OCdockskipper

The Saints were victims of a bad call again today, a fumble by Rams QB Goff that was scooped up & run back 90 yards, but had whistled dead and called an incomplete pass. The Saints challenged and won possession, but didn't get the run back. Hopefully it is some consolation to Saints fans that the call in & of itself did not determine the outcome of the game (Rams won by 18). The officiating was heavy all game, there were a lot of offensive holding calls, but that may be because both teams have good pass rushers who end up getting held often. The Rams had a touchdown called back on a block in the back call, which could have just as easily been interpreted as the defender turning his back on the blocker. Again, the side benefit of the game not being close is that inconsistent officiating didn't give the impression that it determined the winner. Tougher for the Saints is the injury to Drew Brees. He smacked his hand against the outstretched palm of Aaron Donald after throwing a pass and either broke or did some type of major sprain to his thumb. Knowing how competitive Brees is, I expect him to start learning how to throw the ball left handed in order to be ready next week.

No offense to @1201vilbig, but I would not recommend buying that Lunkerhunt dragonfly. It is poorly constructed and will fall apart quickly, possibly before you get a chance to use it. I would recommend instead taking an appropriate colored & size stickbait and skip cast it to targets. I like Senko's, but if you want more bouancy, use Zman Zinkers. Rig it wacky style, weightless. If you want to customize it, pull some old spinnerbait skirt rubber pieces through the body with a sewing needle. The skip cast imitates the dragonfly buzzing the surface. It will get hit en route to the target, when it arrives or as it sinks. No bite on the fall, just reel it in & fire off another cast.

Wow, that is an interesting story. It makes sense you remembered him, you "Atta" tell that story more often...

Crud, I liked that rod and it used to be readily available. I wonder if they would bring it back with enough emails & letters...

Having learned to cast in the 70's, I still prefer a pistol grip except when doing techniques when I need to bomb the casts and want to use two hands. I use pistol grip rods for topwaters, squarebills, spinnerbaits, its just a matter of preferring the different feel. Bass Pro Shops Bionic blade is one of the few rods that still offer a pistol grip.

Cool, I just saw it on their site.

I had completely forgotten about that, thanks for reminding me. I'll have to suggest it at the next HOA meeting. A quick story about those Havasu Redears. When the BASS Elite series stopped at Havasu in May of 2015, there were still a some bass on beds. Tim Horton found a few and on Day 1, spent about 90 minutes trying to entice a decent sized one off a bed. He finally succeeded, hooked up & landed it...a nice 3 lb Redear ?. He later said he thought the fish looked a little different when he was casting to it, but his brain could not fathom that the 3lb fish he was looking at was not a bass.

Yes, there is a "bubbler" system through the entire lake. The bubblers are located at the back of each cove (or channel), at the entrance to some of the longer channels and down the middle of the main lake. The various bubblers range in force from just moving the water around to actually creating current. Those with the most force & current draw bass to the backs of the coves even during the hottest months. There are also two large fountains at the head of the lake (shallower area) that shoot water 20 plus feet in the air and create alot of water movement. Highest surface temperature I have ever seen is 85 degrees, coolest is 53. In addition to wind, there is much boat activity during the warmer months in the form of pontoon boats cruising the lake. Folks tend to drive around the perimeter of the lake at a speed fast enough to create a wake and move water around. We don't get the distinctive fall turnover that more natural bodies of water experience, where the entire column of water flips all at once. It tends to be more subtle, a slower process that occurs over weeks instead of days. Throw in the fact that it is Southern California, where many folks are more concerned with how the lake looks as opposed to its actual health, and that is especially true. However, we have done a wonderful job of convincing the HOA that the best "green" approach to dealing with the zebra mussels in the lake is to have a 2 or 3 stockings every year of adult crayfish. The crayfish help control the mussels without using any chemicals, but the fact that many of them & their descendants end up in the bellies of the bass & catfish of the lake is our little secret...

