king fisher

The more money you spend on a rod, the better fisherman you will be. Even a Monkey knows that.

I went to visit family in the states and was able to make a Tackle Warehouse order to bring back to Mexico. I went to a couple stores while I was there, but they didn't have much tackle. I was lucky the stocks were low, and the Monkey wasn't able to get me for any impulse purchases.

What am I doing different this summer? I'm not catching big bass. May is by far the best month for fishing here, and I have only been out one day. I'm working, going to weddings, trying to catch up on a honey do list, that is a mile long, and getting longer, no matter how hard I try to get caught up. Why would anyone get married during the prime fishing months? The rainy season would be a better time to ask a family member to drive a ridiculous, long way and spend almost a week in a place with no bass. Getting married in May here, is equivalent to getting married on opening day of deer season in Michigan. If I do get the time to fish, I am planning on using a bladed jig, A rig, and Carolina rig more than last year. Last year I relied on crankbaits to much, and now that I own every crankbait made, the Bait Monkey wants me to start buying other baits. He really wants me to get hooked on expensive glide baits, but I compromised and got some A rigs and two Jack hammers. Both are expensive, but hopefully they wont lead to worse habits. An inexpensive glide bait, would only be a gateway bait to a very expensive habit that might lead to divorce, bankruptcy, and a trip to the psychiatric wing of the hospital. The C Rig is inexpensive, and the Bait Monkey is not happy that I did well with the technique this spring. I think it will work well on some points and humps, this summer when the crankbaits don't. Once the rain comes in July it's all buzz baits, and frogs.

When I was a kid I had one rod, some hooks, bobbers, and split shot. I dug worms for bait caught lots of fish, had the time of my life, and ate everything I caught. I loved to fish, I went every chance I got, and when I wasn't fishing, I was day dreaming about fishing. Then a friend introduced me to bass fishing, and his cousin the Bait Monkey. Now I fish with way to many rods, and keep buying more. I don't catch as many fish, and don't eat the ones I catch. I still love to fish, go every chance I get, and when I'm not fishing I'm day dreaming about fishing. I can go fishing with one rod and pocket full of lures and have the time of my life, or I can bring enough gear to be on an episode of hoarders, and think it was the best day ever. Depends on the water and the day. As long as I can breath, I will want more fishing equipment. Weather or not I need more is not important. A couple times a year I go fishing with a couple childhood friends. I leave the Bait Monkey at home. We each take one rod, dig some worms, start a fire, and cook what we catch. I still get just as excited now, as I did years ago, when the bobber starts to go down. I only need one rod but I want them all.

That is why he only knows how to fish a couple of baits. When the fish are not biting he tries something new. He doesn't get hit in a few casts and is right back to his favorite. When the bite is hot, he doesn't want to take advantage of a hot bite and learn a new bait, so he never learns anything new. He only gets even more confident with his favorite. One day a caught a nice bass one a popper. I decided to give a buzz bait a try. He told me I should stick with what worked. The reason I switched to a buzz bait, was I already learned they would hit on top with the popper, but was curious to see if they would hit the buzz bait too. I thought the fish were spread out along the shore, and the popper obviously worked, but took longer to cover the shoreline. If they would also hit the buzz bait, I would probably catch close to the same number of bass per cast, but I would make twice as many casts with the buzz bait, catching twice as many fish. It worked and I crushed them on buzz baits, and walking baits. At that time I wasn't very good at walking the dog, but because I was willing to experiment, not only did I catch some fish on a Zara Spook, I improved my ability to fish the spook. If I would have fished it when the bite was off, I might have given up after a few casts. Being the bite was on, if I didn't catch a bass I would know either they didn't want the spook, or I was fishing it wrong. Now I have great confidence in Spooks, and fish them often. Tunnel vision will be a guarantee if you don't try something new, when you know they are biting. You can always switch back after a few casts, or have your fishing partner stick with the tried and true, while you do some experimenting. Tournament fishing is another game, not much time to experiment.

My Hobie Outback was expensive, but I strongly believe it was worth the price.

Alberto knot. I start with 5' of leader, change to new leader when length gets less than 2 feet.

