hawgenvy

Was fishing a neighborhood lake by a public street near my house in Boca Raton, FL. The security guard asked me to leave, but he said I could cast out one more time. That one more time got me an enormous 7 lb, 1 oz bass. I was surprised I didn't get arrested for screaming "yes!" and "whoa!" repeatedly, like I'd just won the lottery or something. Anyway, I was determined to get back in to the lake. A little on-line research with the Palm Beach County Property Department showed me that where I was fishing was open for "recreational use," so I went back again. When the guard approached me, this time I was ready with powerful information. I emailed the link to him which he forwarded to his boss, and he hasn't bothered me since. But neither have I caught anything over three pounds since then. But I know my 7 pounder is even bigger and is in there somewhere. And some nearby "no trespassing" signs keep away my competitors. But not me!

Thanks! I'll try that!

That Midas is gorgeous!

That cat was a lot of fun to catch, a great fight and a big surprise. I am wondering if I should go back to that shallow pond and throw out a hook with liver or a hot dog or crawlers on it to try to nail another channel cat. Or use that smelly goo they sell for catfish bait. I guess I just toss my line out to the middle, have a seat, hold on tight and try not to fall asleep. If I don't get one soon enough, it's back to bassin'.

Thanks for sharing those great photos, Bluebasser. Love your homemade swim jig. And those cat monsters! Impressive barbels -- and that fantastic beer belly! Looks kinda like this guy that lives down the block... I was reading that their entire outer skin is covered with taste buds (chemo-receptors). That's feasible, I suppose, because they lack scales.

Thanks, guys, for the info. That's amazing, Bluebasser. I thought cats just sniffed along the bottom for dead fish and chicken livers. Glad to learn and experience new things today -- especially the adrenalin rush from the big cat bite!

Have any of you guys seen bass on spawning beds yet?

Doing well from the banks lately on weightless senkos t-rigged, fluoro line. Jiggle, pause, jiggle, jiggle. (AVIDBF2015: I like grape too. Strike King (in their "Zero" senko-type bait) makes a "PB&J": grape down one side, tan down the other. Nice little snack for LMB)

Thanks, Skippy. The EZs work well for me in winter and spring. And they're easy to rig weedless.

This afternoon I was bass fishing on a golf course pond (Jupiter, FL), burning an EZ Swimmer across the surface. This 12 lb, 3 oz catfish inhaled the bait, and fought like a monstrous bass, shaking its head back and forth above the surface several times. I thought it was a huge, feisty bass at first -- and I honestly thought I was wrestling my new PB -- till I got a better look. I didn't know a catfish would chase an artificial bait that was moving that fast! I'm glad I was using my frogging stick or I wouldn't have been able to steer him around the weeds. I think it was a channel catfish. If it's a different species, someone please let me know.

I think when guys are bassing they go into denial about the dinks. Sometimes, after I unhook a 2 ounce "largemouth," I find myself looking the other way as I toss it back, as if it didn't count. Yesterday, after visiting my friends' house for lunch, I strolled around the lake behind their home armed with a weightless Senko, and in 10 minutes landed a fat 4 pounder. That was pretty good, right? I hope nobody saw the four tiny dinks I also caught. Because otherwise my average would be 15 oz. Knowing myself all too well, I'm prone to take people's professed averages with a grain of salt.

Used to catch lots of 6-8 inch eels as a kid, on earthworms I dug up myself. Caught the slimy little guys near my house in a small reservoir in Westchester County, NY. I recall the eels were nearly white. I wanted to try cooking them but Mom would NOT let me bring them into the kitchen. A white or pearl plastic worm or senko type stickbait could probably mimic them fairly well.

I am waiting to hear back from some Micropterus experts on the subject.

Great article, Glenn. Thanks!

Yikes!

I think powerfishing means that after you've worked your bait through the highest percentage zone, like shoreline or structure, you burn the bait back to the boat as fast as you can so you can cast right away to the next spot you think is likely to hold a fish, which is also far enough from the preceding cast to avoid territorial overlap. You don't waste any time fishing the perceived lower percentage areas, namely the water closer to your boat and the water near your prior cast. And you don't waste time between casts.

