Dave Jakes

Isn't the BassResource online forum a Social Media site?

Crankbaits are one of my favorite lures to throw in cold water, never understood why people get surprised when they catch fish on them during the colder seasons. With that said, the EBS stuff in the Livingston lures are just a gimmick in my opinion. It's not just Livingston that's guilty of it, any crankbait maker that claims to have some secret formula for catching more fish is gimmicky to me. A crank is a reaction bait, the fish never really gets a good look at it anyway. Electronic sounds, hand painted colors, 3D eyes, ect. You can pay for all the bells and whistles you want, I'll just keep catching them on my five dollar KVDs and Rapalas.

The urban ponds around here create a catch-22 of sorts for beginning bass fisherman. They are a great place to learn as they are nearby and easy to get to for short trips, however they are some of the most pressured fish in the whole state so they are very difficult to catch. I'd suggest 2 options: downsize, or change it up. Downsize: Just make everything smaller. If you're fishing a 6 inch Texas rig bait, try a 5 inch bait on a shaky head. Four inch worms on a dropshot rig is a great way to go too. Maybe try the same Texas rig but weightless, letting it drop real slow. As you down size your presentation, you'll need lighter line too, 6 lb fluorocarbon is great, but mono should get the job done too. Change it up: Those fish see 50 green pumpkin Senkos a day, and probably about the same amount of roboworms. People use those baits all the time around here, and for good reason, they flat out catch fish. However, the fish see them all the time. If you change something up just slightly it might just be enough to convince the bass to give this new meal a try. Perhaps throw that senko on a Carolina rig instead of weightless. Instead of roboworms, give one of our great little local companies a try: Cactus Wren Outdoors makes a couple of great little finesse worms. The plastic they use is softer and is injected with their own scent, and the colors they have are just different enough from the major brands that they'll get the attention of those pressured fish. Check them out at cactuswrenoutdoors.com. If you use coupon code "freebutelbaits" you'll get 10% off orders of $15 or more, and you'll get a free pack of one of their prototype baits. (Amethyst and Scorpion are my two go-to colors at all of our Arizona lakes).

I'd try a chatter bait or spinner bait. At least in the lakes I fish if they're hitting cranks, they'll usually take a chatter bait or spinnerbait too. If the cover really is that dense, you'll probably still snag up occasionally, but the single hook will come through it way easier than a couple treble hooks.

I fish from a kayak. I have a Lowrance Elite 4 HDI. I decided to spend the extra little bit for the maps and downscan. I can't say I regret spending the extra, because at least it's there if I want it, but I use the standard sonar 95% of the time. As others have said, you need to be going about 5 mph for the best clarity and that's real hard to sustain in a kayak (even with a Hobie mirage drive). Also, the screen is just too small to really see the detail even if the picture is clear. One day I may save up and make the jump to an HDS 7, but for now I'm satisfied with what basic sonar on a 4 inch model can do.

Put the 7:1 on the medium heavy, if you like braid keep it on there and use it for your bottom contact baits (jigs, Texas rigs, ect.) and lures with thick wire hooks (small swimbaits, spinner baits, chatter baits) For the 6:1, I'd suggest a 7 foot-ish medium. With the 10 pound mono on there you could use it for smaller topwater baits, cranks, jerkbaits, and other lures that don't have real big thick open hooks. Between those two set ups you can cover probably 90% of your needs. Not ideally, but you'd certainly get by.

I fish from a kayak on the large desert reservoirs around Phoenix, AZ. On these big lakes, you just don't have the option of looking all over the place for fish, I don't have an outboard that I can power up and be up the channel 5 to 10 miles in 10 minutes. Because of this "internet pre fishing" as I call it is key. Our tournaments are won the days before sitting on the couch doing our homework. 1. As you said, season is the number one thing as it will generally tell you what obvious areas the fish will be (main lake deep, main lake points, creek channels, flats, ect.) 2. From there I check out contour maps. If I don't have a relatively recent paper map, I'll jump on the Navionics web app, or Go Free Insight Genesis (one of the slickest new websites out there). When I'm looking through maps, I'm not necessarily looking for the very best obvious places, but I'm looking for a larger area that has a lot of separate good areas. Since I can't power around the whole lake, I need to give myself plenty of options to find fish. I generally don't go to the one huge main lake point where all the guides stop by daily, because it's isolated with not much else near by, if I go there and there's no fish, or they're inactive then I'm s*** out of luck. 3. Once I figure out which area I'm going to, I jump on Google Earth and look for the nearest place to launch. Typically around here, all the ramps are in one area of the main lake. I use Google Earth instead of a Google Maps because the picture is more clear and I can spot back roads and washes to find launch areas in other parts of the lake that most people don't know of. like others, once I'm at the lake and see the conditions in person I really start dissecting my lure choices and rigging options. The key to kayak fishing is to figure out how to find the fish before you even get to the lake, then figure out how you will get there.

