Randall

Avid, KVD uses the snaps because the bait will have more action with the snap than when just tied to the line. I sometimes fish a number five shad rap on twenty pound line over heavy grass. If I tie directly to the bait with 20 lb line the crankbait will not even wiggle at a medium retrieve speed but if I put a snap on the line it will still have close to its original action. KVD uses the Berkley because it won't come open like the Norman. I used the Norman's for years with no problems then one day I had two big fish jump and the snap came open twice with two different snaps so I havent used them since. I now use the Berkley snap in a number three (75lb test) since KVD suggested it to me a few years back while talking about crankbaits In BPS.

If he hasnt changed brands he uses Berkley Crosslock Snaps.

You might find this article useful. http://heartlandtackleservice.com/spooning.stm

The brand of spoon matters the least as long as you have the right weight. What more important is finding the right group of fish that is feeding. When you find the right fish they will hit any brand so I use the CC spoon most of the time you can get two or three for the price of one. Think of it as fishing for fish schooling on top but it is happening under the water. They could care less what brand you have in most cases since you are fishing for feeding fish. Most important thing is finding active fish feeding on bait and being able to determine which fish to fish for and which ones to leave alone by looking at your depth finder. I do more riding around looking for the right fish when spooning than actual fishing.

I think there were twenty teams invited. I think one team didnt make it because they broke an axle or something on the boat trailer.

At least he had his hat on this time and didnt burn the top of his head. ;D

Doghouse and myself placed fifth at the JBAIT State Championship which is a tounament for the best small lake anglers in GA. We fished hard all day but in the end came up a little short losing one big fish that would have put us close to first that pulled away from me taking drag the whole way before the hooks pulled out on a rattle trap. We still placed fifth which isn't bad considering the tough competition we faced. We ended up with a little over 10 pounds on a tough day with post frontal conditions and Doghouse landed the nice 4.65 lb fish in the photo on a trap. Winners had eighteen pounds plus and second had 16 pounds plus. Second place team had a big 9.94 Hawg and also took home big fish. Most teams that did well were fishing a mix of soft plastics and rattle traps on shallow flats and thats what we did as well.

I have caught fish swimming it over underwater grass and on the surface. Has less tail action and takes a little more speed or weight to get the tail going than the big dead ringer. Tail is also smaller than the big dead ringer tail. My favorite swimming worm is made by taking a zoom speed worm and welding a fat albert grub tail on it with a candle. It will swim well at slow speeds without too much action and holds up better and is a little smaller in size than a Yamamoto big grub. I like the G-tail body so I am going to try the grub tail on the G-tail body next time I get a chance.

I may have landed a bunch of big fish (6-11 lbs) on DT-10 and 16s and have never had a lip pull out. Part of the reason the bait is so good is that it has a thin lip. Also, I throw these baits a lot and have never broken a lip. I am sure they will break if they hit a rock, dock, etc. on the cast.

I have known for a while that fish in cooler water will almost always get a moving lure deeper in the mouth while during summer I will hook a higher precentage outside the mouth or on the lips. The sight thing might have something to do with it.

After reading this post a few times to make sure I understood it before I replied I will say the rankings have very little to do with a bait catching fish. The enviroment of a fish has way too many varibles that allow some baits to work and others not to work on any given day and set of conditions. You can't take just the level of sound, vibration, etc to even get a good starting point. The best way to figure out how to catch fish has always been the same. Spend time on the water suceeding and failing with different lures under as many different conditions as you can so that when you encounter near the same conditions again you will have a better idea of where to start depending on your strengths and experiences.

I will agree also. Number one is location. Number two is throwing the right lure for the situation in the right location. In a lake in California stocked with trout a swimbait may be the best lure for the situation and location but go to another lake and there may be a better bait for the situation. Thinking that one bait is the best big bass lure for all situations and locations will not catch as many big fish as finding the location of the big fish then fishing the best lure for the job depending on the circumstances.

No doubt about it in my mind that the intergrades (F-1 hybrid) has different feeding habits and is more affected by fronts. Unless transplanted and isolated from any northern genes I dont think there are any pure Florida bass except in South Florida. I once fished a pond that had what was susposed to be pure Florida bass that had been brought to Georgia and I found them to be extemely difficult to catch after a front. I fish a bunch of different lakes. Some have only northern strain and others have the intergrade. In tough conditions the northern strain lakes have more catchable fish than the lakes with the F-1. Northern strain bass also have a larger strike zone and will move a longer distance to hit a bait than the F-1. Of course all of this is just based on my personal experience and observation. I have no idea what the scientific reason is and have never found anyone who could really tell me.

I dont fish the lake right after it fertilized any more. It gets tough to impossible for a while. If I had to though I would go find fresh water coming in the lake and fish there. I have seen it cause fish kills twice on the lakes I fish. Some of the toughest conditions I have seen were right after a lake was fertilized.

Just to add I have heard from reputable sources its not uncommon in lakes that have a shortage of females for some males to start developing female charateristics. It may not be caused by pollution at all.

