Torn between the simple, ol' days and today

[Swamp Girl]

When I caught my first fish on a Whopper Plopper and wake bait, it was thrilling. Same with my first fish on a jerkbait, a lipless crankbait, and a soft plastic swimbait with a weight on the shaft of the hook. And my first fish on a frog was fireworks, hooking me more than the fish.

 

I bought some square bills for next season and some slender Rapala wake baits too. So, I'm slowly joining this new age of choices upon choices, but when I read posts at bassresource.com, I'm reminded again and again and again of what I don't know. I don't think I'll ever reach the point where I can cite the maker, model, and finish of every lure like most of you do.

 

I was raised in the era of Rapala, Pflueger, Mann's, Mepps, and Heddon. It seems like there are ten times as many companies today and fifty times as many lures.  

 

So, I'm both excited by the choices and overwhelmed by them and I haven't touched upon pitching, punching, flipping, and whatever other casting techniques are out there.

 

I am working up to trying chatterbait fishing and roboworming too in 2023, but a part of me misses the old days of tying my outfit to my bike with string and taking five lures fishing. 

 

However, in the end, I do like choices. I fish with five rods and I'd fish with ten if I could fit them into my canoe without them becoming tangled. And sometimes, I make a single cast with a lure and then another lure and another, trying to determine what they want in that moment at that place.

 

But if you ever see an old woman in a big tackle shop looking at the aisles and aisles of lures and you hear a slight whimper, you'll know that's me.  

 

P. S. - Of the new lures I'm buying, I'm most excited about the Sixth Sense Movement 80X because I fish some water as skinny as Twiggy and I'd like an option other than a surface lure.  

[Mobasser]

I'm like you also. I learn about new baits from some of the younger folks here on BR.

[Swamp Girl]

3 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

I'm like you also. I learn about new baits from some of the younger folks here on BR.

 

One day, you and I might be standing together outside a Bass Pro store, saying:

 

"You go first."

 

"No, you go."

 

"I'd rather you go first."

 

"No, you."

 

Then maybe some younger, kind bassresource.com fisher will appear and say, "C'mon, you two. I'll help."

 

And we'll both sigh and smile. 

[Mike L]

I was like you when I started entering state and regional tournament trails. 
I didn’t have much and knew even less. 
 

I would read everything printed trying to decide what I thought I needed and what I may need. 
On my home water I pretty much knew what, when, where and how to use certain baits but once I left my “comfort zone” I had an awakening. 
 

But like you, when I signed up here and became a semi regular I learned again what I didn’t know. 
The folks on here are very very good at what they do so I took every recommendation and opinion to heart. 
 

Fast forward 12 years, I’m to the point now where I will rarely try something new. 
All the trail and error and money spent did help, but to a point. 
 

Point is sometimes the status quo could be a good thing too. 
 

Good Luck

 

 

Mike
 

[Spankey]

I’m sure I’m older than you but my fishing had started the same way. I’m into some of the new wave stuff. But I remain pretty old school and fish many of my productive tried and true baits, I still throw them a lot. 
 

I believe and have confidence in my old Rapalas, Bombers, Bandits, Pop-R’s and others.  Many of these can’t be bought today. 
 

I am all about fishing with a quality rod and reel. And I’m into matching a speed ratio to what I’m fishing. Especially crankbait fishing. 

[TnRiver46]

I try new things, but would rather just fish a plastic worm 

[Mobasser]

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

I try new things, but would rather just fish a plastic worm 

My #1 also. Tried and true

[Bankbeater]

I fish with a lot of the older baits.  I'm not one to run out and purchase a new type of bait, sight unseen, as soon as it hits the shelves.  Nine times out of ten how I try a new bait is that I find one out on the water and tie it on.

[Swamp Girl]

Spanky, do you fish with your old lures that can't be replaced? I don't. I'd be afraid of losing one. 

