Dont Know What To Do

[NJFishKeeper]

Hey you guys, I've been lurking here in the shadows for a while before making an account. I've been trying my best to learn as much as I can but its just getting difficult. I fish pretty Much any free time I have which is mainly weekend's or one night if I can get home from work early enough. I just cant catch bass consistently. I can catch pickerel and perch all day long and I always have a great time but I really wanna start catching some large and small mouths but nothing I do seems to work unless a bass hits out of no where. I've thrown Texas rigs, drop shots, wackys, cranks, spinnerbaits, top water early morning. Nothing seems to work. I fish mainly some tainted water lakes and ponds and larger very clear water freshwater reservoirs that have every environment imaginable. I don't know if I'm just fishing the wrong bodies of water all together or if I'm just not a good bass fisher lol. What should I try focusing on that's almost guaranteed to catch me a few solid bass?

[roadwarrior]

 

[scaleface]

We all were beginners once and struggled . Without knowing where you are fishing , equipment , from bank or boat ...  I'll be generic . We know bass like to hang around things , anything , so choose lures that will fish whatever you are targeting efficiently . Pick the weights that allow you to cast best . Its hard to be accurate with lures that are a little too heavy or a little too light ." Make side arm , low trajectory cast ." Once you get the right weight paired with your combos it wont take long to be proficient at presenting baits where bass like to hang out . 

 

 Before the internet and we got our information from magazines , casting accuracy was constantly stressed .  None of the Youtube hot-shots even mention it or how to achieve it .

[NJFishKeeper]

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

Before the internet and we got our information from magazines , casting accuracy was constantly stressed .  None of the Youtube hot-shots even mention it or how to achieve it .

so casting with bait casters and spinning rods isn't an issue for me, unless maybe imp not presenting the lure properly i.e making too much noise with my lure when it hits the water, which I could easily adjust by casting lighter.

[GetFishorDieTryin]

I think one of the best baits for numbers is a little swimbait like a 3 or 3.5" keitech on the lightest head you can get away with.  They're really good for figuring out where the fish are and what kind of mood they're in.  When you find a concentration of fish then throw a bigger bait to see if there's a better fish in the area.

[NJFishKeeper]

6 minutes ago, GetFishorDieTryin said:

When you find a concentration of fish then throw a bigger bait to see if there's a better fish in the area

what speed should I fish it at ? fast ? slow? or various different retrieval speeds? 

[Deleted account]

20 minutes ago, NJFishKeeper said:

what speed should I fish it at ? fast ? slow? or various different retrieval speeds? 

I find that when the bite is tough really fast or really slow is the way to go. Of course every tough bite is different. Try different things until you get some feed back, sometimes it is a fish showing itself, turning away, or slapping at the bait. 

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

 Before the internet and we got our information from magazines , casting accuracy was constantly stressed .  None of the Youtube hot-shots even mention it or how to achieve it .

Yeah, but gossamer color coordinated tackle and spinning the handle with the off hand why videoing with the other looks so cool...

[GetFishorDieTryin]

7 minutes ago, NJFishKeeper said:

what speed should I fish it at ? fast ? slow? or various different retrieval speeds? 

Let the fish tell you what they want.  I usually start a moderate pace and ill slow down or change it up if I cant get bit.  Some days they wont hit unless you pause and let the bait fall for a few seconds.  Theres a reason why finesse swimbaiting has blown up recently.  It takes some time to really get the feel for, but once you get proficient its incredibly effective.

[scaleface]

Go to 13:00 of Glenns video . This can best be done with the proper weight lure for the combo . Glenn is better at it than I . I've seen him make some impressive cast in his videos .

 

 

[Junger]

I think you gotta focus on one of those bodies of water. Ponds are usually featureless bowls. Lakes are usually lined with tree cover and even downed trees (laydown) and sometimes rock features. Reservoirs are usually deep clear man made flooded valleys and are the toughest to fish without a boat and electronics (my opinion).

 

I would start with the pond and simply use a senko. Try and feel for variations in the bottom such as a submerged log of rock. Or looks for a feeder creek with the freshest or cooler water. 

[Mobasser]

You might try slowing down. It's what works sometimes for lazy bass that might not really be feeding much. Pick an area where you've had some action before, and fish a 6" plastic worm very slowly through the area., pausing occasionally along the way.

[jimmyjoe]

11 hours ago, NJFishKeeper said:

I can catch pickerel and perch all day long

 

   Pickerel and perch are aggressive fish. I wonder whether the bass are right there, along with the other species, but the pickerel and perch are picking off your lures before the bass get a chance to hit them. (Sometimes bass look a lure over for a while before they decide to hit it. Fish that are more aggressive don't wait that long.)

 

   Just a thought.                    jj

[padon]

we need to know where your fishing and from bank or boat. summer can be tough. usually on larger bodies of water its not what your throwing but where your throwing it. bass can be very concentrated this time of year which leaves alot of dead water.

[NJFishKeeper]

16 minutes ago, padon said:

we need to know where your fishing and from bank or boat. summer can be tough. usually on larger bodies of water its not what your throwing but where your throwing it. bass can be very concentrated this time of year which leaves alot of dead water.

I fish from a boat or kayak 99% of the time

8 hours ago, jimmyjoe said:

Pickerel and perch are aggressive fish.

there a bunch of fun too im not complaining about catching them lol

10 hours ago, Junger said:

Reservoirs are usually deep clear man made flooded valleys and are the toughest to fish without a boat and electronics (my opinion).

well i do fish with a boat and my fish finder hooked up. 

