RSM789

The first wave has already happened & there are balls of fry swimming around a good number of the docks. Those bass who spawned are still shallow & still catchable, just oriented differently & in a different mood. A few late sleepers have recently moved up on to beds, but the number I see is about 25% of what I saw weeks ago. Surface water temperature topped 70 degrees last weekend.

Apparently it was a really bad cast...

Update - The second male, the one to the right of the dock, was not there today when I went out and later returned. Either he is a deadbeat dad and has abandoned the nest or another angler caught him & kept/relocated him. I saw quite a few fry balls at various docks through out the day today. We have had hot temps the last week and the surface temp reached 70 by mid day. The bass weren't interested in chasing much today, but were very happy to slam a weightless wacky rigged Senko as it sank in front of many of the docks. I would run a crankbait, swim bait or even a Texas rigged in front of the docks with mediocre results, the fish wanted a slow, sinking bait instead. Today, the Senko out caught all of the other baits I used in those areas 8 to 1.

As kids, my sister, her friend & I were fishing for catfish one night from my parents dock. My sisters friend had never fished before and was kind of whining about stuff all night. "These chicken livers stink", "I don't want to bait the hook", those kinds of girly things that my sister never said. Next she complained "My line is snagged on something over there". I contemplated pushing her into the water, when she further complained "Great, now the snag is moving over there". I looked up at her rod in the dim dock light & realized she had hooked something larger than we had ever seen before. I coached her into getting the fish in closer and as it neared the dock, all we saw was an enormous dark outline. The fish then surged under the dock, my sisters friend didn't know how to try and steer it around the edge of the dock, so the line rubbed on the edge of the wooden dock, frayed & then snapped. I still wanted to push her into the water.

Never having caught a river smallmouth, I am floored to hear they are that much stronger than their lake cousins. I know river fish are stronger inherently than lake fish, but I didn't think there were many fish tougher, stronger or more willing to go airborne than the few smallmouth I have caught on trips to Lake Mead. Those guys put their bigger largemouth brethren & striper cousins to shame ounce for ounce. Must keep my eyes open for any chance for river smallmouths when I travel in the future...

Did the "points" go past the barb? If so, then how much pressure were you putting on a fish that close to the boat that the lure was able to generate enough speed when thrown to bury hooks past the barb? It isn't pigheaded to still fish that bait. However, it is extremely pigheaded to keep trying to horse a green fish into the boat & basically creating a loaded missile situation ready to fire the moment a fish throws the lure. Repeating stupid behavior and refusing to change or admit it is stupid is the definition of being pigheaded. if that doesn't make sense to you, well then "oink, oink".

If a barb is stopping me from making a good hookset, I need to turn in my man-card. For catching average sized fish, I could understand crushing barbs. I don't do it, but wouldn't be concerned if I was forced to. However, when I am fortunate enough to hook into a much larger than average fish, I want as many advantages as possible. Crazy things happen with big fish that don't happen with average sized fish, especially close to the boat. A barbed hook is just a small insurance policy for keeping Big Mama buttoned on. As far as being better for the fish, that only applies only if you are a newbie & don't know how to quickly remove a barbed hook. If hooking yourself more than the one time (where you learn your lesson) is an issue, then you need to just admit that you are pigheaded. 35 years ago, I fired a snagged crankbait out of a bush into my arm past the barb. That taught me not to do things like that & I haven't since.

I have only had limited access to & caught a few of each, but from my experience, I would say the Spot wins as long as the battle stays underwater. Once they take to the air, the Smallmouth will pull the Spot behind him like a kite..

Forty plus years ago, my older sister had a cat with six toes on each paw. It was a pretty cool cat, acted more like a dog than a finicky feline. It was a great hunter, I think the larger than normal mitts helped. So one evening, my mom makes steak and puts my dad's big ol' T-Bone on his plate. Someone had left the slider opened & the cat wandered in (she was an outside cat). She must have smelled the steak, because with my dad sitting at the table, this cat jumps up, grabs the T-Bone with one paw and 3 legs it out the door & up a tree. My dad was so shocked, he just started laughing instead of getting mad.

What size Spook? I ask because I used to fish the 4.5" model with success until I began fishing a smaller lake. I had very little success & then tried the Zara Puppy, which is just 3" in length. For this smaller body of water, it made a huge difference. When they are in a top water mood, they hammer this smaller bait. The water here is fairly clear (4-5 ft visibility), so I have had success with the ghost minnow pattern (blue & translucent). If the water was stained a bit more, the darker colors may be better. One note, the puppy is a lot lighter than the regular spook, I believe it is under 1/4 oz. If you have any issues getting distance with casting it, consider using a spinning rod.

Most bass have smartphones & can check the trout stocking schedule online. Often when the bass aren't biting, it is because they are entirely focused playing "Angry Birds" or Candy Crush".

You could, but it would probably be a lot more effort with worse results than if you just used some Mend-It.

Well, I am wearing a trench coat, hat & dark glasses, so I'm trying to be inconspicuous...