When the fishing is slow, I tend stick to one or two baits. When the fishing is good, I love to experiment. A friend of mine has wondered if I'm crazy at times. He can't believe I will change baits during a hot bite, just to see if something else will work. He tells me we already found what will work and should capitalize on it. I tell him to keep using what is working, as a control group on my experiment, and I will keep switching to see if I can find something better. Then there are those days, that once I finally catch a bass I don't even think of changing baits. The places I fish are mostly rocky, and windy, so crankbaits, and spinner baits get used 80% of the time. Last year I had a near fatal case of tunnel vision, so I decided this year I would started using the C rig in order to expand my soft plastic use with some success.

I went to Tepic Lake on Sunday. I hadn't been their in over a month and was expecting the water to be down a couple feet more than it was. Last year at this time the water was lower, and the bass were schooled up on some offshore structure. The fishing for lots of big fish was incredible, and I was hoping the same on Sunday. I was disappointed when I saw the water was down considerably from a month ago, but not as much as I had hoped. I had already tied on cranks, C Rig, swimm bait and A rig. Anticipating a great off shore bite. I tried a couple of my favorite humps and ridges, but no fish to be found. I changed over a buzz bait, and started to work with bank. It wasn't long before I hooked one that ended up weighting 6.9 pounds and measured 23 inches. It hit the buzz bait, as it deflected off a mostly submerged fence post in 4.5 feet of water. Instantly I was wrapped around the post, and barbed wire. I gave the bass some slack, and peddled in to hopefully get the line off the fence, but instantly realized there was no hope. I was about to break the line, when I herd a splash directly behind me. It was the bass flopping on the surface trying to break the line. I managed to grab the bass off the surface, catching the bass and saving by buzz bait. It was a brand new bait, but will take a little work getting it bent back to shape. submerged fence lines in 4 to 5 feet ended up being a pattern. Only caught a few more baby bass on a buzz bait, but a seven inch Senko caught some bigger ones, along with a 5.8 pounder, pictured in my post. I lost a few baits, because barbed wire fences, are not the easiest cover to fish, but still had a great day. The bass were still very thin, from the spawn. I hope to be able to find the time to fish for them in a few weeks. Hopefully they will be schooled up offshore, gained back some weight, and nowhere near fences.

Why bother. She would just say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I prefer either gold ,silver, or solid colors, white, char. black, for my blades. When I guided for silver salmon I would make hundreds of inline spinners of every color combination imaginable. Silvers are very aggressive, and will hit any color of inline spinner, but by far their favorite was solid pink. After catching them every cast for an hour, they would quite biting the pink, and solid black would catch a few more before the spinner bite was done. Some days silver or gold worked best, but most days it was either solid pink, solid chartreuse, and solid black. One winter I found some metallic colored blades. One was called Black Nickle, and the the others were called metallic, pink, red, chart. and blue. I made up many spinners with these blades thinking they would be perfect. A combination of color, as well as metallic flash. The results were horrible. The solid pink and solid chart. out fished the metallic colors 30 to one. After that summer I have always preferred a solid matt finish when using colored blades for any species of fish. I'm sure there are many exceptions, but trying to force Silvers to strike metallic colored blades all summer has given me a bias that will be hard to overcome. I have had luck catching bass with white spinnerbait blades with glitter in the paint, but the paint is still a solid white. Solid painted blades make no sense to me, because they don't produce any flash, but the fish in my lakes prefer them over silver and gold on many days and I have learned its best to simply give the fish what they want.

Just think of it as fishing a new lake, that has many DD bass and you are the first to fish there.

6th Sense Cloud Nine Mini Mag Square bill.

Sounds like the perfect country music song to me.

Some States including Alaska, define the possession limit as fish that is not processed. If the daily bag limit is 5, and the possession limit is 10 ,than you can go on a weekend trip, catch 5 each day for a total of 10 and legally have two dailly limits in a cooler, at your camp. Once you get home and process (clean) your fish, and put them in the freezer, they are no longer considered part of your possession limit.

I usually wait to long to change lures, except for the times I change to soon. Same goes for location.

Where I fish, Buzz Bait, August through February. March - July Spinnerbait in wood or grass, Crankbaits in rocks.

7 inch Senko Junebug.

