Raul

I do it everytime I 'm in the boat when I 'm moving from one spot to another when both are far away, it 's a very effective way to locate the fish, when done right it can be very productive. It 's not the easiest way to catch them, it 's a fishing technique and it has as much art and science just like any other, you have to select the right lure, troll it at the right speed, at the right distance from the boat and through the right spots, just exactly what you do when you cast.

Understand one thing, air and water are completely different things, air heats and cools faster than water, exactly 835 times faster, you can feel that but water being 835 times denser doesn 't cools, a drop in 10 degrees in the air temperature has little effect in the water temperature so fish will be behaving pretty much the same way unless there 's a another climathological event that changes their behaviour. So Nwgabassmaster nailed it on the head, water is behaving like a heat trap, where I don 't agree on his comment is here: Give it til the middle of September, and the fall bite should be going strong., I agree on the part.- "Give it til the middle of September," where I don 't agree is that ( correct me if I 'm wrong Nwgabassmaster ) he is assuming that the fall bite is produced by a drop in water temperature, which in not quite true, it 's the dimishing light levels the ones that trigger the "fall" bite.

It 's the climathological events that follow pressure what affect the behaviour of the fish the most and not the barometric pressure per se. Low pressure systems cause cloudy skies, drop in air temperature and rain. More clouds means diminished light penetration, predatory fish like bass instead of being hidden in the shade cruise because their presence is concealed by the diminished light penetration, they no longer need to hide, rains pour food into the food chain in the form of vegetable matter and terrestrial insects washed from the terrain surrounding the lake, obviously this triggers baitfish, baitfish will be more active feeding and where baitfish are -----> bass will be. High pressure systems are followed by clear skies, no rain and increased light penetration, predatory fish will no longer be able to conceal their presence therefore they will bury in cover or go deep.

Yup, roboworms are a good and reliable way to catch you a limit really fast when you 're in a tourney, a friend of mine learned it the hard way. On one of those rare ocassions I have the chance to fish away from my two hour drive radius I made a tip to Cajón de Peñas near Puerto Vallarta, not being a tourney fisherman I 'm not aware where tourneys are talking place, to my surprise when I arrived to the lake there were a big bunch of boats churning the water :-/, dang ! a tournament >, instead of fishing the way I normally fish that lake I tied roboworms, reapers and grubs, by mid day the boat traffic and fishing pressure was so intense that they were refusing to bite anything but the smaller offerings fished in cover ( parota trees ) by noon as we banked the boat ( during the weight-in ) I spotted a good friend of mine; approached him and asked how he did, he showed me a stringer of 5 fish the biggest one about 3 pounds, really sad because 2-4 pounders were what we were catching not by the truckloads but with enough consistency to make it fun, I asked him what was he fishing with, the answer was no surprise, 8 inch worms, deep divers, big jigs, the usual stuff you tie for that lake, then he asked me how many fish I caught, I told him that we didn 't count them but the count was somehwere around 40 good ones between me and my partner, his eyes popped out "hey ! with what were you catching them ?" oh, with roboworms n 'reapers, n '4 inch grubs, "with robo what ?" ???, with roboworms "never heard about them" Oh well, being a tackle junki you always find something in what to spend your money : as I handed him a pack of them. "and how you fish these things ?" with a split shot as a sinker, pretty much like a C-rig "got more of them ?" Shure, I have plenty, I can share a couple of packs with you. The next couple of days he finished in the top five fishing exclusively with them, he didn 't catch any biguns but he finished in the money.

Finesse Huskertko means that instead of nuking them with big baits you 're going to use "conventional" warfare, smaller sized offerings and that 's all, it really doesn 't mean that you should tie them to 2 pound test either, it 's just that you 're using smaller offerings, for ex: you were nuking them with 6-8 inch worms and today they are not in the mood to hit them, time to take out and tie your 4 inch worms ( "conventional" warfare ) or 4 inch grubs.

JT Bagwell said that they are the same Shadmaster.

Whassup Papadew ! enjoying your Scorpion ? . Ok here 's my take, cranks didn 't work, worms did in brush, that means that being the water murky fish will be holding in cover, add that to warm water and fish are not in the mood to chase your offerings except for slow moving baits, in my bag of dirty & nasty tricks and bad luck ( for them ) charms to make them basses to bite I use rattling jigs in black, black&green, black&red ( for some particular reason they don 't hit black&blue baits ??? down here ) with a frog plastic trailer in black, green shad or red shad, frog trailers have C shaped legs creating lotz of vibration when you work your jig plus the clacking sound of the rattle will bring their attention; also I tie 4-6 inch worms with C shape tail in black, red or purple with metal flake T rigged with a 1/2 oz pegged sinker; also another bait that woik fer me is a black or black & red spinnerbait with a big as a hub cap single cupped colorado blade retrieving it at steady slow pace trough the brush, topwaters in the case you are describing ( murky water ) are limited to a black jitterbug with a "doctored" lip retrieved at slow pace above the submerged brush, just enough to make it gurgle. The reason why I don 't recommend poppers, buzzbaits, walk the dog or prop baits in murky water even if it 's full moon is because buzzbaits are not like spinnerbaits, in order to keep them in the surface you have to reel them faster than spinnerbaits and the fact that they didn 't hit cranks tells you that they are not in the mood to chase; poppers, porp baits and walk the dog baits don 't work well because fish can 't see them if the water is murky.

