Raul

Well Taylor, we don 't have shad in Mexico that 's the reason why I said that baitfish don 't follow baits, if you see here tiny fish following your bait 99.99% certainty that those are baby bass, which is not uncommon, on the contrary, preciselly during March-May you can see huge schools of tiny bass ( about 1-1 1/2" ) following your offerings.

In Mexico if you fish from the bank you don 't need a permit, if you fish from a boat the permit costs around 30 dollars per year but it 's a federal permit, you can fish anywhere inside the mexican territory and it 's waters. If you 're bringing your boat you need to do all the temporary import paperwork at the custom offices at the border and register the boat in the nearest "capitanía de puerto" , the cost of registration is about 40 dollars, but actually you don 't need to do that, why bring your boat if the camps at the lakes have bass boats for rent ? Mexico 's big bass lakes can be divided in two, west and east coast. East Coast.- there are two states with big bass lakes, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Tamaulipas.- Lake Guerrero is the crown jewel of tamaulipecan waters located near Cd. Victoria, huge lake with lots of cover, i know that lake very well and have caught lots of fish in it, there are several camps, the ones I could recommend are Big Bass Exclusive ( I have stayed there a couple of times ) and even though I 've never been to it I have heard very good comments is "El Sargento". Nuevo Leon.- The hottest new big bass lake is in Nuevo Leon, the lake is called "El Cuchillo" located very near Monterrey about 2 hour drive from MacAllen or Laredo, if you need information about lodging I can investigate with a buddy that practically lives there. West Coast.- yes, the famous super big bass lakes are in the west coast, in the state of Sinaloa ( our mexican version of Kaliforny ). Sinaloa.- The famous "El Salto", don 't have much information of it, but for something special "Lake Bacurato" ( Bacarac ) is the place to be, about a couple of months ago a guy caught a 18.3 pounder in it. If I were to go there Lake Baccarac Lodge is the camp of choice. When to go: big fish can be caught in any of those lakes year round, however the best time is between late February-late April when the big mommas are spawning. Baits: your usual baits in large size work, spinnerbaits, 8 inch worms, lizards, jigs all of them catch fish, forget swimbaits, they work everywhere but since the cover of mexican lakes is formed by tought mesquite brush they are going to hang up faster than you can imagine.

Bass inhale the bait by opening the mouth and flaring the gill covers, like GD said, it creates a vacuum effect. Bass can inhale a bait and spit it faster than you can imagine and if you 're not looking at your line you will never notice you had a strike.

Those ain 't no baitfish, baitfish do not follow lures, those are baby bass !!! time to take out your baby bass patterned crankbaits and give them a bath.

But no matter for what you use your spinning gear you still need to cast your offerings accurately so the only way is by practicing with both. If you have enough room in your backyard get a 5 gal bucket and practice casting into it, 10 min a day do wonders.

If you 're looking to pour to save money you 're in the wrong path if you don 't pour a lot, it 's not going to save you anything, cheaper resin molds run for 10 bucks a piece, one side aluminum molds run from $30-50, and two sided ones run from $80-120, add plastic, softener, dyes, flakes and you are going to end with a pretty hefty investment. If you 're planning on pouring as a hobby then as a hobby any investment you do is worth it. If you want custom baits what you can do is to have them poured for you instead, that 's what I do, last time I ordered 300 jig trailers in 10 custom colors from a friend who pours for sale, I ended up paying 120 dollars for the job, I got what I wanted in outstanding quality and nobody else has it.

I 've said it before and I 'll say it again, HEAVEN is on THIS side of the border, I have the AC running since Feburary. ;D