Here in Palm Beach County, Florida, there appears to be a population explosion of river otters. In past years they were an occasional sighting and great fun to watch frolicking about in the local canals, lakes, and wetlands. Now I see them almost daily. Yesterday, in a local canal where I was fishing, a group of four otters were swimming rapidly in a tight circle around a patch of floating weeds. Perhaps they were herding fish, or maybe it was some other form of behavior. This morning my wife reported seeing an otter swimming about in a local residential lake. This evening while bank fishing a golf course pond, I came across a large solitary otter giving himself a vigorous dust bath in a sand trap. As I approached along the bank with my rod, he hopped into the water, did some fancy acrobatic twirls, and disappeared, probably into a submerged hole that leads to an ottery subterranean hide-out. Last month I watched a big otter stretched out on the grass by the shore munching on a LMB that must have been a four pounder. The bass bite slows when the otters are around, but not as much as one would expect. I have caught bass maybe thirty feet from a group of otters. I wonder what effect they are having on the bass population. I hope they prefer, or can catch more readily, the little dinks, and will leave the big ones for me.

Okay, here's my two cents. My favorite five set ups (in weedy so Florida): 1) M/F casting w/ #12 fluoro 2) MH/F casting w/ #40 braid 3) H/F casting w/ #65 braid 4) M spinning w/ #14 braid 5) MH spinning w/ #10 mono

No. The blue color is usually on the smaller bass, so I thought they might be males. Of course, females start off small, too. I am surprised not to find anything about this anywhere on the internet. The blue is definitely not from vasoconstriction due to cold water, as it is irridescent and the waters were warm. I think it is a mating thing as it is seasonal. There is not enough science out there on bass behavior, I'm afraid

The photo on this page was shot on my iPhone last week and is unretouched except for minor cropping, and is typical of some bass with a blue lower jaw. Here in south Florida, in Palm Beach County, in November and early December, a large proportion of largemouth bass that I am catching, perhaps around 20%, have a curious irridescent blue coloration under the lower lip and jaw. Sometimes this is bright blue, as in the photo on this page. But more often it is a pretty pale turquoise evident over most of the lower jaw and sometimes on the opercula. It is seen more often in the smaller specimens, little dinks and 1/2 pounders, and more often in fish from large aggressive schools of small bass that are readily caught in open water, schools that abound here in November. The weirdest thing about it, is that I could not find any reference to the blue color on the internet. Are they pre-spawn males spruced up for mating? Have any of you bassers noticed this or have a comment or info about the blue coloration?

According to KVD (from the KVD website), power fishing is "about maximizing your time with the lures and techniques required to catch fish under current conditions." Isn't that what every basser tries to do except when he's feeling too lazy to try? "Power fishing" seems to be a meaningless and subjective term that can cover almost anything but sitting on the bank in a folding chair with a cane pole and a cork, kind of dozing off, and the night crawler has been finessed off your tiny hook by a little bream a half hour ago. Now, that's definitely not power fishing. But maybe what I do is, even when it's from the bank.

This photo of a Florida LM bass, caught in my backyard earlier today, shows the irridescent blue under the lower jaw. The photo is not retouched in any way. I could not find this blue coloration described on the internet.

I find it amazing that people who depend on science for so much take it for granted. Without science fishing is wading in the water with a hand woven net, or handlining from a dugout canoe with a home made rope and a bone hook. Of course experience is important in fishing, and so is learning from others, but the technology of fishing tackle, boats, and electronics, as well as fisheries management, ecology, and conservation efforts all stem from some serious science. If you want to know how bass see, as all of you who are reading the post seem to have an interest in, you need logical analysis, and that's science. Even trying out different lures in different situations is an experiment of sorts. If you kept a log of what works when, under what conditions, and analyzed it, you'd have a bit of science that might help you catch fish the next time you go out.

Thanks!

Anyone measure O2 levels?