Targeting big bass

[Todd2]

John Hope's tracking led him to say that once a Bass reached 7 lbs it mainly becomes nocturnal. I think night fishing is a key for catching more larger bass. I know I can fish the same areas that I do during the day and almost always I'll have a bigger bag at night on those spots. But my PB came in the afternoon on a windy late Fall day.

[Wurming67]

This was best one today out at Loxahatchee 

[Graham]

Gonna go chuck a glide bait, hoping for a big girl, but likely just gonna be another day practicing my casting ?!

[WRB]

Northern Everglades is a massive swap with navigation canals, what phenomenal place to bass fish.

You either flip & pitch, Texas rig big  worms, use big willow leaf spinnerbaits or surface fish wake baits along edges wherever you can find deeper water. I would spend time researching deep spring lakes within the reserve. 

Tom

PS, a friend once told me if I ever got the chance to fish there modify a big double willow leaf spinnerbait by cutting off the smaller blade making it a single blade bait and use a gold blade.

 

[Bassun]

I am not a big bass master.  I don't have a single DD bass to my name.  I'm not sure if you are asking the how to do, or the how to handle the approach.  Having said that, I won't try to offer opinions on what to do to catch them beyond the basic of the mantra, "The night time is the right time."  A few of you will probably remember that from Mr Sandler.

 

But the mindset is different.  I have fished for locally "big" fish vs just any bass...we just don't have many of those big dual numbers that pop up.   I look at it much like musky fishing with the old adage of them being a "Fish of 10,000 casts."  If you are willing to do the legwork (as Tom was referring to the location etc), then have the patience to work the right spot with the right lures -- your time will come.  Your battle will likely be more often with yourself, and your own patience, vs mama B wearing that DD moniker.  If you have the patience, and do the pre-fishing work, your time will come.  But hey, just look at my profile pic vs Tom's... one of us knows big fish - I know who I'd be asking for technique...

 

[DINK WHISPERER]

On 4/21/2018 at 1:46 PM, Yeajray231 said:

Yep. Big is a relative term to location. 

 

Same can be said about bigger bass eating smaller baits... Ever caught a hog on a 4" senko ? It Happens ! 

Like I said, it's different everywhere. Here in South FL downsizing comes into play mainly after a bad cold front. I've never been much of a finesse guy myself. Never felt like I needed to. In my experience only, big baits catch bigger fish more often then small baits do. 

[soflabasser]

On 4/23/2018 at 11:50 AM, Bassun said:

 I look at it much like musky fishing with the old adage of them being a "Fish of 10,000 casts." 

 

A trophy bass fisherman and muskie fisherman are very similar to each other. Both fish with larger than normal lures. Both target very difficult to catch fish. Both spend more days fishing than catching but they tend to catch several "fish of a lifetime" when most fishermen are lucky to get 1-2 of these fish in a lifetime. These type of fisherman are a different breed than most fishermen...they are so persistent and determined than many see  them as obsessed and stubborn in the way they fish. I am one of those fishermen and all the hard fishing trips I have endured and will continue to endure are all worth it when I land my next trophy bass and my next muskie.

On 4/21/2018 at 5:43 PM, Graham said:

Gonna go chuck a glide bait

Yes a glide bait is a good lure for big bass. The little bass will hit it too but the average bass will be bigger. You will have to be very patient to fish these types of lures.

[Graham]

6 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

Yes a glide bait is a good lure for big bass. The little bass will hit it too but the average bass will be bigger. You will have to be very patient to fish these types of lures.

Broke off and lost my favorite glide bait, really was a bummer. I admit I wasn’t using the proper equipment...

 

I agree with your philosophy on fishing big baits. It’s a dedication and an obsession. I’m new to the big swimbait game, and I’m going to invest in the proper equipment so that I don’t have to worry as much. Got ahead of myself, and I feel like a fool, but I’ve got to admit where I’m wrong. 

[soflabasser]

5 minutes ago, Graham said:

Broke off and lost my favorite glide bait, really was a bummer. I admit I wasn’t using the proper equipment...

No one is immune to losing lures and I have lost plenty of lures while fishing. Big bass tend to live in or near some nasty structure so every big bass fisherman has to accept that they will lose plenty of lures while fishing.

[austinF]

Frogs can always catch some big fish. But if you want it to become a habit rather than an occasional stroke of luck, you're going to change the way you fish for bass. Something like knowing the patterns of bass behavior. Try more different techniques and spend more time on the water, your pb bass may occur next time.

Seems that bait monkey found you again.