Good point Hookem. Bassin you need to do both tight line and line observation, also, being the second time you haven 't developed the "feel" yet and it 's not your fault all you need is time to develop it. Normally most fishermen develop a certain mechanical pattern for certain baits, we get used to fish soft plastic baits pretty much in the same way and we apply that principle to all of them; we all are used to make a cast, let it fall to the bottom, when it settles on the bottom we jerk the rod and lift the bait with our rod tip in the upright position until we feel the bait touching the bottom again, we lower the rod tip, reel in the slack and we start all over again so we get used to that pattern and to the familiar thumping of the bait ( weight ) hitting the bottom, the same thing happens when a fish strikes the bait, we are used to feel that familiar thump-thump when we have a strike. With soft plastic jerkbaits the situation changes, what you are used to no longer the same principle can be applied. Why ? because bass have a tendency to hit the bait in the fall, as it is falling is when the bait develops it 's sideways fluttering motion and that 's what triggers the strike. What to do ? make your cast, lock your reel and let it fall to the bottom, the way you will know the bait is on the botton is because your line goes slack, unless you 're fishing one of those monster senkos you won 't feel the bait settling on the bottom ( opposed to what happens with a weighted rig, you no longer feel that familiar thump ), reel in the slack, lift your rod tip and then as the bait is falling lower your rod tip at the same speed the bait is sinking without retrieving line, that will keep enough tension on the line, as you lower your rod tip you will notice something very peculiar, the bait is sinking AWAY from you ( cool feature ain 't it ? ) dragging the line, you can SEE it and FEEL it until it settles on the bottom again, the same thing will happen, you won 't feel the bait as it hits the bottom, reel any slack and you 're ready again. Now here comes the tricky part, when you know you have a strike ? you are waiting for that familiar thump-thump that tells you the fish has the bait but with these baits by the time the you feel it the fish has already swallowed the bait and you end up with a gut hooked fish. With soft plastic stick baits you have a strike when the bait does it 's "vanishing" act as it is sinking away from you, I call it the vanishing act because you no longer feel the drag of the line, the sensation is hard to explain with words, it feels like the bait has dissapeared from the end of the line, also your line goes slightly slack and you can see it whenever you get that sensation or see you line going slighty slack SET THE HOOK. I hope that the explanation works.

Squid I think that you need something that sits on their face long enough to cause the strike, something like a tube, a jig or a suspending jerkbait like the X-Rap or a Pointer barely twitching it every now and then so it doesn 't move too far from the nesting area.

If you can 't release the hook easily and fast cut the line and let the fish go, all that pulling and tugging caused a lot more damage than leaving the hook there in first place, the gills are highly vascularized and if you tugg, pull and twist all you are doing is giving the fish a free ticket to bass heaven. Also, something is wrong with your fishing technique or your gear, you are giving the fish too much time, that 's why it swallows the hook, it could be caused by several factors: your reaction time is slow, you 're fishing against the wind, your line is slack, your fishing rod lacks of enough sensitivity.

The drop in air temperature, unless the lake is very shallow, doesn 't affect the water temperature, water is 10,000 times denser than air and it takes several days of sustained cold air temperature to drop the water temperature in a couple of degrees and the fish are not going to leave the nest. It 's the increase in light penetration after a cold front what affects the bite.

In the last two years I 've done it three times RW, two to Dallas and one to Houston, really, I had to be there and stay overnight so if I was already there, why not ? it 's incredible how fast you can whack a grand in such a short period of time , it only took me about two hours..... :-/, the great thing about BPS Grapevine ( Dallas ) is that you don 't have to spend in a cab, you just call the store and they send a shuttle to pick you up, now that 's what I call customer service ! ;D Thanks Mudpuppy, next time I have to go I 'll give you a holler. Normally I go with a friend that lives in Mesquite but he 's not always there.

Thanks ! but then I would have to fly or drive to Mexico City and then take a flight to Phoenix, Houston or Dallas are direct flight from Leon.

20 min drive to the airport, 2 hour flight to Dallas or Houston, 15 min drive from the airport to the store.

Well that has a reason Skeeter, the first tubes that appeared in the market were the Fat Gitzit back in the late 80's ( geez, I sound like my dad and grandad, I 'm getting old ! ), the only problem with tubes is that you can 't cast an exposed hook into there, it 's going to hang up faster than you can imagine, T rigging could be a good option but it 's going to kill a lot of the action of the bait, besides the lake has a lot of bluegills and by the time you finish retieving your tube is going to come out as bald as Telly Savalas. RW man too bad I quited smoking, then we could have a smoke while we wait for that senko to drop to the bottom, I even gave up my cuban cigars that I smoked while fishing.

Excellent reply Skeeter, as you said it depends on the temperature of the water, during the cold months fish will be on the side the sun is shinning preferably on rocky areas, rock traps heat. During the warm months fish will be on the shade, they don 't need the warmth of the sun to heat them.

Buddy you just hammered it on the head. Senkos work very well but the bank is so steep that it takes a looooooong time before they hit the bottom, you can cast, light a cigarrette, smoke it and by the time you have finished it your bait will be on the bottom, jigs are the most appropiate bait for the place and yes I did catch a couple of nice fish ( 5 and 7 pounds ) and lost a big momma ( just out of pure stupidity ) . You also got "A" in your evaluation.

