any of them due to coming unhooked. i have had a few just fray the line into. when fishing for big bass use suitable equipment for the situation. bo

when cold water fishing is slow, a crappie jig and a road runner are hard to beat. bo

here is another tip for vertical jigging. use a gracia 5500c for a reel. the level wind is a line counter for you. a 5500c filled normally with 14lb. test line, when the level wind goes from one side of reel to the other is 7 feet of line. just count your trips, and you know exactly how deep you are. so lets say that you are marking fish at 50 ft. on the electronis, 7 trips of the level wind, and you are at 49 ft. you do not have to worry about being able to see your lure on the electronics. bo

spoons are a great fishing tool. they can be fished casting or by vertical jigging. when casting a spoon, one thing that is a must to learn is to leave a belly in you line as the spoon is falling. with complete slack you are not in contact to detect strikes, and too much tension, meaning a straight line from rod to water, and the spoon will not flutter back down, but will merily slide back with no action. flutter and jigging spoons may be used by casting or vertical jigging. a flutter spoon takes longer to get to depth because they flutter all the way down. you can keep some tension as it decends, and this will keep it from fluttering and will get to depth a bit faster. here is a tip on hooks. i use a number 2 and 4 4x treble hook. it is a heavy wire hook, and you will resolve the issue of lost fish with it. i have tried everything made, and the thinner hooks that is popular with everyone to use will loose you fish. once i went to the 4x treble i quit losing fish on spoons. as for my choice of rod, i use a m/h 7' jig rod. most of the time, i use 14lb. test florescent stren. i fish table rock lake most of the time, and if you think the florescent line is a detriment, just this afternoon in four hours of fishing, we caught over 50 bass, ten being over 15 inches, and three of those were over 4 lbs. we were using a jigging type spoon. the bass were caught 40 ft. deep over 65 ft of water. practice with and make a spoon catch more fish for you. as i have already stated, spoons are a great tool to have in the boat. bo

i have heard of the isssues with the wart hog. whether they have been fixed, i have not heard. true, there are times that the wide wobble of a wiggle wart can not be beat. but, many times when bass are wanting a wide wobble, the original bomber will catch as many or more bass. especially the old wood ones. on bull shoals, there are times that a deep wee r or a model a bomber will out produce the wiggle wart. too many bassers get stuck to using only one crankbait, and that can mean not catching as many bass as you could be. the wiggle of different brands of crankbaits vary from wide wobbles to a really tight wiggle such as a shad rap. do not be afraid to experiment by throwing different cranks to hone in on the right wiggle the bass are looking for. bo

for those of you that think they feel every bite, you need to do some research and study on the subject. about the only bait you can fish and know for absolute certain that you knew every bite on it, is a topwater. you can see that. bass, especially big ones, can take in your lure and blow it back out in a blink, and you will never know it. i have fished with several different people over the years, and the only time they caught bass was when every bite was that nice tick. on the days when every "bite" was an absolute nothing, they would never cath a bass while i was loading the boat, and i am sure that i was only getting a small percentage of those that were taking my lure. when you can watch a bass on a bed with an underwater camera and watch it take your partners lure and spit it back out, and your partner never even knew they had a bite, i will say that those of you that really think you feel every bite you catch, i am sure that you are making a correct statement. you just never catch those you are not feeling. bo

vinnie, if you put a rubber skirted jig back into your box with the skirt still wet, and leave it, most of the time, the skirt will melt. you need to let the skirt get completely dry before storing back into storage. bo

i have used various plastic trailers of one kind or another. my favorite jig trailers still remain to be ones of pork, not plastic. when targeting BIG bass, i still find it very hard to beat out pork. i know there will be lots of argument, but i have fished with lots of people either in my boat or theirs, and both of us throwing jigs. they will be using a plastic trailer of some kind, and i will be using pork, and i have not found plastic to catch more big bass than pork. plastic trailers do catch bass, but in my experience, pork will catch more numbers of big bass. bo

as far as jig skirts melting, you would be talking about a rubber skirt. putting a rubber skirt up wet is a sure way to have one melt. one way to help prevent rubber skirts from melting is to rub a bit of armorall on them. it actually enhances the color too. plus, it makes your skirt slicker resulting in getting a better hookset because is makes it harder for the bass to clamp down on it. bo

buying jigs with deer hair is almost non-existant. there are probably a few custom makers that you can buy hair jigs from. commercially it is very hard to find them in a store. first, they just are not fished with anymore even though they still catch bass, and especially big bass. the other reason they are not found is the labor cost of tying the hair on. bo

your lake should be similar to fish compared to table rock. at 48 degrees, those deep bass will bite. if you have kentuckies in the lake, they definitely will bite. one trick in using a spoon at this water temperature is to do nothing with the spoon. just let it hang, and once in while give it a little bumb. a gitzit haning in front of there face will also catch them, even better than a spoon will. i think you mentioned smallmouth. brownies love blade baits such as a sonar or silver buddie. just slowly lift and drop it down the contour. in table rock brownies can be caught shallower in the winter than lmg, and kentuckies. 48 degrees is a good temp to cath them on a crankbait if you want to target them. another method is swimming a grub. hope some of these tips will help. good luck. bo

one other reason that i have that bass will remain in a not too far distance from where they are released is the upper end of table rock never did have any small mouths around to speak of. over a period of several years we would catch brownies from the dam area and haul them and release them in the upper end. the upper end of table rock now has a small mouth population. at least enough that they show up on a regular basis. bo

nitro, the sad part about the upper end of table rock is that is has decent shad populations. the fish including crappie are just not there anymore. you can graph all day in the summer when you used to be able to see fish all over the place, and now it is very hard to see a hook anywhere. i will agree that bass will leave an area where they have nothing to eat. bo