Here on the smaller lakes I fish in GA I am already seeing a movement start shallower by shad and bass since the water temps are down from the high eighties and lower ninties and some of the lakes have a shallow themocline. Night temps in the sixties have started this movement. I dont call it fall but more of a late summer early fall movement. I dont think there is a temp you can go by in fall like you do in Spring that applies to all lakes. All the lakes are different that I fish since on a couple of lakes that I fish the fish stay shallow all summer and on a couple most of the fish stay deep through fall and dont move very shallow. You may want to reask the question about a specific lake since fall and the turnover period are different on different lakes and in different parts of the country.

As a guide I can tell you that at least 95% of my clients want me to fish and if I stop they usually ask me to keep fishing. They are also the ones who usually have the best results on the trip. I always tell a client to comunicate with me about what they are thinking on the trip and I will do the same with them. As for the others who state right off the bat that they do not want me to fish at all sometimes they have a good trip but sometimes they dont. Why? Because they miss the little details that make a difference between catching the fish in a location where there are fish and just casting to the fish I have put them on and not catching them. I just like George would probably no longer be guiding if I left everything in the hands of my clients. I personally don't do but one or two live bait trips a year so I cant tell you how a guide should do with live bait but with artificials in most cases you will be better off if the guide fishes some and you don't tie his hands behind his back. Now that dont mean the guide should catch all the fish in one small area after he figures out how to catch the first one or two. But if my client goes for a while without catching fish you can bet he is much better off with me figuring out what the problem is and catching one so that he can catch more. Fishing changes from day to day, hour by hour, and minute by minute and usually the guide (if he is a good one) knows best what things to try on his lake to adjust and can do it faster than the above average angler and get the client back to catching and not just casting at fish. I look at my job as a guide is to help the client catch fish not just taking him to where they are. If a client upfront tells me something like I read in Avids post I would most likely politely suggest they find another guide as well because my experience is that in most cases I can do a much better job as a guide with another client on that day or take the day to find more fish for the next days client if I don't book that day. I just like to be able to do my best at what I do without my hands tied behind my back. Now to the original question. Some guides are good teachers and others are not. There is a difference between just guiding and teaching. Good guides can do both and make the trip fit your needs as a angler but from my experience those are the hardest ones to find. I would probably also try to find a local club that has a bunch of guys that are willing to share info and techniques with others or a fishing buddy that knows more about fishing than you do now. With the price of gas seems there should be plenty of guys looking to share the price of gas on their boat for a trip.

In most cases bowl shaped pond with little cover off shore and hot weather with little rain = Big fish suspended over the deepest water in the pond. Thats why the carolina rig and jig won't work. Most small ponds have a thermocline in summer that forces most fish shallow unless they are getting a lot of rain. The bigger fish from my experience will only come near the banks to feed and the rest of the time suspend shallow in the middle of the pond. Also most feeding will be done at night . This make them tough to catch. Most of my bigger sumertime pond fish have been caught on topwaters that I can throw a mile out to where they are suspended.

What Fluke said. ;D

Let me answer this question this way. I catch plenty of 24 inch fish on five inch senkos and plenty of 12 inch fish on five inch senkos. Its a good size if you want to catch both in most lakes and ponds.

I agree a bass is a bass everywhere but also bass break the rules everywhere as well so use temps as only a guideline of what they should be doing. My general rule of thumb in clear water I wont run over any fish shallower than twenty feet deep that I want to catch.

My general rule of thumb is if no wind is blowing and the surface is slick I throw a real quiet lure first. If there is a hard wind blowing I throw a loud lure. When I talk about loud and quiet I am more worried about the splash a lure makes rather than the noise it makes working in the water. I have seen bass in clear calm water run from a lure splashing down. At times a Senko is a loud lure to me because it makes a pretty loud splash in real calm water. Instead of the Senko I will usually throw a trickworm with a 1/32 oz weight since it has less splash. I agree with George also in the fact that fish dont always follow the rules.

Take a watermelon zoom vibra craw and rig it weightless on a hook and fish it like a horny toad. Works for me almost everytime.

I fish jigs on deep weedlines by using a combination of feel and my depthfinder. I have found that most people dont have the feel I do to stay on the edge when fishing with others who have never fished this way. The feel just comes from experience. I use braid or fluro and a jig heavy enough to tell if I am in the weeds or not. I make a pitch just a short distance from the boat and lift and shake the jig feeling for weeds and a bite at the same time. I can usually tell when I am on the edge by feel and move my boat in and out as I move down the weedline adjusting to stay on the edge keeping the boat a short distance (10-15 feet) from the edge. I dont leave my jig in one spot very long but lift and shake it a time or two and then make another pitch. I use it as a search bait looking for fish that will bite. I only slow down or stop when I catch a fish. The easy place to learn to do this is on the edge of a well defined channel since the grass will often grow to the edge of the channel but not in the channel allowing you to have a better feel of where the grass ends and you can tell by looking at your depth finder if you are over the channel or not. Another way to learn this and get more strikes while learning than with a jig is to fish a four inch senko on a Spot Stalker head. I think the website is www.bassstalker.com. You will get more strikes in most cases but its the same technique.

Fish that are stacked vertical on top of each other are usually crappie in most lakes I fish. The lines you are seeing are most likely fish that are going down toward the bottom as you ride over but no way of knowing for sure. Bubbles from decomposing matter on the bottom will make a streak on the screen running from top to bottom sometimes as well. Keep in mind that most fish dont appear as arches but as dots, dashes and lines.