When Pros Write books, it seems they make info fit how they fish;)

[AmmoGuy]

"Write what you know." 

[Tennessee Boy]

1 hour ago, Bird said:

I'll take the knowledge of the man in the field vs the man sitting behind a desk.

 

1 hour ago, Chris Catignani said:

Here is a snippet I came across awhile back...

I tend to look to the biologist for answers on biology and to fishermen for answers on fishing.  When they conflict I personally tend to favor the biologist.  They have much higher standards of proof governing their field.   Roland's book was clearly wrong about bass and eyelids.  Eyelids are not used to protect the eye from light.  I don't close my eyelids when I go out in the sun.  Eyelids are used to keep the eye moist.  Fish don't have a problem with dry eyes.   The bass and eyelids myth has circulated for decades.  Roland heard it and believed it like so many others.  Then he added it to his book without doing a fact check.   

 

 @Chris Catignani have you ever heard that fish don't bite when Kentucky Lake is running backwards.  It's said that at times TVA runs the water backwards through Pickwick dam and down the Tom Bigby waterway to reduce the flow of water into the Ohio River.   I've heard that one all my life.   People accept it without asking how they get the water to run backward through the dam when the water is higher on the Pickwick side.  We fishermen tend to be a gullible bunch.  The pros are no exception.

 

There is often a degree of truth to some myths.  They do stop the current on the Tennessee River at times and that makes the fishing tough.  Add a north wind and your boat will drift upstream on Kentucky lake.  I've never caught much when that's happening.  I've also had luck targeting bass in the shade even though they don't need eyelids to protect their eyes from the sun.

 

Do bass avoid a slow moving spinnerbait in clear water because it doesn't look natural?  Does a spinnerbait ever look natural to a bass?  Can we explain why bass do anything when they refuse to answer our questions?

[Chris Catignani]

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

 @Chris Catignani have you ever heard that fish don't bite when Kentucky Lake is running backwards. 

I have never heard that in my life! Even if they "could" stop every ounce of water at the Pickwick dam...there is another 300 creeks and rivers (maybe more) dumping water between Pickwick and the Ohio. I've heard "the cows are standing", "the sticks are floating vertical". I have a group of friends who will testify: "there on the rocks", "there on the wood". I always reply that "there under the water."

1 hour ago, Tennessee Boy said:

Can we explain why bass do anything when they refuse to answer our questions?

This is a "no". One time I was fishing a 400 acre lake, in Stuttgart AK, that was used for duck hunting. It was loaded with bass. The grass was thick and a little hard to fish so and I started fishing a set of spooks I got from "Lure for Cure". About 50% of the time the fish would just knock the spook out of the water...it was like they were just having fun.

[RDB]

3 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Day in and day out, high and/or fast in clear water has been the favored first option for spinnerbaits in our clearer waters for quite a while. I believe Clunn put it “on the map” before even KVD. Not that low and slow won’t work, obviously, but it tends to be more situational or personal preference/style. We had a regional pro get some Bassmaster love when they published a couple articles on his “weed whacking” approach to clear natural lakes, which was a deep water slow roll technique over and through submerged vegetation. That was back in the late 80s/early 90s if I’m not mistaken. Before that, several pros gained notoriety for slow rolling spinnerbaits over deep vegetation during the cool water months. In the end, you should always be testing different depths and speeds regardless of the presentation. 

?This?
 

I’m not familiar with the quotes you are referencing but KVD has always suggested that as a general rule, spinnerbaits should be fished above the fish.  Another general rule of thumb is spinnerbaits work better when there is some chop on the water, same with clear water.  His (& many others) contention with chop, fishing above, and fast in clear water is that he doesn’t want the fish to get a good look at the spinnerbait…it’s not the most natural looking thing.  I also think this applies more to high to mid column fishing…I don’t think he is a big slow roller.