I have a situation at my home lake that I think I understand, but am looking for some additional feedback to make sure. The lake is a small (100 acre), shallow (max depth 12 ft) lake in Southern California. The contours of the lake are pretty much bowl shaped with little variance (i.e, no humps, shallow flats, etc). The primary cover most years are hundreds of docks (all in 5 feet of water or less) and undercuts at the base of many areas of the retaining wall (which circles the entire lake). Forage base is sunfish, crayfish & shore minnows with LMB & channel catfish being the predator species. There are no year round predatory fishing birds, occasionally a cormorant or two may show up on the water for a couple of days, but they are chased off by the HOA. The only other fish in the lake are common carp. The water level is kept stable, never varying by more than a foot and clarity is typically between 3 to 6 feet of visibility. Most years, there is no vegetation for it is eradicated year round by the HOA. However, every 3 or 4 years, the HOA slips up in their control of the Bushy Pondweed that grows and in the late spring through mid fall, we end up with clumps throughout the lake in 5 to 8 feet of water, in open water areas of the lake. This vegetation never makes the surface , the closest it tends to get is 2 feet or so from the top. There never is any growth shallow or near the docks. So during summertime of the"normal" years, when there is no vegetation, the docks are the default home for the bass. They cruise around them in the low light times & hang out under them during bright hours. However, in the years when the open water vegetation is present, the number of bass who use the docks for cover falls dramatically. There are still some during low light hours, however, those areas become a wasteland for the most part during bright times. I am assuming the deeper water and oxygen produced by the weedbeds during daylight hours changes the behaviors of the bass during the years we have the vegetation. I haven't been as consistent in figuring the fish out during these times, I'll always find some but they seem so much more spread out and more difficult to pattern consistently. I have seen huge schools of bass roaming through the pondweed & they are catchable, but the are much more pelagic than the other years. On non-vegetation years, the fish tend to be in smaller groups and more homebody's, staying in the same area for weeks at a time. Does it sound like I am understanding the influence vegetation has on the basses behavior or am I missing something?

Too cool. At about the same age, I drew a lake that was designed for fishing from shore. It consisted of cuts & channels, all of which were only wide enough that a cast could reach at least the middle. Most of the structure & cover were offshore, to make it easier to cast and to land fish. Unfortunately, I don't think I kept the drawing.

It really depends on the body of water you are on. My Pond Prowler on Lake Forest is very safe & handy to get back into narrow areas. Same boat on Lake Mead is a deathtrap, you will capsize when the first set of rollers from the afternoon wind come rolling in, even if you hide out in a cove. Small lakes where the wind does not create rollers and most of the lake is no wake zones are its wheelhouse. Using it outside of that is just using the wrong tool for the job.

My gear from the 70's & 80's is vintage. Your gear from the same era is just old. ?

The larger Dragonflies on my lake are brown, almost gold in color. I use a Senko color called "Green Pumpkin/Amber laminate" (#926), it is green pumpkin on top and a light brown on the bottom. To match a blue damselfly, Yamamoto has a few colors with blue in them, including one named "bruised shin".

I had the same experience, except one fell apart after a few casts and the other split open sitting in the tacklebox. Do not buy that lure, it is poorly engineered. The best way I have found to imitate dragonflies is to take a matching sized & matching color Senko, rig it wacky (weightless) and skip it to the locations you are casting to (even if it is open water). The skip cast imitates the dragon fly dipping down to the water. For the retrieve back, you can move it pretty fast, making it break the surface and then sinking a little, like a dragonfly that got waterlogged and is trying to get back to the surface. You will get bit on the skip out, the drop & the retrieve. On my lake, the bass move pretty fast to hunt down the large dragonflies, so don't worry about slowing it down for them. The bass are used to having to hustle if they want a dragonfly for a meal. I found that even other dragonflies think the lure is a dragonfly, they will zip down towards it as it is skipping out to the target.

I have alot of confidence in Fish Sticks, specifically their crawfish & minnow scents. However, I have marshaled twice in BASS events and have spent a full day with 5 different anglers (Ish Monroe, Dennis Tietje, Alton Jones Sr, David Fritts and Gerald Swindle). I realized later that none of these 5 guys used any scent on any of their lures at any time of the day.

