Having trouble making the switch to bass

[Matthew Pye]

I've been a lifelong fisherman, but I've only ever caught bass by mistake.

 

Primarily, I've always gone after either catfish or bream, and have always been very successful with both, but I've always wanted to try my hand at bass fishing.

 

I bought an Abu Garcia revo S spinning combo, and a revo s baitcaster coupled with a heavy/extra fast veritas rod.

 

I bought an assortment of soft plastics, spinner baits, shaky head jigs, and crankbaits.

 

My problem: zero bites (or I have no idea if I got a bite or not).

 

Anyone have any advice for a guy that just wants to get into the sport as a way to have some fun?

 

What does a bite feel like?  I don't wanna look stupid setting the hook on every bump.  I've seen videos of guys on YouTube getting a bite looking back at the camera and going "there he is got a fish on!" and then 5 seconds later setting the hook...how do they know there's a fish there and any advice about what it feels like through the rod?

 

[FishinBuck07]

Well I will tell you one thing I know, being a good panfish fisherman will help you out a lot!  If you can find the panfish in a lake then you are in the right areas to find the bass!  Learn one technique well before moving onto another, take only soft plastics and fish with them all day and leave the rest at home.  This will get you days with no fish most likely but will make you learn a technique better in the long run.  I don't care if I look like an idiot setting the hook, hook sets are free!  Lol. Just stick with it, and remember there are lots of similarities between bream and bass!

[soflabasser]

Largemouth bass are one of the easiest fish you can catch in North America so you will catch a bunch of them sooner or later. A couple good lures you can try are the following; poppers, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, crankbaits, and soft plastics such as trick worms.

[Matthew Pye]

Similarities between bream and bass?  I've had multiple days of catching 100+ bluegill, and a couple accidental small bass in the process.

 

I DID notice that the bass I catch were on live worms, as I usually catch bream on worms under a cork or on beetle spins.

 

I have an assortment of yamamoto senkos and baby brush hogs.

 

I have trick worms as well, I just can't tell if I'm getting a bite or not, or how to tell if a tap "feels different"

[Matthew Pye]

I'm assuming using a spinner bait is very similar to beetle spins for bluegill, so my real question is about detecting bites on texas rigged soft plastics.

 

I have ZERO idea what I'm doing with them besides just throwing them in the water near laydowns.

[Mike L]

Don’t worry about trying to discern what kind of fish you have. 
What you feel can be a slight tick, a hard pull or nothing at all. 
Watch your line for any movement as bass will suck in your bait, move on and you won’t know it. 
 

Count your bait down to the bottom. 
Then on any subsequent throw if it doesn’t get that far set the hook!

 

Also, if it just doesn’t feel right, set!

It doesn’t cost you anything. 
When in doubt set anyway. 
 

Many times I thought I had a fish and it turned out it just was my bait moving over, under or through something. 

You’ll never know until you hook em. 

After awhile you’ll get the hang of it. 
 

 

 

 

 

Mike
 

[Matthew Pye]

I see LOTS of sticks and debris being yanked into the kayak in my future lol

[Mike L]

And when one of those times it’s a bass, you’ll forget about all the sticks. 
 

 

 

Mike

[Matthew Pye]

Good point I suppose.

 

I mean, I could stick to crankbaits, spinner baits, or topwater, but there's just something appealing to me about learning how to fish with soft plastics.

[BlakeMolone]

Use a grub and ball head jig like you would for crappie but use a 4 inch grub on a bigger ball head jig. I always give my girlfriend this setup and she pretty much  always catches bass. If the water is pretty clear you can use a 3.8 Swimbait instead of a grub 

[diehardbassfishing]

27 minutes ago, Matthew Pye said:

... something appealing to me about learning how to fish with soft plastics.

 

Yes, best thing I ever did!

It's hard - especially at first.

But as I tell folks about bass fishing, "if it was easy I wouldn't do it!".

 

Karl

[Matthew Pye]

47 minutes ago, BlakeMolone said:

Use a grub and ball head jig like you would for crappie but use a 4 inch grub on a bigger ball head jig. I always give my girlfriend this setup and she pretty much  always catches bass. If the water is pretty clear you can use a 3.8 Swimbait instead of a grub 

That's a good idea to get me started....thanks!

25 minutes ago, diehardbassfishing said:

 

Yes, best thing I ever did!

It's hard - especially at first.

But as I tell folks about bass fishing, "if it was easy I wouldn't do it!".

 

Karl

I don't know why, it just has a certain mystique about it to me, like it's the "ultimate" in fishing to use a soft plastic worm or creature bait and know how well enough to regularly catch bass.

[BrianMDTX]

48 minutes ago, Matthew Pye said:

Good point I suppose.

 

I mean, I could stick to crankbaits, spinner baits, or topwater, but there's just something appealing to me about learning how to fish with soft plastics.

It’s one of my favorite ways to fish. 