[Catt]

6 hours ago, soflabasser said:

A trophy bass fisherman and muskie fisherman are very similar to each other. Both fish with larger than normal lures. Both target very difficult to catch fish. Both spend more days fishing than catching but they tend to catch several "fish of a lifetime" when most fishermen are lucky to get 1-2 of these fish in a lifetime. These type of fisherman are a different breed than most fishermen...they are so persistent and determined than many see  them as obsessed and stubborn in the way they fish. I am one of those fishermen and all the hard fishing trips I have endured and will continue to endure are all worth it when I land my next trophy bass and my next muskie.

 

 

So the 35 double digit bass I caught on smaller lures don't count?

 

Some "trophy" bass anglers throw nothing but swim-baits, some throw nothing but larger than normal lures, some fish nothing but deep water structure, some fish nothing but shallower water, but all catch "trophy" size bass.

 

Lure selection for any size bass is totally personal preference.

 

I do agree catching larger than average bass is a mindset. 

[bostonsox2904]

4 hours ago, Catt said:

 

So the 35 double digit bass I caught on smaller lures don't count?

 

Some "trophy" bass anglers throw nothing but swim-baits, some throw nothing but larger than normal lures, some fish nothing but deep water structure, some fish nothing but shallower water, but all catch "trophy" size bass.

 

Lure selection for any size bass is totally personal preference.

 

I do agree catching larger than average bass is a mindset. 

Catt - what do you do differently than other people that fish your waters that are not catching these large bass?

[WRB]

Very few of the DD size bass that I have caught were at a unknown location,  I knew big bass were there before catching them. 

I use whatever lure works effectively where the active big bass are feeding. Very few have been shallow fish, most between 15' to 20' deep pre spawn staging bass. The exception is summer nights when the big girls move up into shallower water to feed, but never far from deeper water. It's my belief the big bass find sanctuary areas to rest in cooler water and feed in areas close that have an abundance of prey.

Sonar is your eyes underwater and as mentioned in another thread look with your eyes for big bass, they can be very curious and because they are big easy to see as they can make a big wake or flash moving reeds or weeds and panic smaller fish.

Tom

[soflabasser]

6 hours ago, Catt said:

 

So the 35 double digit bass I caught on smaller lures don't count?

 

Some "trophy" bass anglers throw nothing but swim-baits, some throw nothing but larger than normal lures, some fish nothing but deep water structure, some fish nothing but shallower water, but all catch "trophy" size bass.

 

Lure selection for any size bass is totally personal preference.

 

I do agree catching larger than average bass is a mindset. 

You are correct that you can catch big bass on regular lures, but your success has probably more to do with the location you fish and your several decades experience fishing trophy bass in your waters. It still doesn't change the fact that swimbaits and other big bass lures( this includes large spinnerbaits, buzzbaits,big crankbaits, big lipless crankbaits, jigs with trailers,etc) tend to attract bigger bass than a small lure. There are exceptions of course, just like the +18 pound Texas state record was caught by a crappie fisherman with a small minnow and other people who catch +15 pounders on very small lures like the woman in this article;

http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishing/bass/largemouth-bass/10-biggest-largemouth-bass-world-records-ever/

She caught that 15-pound, 12-ounce bass on a little Strobe spinner and that bass is bigger than most bass people will catch in Florida.

[Paul Roberts]

First of all... make sure you are in water that has catchable numbers of big bass. What "catchable numbers" means to you may depend on your willingness to go fishless. Most big bass are caught... where there are big bass; The more the merrier.

[Bassun]

I think the point isn't that someone "cannot" catch a lunker fishing normally, it's that the percentages will be different than if they are targeting lunkers.

 

Take Catt vs soflabasser  --- if we assume both are equal fishermen, fishing equal water, equal time etc.  Over the course of "X" amount of time Catt may catch n~fish.  60% may be keepers (but < lunker status), 35% dinks, and 5% lunkers (keeper size but also lunker status). 

Over that same period soflabasser may catch n~fish but the percentages may look like:  80% keepers, 5% dinks, and 15% lunkers.  However, the total number of fish caught would likely be significantly tilted to Catt.  His "normal" lures entice a wide range of fish, whereas Soflabassers entice a more select group of fish - in this case lunkers.

 

Numbers are totally made up, and not of any formal study -- but the point is anyone can catch a lunker, but if you are targeting JUST lunkers, (all things being equal) you will have a higher percentage of lunkers.

 

A legit case study could be Tom.  We all know he is a trophy hunter in trophy waters, and probably caught more big bass than any one else on the forum.  Certainly has shown his top end fish are second to none here.  I would not be surprised if he has a log of some of his fishing and could really show the %'s hes seen targeting monsters.  I'd wager his % of lunkers is much higher than the normal angler because of how he is approaching things.  I suspect with most successful trophy hunters, lure size is on average larger than anyone else. 