Skeeter you got "A" ! ;D I would skip the black and blue jig, the reason I tell you this is because black and blue are simply ignored by the fish, crawfish in that lake in this time of the year are greenish-brownish all over the body so your selection of pumpkinseed and brown is correct, add watermelon and black& charteuse and you have all the hues cover for a crawfish immitator. As you said crankbaits casted and retrieved PARALLEL to the bank, you appreciation of the steepness of the bank is correct, but casting a medium diver or a topwater is a waste of time, the water clarity is high and the light penetration is also high, there 's not a single cloud in the sky so you will need a deep or extra deep diver because the fish will be deep, what pattern ? the forage base is formed by carp ( perch color immitates extremely well mirror carp which is the most common species of carp in Mexico ), bluegill ( bluegill pattern ), tilapia ( blue and silver mimics the color pattern of tilapia ) and shad ( it mimics the kind of minnows that we have ). Where to make your casts ? look at the fisrt picture, at the left down into the cove you will notice several very interesting features, there 's a boulder, underneath and in front of it there 's a submerged tree and very important there 's shade behind the boulder, that place screams "BASS ARE HERE" , looking to the right there 's a vertical wall with two limbs on the water but if you look closely before that wall there 's an accumulation of rocks created by a landslide that 's another place that screams "bass are here" , on the second picture you can see another vertical wall and a tree, most anglers the first thing they would do is to cast to the tree, well the tree stands on a flat surface with nothing else but a flat bottom, if you look at the pic, to the right tou see the vertical wall but there 's a change in the composition of the terrain as you move to the left scattered rocks and boulders begin to appear, the area between the tree and the bank is covered with those same rocks and boulders, that area has also written "bass" all over. From the entire cove the only places that produced fish were those that I mentioned.

The only problem that I see with electronics is.........that most of the people that have them don 't know how to use and/or read them ! Schooling fish like stripers, white bass, carp and baitfish like RW said are easy to locate but LMBs rarely form large schools they are more related to cover and structure, actually I don 't use my finder to locate fish, I use my finder to locate the structure or to find out if what I see above the water level continues beneath the water level and for how much it extends. The first step to identify structure is by looking at the surrounding terrain, what you see above water level is most likely to continue underwater, once you have located the structural features then look for cover features, the best ones are cover ON or very near structure. Let me show a couple of pics that can help us. This pics are from one of my favorite lakes, the lake is stocked with carp, tilapia, bluegills, catfish and LMB minnows are abundant and so is crawfish, this lake has monster bass in it. The conditions on that day were: Air temperature 90° Water Temperature 68° Sunny, not a single cloud in the sky Water color: clear Water turbidity: origin.- a mix of clay ( the water level is dropping ) and plakton that gives you that greenish milky hue you can see. Clarity.- 5 ft Water depth: 9-20 ft Weeds.- non existant Cover.- Standing timber and some laydows right on the bank. What would you throw ?

The baitfish activity The pieces of the puzzle begin to come together, bass feed on other creatures, mainly baitfish and crawfish, baitfish ( shads, shiners, minnows, bluegills ) feed on ........plankton or in other forms of life that feed on plankton, since plankton can 't "move" it is subject to the wind, wind drifts plankton concentrating it, baitfish will take advantage of the situation and will be in places where the wind has drifted the plakton, where baitfish are bass are. Crawfish are predatory and necrophagic creatures, they feed on dead animals or hunt for their food, a school of minnows is an open invitation for lunch. Wind Wind not also drifts the plankton, it also stirs the bottom, the areas where the wind is blowing are murkier than the rest, murky = decreased light penetration = less visibility, bass can 't differentiate between a bunch of minnows and your lure beacuse they don 't see it very well but he can hear it and feel it, and if you are skillful, those signals feel and sound like " hey, I 'm wonded " and hey I 'm wounded means an easy meal to mr. or mrs. bass, too bad that the easy meal has hooks on it. Also the strenght and the speed is important, too strong and BYE, BYE cloud cover. Clouds Low puffy clouds mean good cloud cover, less light and possibly rain, high clouds or no clouds at all means sunny day, which do you prefer ? what bothers you less ? unless you are one of those sun lovers in search for a good tan I prefer cloudy days. In fishing, cloudy days, the fish will be shallower, sunny days the fish will be deeper. In sunny days look for shade, strong sunlight doesn 't affect bass, it does not hurt their eyes like many believe, bass see like we do with polarized glasses, but bass do not like sun because their prey can see them as well as they can see their prey, bass prefer to hide in the shade because their preay can 't see them. To make an analogy, you are outside then you come into a room, what happens ?........you are momentarily blinded, if a predator is inside the room those seconds are the ideal opportunity to pounce on you. Weeds Not all weeds and weed beds are created equal, some are productive and others aren 't, some offer protection and sahde others don 't, some grow only at a certain depth, others grow deeper. They also tell you the structure of the bottom, a huge expanse of weeds like an alfalfa field means that they are growing on a flat, isolated patches of weeds tell you that the bottom is irregular and that it has shallow and deep areas, weeds like hydrilla only grow as deep as they can get enough sunlight, cattails only grow on shallow silty bottom. In fishing, a huge expanse of weeds is not a good place to cast your baits, there is nobody there, isolated or irregular weed beds are where you want your bait to be. Also where two type of weeds meet is another place where you want your baits, it creates an edge and bass like egdes. Recreational water activity We all hate skiers, water skiers, picnickers, in other words, we hate anybody who uses the water except for fishing ( I don 't know who gave them those ideas ) and why we hate them, they are noisy and scare the fish away, but do they really scare the fish ? not really, fish don 't get scared, fish get cautios and bury in cover or go to the depths.

