WRB

Good thread. It's always helpful to know where or what region someone is from to give accurate replies. When I first signed on to this site, I didn't indicate where I'm from and need to update that information; SoCal. The moderators need to keep members from attacking each other and making harmfull remarks. It doesn't take too long to figure out who to help and share information with and who is looking for an argument, therefor someone to avoid. When you don't know where someone is from or what classification of water they fish, ask. Being a good sportsmen goes a long way to earning the respect of fellow members. WRB

Charter life member of BASS. Don't like the changes ESPN made, however still the top bass fishing organization in the country. Being a west coaster and BASS being based in the south, doesn't help me very much directly. Get involved with BASS, join one of their federation groups and you should benefit from being a BASS memebr. I have enjoyed my 40 years with BASS. Welcome to the sport. WRB

As noted above, your tackle will limit the type of lures and presentation that you can fish effectively. Everyone starts somewhere and you choices are adequate for the type of fishing you do. Ponds can easily be over populated with bass if the forage can't support the population; this is one reason you catch the smaller bass. Another obvious reason is smaller bass are more active and less wary then the big bass. The jointed Rapala is a good choice for ponds, try a larger size in fire tiger color;J13 for example. Another pond lure that you didn't mention is a buzz bait. You will need at least 12 lb mono for the buzzer. Soft jerk baits like a Fluke work great in ponds. As mentioned the Senko's; water melon red flake should work. The problem with both the fluke and Senko is the hook size; try a Gamakatsu wide gap finesse weedless hook, size 2/0 and nose hook the Fluke, wacky rig the Senko, add a lead 3/32 oz sluggo lead nail weight to the head in of both the Fluke and Senko. Remember the first rule with pond fishing; be invisible. Pond fish are very wary of any movement around or in the pond. Wear camo clothing and keep a low profle; you must stock the big bass as if you are hunting. Low light periods are you best times, go early or late. Fish the deepest water in the pond first. Most pond fishermen see bass in shallow water and try to catch those fish. The big bass may come up to check what is going on, then return to the deeper sanctuary area. At night the shallow water can be good. WRB

You can tell a lot about a basses weight from a photo, if the picture hasn't been digitally altered. This is one reason why a length to girth formula is important; you can determine the weight within 5% to 10% depending on how the measurements were taken. This bass is obviously shorter than claimed, measured with the mouth open etc. Using the L x L X G/1200=pounds; Unknown girth; look at the widest area of the bass dorsal fin to belly; about 1/4 th the length= girth is 75% of the length, about 1/3rd = 80%, a little less than 1/2 = 100%. example 27" length with 75% girth, bass weighs 12.3 lbs. 27" bass with 80% girth, bass weighs 13.2 lbs 27" bass with 100% girth, bass weighs 16.4 lbs The bass in the photo's is skinny or 75% girth at best, therefor 12 lbs at the most. 24" bass with 75% girth weighs about 8.6 lbs. WRB

Fall in the norteast; laydowns are temperary ambush sites for bass that are trageting baitfish and possibly crawdads, depending where the lay down is located and the weather. Look for a lay downs that intersects deeper water or soil transitions for higher percentage cover. The outside deeper ambush site areas are you best places to fish during the fall period. If you are fishing a cold front, then try the center more dense cover areas of the lay down. Wood cover can hold baitfish like shad during the dark hours and crawdads all day. Start deep and give the shallow areas a few casts to keep them honest. WRB