 

Yes, a tiny grub may get gobbled up by a trophy - but, I am confident numbers would reveal that if you want a trophy, fishing big bigger baits in the places the hawgs are living will give you better %'s of bigger fish than fishing small baits in exactly the same place and time.  It's not that you cannot catch a beast off a normal sized lure - you are just more likely to catch more big fish using bigger lures.  Again, that's anecdotal as I don't have scientific numbers to back my theory - but history has shown the same occurs at the lower end of the spectrum where more anglers live. 

 

If you throw micro lures in bass water, you will catch bass of all sizes.  But, not nearly as many keepers, percentage wise.  If you move to what we consider "normal" sized lures, you move into the keeper range more often but the numbers generally drop.  Which makes sense, generally of any given population of fish there are significantly more smaller fish in a body of water than larger.  Transitively the same can be applied on the next scale of keeper vs lunker and normal sized lures vs large lures.  Considering these numbers from a VADGIF study on my local lake:  circa 2009 electro-fishing study.  67% of LMB over 8 inches were also over 12 inches (keeper in Va on most lakes).  38% of LMB over 8 inches were also over 15 inches.  1 LMB over 8 inches was also over 20 inches.  1 fish, not 1%.  From this you can gleam that you are much more likely to catch something in the 12-15 inch range than a lunker.  Fishing lures that fit the feeding habits of those 12-15 inch fish vs something larger should yield more in that range vs a very large bait.  I will concede the numbers could be adjusted if they were testing ONLY where it would be most likely for lunkers to be... but the population of giants just doesn't out number the rest of the classes of the fish.

[WRB]

The time period of 1968 to 1973 I had all types of life distractions that affected my bass fishing focus, however that 5 year time period coincided with the Florida bass comming of age in San Diego city lakes. High populations of DD size bass and few skilled anglers targeting them. I belonged to Picses bass club part of that time period and learned that live crawdads, waterdogs, mud suckers and Golden shiners were the baits to success catching big bass. Over that time period I logged 100 DD bass, 95% live bait during pre spawn to post spawn, 5% on big soft plastic worms, no jig fish.

I stopped using live bait and targeting bed fish in 1973.

my next DD bass was caught outside of San Deigo was in 1971 at lake Casitas on a hair jig, 12.3 lb NLMB followed by a 18.6 FLMB in 1981, about 6 years without a DD bass. I learned how to catch big bass using jigs and other artifical lures. The next 15 year period lake Castiac and Casitas, where I lived, had high populations of DD bass. During 1981 to 1995 my average DD bass took 15 hours of fishing time during pre spawn to catch and I caught a few hundred including my top 5 bass mostly on jigs followed by big worms and swimbaits, 1 14.2 on a crankbait.

For me and my style of trophy bass fishing jigs are the #1 choice because the big bass were targeting crawdads, later years swimbaits worked for bass targeting planted trout.

My last DD bass was 15.4 lbs at lake Castias in 2008, 10 years ago! Why the drought, the DD bass population crashed where I was fishing, can't catch them if they are not in the lakes you fish.

Tom

[soflabasser]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

My last DD bass was 15.4 lbs at lake Castias in 2008, 10 years ago! Why the drought, the DD bass population crashed where I was fishing, can't catch them if they are not in the lakes you fish.

Tom

10 years is a very long time without catching a DD bass, do you still target DD bass or you fish more for numbers of small/medium bass now? I read reports of the new age of California bass fishermen that are catching 10,11,12, and +13 pound bass at this moment in time, mostly on big swimbaits. It seems like California is still a good place to catch a trophy bass but not nowhere what it used to be +25 years ago.Seems like it was very easy back then to get a DD from Southern California and things have changed, maybe more people targeting these fish and less bass are reaching trophy status? My last DD bass was only a couple years ago ( caught on a artificial lure from public land in South Florida which is much more difficult than fishing on a boat in Central Florida) and I caught one less than a ounce under 10 a little over a year ago,also on a artificial lure from public land in South Florida. Lots of 7-9 pounders since then and honestly I barely fish for largemouth bass since I am more of a multi species fisherman than a bass fisherman. Too much variety of much stronger fish to choose from in South Florida which makes it very hard to fish just for largemouth bass! 

[Catt]

6 hours ago, bostonsox2904 said:

Catt - what do you do differently than other people that fish your waters that are not catching these large bass?

 

There's plenty of others who catch large bass besides me.