 

When I read tips from pro’s, I am more interested in the why than the what.  You can’t write a book to cover every situation but if you have a better understanding of the thought process behind the suggestion, you can apply that accordingly.  Just my opinion.

[Team9nine]

1 hour ago, RDB said:

?This?
 

I’m not familiar with the quotes you are referencing…

Rick Clunn won the US Open on Lake Mead for a 2nd time in 1986 using a spinnerbait with a then brand new skirt innovation from Stanley that featured transparent rubber skirts with embedded metalflake, burning the bait above the bass in the clear water (KVD fished his first Bassmaster event in 1987, and didn’t join the tour full time until 1990/1991.

 

Clunn Clear Water Spinnerbait Basics

 

[Cgolf]

2 hours ago, RDB said:

?This?
 

I’m not familiar with the quotes you are referencing but KVD has always suggested that as a general rule, spinnerbaits should be fished above the fish.  Another general rule of thumb is spinnerbaits work better when there is some chop on the water, same with clear water.  His (& many others) contention with chop, fishing above, and fast in clear water is that he doesn’t want the fish to get a good look at the spinnerbait…it’s not the most natural looking thing.  I also think this applies more to high to mid column fishing…I don’t think he is a big slow roller.

 

When I read tips from pro’s, I am more interested in the why than the what.  You can’t write a book to cover every situation but if you have a better understanding of the thought process behind the suggestion, you can apply that accordingly.  Just my opinion.

 

That is pretty much what I read. In theory as long as the blades are rotating and the skirt is doing its thing, the bass should be targeting them and not looking at the wire. I have burned spinnerbaits back during a hot bite and of course gotten bit, just that this lake usually doesn't have those conditions often.

 

The thing that always get me is they say a spinnerbait isn't all that natural and we don't want to give them a chance to see the wire. Then they suspend reality, pun intended, and fish jerkbaits with a pause of 10+ seconds that generally have 3 treble hooks hanging off them, which in know way can look natural. Even the profile of a jerkbait is off compared to even a perch of the same size, something else about that bait is triggering the fish and they ignore the unnatural cues. I don't think we will ever understand a bass or even worse a musky. 

[MassBass]

I used to try a similar tactic that I read about, the idea is to run a bright chart. Or pink spinnerbait with bright painted blades high in the water column over deep water...this is for smallmouth in very clear water. The pattern didnt work for me, I had some big sm follow, but that was that. However, I found a spinnerbait at night was sure- fire.

 

Regardless, I consider KVD the goat. His style may be called powerfishing, search fishing, etc. I think it is reaction fishing. If you can make fish react, then you can catch them. What a fish will react to can be totally different than what a fish will eat. I learned alot from KVDs style. He can flip jigs and finesse to if he has to. Finesse is consistent, powerfishing wins tournaments. I don't know, are there many pro anglers coming up that fish how KVD does? 

[WRB]

When KVD was a young up and coming pro bass angler he built his career on spinnerbaits. KVD used Nichols spinnerbaits Back when Dave Nichols owned the company.

Questioning KVD spinnerbaits skills is like questioning his jerk bait and crankbait skills today.

Tom

[RDB]

5 hours ago, Team9nine said:

Rick Clunn won the US Open on Lake Mead for a 2nd time in 1986 using a spinnerbait with a then brand new skirt innovation from Stanley that featured transparent rubber skirts with embedded metalflake, burning the bait above the bass in the clear water (KVD fished his first Bassmaster event in 1987, and didn’t join the tour full time until 1990/1991.

 

Clunn Clear Water Spinnerbait Basics

 

I wasn’t aware of the Clunn statement either…I will definitely read your attached article.  I was actually referring to the OP’s statement regarding KVD saying low and slow wouldn’t get bit.  I’m not aware of that opinion but am aware of his general feelings regarding how to fish spinnerbaits.

[DitchPanda]

10 hours ago, Bird said:

I'll take the knowledge of the man in the field vs the man sitting behind a desk.

