HunterSmith

Made that stupid decision once and never again. I was 18 and fresh in the Marine Corps. Went camping on the Kern River for a week and fished my heart out the entire time. On the way home, I pulled over on the side of the road to fish for some trout in a good looking spot. Had just finished not catching anything and was headed back up when a park ranger made my acquaintance. Because I was military, he cut me some slack and instructed me to buy a 3 day license and fax it to him and I would not be fined. Stupid choice at a stupid age... learned my lesson though and make sure to get my fish and hunting combo every August.

As of now, soft plastics have been my go to and what I have caught every bass I have caught so far with. So now I'm trying to learn some other lures and ways of catching some bass. Appreciate it Sadly, living in the desert made getting to decent lakes too much hassle with my kids as young as they were. Heck, easier to drive to Vegas living in the Mojave desert.

It should be added that my lake, Canyon Lake in Texas, is a difficult bass lake already... at least that has been my experience and what I have been told by just about everyone I have talked with who fishes it. We have no aquatic vegetation at all which makes a lot of what people talk about when it comes to bass fishing already out the window to an extent. There are plenty of rocks to bounce things off though.

Thank you, greatly appreciate it. The part about the vibration will certainly help out. I have the exact one in the bottom, already used it a couple times with some other lures. Chains come in pretty handy. Thank you Been watching a lot of youtube vids, just a bit hard sometimes to understand exactly how they are reeling because I don't know whats beneath the water. Some people are not very good at explaining that part of it. I find people are sometimes better at conveying things through text because you have to create the mental image; that can be lost in video. Thank you, I will check them out. Appreciate it, he did a pretty good job of explaining different ways to fish a jig; better than most videos I watched.

How's everyone doing today? So I am fairly new to the bass fishing world; most my life I fished for Rainbow Trout and Blue Gill while I lived in Cali. Trying to learn as much as I can when it comes to fishing for LM Bass but it can be interesting. Lots of videos out there to help out but one issue I have found is it is hard to see from videos how a lure is being fished. Any tips when it comes to how different types of lures and baits should be reeled in would be very much appreciated. Taking my boat out Friday morning and wanna focus on jigs and crankbaits. I think I have the method of jigs down okay but not so much on cranks. What I am getting mixed understanding on is whether or not I should be trying to bump cranks into stuff or try to fish them right above the bottom. Thanks in advance

@Catt So, what if there is no aquatic vegetation? Canyon Lake does not have aquatic vegetation; the bottom is basically rock. How would you fish this differently? Canyon is a difficult lake for fishing Bass but I am trying to figure it out. I've been fishing closer to shore lines; should I continue this given lack of vegetation or is there still something better/more efficient I can do? Couple more questions, apologize for the abundance. You mention main lake bass being more predictable than shore bass, as far as you can imagine, would this be the same on my lake? Depth at deepest is around 165' tho the lake is considerably smaller than Toledo. When you say you start a creek/river bed and work shallower, what do you mean? Apologize if this seems fairly simple, I may be over thinking what you mean. When heavy wind (Canyon Lake gets very strong winds quite often), would you recommend moving to a depth of 12 -- 15'?

Catt, I'm at page 17 (loooooong way to go) but one thing I have noticed a lot so far in the brief reading I have done (I am copy and pasting all of your posts into a word document so I can just focus on reading your content) is you like to fish at a depth of 15' +/- 2'. How would you make this work if fishing in a small arm of a lake which does not go 15' deep? Many parts of Canyon Lake which seem like a good place to fish are much more shallow, so should I avoid such areas? While your content may be based on Toledo, I do recognize that much of this information will apply to bass fishing as a whole. Appreciate what you are doing

Oh this is gonna be fun and tedious. Live a few hours from Toledo Bend (New Braunfels, TX) and plan on going over there in the next year or so. Honestly, not ready as a bass angler (Rainbow Trout fishing my whole life until last 6 months or so since I lived in Cali until September 2015) to go all the way out there for a week long trip when I can work on my knowledge on Canyon Lake. So to get ready and learn as much as I can, my goal is to go through from the beginning of this thread and read all of your posts' Catt. Would you recommend this or is there somewhere else it may be better to start in the the thread? Thanks for the wealth of information, it is going to be great trying to take it all in.

I have a Tracker 170 Pro and it is a great boat to start with. It fits in my garage has has a decent sized motor to get around a large lake. Your vehicle choice should work with it as well.