Lets roll the clock back 40 years to 1968, the early All American bass tournaments that Ray Scott held. At that time the only other tournaments were big bass events where the heavest bass won all the money. Scotts events where blind draw events and the heavest limits won the money. Todays tournaments are fashioned after the All Amercican events and the focus became catching a limit, rather than catching big bass, two very different disiplines. The other factor that the All American events established was a specific start and finish time you had to catch your limit of fish. Limiting the time and catching limits of bass, changed how tournament fisherman fished to be successful. The fisherman could no longer camp out on a specific spot known to have bass and wait for them to start biting. The tournament fisherman needed to have several spots to make a milk run or establish a pattern of lures and locations where you could catch bass at different times and locations. The weekend fisherman normally doesn't understand why a tournament fisherman tends to be running around the lake and fishing several different areas quickly. I fully agree with Catt in regards that most bass fisherman do not understand basics of bass behavior and prey types the bass are targeting. With todays electronics and GPS maps, most tournament fisherman have learned where to fish, they just don't know why the bass are there. If you don't know why the bass are located at that location, during whatever seasonal period it may be, you can't teach anyone else how to consistantly catch bass, regardless of how good you may be with your technical fishing skills or the quality of your equipment and tackle. Being both a trophy bass fisherman, that occasionally fishes charity tournaments, here are my thoughts on this topic; the tournament bass fisherman must be able to make good decissions to manage their time and know where to fish when. Both the tournament and weekend recreational fisherman should take the time to learn basic bass behavior; it's far more important to know why bass are doing what they do, than being skilled with your tackle and owning high tech equipment. I don't know tournament fisherman who are willing to share their bass behavior knowledge, they will offer to teach you how to use equipment and present specific lures. WRB

The bass go to where the water is warmest and has prey available. For example a power plant outflow has warm water discharge, so that is one place the bass tend to go. Deeper water in the winter is usually warmer then the surafce or shallow water, so the bass locate in the deeper, warmer water. Warmer is relative to the lake or river. For example the surface water, down to about 5 feet or so can be 40 degrees or colder and the water 25 feet deep in the same lake may be 45 degrees...5 degrees warmer. During the late winter, the sun can warm the surface water in wind protected areas, so the bass will come up for the few degrees of warmer shallow water in the afternoons. During the cold water period, the bass eat less and smaller high protien food; like crawdads, are prefered. This doesn't mean a easy larger meal won't be targeted by a hungry bass, if it is easy to for the bass to catch. This is one reason jigs, structure spoons and worms fished slowly where the bass are looking for crawdads or smaller baitfish, work so well during the winter. Out west, the lakes get planted trout during the winter, so trout type swimbaits work well because they look like an easy meal for big bass. WRB

Smallies like black hair jigs with small 101 JR size frog or Super Pork Tadpole JR. Use a 1/4 oz round jig fishing rivers. Sworming Hornets 3/16 oz underspin with a tiny Fluke trailer in chartruese also works well, slow rolled along the bottom. WRB

Wishful thinking that artificial lures are anywhere near effective as the live bait big bass are targeting. I stopped using live bait, 30 years ago, directly as a result of the numbers of big bass being caught. For the record; it doesn't bother me if live bait is being used, just not during the pre spawn and spawning periods. Bill Murphy was a live bait fisherman and lure fisherman, who taught me how to fish live crawdads for example. Big night crawlers are very effective big bass bait, when fly lined with no weight. Live waterdogs, big golden shiners, live bluegill, live shad and crawdads are very common live baits that I don't fish with anymore, it's a personal choice. Make no mistake; using lures only is a big handicap for the trophy bass fisherman. WRB

