In Pursuit Of Giant Bass By Bill Murphy

[Goose52]

............Anybody will catch big fish, if they fish enough, in water that has big fish

 

Fish

 

Now that would describe me, I get 'em with persistance - time on water...except my water has no big fish.

 

Now Fish - he does fish water that has big fish...but he also has the skills to identifiy the spot, within the spot, within the spot where the big fish actually live.  And that's why he's Fish Chris...and we're not......

[WRB]

I just want to add a few things about Bill Murphy's book.

1. Bills insights into big bass behavior is second to none in regards to deep structured lakes. Take note of his sketches and the few photos he was willing to share.

2. Bill was totally dedicated to catch giant bass which he called teener's, bass 13 lbs and larger.

3. Anchoring to have a stationary platform to fish from was important to Biil's presentation techniques like fishing live bait and stitching split shot worms. Few if any of today's bass anglers own an anchor or would consider fishing live bait. Bill caught all his own live bait; crawdads, golden shiners, etc.

4. The study of prey the bass targeted was as important to Bill as the bass were. Being a dental technician Bill was very detailed thinker, keen eye for colors, details were important to his presentations. If you talk to Butch Brown, Mike Long and other big bass experts, detail will be on top of their lists of importance, each angler developing their own methods of catching these rare big bass.

5. What Bill didn't put in his book for reasons only he knew could be several volumes. What he did share is special. I can tell you Bill Murphy was the first angler I know that created trout swimbaits. Bill hinted about mid lake big bass sanctuaries and noted he was doing more research in those areas. Murphy caught a 72 lbs 5 bass limit that he didn't share in his book trolling deep swimbaits in San Vincente lake. 3 lure spreader rigs with swimbaits may have been used and I believe Murph didn't want these sanctuary bass over harvested.

Alan Cole likes to take credit for trout swimbaits with the AC plug, Murphy was about 10 years ahead of Alan.

Read this book and take what works from it for you and apply it to your bass fishing and tip your hat to Murphy, a private and humble man who loved bass fishing.

Tom

[Mattlures]

Yep I agree with everything WRB just wrote! I never met him but I did sse him on SanV when I was a teenager. He looked like a statue in his boat. He didn't move much. I have some worms the were hand poured by Bill. After he died his wife sold some of his tackle on ebay. I had to have them.

[ebob2435]

Just finished reading it. great book would recomend it to anyone young or old to read. I can't wait to try some of his methods out.

[Grizzn N Bassin]

I know me either i was see how i can deal with stiching.. i think ill.do alright.. im going to read it again b4 the spring.tho.. im reading big bass zone now..

[Felix77]

Halfway through the book and I learned so much already.

All I can say without giving away the ending is that it expanded on knowledge which is covered in mainstream bass books.

[JayKumar]

Cool, tx for the comment,s always been curious about that book.  Hopefully it's not all live bait?

[SPEEDBEAD.]

Cool, tx for the comment,s always been curious about that book.  Hopefully it's not all live bait?

 

Not at all.

 

Many of the concepts can be applied across a broad spectrum of baits. You are only limited by your imagination.

[Grizzn N Bassin]

Theres like 1 chapter on using live bait.. crayfish and shiners mostly..

[prjavelin]

I have the book and for whatever reason I have never gotten to read the whole thing. I think ive read 20 pages off of it and lord knows I need to learn as much as possible because being honest I suck. I can only catch fish on spinnerbaits and the ones I do are one a day, one every two hours if im lucky. Its the only thing im confident in. I have caught a couple on shakey heads and since buying a boat all ive fished is reactions baits and covering a lot of water... sucks to be me.

 

I also have the whole line of the In Fisherman series and Ive read through it and im still not catching the amount of fish i want to catch.

 

I pulled the book from the closet. Hopefully I get to read it NOW that I need to grow as a fisherman.

[gallowaypt]

Would Murphy''s book be a good buy for the boatless?

[SPEEDBEAD.]

Would Murphy''s book be a good buy for the boatless?

 

Understanding bass is never a bad thing. You never know what you might be able to pick up from it and apply to your personal situation on the water.

[Felix77]

I just finished the book and I must say it opened my eyes to a different world of fishing. It's a different ball game going for the beasts of the lake.

I don't know if I have the patience to learn stitching. That will be a challenge!

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I just finished the book and I must say it opened my eyes to a different world of fishing. It's a different ball game going for the beasts of the lake.

I don't know if I have the patience to learn stitching. That will be a challenge!

 

Effective, but really sucks if you lack the absolute greatest patience. I know I can't do it, at least not as slowly as he describes.

[Felix77]

What about his notion on sticking with a particular spot for a 1/2 day or more.  Seems so contradicting to the run and gun approach to tournament angling.

 

If you don't know a lake then this would be really challenging and time consuming.

[xbacksideslider]

A great read.  If there's a theme, it is angler stealth.  He often illustrates his points about angler and big bass behavior by the similarities of how big bass travel the low spots and how big bucks do the same, how the big bass angler has to be like the deer hunter stealthy and still.

 

Quiet boat handling, minimal disturbance, precise positioning, long casts, perfect presentation of a carefully selected and assembled bait, painstakingly slow stiched retrieve.

 

Bass boats are not the optimum platform for Murphy's methods for stalking the big ones.

[WRB]

There was modern bass boats when Murph wrote this book, he was a trophy bass angler targeting the biggest bass in the lakes he fished. He designed anchors, how many bass anglers even have an anchor in their boats!

My point is; take from this book what works for you, not his exact presentation techniques but his knowledge about bass habits and behavior.

Tom

[merc1997]

anyone wanting to increase their catches of big bass will learn from murphy's book.  i can tell you that the big bass are a complete different critter.  here on table rock and other area lakes, the big bass are in different areas than the bass from about 4lbs down.  it takes patience to catch big bass.  the run and gun style of fishing is going to net you very few big ones. 

 

when targeting big bass here on table rock, i catch very few on them on the main lake, with the exception of the upper end of table rock.  it just seems that over the years, i have found more schools of big bass grouped back in the bigger coves and creeks.  good example would be when spoon fishing in the winter.  the most bass will be further out the creek, but there will be a smaller school further up the creek or cove, and that school will always be bigger bass.

 

every lake is different, but big bass stay in key locations, and they are wary.  they did not get big by being stupid.  anchoring is good because you are not running the troller, and after you are anchored, you really do not even need to have the electronics running.

 

murphy's book will help anyone.  another good read that i used a lot to adapt many of my fishing stratagies is buck perry's spoonplugging. 

 

i know the tournament bassers have made popular to stay on the run and fish fast, but that is not too condusive to catching big bass.  read murphy's book and it will improve anyones fishing.

 

bo

[BridgerM]

Ordered my copy few days ago. Can't wait for it to arrive. Im hoping at the very least I can learn bass behavior and apply that to choose correct bait/techniques to catch more fish. Bigger fish would be awesome, but to consistently catch more fish is equally desired.