After having open heart surgery, a constantly painful back, and knee surgery in my early 40.s. I decided I would need to change careers if I wanted to continue to work. Sleeping on the cold ground, carrying bear hides, and moose meat over mountains was not going to be a sustainable career, in to my 50's and 60,s. Also having to get wavers, and pass an FAA physical every two years was getting difficult. One bad word from a doctor and a career can be over in an instant. I decided I would captain a private yacht in Mexico, in order to be able to work longer. Though I mostly give orders, and have others do the heavy lifting, I still have to do my share of physically demanding mechanic work, but compared to living and working in the Alaska bush it is a job made for sissies. I do have to pass a Coast Guard physical, but I only have to get one every 5 years, and they seem to be less strict than the FAA. I miss the rugged life of the mountains, but I made the right decision to switch jobs when I did. Since moving here I have had to get surgery on one shoulder, and will have to get another one done some day. The knee that was operated on years ago leaves me limping most days, and I will eventually have to get surgery. I won't have to retire for many years, because as my body gives out I simply hire more of the physical work done. I gave up all of my hobbies, except bass fishing. I am very lucky my knee doesn't hurt when I pedal my Hobie, and my back pain only starts when I stand up after a day on the water. I told my wife the day I can't fish is the day she needs to either put me in a home, or the ground. After hearing some of the stories in this thread, I feel very young and fortunate. Many here are much older, and have had much tougher lives, and still manage to get out and catch a few bass. I may have many aches and pains from stress on my body when I was young, but the memories are worth it. Besides now I can have an excuse to hand the rod off when a 200 pound tuna bites, and watch some young guy deal with the pain of landing it. Like others, I try to stretch and exercise in order to lesson the pain, but in the end I know the surgeons knife will eventually be needed. For some reason buying tackle seems to help more than exercise. Imagine that.

If I would have know I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. All of my joints, and my back hurt, but when I hook a big bass, I feel like a kid again.

Most of the time it probably wouldn't make a difference. A bass is not going to turn down a meal, just because it doesn't look exactly like what it has been eating. The problem is at times a bass may use a certain color to help find and catch its prey. If he is keyed in on bright orange, because the crawdads he has been eating have bright orange claws, then the bass may gain an advantage by looking for and quickly striking at bright orange giving it a hunters edge by keying in on the color orange. It might not even notice a green craw, because of being focused on looking for orange. Most of the time the bass focuses on a certain movement, shape, or size to give it a predators edge, but it doesn't hurt to cover all the bases. If by concentrating on a certain color helps the bass find, identify, and catch its prey quicker and more efficiently, than it would be good for the bass angler to have that color on his lure.

Sounds like a $200 saddle on a $50 dollar horse to me. Please do not post pictures of big bass you catch using your Livescope on your kayak. I would hate for the Monkey to be on my back about a $3500 dollar saddle.

I hoped to catch my PB this past weekend, but ended up a few pounds short. First cast at daylight my line some how caught on the hook keeper of my rod. I did make the long cast I was trying to make, only the lure didn't stay tied to the line. Instead of going and getting the lure right away I picked at the professional over run first. A couple minutes later a bass came up and ate the square bill. Only bite of the morning was on a lure that wasn't tied to the line. It was turning out to be one of those days. I did find my PB below the same steep bank as last week, and I had the same luck trying to get her to bite. After a few hours trying to get her to bite, I went to another spot and landed a 5 pound bass on my first cast with a Carolina Rig, but wasn't able to get another bite. Same place I was one and done with the C Rig last week. Nothing frustrates me more than a one bass pattern. Later in the day I tried a new offshore hump I found, and managed to hook an 8 to 9 pound bass on a deep diving crankbait, but lost it within a foot of my Kayak. Of course I couldn't get another bite. Another dreaded one bass pattern. Do pros ever go one and done, or do they always figure out the secret of the first fish success and find a way to duplicate it? The next day I tried for the big bass on the bank, and as always, couldn't even get her to look at a lure. I did manage to catch some small bass, and realizing time was running out, decided to take a picture of one. I got my small bass PB out of the way, next time I hope to get my big bass PB, at least I didn't get skunked.

My job, house work, yard work, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, any other social obligation not listed, injuries, surgeries, pandemics, world famine, nuclear war, or any other darn thing, that keeps me from going bass fishing, when the bite is on.