Welcome to bass fishing. We all had to start somewhere and today you have the internet to help you with answers to your questions, This site for example has feature articals for the new bass fisherman to read. You apparently live in Eastern Penn and fishing river and small lakes, to very different environments for bass. During the warm summer period months, getting out early was a real advantage because the baitfish and crawdads are active close to shore, near or in cover. As the sun comes up both baitfish and crawdads go deeper and become less active. During the colder water periods of late fall and winter, the baitfish school up and the crawdads stay in deeper water. There isn't a lot of prey for the bass near the shoreline or in cover, so the bass move deeper to be near their food sources. Bass are cold blooded, meaning their body temperature is the same as the water and the bass slow down and eat less when the water is cold. The bass become less active and will become active for only a short time period, about every 3 to 4 hours. The short cuts to learning to bass fish is to ask the successful bass fisherman in your area what they are using and how deep they are fishing to catch bass. If you are polite, most fisherman will be very helpful. Don't ask where they catch their fish, few fisherman will tell you about specific locations. Don't try to learn more than 2 presentations at any one time. The best to start with IMO are; soft plastic worms, use the split shot or slip shot technique and drop shpt with small 5" to 6" finesse worms. Stay with the basic colors; night crawler browns and green with red flake. You can drift these rigs slowly on the bottom, around points on the main lake or anchor and let the current slowly move the rig along the bottom in the river around bridges and deeper holes. The second lure to use is a crankbait, the lure with the deep diving bill. Agian I would suggest 2 lures; a Bomber model 7A, that will run about 8 to 10 feet deep and a 200 series Bandit that runs about 6 to 8 feet deep. Colors; fire tiger and crawdad brown. With your small boat and motor, I suggest you to learn to fish a crankbait by trolling. The speed you troll should be the speed the lure is swimming with the best action, so let a few yards of line out and look at the lure along side your boat, a slow walking speed or 2 mph is about right. Cast the lure about 50 to 75 feet behind the boat and try to stay in about 10 to 12 feet depth, the lure should bump the bottom once in awhile, but not a lot. When you see shallow water ahead, or the lure is bumping the bottom too often, move out to deeper water so the lure doesn't snag, then move back to the 10 to 12 foot depth. make lazy S turns about 10 feet to one side, then back agian about every 100 feet or so the change the lures speed. This will teach you what bass strikes feel like and where the bass are located. Once you catch a few, then go back and try casting the crankbaits and also try the soft plastic worms in the same area. You may also want to make or buy a lure knocker to retrieve crnakbaits that have snagged into the bottom or whatever. Stay with these two presentations until you are consistanly catching bass. These 2 presentations should keep you busy until the spring, then add spinnerbaits and buzzers to you presentations and fish the weed/grass beds, early and late, continue with the soft plastic and crankbaits during the mid day hours. Good luck. WRB

What you may be seeing is young of then year baitfish, including bass and sunfish fingerlings, that had to leave the sanctuary of the weed/grass bed areas, as the weeds die back during fall. The baitfish instictively school up for protection by species. Bass targeting baitfish schools is a common fall feeding pattern. The primary spawns occur during the spring of the year when the water warms from the colder winter period. In Southern California we have bass spawning for about a 3 month period and on rare occasion a few late summer bloomers may spawn...very few, as nothing in nature is absolute. WRB

The difference between 20 and 30 feet when the surface water is 70 degrees is nil, unless a thermocline had developed. My guess is you had some wind, frontal conditions and the bass moved to the deeper water, sensing a seasonal change. In small pit lake environment, the bass will move around a lot, so they could be in 10 feet of water the next morning. In clear water you may need to back off 50 feet and cast to them, so they are not spooked. They could also be inactive at the time you are trying to catch them, go back in a few hours. WRB

It is almost impossible to answer the original question, due to the unlimited factors involved. Environmental conditions and the lakes ecosystem changes daily. The fastest growth rate that I'm aware of occured at lake Isabella in California where pure FLMB grew to 12lbs in 7 years, then 18 to 19 lbs in 12 years. Conditions were perfect, today it is rare to catch a bass over 12 lbs at Isabella. The majority of california's giant bass over 15 lbs are at least 10 years old, some 10 lber's are 7 years. Like any animal, bass don't keep growing with age, they get to a maximum weight, then start to deteriorate as they get older and finally die. The largest male bass I know of was 16 years at 7 lbs, I caught this bass from lake San Vincente in 1973, during spawning period. Larry Bothoff, the area biologist, examined the bass as it was a rare catch. Both my largest bass (18.8 & 19.3) were about 14 years old, if the scale rings were accurate. WRB