With pleasure ! I 'm not here to brag on how knowleadgeable I am, on the contrary, I 'm here to express my opinion and what I have learned throughout the years and nothing could cause me greater pleasure than knowing that my opinion resulted benefitial. Color of the water. Many people mix up the color of the water with the turbidity and they have different origins, the color of the water is caused by chemicals leached into the water and that dye it, for example, in lakes with a lot of submerged trees tanins and oils in the wood leach into the water giving it a brownish color. This affects the way fish see your bait, to understand it put on a pair of polarized glasses and look at your baits, the color of the bait changes. The same thing happens in water rich in tanins. Turbidity of the water. It is caused not by dissolved chemicals, it is caused by organic and inorganic particles suspended in the water. Organic particles have an organic origin, decaying vegetation and plankton are examples of it. Inorganic particles have an inorganic origin and are created normally as part of the erosive events that take place on the terrain that surrounds the lake and by the bottom composition of the lake. In our particular case silt and clay are the most important ones because due to it 's tiny size remain suspended for a longer period time than sand, sand grains being heavier settle to the bottom faster. The turbidity is very important because in first place it tells you how much food is available, pea soup water means that there 's a lot of planktonic life, plankton is the base of the food chain, it also tells you the visibility, the less turbidity the more the fish will be able to see, it also gives you an indication of the light penetration, the less turbidity the deeper the light penetrates. So applied to fishing, the more turbidity you have the noisier and the brighter or darker your lures should be, they can 't see them very well but they can hear them, hot or very dark colors stand out against the background. The Temperature of the water Fish are not "cold" blooded, fish have exactly the same temperature of the water that surrounds them, but because of that their methabolic rate depends exclusively on the temperature of the water, the warmer the water, the higher the methabolic rate, the higher the methabolic rate the more active the fish will be, the opposite happens when the temperature of the water drops. Cold fronts affect the behavior of the fish, not because the air temperature drops, it 's because the light penetration increases.

You go to the lake and what you do first ? tie a bait ? , why did you tie that bait ?, what told you to tie that bait ?, what makes you think that your selection was the adequate ? What you should do is: to take a look around, check the color of the water, check the turbidity of the water, check the temperature of the water, check the baitfish activity, check in which direction the wind is blowing and how strong it is, check the sky to see if there are clouds and what kind of clouds are present check how stable the present conditions have been, a day ? a couple of days ? the entire week ? weeds ? what kind of weeds ? recreational water activity ? how many boats, how many fishermen ? water skiers ? swimmers ? All those elements will give you a general idea of where the fish will be holding troughout the day, at what depth the fish will be holding, with which baits and techniques you can catch them then tie your baits.

It 's not the barometric pressure but the changes in climathological conditions that come with the change in the pressure what affects fishing, low pressure means cloud cover, many times rain, lower temperatures, wind, all which diminish the light penetration, fish will be shallower; high pressure means sunny days, little or no cloud cover, no rain, all of them increase light penetration, fish will be deeper and hidden in thick cover.

Those studies are a lot of hot air, fish, like any other vetebrate can feel pain, pain is a primordial sense like hearing or seeing and it 's necessary for survival, why do you think Port Jackson sharks have spines on their backs ? and we 're talking about a less evolved vetebrate than fish, does this mean that fish feel pain the same way we do ? no, they do not feel the pain the way we do simply because we mamals have a different level of pain, fish have a much higher level of pain tolerance but that doesn 't mean that they don 't feel pain.

Well you won 't catch anything except a cold fishing in the middle of a downpour but there 's that kind of fine rain that barely riples the surface that can be very productive. It 's not really that the levels of oxygen increase or stuff like that, it 's what rain brings into the lake, first the levevels of light diminish greatly ( the fish will be shallower ), the baitfish activity increases because rain brings them food ( insects ) and they feel more comfortable, the temperature of the water drops a little bit on the first couple of feet, also, if the lake is built on montainous terrain the water drips allong the banks carrying with it more food in the form of washed insects, also that washed water brings silt increasing the tubidity and creating current. After a downpour, specially in montainous lakes, the water washes downhill violently and the feeder creeks become prime spots, baitfish move towards them looking for whatever the rain brought with it, baitfish move, bass move.