leavinc

skunked

Well I should rephrase that..I caught my first bass I was actually trying to catch. Like I said before I used to do alot of Walleye fishing with minnows and would occasionally hook a bass, but this one counts as my first in my book, it felt like I was cheating before. I went to Lake Lizzie just outside of Saint Cloud, FL (where I live). and I was fishing off of a point on the north side of the lake. I was using a motoroil shad 7.5" Culprit worm with a 1/32 oz bullet weight rigged texas style. I casted out to some lily pads and let my worm fall to the bottom. Then I just would twitch my rod then reel in the slack, then twitch some more while slowly reeling in. It seems that just by dragging my worm across the bottom like this it worked. Like I said, I'm totally new to this style of fishing. I actually didn't even purposely set the hook. I thought i was snagged at first so I gave it little jerk when all of a sudden the snag started pulling away from me. Now I knew I had a fish so i reeled in the slack as I let my rod down then gave it another pull just to make sure. One Largemouth later and I'm addicted. I didn't have a scale but I did measure his length - 18 inches. (just wondering what do you think his approx weight would be). He wasn't fat and I'd say he looked about average in girth from the pictures I see on here. I'm going fishing today probably this evening and I hope to catch some more. I just bought a pack of 5" watermelon/black flake senkos and I wanna give them a try because I hear so much about them. Thanks guys, and I can't wait to go fishing!!

well i just got back from fishing and I got skunked. :'( I went to East Toho, I'm not too bent outta shape, from what I hear it's a very tough lake to fish and people don't catch many fish there. I did meet a kid there, he was using a texas rig just like me. He said he caught a 3 pounder earlier but when I was fishing with him for about 4 hours we got nothing. It was hard to tell bites from my worm running into lilypads and stuff,(I loved that power pro, it was soooo sensitive, totally different from mono) but I did have several sure bites and once I had a fish on my lure but when he jumped out of the water he spit it out - guess I didn't set the hook right. We were fishing in shallow water and went in to our knees, so I'm guess the deepest we fished was 4 feet. Now onto technique. since it was so shallow I was using a 1/32 bullet splitshot at the head of my worm. They are those bullet shaped splitshots from Water Gremlin. I tried letting it sink to the bottom on a fairly slack line, waited then twitched my rod then reeled in the slack, then waited again - I did this all the way back to me. I also tried a slow steady retrieve while twitching my rod if I felt a possible bite I would stop and wait to see if he would take it again. In both examples the fish would never hang on long enough for me to point my rod down while reeling in the slack then set the hook. They seemed to be very fussy. I tried several colors and I had the most action on a motoroil shad culprit. I let my new friend borrow one and he had some bites as well. Tomorrow I plan to take my little brother to Alligator Lake where I hear the fishing is much better.

Well actually I was talking to a friend at work and he said that it's impossible to do any shore fishing because it's like a marsh on the outside. He told me to go to West Toho because I don't have a boat :'(

Thanks for all the info. I think the bait monkey has already attacked because tomorrow's pay day and I'm going to the bait shop. I plan to pick up some Power Pro line. Is this any good? I've heard it can eat away at your guides but I checked out their website and it says the new stuff isn't supposed to be as abrasive as the older stuff. BTW, I'm going to be fishing at Alligator Lake outside of Saint Cloud in FL. From what I hear it's got some nice bass. The guy at the bait shop said that people here have alot of luck with Zoom's Super Salty Fluke in watermelon seed rigged weightless or with a 1/16 oz weight or less so I might pick up a pack of those

wow, I wasn't expecting so many replies so fast!! I guess I'll have to pick some bigger hooks as well as some buzz baits and crank baits. I was just never really a fan of these because it seemed I would always weed the lake with those treble hooks. Right now I'm not so worried about the size of my fish. Instead I'm going for quantity, then when i got my techniques down I'll go for the lunkers

Thanks for the reply, looks like you're in the same boat as me. I only caught several bass in my life (and thats when I wasn't even trying to) but after seeing one jump out of the water as I was fighting him got me hooked. But as for Walleye, my Aunt and Uncle and I would fish them often and usually come back with our bag limit every time. We would then clean them and eat em. I'm practically drooling right now thinking about it, In my opinion walleye is one of the best tasting fish in the world.

Hello everyone - first post. Let me introduce myself - I'm 18 and although i have done a lot of Walleye fishing I'm still new to the world of Bass fishing believe it or not. To be honest I have very little experience when it comes to bass fishing but since I just moved to Florida I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm also new to using plastics. I've always been a "lazy" fisherman by just throwing live bait with a bobber and waiting for bites. After reading many articles I have decided to start with plastics because they seem to be effective. Here's some of the stuff I just bought. Red Shad U-tail Zoom Worms Natural Blue U-tail Zoom Worms Watermelon Seed U-tail Zoom Worms I got some Gamakatsu 2/0 EWG Worm hooks to use with these (is this the right size?) I also picked up a pack of Culprit 7.5" Fire and Ice Worms and I had some red Eagle Claw 2/0 wide worm hooks so i plan to use them with the culprits (i also noticed they are bigger than the Gamakatsu maybe equal to their 3/0) Since I plan to fish in water less than 6-7 feet I also picked up some 1/16 oz bullet weights and in case I need some more weight I got some of the water gremlin easy peg split shots. I figured I'd keep it simple with worms for now and save the other plastics for later. I rigged them Texas style but I'm concerned whether or not the hook will be able to penetrate the worm before hooking the fish's mouth, I tried to put the hook point as close to the surface of the worm as possible. Well that's my plan and I'm sticking to it for my next day off of work. I know catching the fish is alot more than having the right tackle so please let me in on some tips you guys may have. Thanks again and I cant wait to go fishing