Fresh water fish; July 1st, 1976, Dominion Day up in Canada, we were vacationing and celebrating my late father in laws birthday that falls on the 4 of July. This was an annual event and several of the locals in the Nestor Falls area of lake of The Woods came to this party. One of the guest lives on a nearby island, my wife and I agreed to take Mil back before dark. I took along a light tackle bait casting outfit with 6 lb mono and black 1/8 oz jig to try for a big smallie before leaving for home in the morning. We dropped Mil off and on the way back I made a few casts where I had caught a few good size smallmouth earlier in the week. Felt a tap and set the hook into what turned out to be a 37 lb musky. The musky immediately ran down the rocky bank, then turned out into deep water and jumped several times. My wife was really excited watching this big fish jump and I thought it would bite or brake the line at any moment, so didn't expect to land this fish. After about 15 minutes we where able to get close to the musky and my wife netted the it, but couldn't lift it in the boat. I set the rod down and lifted the musky in the boat and the fish had tangled the netting in it's teeth, the head was through the net. We couldn't untangle the fish without a knife to cut the net away, so ran the boat back to the dock where the party was still in progress. My wife ran up the house and brought back everyone to see the fish. Everyone was very excited, however I was trying to release the musky, but the fish was too stressed to survive after all the handling and photo's. The musky was mounted and is a reminder of the wonderday days we spent at Lake of The Woods with my wifes family. WRB PS; this is my PB musky and I have spend a lot of time fishing with big musky lures and heavy musky rods trying to catch a 40+ and ended up catching this fish on very light bass tackle I was using for walleyes during this trip. Landing that musky was pure luck and that what it takes sometimes.

Back in 1983 I was fishing Catalina Island with my friend Art Moyer, when we spotted and broadbill tailing. We baited the broadbill with a live Bonita, hooked up around 3 in the afternoon. The braodbill looked to be in the 300 lbs class and when hooked sounded and ran down about 300 feet and stayed there. I worked on this fish for about 2 hours, then we decided to back off and try to lift the fish using different angles, pulling as hard as we could with 50 lb tackle. Art and I took turns with the fish for another several hours, finally put the rod in a holder and with the boat in gear slowly followed the fish that was still deep and swimming out to deeper water between Catalina and San Clemente Islands. Every hour we would take the rod and try to plane the fish up and the fish would run back down. This fight continued all night and at early dawn the fish took off and we had to chase it about 1/4 mile. The big braodbill came up and started to chase baitfish. We were able to gain line quickly, pulled up the broadbill trying to feed and gaffed it. The fight lasted about 15 hours. The broadbill weight nearly 350 lbs, our first and last swordfish. WRB

Where I fish stripe bass don't jump and although very strong fish, they tend to make a few runs and tire out fast. The fact they prefer open water, it is easy to land 30+ lb stripe bass on regular bass tackle. We call striped marlin "strippers" and they are one the top fighting ocean fish period. Dr Henshall in his famous book Black Bass stated that LMB are pound for pound the best fighting fresh water fish and the debate has continued sense then. Is pulling hard the essence of a good fighter? or is the hooked to landed fish percentage a better yardstick? I loose very few giant bass after hooking them, simply because I have learned how to keep control of these fish. Big muskies on the other are very difficult to land with the same bass tackle. The fact they are twice as big, very fast, jump, try to get into cover and have sharp teeth, makes them a great fresh water game fish. Bass are my still favorite fish. WRB

I agree with the above thread; however evidence of gas bubbles and decayed vegetation doesn't necessarily always mean the lake has turned over. Patches decayed matter and off colored or smelly water happens as the weeds die off, sink, decay and refloat. If you see this all over the lake at the same time, then you do have a good indicator of turn over. Several weeks of cold nights and wind in the northern region will usually turn over the lake and the fish will be scattered for a few weeks while the lake settles into the cold water period. WRB