[Spankey]

9 hours ago, Mobasser said:

You might try slowing down. It's what works sometimes for lazy bass that might not really be feeding much. Pick an area where you've had some action before, and fish a 6" plastic worm very slowly through the area., pausing occasionally along the way.

I would follow this advise. Lite T rig or split shot rig. Don’t hesitate to go even slightly smaller. 4 1/2” or 5”. You don’t need to buy every worm at the tackle shop but fish some straight tails, ribbon tails and cut tails in 2 or 3 more popular basic colors. 

[Bankc]

On 7/13/2021 at 8:21 PM, Junger said:

I think you gotta focus on one of those bodies of water. Ponds are usually featureless bowls. Lakes are usually lined with tree cover and even downed trees (laydown) and sometimes rock features. Reservoirs are usually deep clear man made flooded valleys and are the toughest to fish without a boat and electronics (my opinion).

 

I would start with the pond and simply use a senko. Try and feel for variations in the bottom such as a submerged log of rock. Or looks for a feeder creek with the freshest or cooler water. 

This is what I'd do to start off.  Just pick one lure and one body of water and get to know them both really well.  Eventually you'll start piecing things together and can expand from there.  

 

I often try to push myself to learn new things.  But it's always a mistake for me to try to learn two new things at once.  So if I'm on a new lake, I'll throw my confidence baits.  If I'm on my usual lake, I might try a new lure or new technique.  Try to keep it as simple as you can.  It's easier to find out what works and what doesn't when there's only one thing that's changed.   

[Sphynx]

If there was a 1 size fits all solution to how to catch a few solid bass, there are thousands of pages here that would be superfluous, and tournaments would be a very boring affair, best advice I can give is to become a student of the bass, and of its environment, it's virtually impossible to learn a ton about the bass and where it likes to live, how and what it eats, etc without becoming a more effective bass angler as a side effect, tons of articles here, a boatload of stuff on the YouTube (including some stuff @Glenn does on a fairly regular basis which is a fabulous place to go if your looking for visual examples of stuff) and from there just put a game plan together, go out and execute, when you get home, take some time to think about it critically, what were they biting? Not biting? What did the baits they bit imitate? What environmental factors were in play, time of day? Year? Do that enough and some of these patterns are going to become glaring and obvious over time.

[NJFishKeeper]

Thank you everyone for any insight here ! back to reading and learning, gonna crush them this weekend!

 

[LrgmouthShad]

On 7/13/2021 at 12:19 PM, roadwarrior said:

 

I don’t use the ika, but with a senko, this has almost never failed me. It’s good stuff

[BayouSlide]

Lots of good advice here. I'd like to re-emphasize, when the bite is tough, more finesse presentations can excel.

 

For that reason, I'm a big fan of a 4- or 5-inch t-rigged Zoom trick worm (or similar) tossed towards any likely target (brush, stumps, laydowns). If you have a lot of submerged branches, dragging a brush jig (like those offered by forum advertiser Siebert) with a craw trailer will not only draw strikes by fishing where bass are likely, like t-rigging, it will reduce the frustration of hang-ups.

 

Some days you're just there at the right spot and time: I was fortunate enough to identify signs of a school of bass in 4 to 5-foot-deep water busting shad at a lake recently. I caught fish after fish, nearly every cast, with a shad swim bait on an underspin and on a crankbait, until the school had eaten its fill. ?

 

Sometimes to find bass you have to observe the birds (herons, etc.) and the water disruptions to find baitfish and identify bass feeding activity.

[YoTone]

This time of year is tough. I can usually catch them at night with a black chatterbait. 

[TnRiver46]

16 hours ago, Sphynx said:

If there was a 1 size fits all solution to how to catch a few solid bass, there are thousands of pages here that would be superfluous, and tournaments would be a very boring affair, best advice I can give is to become a student of the bass, and of its environment, it's virtually impossible to learn a ton about the bass and where it likes to live, how and what it eats, etc without becoming a more effective bass angler as a side effect, tons of articles here, a boatload of stuff on the YouTube (including some stuff @Glenn does on a fairly regular basis which is a fabulous place to go if your looking for visual examples of stuff) and from there just put a game plan together, go out and execute, when you get home, take some time to think about it critically, what were they biting? Not biting? What did the baits they bit imitate? What environmental factors were in play, time of day? Year? Do that enough and some of these patterns are going to become glaring and obvious over time.

Bingo 

[Koz]

Are other people catching bass in that body of water? You may be struggling to catch LMB or SMB simply because there aren't a lot of them where you fish.

 

In the section of the big lake that I fish the LMB population isn't as prevalent as the population of stripers and wipers (hybrid bass). I still target and catch LMB, but especially this time of year I'm more likely to catch a wiper.

[NJFishKeeper]

9 hours ago, Koz said:

Are other people catching bass in that body of water? You may be struggling to catch LMB or SMB simply because there aren't a lot of them where you fish.

 

In the section of the big lake that I fish the LMB population isn't as prevalent as the population of stripers and wipers (hybrid bass). I still target and catch LMB, but especially this time of year I'm more likely to catch a wiper.

well both bodies I mentioned in the beginning of my post are known good LMB and one is a great SMB spot. anytime i ask people how theyve done they say eh we caught a few bass and some pickerel, could they be exaggerating sure, we all do it , but i like to think most people keep returniong to these spots because they catch. i at least do because I really do great catching perch and pickerel on ultra light gear and have a ton of fun fighting them.

[Hewhospeaksmuchbull]

3 hours ago, NJFishKeeper said:

exaggerating sure, we all do it

Not me!