nitro freak to answer a few of your observations, of course each lake or stream has a different set of circumstances. some sections of a lake can withstand the withdrawl of bass without replacement. this would be because those areas have great spawning years every year. in the case of the upper reaches of table rock, spawning success does not happen because of the continual release of cold water from beaver lake to keep trout alive that they stock in the white river below beaver dam. in the eagle rock area of table rock, and as far down as big m, the water during spawning season can fluctuate in one day from the low to mid 60's, and in a matter of hours be as cold as 50 degrees. if bass had laid eggs while it was warm enough, that 50 degree water hitting them kilss everyone. hence, the upper end of table rock can not sustain the continual taking of bass without them being returned. in the old days, bass catching was about equal over the entire lake. in fact the upper portions of table rock might have even been the best. once beaver lake was put in and they started stocking trout, the bass population has been on a continual decline on the upper end of table rock. the exceptional high water we had for a few years seemed to help spawn a little. it allowed bass to get far enough away from the cold water release to have some success at spawning. in any case, tournament anglers taking bass from the upper end of table rock continually and they are hauled 40 to 50 miles to be weighed in, and released right at the weigh-in site never make it back to the upper end. they are just gone for good. bo

steve, the upper reaches of table rock do not continue to thrive. you are not here fishing. if you were, you would realize too that the bass population contiues to go down each year. this past year was the absolute worst i have ever witnessed as far as fishing the upper end of table rock. i never caught one big bass all year from eagle rock, but yet i caught over 100 from the lower reaches of table rock. and anyone telling me that a bass is going to travel 40 to 50 miles to get back "home", phooey. in a river system, i will say there is a good chance bass would travel 5 miles or so to return home. actually bass in river systems travel several miles in the course of a year depending on if they have to migrate up and down the system with food. otherwise, bass are content to stay put. i do also know that bass will travel as much as a couple of miles in the course of the night to move from the home sanctuary to their feeding flats. but, in conclusion, bass that are moved as far as 50 miles from where they are caught just take up camp somewhere close where they find food.bo

here is just a view point from me about lakes that have tournaments from the same location all the time. i really think it hurts the bass population in other areas of the lake. bass are taken from all over the lake, but released in the general area of take off. the most used area for tournaments here on table rock is the kimberling city area. lots of bass are taken from the upper reaches of the lake, but are not returned there. these areas struggle to have thriving bass populations,because bass are taken but never returned. my opinion about where the bass go, is that they just find suitable areas near where they are released. many do not go far. areas where tournament bass are released are great places to fish. we call them recycle bass. bo

road warrior, i will agree that color can tweak the catching sometimes, but my point is that too many fisherman put too much of their efforts into the right color instead of right depth and right speed.bo

marketing sells more colors than anything. if a bass can not find a brown crawdad, it just might starve to death. same goes for shad colors. basic crawdad colors, and basic shad colors will catch bass. crankbaits are a great example of what i am talking about. i would much rather have a crankbait with the right wiggle pattern the bass are looking for on particular day, than to have the "right color". example would be a wiggle wart over a shad rap. the wiggle wart has a wide wobble, and the shad rap has a very tight wiggle. i do not care which bait had the "right color", the bait that had the right wiggle is going to catch most of the fish. depth and speed catch more fish than the "right color". and to the depth and speed i will add a horizontal presentation or a vertical presentation. bo

maybe we have different water here in the ozarks, but we find lots of plastic hanging in trees that have been in the water a looong time, and they are pretty much the original size, but the color is long gone from them. if plastic, which is petroleum base, can swell as much as some are claiming, how is it that we have plastic everything and none it swells three times its size?? just my observations. bo

tom sometimes the bite at night can be where you get that nice tick everytime, but that is not often. most of my big bass at night are nothing bites. a lot of them, just the pressure of the line, as the jig is falling or swinging will change. that is why i say that most people never even know that just happened to them. especially when anyone is holding the rod behind the reel or even palming to some extent. holding the rod in front of the reel with the line under the thumb or between thumb and index finger like you do, gives anyone much better feel. also, when holding the rood in front of the reel, you have the weight of the reel behind you hand to help provide speed and leverage in setting the hook. bo

i am going to disagree about the water bit. could be a small amount, but would not amoun to even an 1/6 of an inch. big soft plastics are probably the next best thing to a jig for catching big bass. a friend of mine used to live in georgia and fished a lot of different waters there, including slow moving rivers. he used lots of 12 to 13 inch worms for catching big bass. we use them every summer here on table rock lake. i fish big worms often behind a bare jighead instead of texas rigging them. sounds to me like you have stumbled onto what you need to be throwing at times to target the big bass in your lake. bo

i just remember the nzme of the gentleman that did the film of the bass taking the crankbait in, glen lau. i would also guess that glen has viewed more big bass up close and personal than the rest of us. bo

i will agree that equipment is better now than it used to be. BUT, those that hold the rod behind the reel, or even palm the reel, do not feel the really subtle bites that you can when you are touching the line. second, if you really think you feel all of your bites, you need to take a look back at the film footage that done of big bass inhaling and spitting our a big crankbait, and the guy behind the rod never knew anything had happened. i two have watched bass on a bed with an underwater camera and could see the bass take in my partners lure, and he never knew anything had happened, and the bass had spit out his lure. these are nlmb that i have observed. now everytime that i hollered jerk when the bass took the lure in, my buddy caught everyone. so, i will agree with tom that really big bass, most of the time, the bite is really subtle and sometimes not detectable. i have also caught many flmb, especially at lake falcon. when you can feel a bite, it is a little one. the ones that you just do not feel much of nothing, they are almost always a very big bass. i think that i catch my share of pretty big bass, but i will also be the first one to tell you that it would absolutely scare me to death at how many big ones had my jig in their mouth, and i never knew it.bo