That is a challenge that the bait monkey will gladly accept...

Watch the Bassmaster Classic on March 6th thru 8th. By tournaments end, you should have a good idea what the fish are doing and can then project a few weeks out as to what should work.

This question may be better answered in the next year or two. If we see some pros who defected from the Elite series to go to BPT decide to try to go back to the Elites, the answer may be the way the organizations and tournaments are run. Some pros may decide trying to catch 50 fish a day is not their strong suit & may try to get back to the biggest 5. If we see those who are at the top of the Elite series over the next two years accept invites to BPT (when BPT wipes out the bottom tier of their anglers), then the answer may be money. If I was to bet, I would put money on at least 5 ex-Elite anglers attempting to qualify or accepting invites back to the Elite series next year or in 2021 as opposed to the 2019 or 2020 Elite AOY jumping ship to go to BPT. No inside knowledge, just from a fans perspective.

For question #2, I believe more of the strength of the boat is front to back as opposed to side to side, so it may be better to store it vertically as opposed to on its side. I know that sounds counter intuitive, I am just basing it on how I see the boat flex when it is out of the water. I have turned it on its side as well as lifted it up lengthwise and it just feels more stable when vertical. Now that i think about it, rather than trusting what I believe, it might be worth a call to the manufacturer. I could be way off & I would hate to cause damage to your new boat when the manufacturer recommends something else.

That is the desert for you, although the cool evening temps just feel colder due to the triple digits during the day. For the channel catfish, one bait that I never used at Canyon Lake (I didn't know about it) but has caught numerous cats over 10 lbs at Lake Forest is frozen mackeral. Cut into decent sized chunks, something about the smell and oil slick they create draws in the big ones. We have frozen mackerel available at Big 5 sporting goods, not sure if anyone carries them that far inland.

Any of them, as well as the bridge that connects to Treasure Island. The old guy that showed me how to do it started down at the tunnel at the end of Catfish Cove and worked his way around the lake (via truck). He would fish a tunnel for 15 minutes or so & if no action, would move to the next one. He did use caution when fishing the connection tunnel between the main lake and the no wake zone because of boat traffic, but it was early and there weren't any boats moving thru. He then doubled back after he had made a circuit.

No disagreement there, but what you are missing is that people on this forum go fishing to go fishing, while 99% of the time, people drive a car in order to accomplish something else. That makes them different activities, the first being recreation the second being a chore. Again, I only bring this up to answer your original assertion that listening to music while fishing is the same as listening to music in your car. They aren't. In the latter, music can bring enjoyment to what may be an otherwise mundane task. But again, do whatever you want & enjoy.

Most of my striper fishing has been on Colorado river lakes during the summer, a time whete the stripers will school boil under pods of threadfin shad. In those situations, topwater baits, Rapala type minnow baits and lipless crankbaits will catch them. A cool thing about the lipless baits is you can crank them as fast as possible, stripers are pelagic and are used to running down fleeing prey. Also, since lipless baits sink, you can let the lure drop below those stripers busting the surface and see if there are any larger ones roaming around, eating the dying shad as they fall.

Never saw any flathead, just bullheads (brown) and channel catfish. The bullheads were always small (under 2 lbs) and had vice grip jaws if they were able to bite down on your fingers. Channel catfish over 30 lbs were caught every year by a few old timers that specialized for them. One trick to catch the large catfish during daylight hours was to fish the causeway tunnels. Use a large chunk of cut bluegill for bait with a decent sized bobber and fish the side of the causeway tunnels that has the wind blowing in. The wind will blow the bobber & bait back into the tunnel, where some of the bigger cats hang out during the day. The fight is intetesting because the catfish will either try to go out the other side or will make a charge towards you. Either way it is a battle.

I never advocated for you to do something different. I was addressing your comparison of fishing to driving a car, which was comparing apples to oranges.