 

Wacky rig Senkos or Yum Dingers are rather simple. Use a 1/0 octopus circle hook and cast it out. Let it sink on a semi-slack line (meaning not tight, but not feet of loose line out- just a bit shy of tight but with some slack). Watch the line sink until it stops on the bottom. If it stops before you think it’s on the bottom it’s likely a bass. If the line starts running out or to the side, it’s definitely a bass. Don’t set the hook. Raise the rod tip and reel in the slack and the hook will set itself. 

 

Fishing a Texas rig is different, and there are differences between weightless and weighted TR’s. Needless to say, a TR with a 1/8, 1/4 or 3/8 oz weight will hit bottom much faster than a weightless TR. When I was young, I used to read “how to” articles in Outdoor Life and Field & Stream that mentioned waiting for that “tap-tap-tap” and then set the hook. At that time any bottom obstruction felt like a tap-tap to me lol. But visualize reeling in your line and having a Texas rig catch a rock, limb, etc. and coming to a dead stop, vs the feel you get when a bluegill grabs your bait and you feel that, well, tap-tap-tap! One your pulling into and the other is pulling against you. That’s not 100% foolproof (sometimes a bass sucks in a soft plastic without much feedback until you start to reel in or twitch the bait and you feel the weight of the fish), but when they hit it, you normally know it. 

 

It takes time and practice but eventually you figure it out. Good luck! 

[Matthew Pye]

1 hour ago, BrianMDTX said:

It’s one of my favorite ways to fish. 

 

Wacky rig Senkos or Yum Dingers are rather simple. Use a 1/0 octopus circle hook and cast it out. Let it sink on a semi-slack line (meaning not tight, but not feet of loose line out- just a bit shy of tight but with some slack). Watch the line sink until it stops on the bottom. If it stops before you think it’s on the bottom it’s likely a bass. If the line starts running out or to the side, it’s definitely a bass. Don’t set the hook. Raise the rod tip and reel in the slack and the hook will set itself. 

 

Fishing a Texas rig is different, and there are differences between weightless and weighted TR’s. Needless to say, a TR with a 1/8, 1/4 or 3/8 oz weight will hit bottom much faster than a weightless TR. When I was young, I used to read “how to” articles in Outdoor Life and Field & Stream that mentioned waiting for that “tap-tap-tap” and then set the hook. At that time any bottom obstruction felt like a tap-tap to me lol. But visualize reeling in your line and having a Texas rig catch a rock, limb, etc. and coming to a dead stop, vs the feel you get when a bluegill grabs your bait and you feel that, well, tap-tap-tap! One your pulling into and the other is pulling against you. That’s not 100% foolproof (sometimes a bass sucks in a soft plastic without much feedback until you start to reel in or twitch the bait and you feel the weight of the fish), but when they hit it, you normally know it. 

 

It takes time and practice but eventually you figure it out. Good luck! 

You know...I never thought about using circle hooks!

 

Since I catfish slot, I have tons of em, and certainly have some 1/0 octopus circle hooks.  Thanks for the tip!

 

I use em for catfish in muddy water expressly because the fish hook themselves, so I can see why they'd work on a wacky rig, too.  Thank you!!!

 

I'm gonna head out Thursday to a pond and practice.  I appreciate all the help, I certainly need it lol

[Sphynx]

Bass can hit the line a lot like a crappie or a bream, same basic idea with the series of Morse code style taps, or they can try to rip the rod out of your hand and leave no doubt at all, if something is trying to pull your rod away from you, it's a really good chance it's a fish lol, if your line is moving and you didn't do anything to make it move, it's a fish, if you move your line and you feel it shake like a dog with a chew toy, it's a fish, really a bass isn't much different than a crappie or a bream, just a little bit bigger, usually...

[Matthew Pye]

34 minutes ago, Sphynx said:

Bass can hit the line a lot like a crappie or a bream, same basic idea with the series of Morse code style taps, or they can try to rip the rod out of your hand and leave no doubt at all, if something is trying to pull your rod away from you, it's a really good chance it's a fish lol, if your line is moving and you didn't do anything to make it move, it's a fish, if you move your line and you feel it shake like a dog with a chew toy, it's a fish, really a bass isn't much different than a crappie or a bream, just a little bit bigger, usually...

I've just heard that they just "barely tap" on it.

 

The ones I've accidentally caught while bream fishing, I had zero problems knowing I had a fish.  There was no light tap...they always hammered it.

 

I just always hear about that bass barely are felt on senkos, etc 

3 hours ago, diehardbassfishing said:

 

Yes, best thing I ever did!

It's hard - especially at first.

But as I tell folks about bass fishing, "if it was easy I wouldn't do it!".

 

Karl

Perhaps I am just thinking that more bass should be biting?

 

Or I'm just "wishing too hard" on all the bumps I feel lol and end up over thinking or confusing myself by trying too hard.

 

[Sphynx]

14 minutes ago, Matthew Pye said:

I've just heard that they just "barely tap" on it.