Predatory fish not only locate fish by the sound, sound has a problem, sound disperses trhough the water without a distinctive pattern, but add sound to vibration and you have another reference point for fish to locate the bait, that 's the reason why rattling lipless crankbaits work. Which do you think is more important, sound or vibration ? vibration is more important, vibration has a spacial quality that sound doesn 't have, it has an hydrodynamic signature, in fishing terms this means that even if your bait ( crank or spinnerbaits ) has no rattles as long as it emits a strong vibration the fish will be able to locate it even in the darkest night. Also, predatory fish posseses something we don 't, fish eyes posses TAPETUM LUCIDUM, it 's a light refracting coating behind the retina that enhances light, so fish can see like we do with night vision systems, fish can see in the darkest nights like lions, tigers and wolf do, that 's the reson why you need a larger profile in your baits and dark colors so they can stand out against the background. It 's why I don 't recomend prop baits and chuggers at night during the new moon, they lack of cadende and continuos motion, their hydrodinamic signature is lost afte you pop or rip the bait but during the full moon fish can see them, the hydrodynamic signature is not THAT important.

Mudpuppy nailed it, what is your partner doing you 're not ?, sometimes it 's a simple as the retrieval speed, sometimes is the retrieval technique what 's wrong. Check out what your partner is doing, the answer is there.

Dark as wolf 's den ( new moon ) do need some noisy stuff or things that create a large visble siloutte or vibration, rattling baits like rattling crankbaits, jitterbugs, spinnerbaits, rattling jigs in black, worms with C tail are what I choose. Full moon is more forgiving but the baits are pretty much the same but you can add propbaits to your arsenal.

In Central Mexico, 600 miles SW from Laredo, Texas. 2 hour flight from Dallas/FW or Houston. The city is called León de los Aldamas. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&searchtype=address&country=MX&addtohistory=&city=Leon+de+los+Aldamas

You are not going to believe it.........never been to "El Salto" , well don 't need to, BIGUNS are not uncommon in my neck of the woods.

Nick you said: I've always heard that a meanmouth was a spot and smallie hybrid; now , you heard it from who ?, from someone who told you ? who heard it from someone who also heard it ? or from a reputable scientific source ? I 'm I calling you a liar ?, certainly not. Let me tell you what I know, and you can trust me on this one because I don 't lie, nor do I need to lie to anybody beacuse that 's not my style, what I know comes from scientific reports that I read while I was working at Secretaría de Pesca ( Mexico 's equivalent to the FWD ) in all of those reports the cross between a LMB and a SMB is called "meanmouth", the fact that there are no reports on hybridization between M.dolomieu ( SMB ) and M.punctalatus points to what I explained before, it 's not as easy as it seems to cross two species. There are 8 species in the genera Micropterus that means that theoritically you could have 56 crosses and the only successful crossing that I know with the name Meanmouth is M.salmoides X M.dolomieu. Here 's an extract from a report from Purdue University Bassjunky: Yes the meanmouth is a cross between a largemouth and a smallmouth. Folks in the midwest are incorrect when they call smallmouth/spotted hybrids meanmouth.

The additional blade is attatched with a small piece of metal, not sure of the politically correct name though Clevis is the name.

I don 't have the slightest idea how a spot/lmb or spot/smb hybrid is called Nwgabassmaster. Has it been done ? I 'm pretty shure it has been tried Nwgabassmaster, both species belong to the same genera ( Micropterus ), they are supposed to be closely related but as I said, therotically it can be done, but one thing is theory and another one is the practice, hybrydizing is not just crossing two species, there 's a lot of fine print at the end of the contract, most probably the reason why we don 't know about spot/lmb or spot/SMB hybrids is because the cross doesn 't work well, eggs don 't hatch, embrios don 't develop, fry die or are deformed and don 't survive or because the hybrids don 't perform as theoritically they should, I 'm pretty shure that 's the reason. Nature has it 's ways to deter hybridization, let 's take an example, why spotted bass aren 't as widespread as their cousins the LMB and the SMB ? because they evolved in a very particular environment and we are talking about the third most important bass species, not to mention other species like Suwanee bass or Guadalupe bass, those can only be found in even smaller geographical areas, to add more, if it weren 't by the Texas fiheries department Guadalupe bass by now would most probably be extinct, they are the ones that are keeping the species alive, after all it 's their "national" fish ( I say "national" because Texas is Texas, it 's part of the US but not quite you know, they even have their own language, Texan ask any Texan and they are Texan first, American later ).