What if the man sits behind the desk as a biologist and spends all of his off time chasing bass? I'm not downplaying Roland Martin as an incredible angler but i believe people sometimes put to much emphasis on somebody being a pro. I'm not sure what @WRB did for a living but I don't recall him saying he was a pro fisherman...yet I'd trust his advice over almost anyones on how to catch a 10lb+ bass since he's caught like a billion of them. Point being pros aren't the only ones who understand and catch bass.

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

When KVD was a young up and coming pro bass angler he built his career on spinnerbaits. KVD used Nichols spinnerbaits Back when Dave Nichols owned the company.

Questioning KVD spinnerbaits skills is like questioning his jerk bait and crankbait skills today.

Tom

Tom I was in no means questioning his spinner baits skills. I have read all the articles I can get from him on them over the years. He got me to try an oversized trail willow post cold front and it worked really well. The point was he has a style he fishes and he justifies it when he writes about it, and I made that point horribly I know, difficult to put in written words. The high fast approach applies during the summer in N WI, but it seems up through mid July the weather is so all over the map different tactics are needed.
 

KVD is a beast along with Clunn, who in my eyes gets elevated with his recent wins. I have some of the original bass pros show DVDs and always liked the segment Rick had.  Now if I could only find the spinner bait selector thing he sold on Bass Pro for years. I always put it off till next year and sadly it’s gone. 

1 hour ago, DitchPanda said:

What if the man sits behind the desk as a biologist and spends all of his off time chasing bass? I'm not downplaying Roland Martin as an incredible angler but i believe people sometimes put to much emphasis on somebody being a pro. I'm not sure what @WRB did for a living but I don't recall him saying he was a pro fisherman...yet I'd trust his advice over almost anyones on how to catch a 10lb+ bass since he's caught like a billion of them. Point being pros aren't the only ones who understand and catch bass.

As a scientist by schooling, I develop products for science labs now not on the bench anymore, I saw some flaws in the tests in the knowing fish book and some magazine articles. There is a lot of great info scientists can gather, but the results could differ lab vs wild. So I read the data and decide how much to weight to put on it based on how the tests were run. The knowing bass book was great in that it explained how the data was collected. 
 

 

[Cgolf]

1 hour ago, RDB said:

 I was actually referring to the OP’s statement regarding KVD saying low and slow wouldn’t get bit.  

I think I took it to far writing it wouldn’t get bit fishing it lower. That might have rattled around my head as I was reading the book with the reasons he gave for fishing it high vs low. Your post clarifies what he wrote nicely. 

[padon]

everybody fishes their own style and we should all be experimenting anyway.KVD  was a power fisherman looking for active fish and reaction strikes and covering alot of water. if he thought he needed a slower presentation he probably had other baits he preferred.

[Bdnoble84]

14 hours ago, Cgolf said:

Seth Feider spoke at a fishing show I was at before the pandemic and he talked about how quickly he would fish a jerkbait under certain conditions. He had a rod with him as a prop, and I was stunned because that was so different from my style. Last year when the jerkbait bite was on I tried a 6th sense hyper jerk and figured what the heck since hyper is in the name. I caught fish on that bait working it pretty much as fast as I could. Had I not been to that seminar I probably would never have fished the bait that fast. I still tend to retrieve on the slow side, but I do mix in some faster retrieves now and then. 

Definitely with smallmouth, i catch more jerkbait fish using a faster retrieve, as long as the water isnt super cold. When I read Seth and KVD talking speed, I think smallmouth. That may have something to do with it. Having said that, i have caught clear water bass on spinnerbaits and straight braid moderately retreiving the bait. so clearly the whole natural thing is not a steadfast rule. 
 

another thing to think about. These guys are about probability and efficiency. Its not that they cant get a fish to bite on a methodical, slowed down approach, its that they can get more bites by fishing quickly and covering water. Just like there are alot really good baits that dont get used in tournaments, the same goes for techniques.