what works?

[Gus Heinze]

So I'm pretty new to have a plan when fishing. In the past I've used my fly-rod, haven't had much problem pulling in smaller pan fish and the occasional bass using a wooly-bugger and sometimes a few nice hits on poppers.

 

When I take my kids fishing we use worms, corn, minnows other types of what I'd call live bait and we catch fish.

 

I want to learn how to use jigs, worms, (senko? I think it's called) frogs, etc...I'm trying to learn how to use my baitcasting reel rod (without birds nests) but the thing I'm not knowing how to do is attack the water.

 

Do you have some sort of a system? For example do you start with top water, then go down from there? Do you just keep trying different lures and presentations until you get some bites?

 

It might not help that it's SUPER HOT in Texas so I'm assuming most fish are extremely laid back this time of year I'd just to know how to have a better plan of attack other than what I'm doing now, which is tossing a frog and working on my baitcasting. 2 days, 0 bites.

 

I also wonder about this fishing calendar, I think it works off the phases of the moon, it will say the best time for bites on a particular day are something like 2:06pm-3:42pm, it's close to 100 degrees here at those times, is that just a calendar for the entire world and not taking temperatures in to account?

 

Thanks.

[Bluebasser86]

That's a very broad question. You might start by looking around at some articles and go from there.

https://www.bassresource.com/how-to-fish/

 

[Raul]

20 hours ago, Gus Heinze said:

So I'm pretty new to have a plan when fishing. In the past I've used my fly-rod, haven't had much problem pulling in smaller pan fish and the occasional bass using a wooly-bugger and sometimes a few nice hits on poppers.

 

When I take my kids fishing we use worms, corn, minnows other types of what I'd call live bait and we catch fish.

 

I want to learn how to use jigs, worms, (senko? I think it's called) frogs, etc...I'm trying to learn how to use my baitcasting reel rod (without birds nests) but the thing I'm not knowing how to do is attack the water.

 

Do you have some sort of a system? For example do you start with top water, then go down from there? Do you just keep trying different lures and presentations until you get some bites?

 

It might not help that it's SUPER HOT in Texas so I'm assuming most fish are extremely laid back this time of year I'd just to know how to have a better plan of attack other than what I'm doing now, which is tossing a frog and working on my baitcasting. 2 days, 0 bites.

 

I also wonder about this fishing calendar, I think it works off the phases of the moon, it will say the best time for bites on a particular day are something like 2:06pm-3:42pm, it's close to 100 degrees here at those times, is that just a calendar for the entire world and not taking temperatures in to account?

 

Thanks.

 

FORGET THE FISHING CALENDAR !

 

Anytime you can go fishing is the "right time", you ain't gonna catch them if you're not there.

[Koz]

21 hours ago, Gus Heinze said:

Do you have some sort of a system? For example do you start with top water, then go down from there? Do you just keep trying different lures and presentations until you get some bites?

 

When you're first learning to fish for bass or going to a new lake for the first time what to throw and how to throw it is usually decided by what type of cover and structure you are fishing and in part by time of day and weather. But for me it's mostly cover and structure (keeping in mind that I bank fish 99% of the time).

 

So as noted in a post above, the articles on this site are a great resource to learn about those types of things. After that your familiarity with a specific body of water will come into play. For example, on some lagoons where I fish the bass just kill the Whopper Plopper. On others I can't get them to hit it. But in those same spots I can throw a frog and they will hit that. So that always plays into my decision of what to use that day.

 

I'm not a pro like other guys on this site, but I'll give you the same advice I gave to my 11 year old when he started fishing. Learn to fish a Texas rigged Senko type bait. Learn to cast it to specific targets rather than just cast and retrieve. You'll catch fish and learn a lot about fishing for bass. Then throw a Ned rig. After that learn to fish frogs and jigs. Spinnerbaits and chatterbaits? To me - and I'm sure someone will blast me for this - don't require as much in the way of technique so I left them off my list. But they bring in fish as well. There are a ton of other baits and techniques, but for most a Senko, frog, and jig are all you'll every need to catch a bass.

 

You may not catch any record breakers with the T-Rig Senko but when you learn to fish it correctly you'll have a lot of fun and get your fair share of bites.

 

 

[Gus Heinze]

Thank you for the replies and advice. I went out last night with my 9 year old, he was using worms and caught his first catfish.

I was throwing a 6" senko pumpkin colored and caught my first bass of 2017 using my bait-casting reel/rod. We had a BLAST!