 

4 hours ago, soflabasser said:

You are correct that you can catch big bass on regular lures, but your success has probably more to do with the location you fish and your several decades experience fishing trophy bass in your waters. It still doesn't change the fact that swimbaits and other big bass lures( this includes large spinnerbaits, buzzbaits,big crankbaits, big lipless crankbaits, jigs with trailers,etc) tend to attract bigger bass than a small lure. There are exceptions of course, just like the +18 pound Texas state record was caught by a crappie fisherman with a small minnow and other people who catch +15 pounders on very small lures like the woman in this article;

http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishing/bass/largemouth-bass/10-biggest-largemouth-bass-world-records-ever/

She caught that 15-pound, 12-ounce bass on a little Strobe spinner and that bass is bigger than most bass people will catch in Florida.

 

And this one was caught on a chicken McNugget!

 

 

[OCdockskipper]

4 hours ago, Bassun said:

...If you throw micro lures in bass water, you will catch bass of all sizes.  But, not nearly as many keepers, percentage wise.  If you move to what we consider "normal" sized lures, you move into the keeper range more often but the numbers generally drop... 

While that is a generally accepted axiom, it really is lake dependent.  Specifically, the kinds & size of forage available in the lake will typically determine how well different sizes of lures produce.

 

I have fished many clear water lakes here in the West where smaller lures produce larger fish because they were a better representation of what a larger, more wary fish was eating.  In these cases, the only bass that go after really large lures are the dinks, for they are more aggressive than wary.  On these lakes, the larger lures give off negative cues, which the larger fish heed and the smaller fish ignore.

 

For example, on my home lake, I will catch more & bigger fish with a Ned rig than with a 10" plastic worm.  Change locations to say, Lake Toho in Florida or a farm pond in Alabama and the reverse will most likely be true.

[Wurming67]

I've just started reading Bill Murphys book and from what I gather so far at the VERY early stages of the book if you are targeting big bass is you have to be mentally prepared to do.it ,patience and fishing alot different than you are use to.Thanks to WRB for recommending the book I'm really enjoying it!

[WRB]

From 2010 to 2018 only 1 DD bass was caught at lake Casitas and that was a 12.1 this spring. Lake Castaic has produced 3 DD since 2008, so those 2 trophy bass lakes have been dormate for nearly 10 years. Butch Brown was doing well at Castaic lagoon, that is a seperate after bay below the Castaic dam with electric motors only and Butch hasn't caught many the past 3 years at the lagoon.

The reason for this hatchery trout plants stopped in 2008 at both Castiac and Casitas. Following the trout plants stopping quagga mussel were discovered in a few SoCal lakes so we couldn't take out boats from lake to lake without a 35 day quarantine period, basically locking you out of traveling or on one lake.

What you read about is an occasional giant bass being caught, not numbers. NorCal's Clear lake and the Delta are doing OK and record Spotted bass are being caught occasionally up north. SoCal will recover, big bass populations are cyclical.

Don't feel sorry for me, I am catching lots of 7lb to 8 lb bass with occasional 9 lb each year.

Tom

[soflabasser]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

What you read about is an occasional giant bass being caught, not numbers.

I am a member of a swimbait fishing forum and have seen many big bass caught the past couple years in Southern California. Lots of California members are posting plenty of big bass in the 10 to +13 pound class. The members of this forum have a monthly competition and they have to submit pictures of the bass on a scale so there's no guessing the weight.These are the new generation of dedicated trophy bass fishermen that mostly fish with big swimbaits. It seems like they have no problem catching +10 pounders in Southern California at this moment in time, even if there are so many fishermen in Southern California fishing relatively small bodies of water. I have learned a lot about swimbait fishing from these members of that forum and they are very good fishermen to consistently catch +10 pounders on swimbaits in today's age when most highly experienced bass fisherman in California are  having a hard time with 5-9 pound bass when they use to catch much bigger ones +25 years ago.

3 hours ago, Catt said:

And this one was caught on a chicken McNugget!

 

 

I read about that bass, he was very fortunate to catch it on a chicken nugget. I have caught some big bass on cutbait while fishing for channel catfish so anything is possible with largemouth bass. Have read that some people make bottle cap lures and catch some nice bass, I wonder what would be the next "latest and greatest lure"? Only time will tell! 

[WRB]

It's always amazing how a DD bass becomes 7 lbs to 8 lbs on a scale.

What makes anyone think I not using state of the swimbaits, glides etc?

When I say numbers I mean numbers every week.

Whatever...

Tom

[soflabasser]

17 hours ago, austinF said:

Frogs can always catch some big fish. 

Hollow belly frogs are definitely a good lure for big bass, especially near aquatic vegetation. Fishing at night has worked well for me but you have to be careful fishing in South Florida since there's lots of alligators, moccasins, and even Burmese pythons near the shore. Buzzbaits are another good lure to use at night and they tend to produce some very nice bass if you are willing to give them a good try.