 

The ones I've accidentally caught while bream fishing, I had zero problems knowing I had a fish.  There was no light tap...they always hammered it.

 

I just always hear about that bass barely are felt on senkos, etc 

Perhaps I am just thinking that more bass should be biting?

 

Or I'm just "wishing too hard" on all the bumps I feel lol and end up over thinking or confusing myself by trying too hard.

 

Well, there are both, and you will miss fish, just part of the game, not a person on this board, or that fishes for bass who doesn't miss bites on occasion, the idea is just to minimize how often it happens, and that you'll pick up as you go.

[roadwarrior]

 

[galyonj]

I guess all I can add is this general advice:

 

If you feel something when you don't expect to, or you don't feel something when you do expect to, you probably ought to set the hook.

[scaleface]

Texas rig the worms and fish them in  cover like brush , laydowns... Lift the worm with the rod tip then let it fall . If you feel the slightest tic as it is falling , thats a fish . Reel the slack out of the line and set the hook forcefully . If you feel a tic when you are lifting it , that is more likely a stick  .  Most of the time you will not feel a bite  . If it feels funny you may have a fish on . Sometimes the line will move a little , sometimes there may be a strange vibration . Sometimes it may sink faster than normal , thats a fish running with it away from you , sometimes it may not find the bottom  and seems to keep sinking  , thats a fish swimming with it toward you . Go slow and concentrate , watch the line where it enters the water and feel . I hold the rod in front of the reel with the line pinched between my index finger and thumb . This allows me to feel strikes better . 

[Koz]

I'm going to disagree with much of the advice you received here. You mentioned that you have no idea what a bass bite feels like, so my advice is to ditch the soft plastics and slow baits for now and stick with action baits.

 

First, get yourself a 1/2 oz or 3/8 oz white spinnerbait with dual willow blades. Then get yourself a black and blue 3/8 oz chatterbait.

 

Fish them with and without trailers. For teh spinnerbait use a white paddletail trailer like the Keitech Swing Impact. For the chatterbait use a blue Zoom Vibe Speed Craw.

 

These baits will produce even in winter months. You can straight retrieve, yo yo, lift and drop, or even drag them on the bottom. But try a straight retrieve first and get a feel for teh bass bite.

 

You can also try this with a t-rigged worm and swim it or hop it frequently. Then step down to slower and finesse fishing where the bite can be more subtle.

 

 

[BrianMDTX]

47 minutes ago, Koz said:

You can also try this with a t-rigged worm and swim it or hop it frequently. Then step down to slower and finesse fishing where the bite can be more subtle.

 

Not to disagree, but I have found casting a 5” Senko wacky rig or weightless TR to be about foolproof as far as detecting strikes. If the line starts running, it’s a bass. If it sinks and stops on the bottom, 99% of the time it’s not. 

[Spankey]

17 hours ago, Matthew Pye said:

Similarities between bream and bass?  I've had multiple days of catching 100+ bluegill, and a couple accidental small bass in the process.

 

I DID notice that the bass I catch were on live worms, as I usually catch bream on worms under a cork or on beetle spins.

 

I have an assortment of yamamoto senkos and baby brush hogs.

 

I have trick worms as well, I just can't tell if I'm getting a bite or not, or how to tell if a tap "feels different"

I didn’t read this whole thread yet but you may be use to fishing with more of a slack line vs. tight line. You know what I’m trying to imply? Something you’ll learn to do. 

[Spankey]

13 hours ago, Matthew Pye said:

I've just heard that they just "barely tap" on it.

 

The ones I've accidentally caught while bream fishing, I had zero problems knowing I had a fish.  There was no light tap...they always hammered it.

 

I just always hear about that bass barely are felt on senkos, etc 

Perhaps I am just thinking that more bass should be biting?

 

Or I'm just "wishing too hard" on all the bumps I feel lol and end up over thinking or confusing myself by trying too hard.

 

It’s not uncommon for a bass to give a big or light hit to a bait. You just think it’s a bite. And he’s gone or not there. But that bass is laying there on the bottom with that worm in his mouth. That were taking up on slack line and feeling that slight resistance is important prior to forcefully setting the hook. Most of the time it’s just snapping the rod straight up or a sweep. That might be hook style dependent. I use a straight shank worm hook for the most part and upward is my way of generally doing it. 

[WRB]

 Bass are predators and bream are prey, they don’t mix unless the predator is eating the prey.

Location becomes #1 to determine with depth #2, timing feeding activity #3.

Right location, right depth at the right time = success.

Lures are chosen to be effective at the location and depth mimicking the pre the bass are hunting. LMB eat a wide variety of prey species so lots of lure types work.

You have a kayak so look for locations easy to see like points in deeper water until winter ends and water starts to warm over 60 degrees. The bass move to your bream areas to spawn, then scatter during summer.

Catching bass isn’t that difficult.

Welcome to bass fishing and enjoy.

Tom