What I like about the full moon and a clear ski at night: Well, I can see where I 'm casting and see where my bait lands instead of trying to imagine it. ;D Being said that, don 't pay attention to the Solunar tables, be more aware on how the weather is and how it 's going to be in the next couple of days.

Meanmouths are a hybrid of 50% smallmouth and 50% largemouth, it really doesn 't matter if the father is a smallmouth and the mother a largemouth or viceversa, it 's the percentage what counts. Those hybrids do occur naturally ( not that often ) where two closely related species inhabit the same waters and the offspring carry with them physical and physiological characteristics of both parents, as you can see in Nwgabassmaster 's pic, the fish doesn 't look like a largemouth, it doesn 't have well defined lateral line markings, doesn 't look like a smallmouth either, it doesn 't have well defined vertical lines, if you look closely at the color pattern it 's not brown nor green, it 's somwhere in between, there are no distinctive markings. Opposed to other hybrids meanmouths are fertile, they can either cross with LMB or SMB. The idea of creating a hybrid in theory was to give the hybrids something pure species lack of: adaptability to environments different than those where the pure species originated, with added features, for example: a cross between a florida strain LMB with a smallmouth would produce ( in theory ) a fish capabable of growing bigger than the smallmouth, with all the strength of it and it 's ability to live in very cold water ( something that Florida strain LMB can 't do ), but things aren 't always that simple, many times hybrids don 't adapt well and if they do when you place them where both species live or where one is predominant they breed to them reducing the Hybridization Percentage, after a couple of generations the genetic traits you wanted in the hybrid dissapear. Some hybrids I 've seen are: LMB X SMB Northern pike X Muskie Wallaye X sauger Stripped X white ( sand ): this one is probably the most succesful of them all, besides, it 's blessing for fisheries biologist because it 's a sterile hybrid. Now on the subject of how to differentiate a LMB between a Spotted, well the tooth patch on the tongue is not the way to do it, around 30% of LMBs have that patch, color markings are also not the way to differentiate them, those depend a lot on water clarity and color. What differentiates them is the mouth, the general appearance and the depth they prefer. Draw an imaginary line perpendicular to the eye, if the jaw joint crosses that line and extends to the back then it 's a LMB, if the jaw joint is on that line and the fish has a large tooth patch on the tongue then you are 90% shure it 's a spotted. Spotted are shorter and beeefier than LMBs, add that to the jaw joint and the tooth patch and you 're 95% shure it 's a spotted. If you pulled that fish from the depths plus the above then you can bet it 's a spotted.

Lipless crankbaits and spinnerbaits are an excellent search bait AT ANY DEPTH since they sink at a predictable rate of 1 ft/sec/every half ounce you can fish them at any depth, it 's just a matter of counting ant what depth you want the bait, you cover the water fast, I don 't like the senko idea, you don 't swim a senko, I would use the senko only after I have located the fish and the depth at which they are holding, but you can swim a jig n 'trailer.

For all you guys who would like to fish El Salto, just to let you know........Bacurato is a much, much better lake than "El Salto", Bacurato holds the latinoamerican record ( over 19 pounds ), fish over 20 pounds have been sighted in Bacurato by divers and locals, Bacurato has better accomodations than "El Salto", you don 't get mugged in Bacurato. And this is what you can find in Bacurato: This is what was landed at the begining of the year: 18.11 lbs Who wants to fish "El Salto" now ?

No need to go somewhere else, everything you need to know is right here at the "Fishing Articles" section and if there 's something you didn 't understand you can ask in the forums.

In the US ? oh well, Castaic, just because I now that WR LMB is waiting there for me to catch it and also because there haven 't been any news about a 20 pounder being landed in Bacurato.

With the rubber tubbing or a rubber band you don 't have the trailer hook running up and down along the other hook Boo.

Yeah they wiggle very life like, even the slightest movement causes them to move like a table dancer on steroids, the only bad thing about those super soft baits is that they tear up quite esily, it 's a give-take situation, you loose durability but gain action.

Don 't jump on purchasing attractants, salted baits n 'stuff just "because", everything works, everything will help you to catch fish but in order to do that everything should be in the right proportion, the elements: bait-location-presentation have to be in the correct blend, if one of the elements is not correct the event ( catching fish ) will not happen, luck has little to do with it. Bass have senses just like us, they can smell, hear, taste, touch just like we do and depending upon the conditions some senses become more important than others, for example, in murky water bass can 't see it 's prey well, but bass not only have eyes, bass can hear it, feel it , smell it, and once mouthed, taste it. Smearing stuff ( "attractants" ) on your baits or purchasing stinky baits is just a small part of a whole, you can pour a gallon of attractant on a bait but if you 're not fishing it right ( presentation ) in the right place ( location ) you 're not going to catch 'em.

Salt serves two porposes, add weight to the bait and when the fish bite the bait it causes the fish to hold the bait in the mouth a little bit longer, salt doesn 't attract fish, fish are attracted to the bait by it 's action.