I believe the bass refered to was a "mean mouth" bass, a cross between a smallmouth and largemouth. The only genitic engineered bass are those in the Share A Lunker program, where the university was playing around to improve the intergrade strains of FLMB and NLMB. This isn't selective harvest that was initailly the program goal where big female and males having good genes naturally were used for producing and stocking fry. Out west we call 500+ lb bass, black sea bass and they will sometimes see a diver as something of interest to strike. We are up somewhere around F34 for bass stocked into DVL. It's been my experience that pure Florida's and F1 grow to giant size where the ecosystems have the right mix of water temps and prey available. WRB

The California state record northern strian largemouth bass was 14.5 lbs, before pure Florida strian bass were introduced. I weighed a northern LMB for a fisherman back in 1960 that was 15.1, the bass was never offically recorded. IMO 15 to possible 16 lbs is the absolute maximum weight for pure northen strain LMB. Florida strain or intergrades of FLMB and NLMB grow much heavier, not necessarily longer. The length to girth ratio of NLMB rarely exceeds 80%; the girth being 80% of the length. It is common for FLMB or intergrades to have girths that exceed 90%, much heavier bass, then the NLMB. WRB

Agree with CATT. Where I fish for example the fall period generally transitions to the cold water winter period when the water drops to about 55 degrees. The lakes have threadfin shad and trout, so the bass tend to following those fish into deeper water areas. However, during a warming period of calm weather during the mid winter, bass can be found up and feeding near or on the surface, so keep your eyes open and let the bass dictate where they actually are feeding. If your lake ices over, that a good indicator it's time to put away the bass tackle and give them a rest. WRB

Just got the word from Ron that HBC-3 was canceled. The HBC-4 is still on the table for 2009 pre spawn period, if the ecconomy recovers. WRB

Agree with Raul's thread, well written. The only experience I have with pit ponds is quarry lakes created when digging out sand, gravel and rocks in my local area. I grew up fishing these quarry lakes that have nearly vertical walls on 3 sides and one open area where the heavy equipment entered to excavate. Bass in these deep clear water lakes or ponds become very wary of any surface shaddows that may indicate a preditor bird or animal is approaching. Keeping a low profile, drab clothing and your shaddow off the water is very important so you don't alarm the bass. The majority of the basses time is spent roaming the shoreline edges looking for prey that has fallen onto the waters surface or hidding in the cover. During low light periods you have an advantage with quarry lake bass becuase they can't detect your presence as easily and prey is more active. Fishing edges with a buzzer or other types of top water lures like frogs can be very effective. If the bass are not roaming, then soft plastics like Senko's and drop shot worms can be effective fishing edges and openings in the cover. Quarry/pit lake bass are not highly pressured, so keep your lure selection simple and move quitely. WRB

For bass; the formula L X L X G / 1200 = weight in lbs., works for me over the past 35+ years, accurate within 5%. L = length tip of closed mouth to end of tail, G = girth around widest area, dorsal fin down. Any chart that doesn't consider the fishes length and girth isn't going to be accurate. You can use a factor like; 80% of the basses length can represent the average girth of a nortern strain LMB and 90% of the length for girth of the average FLMB caught in California or Texas for a ball park weight, if you don't have an accurate scale. WRB PS; the referenced chart appears to use a factor of 75% of length to equal girth and that is closer for smallmouth bass or thin bodied LMB, IMO.

School size bass in the 1 to 2 lb range are not all males, they are young adult bass of both sexes. The larger adult bass size bass; 3 to 5lbs for example are not as aggressive at chasing baitfish schools around the lake. The key is to locate compression zones where the larger bass tend to wait for the smaller school bass to push the baitfish schools to them for easy meals. The larger bass aren't lazy, they are more experienced and let the smaller bass do the chasing. Try using larger size spooks or Sammy's over points where you see baitfish activity. If the bite isn't top water, then try a larger size shad color crank bait. If the bite is deep, then use a structure spoon and let fall through the baitfish school when near structure areas. WRB

Thanks for sharing the link and I agree that it's the best. Paul made his mark by kneelin & reelin deep cranks for years. His sponsor is Mann's and he was using Manns plus deep cranks. Normans DD22, Poe's 300 series and Bagleys dreadge are also good deep cranks. WRB