In early spring, when the water temp is in the mid 50's, fish will start moving up. However, they won't just go from deep water to beds in one day, they take their time. In the winter, bass will hang out around deep structure. As Spring approaches and they begin to think about spawning, they will start to relate to cover more so than structure. (Structure is the underground geography, cover is brush piles, weeds, docks, ect.) As they migrate from deep to shallow, they will travel along river channels, ledges, and bluffs, (structure) stopping to rest and feed along any cover they'll come across. These various forms of cover at various depths are what I consider their stages. For a real life example, last weekend I was catching fish off of brush piles in 25 feet of water. This weekend I found them hanging out in stumps at 15 to 20 feet. Within a couple more weeks, I'm guessing I'll be able to catch some males up shallow roaming around looking for bedding areas. While that first wave of bass are moving up, there's a second wave behind them. And a third wave behind the,, ect. One of the reasons I love spring fishing is because there are so many different things you can do to catch them. Around my area, once late March comes around there's fish guarding fry, fish on beds, big females nearby beds in deeper water, fish are still moving up and staging, they are just everywhere and it's wonderful. Hopefully that clears some things up.

Hey Zeth, this is my first time looking through this section of the forums, glad I saw this posted here. I've lived in the east valley my whole life. I grew up fishing Saguaro and Canyon since I was 5 so I know these lakes pretty well. My family sold the bass boat a few years back which left me fish less for a while (as you said, bank fishing is pointless here). I recently got into kayak fishing and it completely revitalized my fishing life. If you aren't in a position where a bass boat is possible, I highly suggest you look into kayaks/motorless route. Even on our big reservoirs like Saguaro, Canyon, and Roosevelt, there are plenty of great motorless areas. Often times I just paddle across the channels and battle with wakeboard wakes anyway. Still great fishing! I run a pretty helpful group on Facebook with a lot of great guys. Of our 1,100 members, I'd say about 50 are fairly active and willing to help out. You can find it by searching for AZ Motorless Anglers on Facebook. I also write a blog: http://davejakesfishin.blogspot.com . I focus on kayak fishing in Arizona, so you may find a lot of that information helpful as well. And lastly, if I haven't pushed this kayak fishing thing enough, check out TBA (total bass addicts) Motorless Division. We are mid way through our first official season as Arizona's only legitimate motorless tournament circuit. If you want any more info on Phoenix area fishing or kayak fishing let me know and I can probably point you in the right direction. I'm usually out on the water at least once a weekend and have a few extra kayaks I let buddies use if you ever want to get out for a day.

Not sure what a spoonplugger is, or what book you're referring too, but I do know a thing or two about fishing deep water regardless of the lure or presentation: 1. When bass suspend in deep water, they aren't interested in eating. You can drop a spoon or dropshot right in front of their nose and they won't care. 2. In deep water you have a LOT of water to cover. Unless you spot them on your graph and know the depth they are suspending at, you're going to be spending a whole lot of time casting and counting down to each depth. Even if you are lucky enough to be pulling your bait through the right depth, you still have the inactive bass situation in my first point.

Keep the old boat and fish it as long as you can. In the meantime, calculate what your loan payment would be for your ideal boat, pay that much each month into a savings account (or roth IRA). If your current boat lasts another 8 years, you now have the money CASH to buy your new boat. If you miss a "payment", no harm no foul. If your current boat only last another 2 years, at least you have a solid down payment saved up. I fish from a kayak, don't think I'll ever be able to get a nice bass boat in my career field without a solid savings plan. However, I've been doing this with my car since I was 18. My car has long been paid off and I have $20k + in the bank for when it finally dies on me.

I've caught more fish from drop shot using it in "odd" ways than I have the "normal" way. The whole idea of "shake the worm, not the weight" really hasn't been very successful for me. The ways I usually fish it are: 1. Pitching into light shallow cover like a Texas Rig 2. Dragging it across underwater structure like a Carolina Rig 3. Popping it out of grass like a Mojo Rig 4. Casting out to deep cover like you described 5. Bed Fishing in the Spring 6. Fishing it in the same way as a weightless wacky rig like I describe here: http://davejakesfishin.blogspot.com/2015/07/details-of-drop-shot.html 7. On a Donky Rig like I talk about here: http://davejakesfishin.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-donkey-shot.html And vary rarely, I'll drop it straight down like everyone else.

I'm probably in the minority here, but when it comes to tournament fishing on big lakes I'm a believer in first come-first served. They make those big 200 hp motors for a reason! Now, that doesn't mean we can't share. As long as you're not crossing my line, I wouldn't care if you fish behind, or even ahead, of me.

I can't tell you how much weight it can handle, but I can tell you that you don't want to be throwing cranks on an extra-heavy. For cranks you want something with quite a bit of give to it otherwise you'll be ripping the hooks out of the fish's mouth before it can get a grip on the bait. I throw medium divers on a medium power rod, and deep divers (15+ feet) on a med-heavy.

I'll take two free reels any day! Never heard of a bass fisherman needing less gear before! Haha!