Tips for getting a new PB this year

[GreenPig]

On 3/4/2020 at 10:21 PM, clemsondds said:

What's the best way to do this?  

Find a bow fisherman with good lights to take you out at night. I've shot 17' Gizzard shad at night that I'd never seen in the daylight. Now I throw big shad baits.

[Hower08]

Buzzbaits will give up the ghost on where a giant is hiding. Also big worms fished on weed edges and even punched instead of using creature baits which the bass see 100000000 of them. Call me crazy but once that water hits 55 I will also start throwing frogs and getting some ridiculously big fish to eat them. This is in N.E Ohio 

[MOC]

6 hours ago, WRB said:

Member from Simi!

Actually trout plants stopped around 2012 from the Filmore* hatchery that supplied rainbow trout for Castiac, Casitas, Pyramid, Piru and Cuchuma lakes and continues to this day. There has been a few random stockings this year and end last year. Casitas purchased a few stocks of larger size Tail Walkers from private hatchery occasionally but not in the past few years.

Fishing has been very good at Casitas this year for bass between 4 lbs to 7 lbs, no DD's I am aware yet this year, it should happen during this spawn cycle.

Tom

* reopened now

 

Hello Tom yes I am a semi local been here since 75 grew up here. You seem very knowledgeable in the local SoCal lake scene love to be able to ask you some questions from time to time if you are willing. I started fishing in 2013 and have been fishing pretty much once a week since then have my own bass boat have been pretty successful at pyramid and Castaic but there are still those times things don’t make sense to me would love to have a veteran maybe help me through some of the reasonings. I want to completely understand the fish I’m trying to catch I want to be a step above most fishermen but it’s very difficult to find information on here and most guys I don’t trust. So why did they stop the Fillmore hatchery trout plants? So who does the random plants now just a private company when requested?

[WRB]

There was a law suit filed by some college students claiming hatchery raise trout were not a native species and destroying the steelhead native range. The DFG now DFW was forced to prove the hatchery sterile trout were not impacting native trout and steelhead population in rivers streams in Caifornia. All hatchery trout programs were stopped during the study period. Totally insane because no native trout species live in SoCal and steelhead populations haven't been recorded in over 70 years south of point conception,  outside of steelhead planted in Malibou creek in the 70's.

Lake Castias built a 6 million dollar fish latter at the dam for Ventura river run steelhead that don't exist to run Coyote creek closed off by Casitas dam in 1958 for example how crazy the envornmental groups are in the local area.

Tom

 

[The Bassman]

Chatterbaits seem to be a high percentage/bigger fish bait for me.

[clemsondds]

15 minutes ago, The Bassman said:

Chatterbaits seem to be a high percentage/bigger fish bait for me.

How do you fish them? Do you just fish them like normal or change it up to target bigger bass? 

[scaleface]

Post spawn  ,   big girls can be caught shallow at the mouths of coves , shallow main lake points and any cover between the two , as they move toward summer time structure . A Bomber Long A Minnow or other floating minnow bait can be very productive . Its my favorite time to fish .

[The Bassman]

9 hours ago, clemsondds said:

How do you fish them? Do you just fish them like normal or change it up to target bigger bass? 

Nothing that would specifically target big bass. Normal retrieve for me is to reel slow with an occasional pop to hopefully trigger a strike.

[Boomstick]

On 3/3/2020 at 8:56 PM, WRB said:

 

Jigs out fish swimbaits IMO for big bass.

 

Most of what I know for targeting big bass comes from Bill Murphy's book "In Pursuit of Giant Bass:, thanks for the recommendation by the way. One thing he describes in detail is how to find prime structure and targets around it that are easily accessible. In cases where a deep crevice in an otherwise shallow lake is the prime structure I'm targeting (at least in lakes I fish), I find that more often than not a jig is a very appropriate lure to fish around that structure. Hearing someone who has caught more ten pounders than I have five pounders is certainly reassuring I'm not going about it wrong.

 

I haven't been able to land el mondo yet, but I do feel I'm getting much better mentally equipped to finally do so. I ironically got my PB by throwing a spinnerbait under a fallen tree, right between a branch and the trunk and it hit it immediately. My #2 was a crankbait through grass, in an area I stopped throwing in earlier the same day because I was getting sick of pulling grass out of the hooks.

 

So my first recommendation is to read that book!