Being a development lake, the water level never varies by more than 6 inches throughout the year. After heavy rains (the few times that happens), it will bump up a little as the excess flows out to the ocean, but the rest of the year, the level is kept constant. Is there a simple way to mark a fish in a way that they can be identified from a distance (without creating problems for him)? I'm considering catching him and maybe dyeing part of his dorsal fin so I can identify him in the future, but I didn't know if that would last. I actually still have some fish tags from the late 70's when my parents had a house out at Canyon Lake and I would tag the bass I caught. The tags are bright yellow, I would just have to create some kind of tool to insert it.

So this bass's daddy also mated with grandma & great grandma? Are you sure this didn't occur in West Virginia?

I like the Berkley Gulp Turtleback worms, but they are a little tricky as far as handling. If you leave it on the rod for too long (90 minutes?) without getting it wet, it is ruined (shrinks & gets hard). The packages they come in are notorious for leaking, so I end up double bagging them to stop the juice from leaking all over. As a bait however, I have had good luck with the junebug & pumpkinseed colors when I have used them. I just re-read my post - "shrinks & gets hard", "double bagging", "juice leaking all over"... I am talking about plastic worms, right?

Have you ever tried something that looks like the stocked rainbow trout?

It is a small development lake in Lake Forest, California. It is one of those lakes that is built by a developer as a selling point for & a way to increase the real estate value of the new homes they were building at that time. It was built in the mid 1970's.

The spawn this year is under way on my home lake. The last couple of times out, I have noticed a few things that I hadn't seen before My brothers dock is on the south side of the lake, on the main lake, not in a cove. A bass made a nest there a few weeks ago while all of the other spawning activity was taking place on the north side of the lake in coves. There is now a ball of days old bass fry swimming off the left corner of the dock. The male cruises back & forth about 2 feet off the dock (in deeper water), chasing off any other fish that get within 5 feet of the fry. I was surprised how far the male could see other fish, he has spotted other fish & run them down from 20 feet away. At the same time, another bass has made a nest off the right side off the dock, shallower than the other male. This afternoon, he was entertaining a girlfriend on it, although she wasn't much bigger than him. If I stand at the edge of the dock, less than 2 feet away from the nest, he will swim away & then return within 15 seconds. If I am still there, he will repeat the process. He doesn't like someone standing there, but he won't abandon the nest. This is the second year that a bass has nested in that exact spot, but I don't know if it is the same fish. The second bass doesn't swim towards the first one's fry and the first one doesn't harrass the second one's nest Apparently, even though their spawning clocks are different, they are very neighborly.

Because there are more lousy fishermen than big bass...

A couple of years back, additional crawdads were released into our lake in an effort to control/eradicate zebra mussels (I am assuming a bass fisherman made that suggestion ). I was fishing one day when I saw a gentleman dumping half a gunnysack of crawdads into the lake. I drove over to take a look as he left and in addition to the hundreds of crawdads scurrying about to find some cover, there were about a dozen or so dead ones floating on the surface. Since my nieces were in town & wanted to do some catfishing, I scooped up the floating crawdads. That afternoon, I rigged them on a dropshot with a short leader, so that they floated 6" or so off the bottom. Ended up catching six catfish over 5 lbs, including 1 that went 14 lbs., 6 oz and a couple of 2 lb bass. So yes, drop shotting with live (or recently dead) bait works.

Aaron's Magic in the late spring, summer & fall to to imitate small bass & bluegill, Orange Crusher in the winter & early spring to imitate small crayfish or small bullheads/carp (the forage in my lake).

Just messing with you. You are correct, the 6" models are killer - a 6" Aarons Magic was responsible for the PB in my avatar photo.

This post may not mean much to those under 30 years old. I was fishing a Texas rigged plastic worm the other day and thought "It feels like the hook point has slid out of the worm". Sure enough, when I retrieved it, the bottom part of the hook was exposed. Numerous times, I could feel when I had a just a few strands of moss on the worm. One retrieve, I felt like there was something on the line that wasn't a fish, sure enough a small clam had latched on to the exposed shaft of the hook. With today's equipment, it is amazing how well you can detect exactly what is taking place at the end of your line. Thinking about that got me to realizing how far equipment has come for fishing plastic worms & other bottom bumping lures. I started in an era of fiberglass rods, monofilament line and lead weights. Nearly all of the bass I caught on soft plastics back then were only because the fish picked up the lure & swam 20 yards off to one side. I had no idea what was on the bottom, much less what was happening or if I was getting bit. It really increases my admiration of the guys from that era who were proficient with bottom bumping lures, it was not an easy skill set to learn. I often like to think about the "good ol' days" when it comes to fishing, but will readily admit that today's better equipment makes the experience of fishing plastics much more fulfilling, as well as effective, for the non-expert.

Do you bite the heads off the 6" models to shorten them or do you glue a 1/2" to the shorter models to make them measure up to 5"? Roboworms don't come in a 5" size .