 

An old timer lure that isn't mentioned much at bassresource.com is the Mepps spinner. I know some of you use it, but giving the preponderance of newer lures that are thrown, today's bass might not see Mepps as much as they once did. I catch good numbers and good-sized fish with my most basic Mepps, the one with the brass blade and plain hook.

[Southernbasser]

I like to learn new techniques and try new lures. However, it seems like I always go back to the tried and true, like the Ned rig or Carolina rig. 

[scaleface]

I use baits that are  so old that they're new again .

[Mobasser]

24 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Spanky, do you fish with your old lures that can't be replaced? I don't. I'd be afraid of losing one. 

 

An old timer lure that isn't mentioned much at bassresource.com is the Mepps spinner. I know some of you use it, but giving the preponderance of newer lures that are thrown, today's bass might not see Mepps as much as they once did. I catch good numbers and good-sized fish with my most basic Mepps, the one with the brass blade and plain hook.

I made a couple of post not long ago about Mepps. I had some good days this summer with them. Great lures IMO. 

[Captain Phil]

It's not the bait you use, it's how you use it.  When you have confidence in a bait, you throw it more.  The more you throw it, the better you get at fishing that bait.  The only truly new bait I have fished lately has been a chatterbait.  I had heard about them, but did not try one until a friend gave me one.   I caught fish on it, but I caught more on the same spinnerbait I have been fishing for the last twenty years.  Plastic frogs are fun to fish, but their hookup ratio is abysmal. I fish a spinnerbait about 50% of the time.  I flip about 30% of the time.  The rest is topwater and rattletrap.  I hardly ever cast a plastic worm anymore unless it's on a Carolina rig. Nothing is truly new.

[GreenPig]

This is my fishing 83 year old bud Craig,  he approached me one day at the BPS with the look of a child that'd been lost in the woods for days. I spent some time talking/showing him baits/techniques. Two weeks later he had a boat and was raring to go. It's been over two years and the bait monkey has got a pretty good grip on him. He loves some Whopper Plopper and Jerkbait fishing. 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

7 minutes ago, GreenPig said:

This is my fishing 83 year old bud Craig,  he approached me one day at the BPS with the look of a child that'd been lost in the woods for days. I spent some time talking/showing him baits/techniques. Two weeks later he had a boat and was raring to go. It's been over two years and the bait monkey has got a pretty good grip on him. He loves some Whopper Plopper and Jerkbait fishing. 

If I'm hardcore Bassin at 83, I must have done something correctly in this life.

 

Kudos to you, and here's too many more memories for the both of you.

[Swamp Girl]

Go, Craig, go!

 

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Plastic frogs are fun to fish, but their hookup ratio is abysmal. 

'

When I posted about my low hookup rate while froggin', a couple fishers responded that their hookup rate was quite high. I'd love to fish with those guys and witness that.

 

On the other hand, when I fish with a frog, I get lots of hits, so I don't need a high hookup rate and the misses are almost as much fun as landing the fish.

 

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This is my fishing 83 year old bud Craig,  he approached me one day at the BPS with the look of a child that'd been lost in the woods for days.

 

 

I'm only laughing because that's me too, a child lost in the woods for days.

[T-Billy]

I'm coming full circle. I've tried and have lots of stuff, but I'm getting to where I just roll with a handful of confidence baits most of the time. From now till ice over it'll be an A - rig and the mighty Sweet Craw getting most of the work.

[Aaron_H]

3 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

I am working up to trying chatterbait fishing

 

Since @N Florida Mike is already becoming a fine chatterbait angler, I think I found my new victim to cheerlead about them... ?

 

I feel that I tend to oscillate between "try a thousand new things" and "key in and simplify a few techniques that I'm successful with." The choices we have now in comparison to even the 90s when I was growing up are staggering, let alone the earlier days of bass fishing. It can be difficult sometimes to weed out the gimmicks and find the tackle that makes true advances, sometimes the amount of choices can be paralyzing.

[A-Jay]

Interesting thread @ol'crickety

I'm not exactly sure when or where it happened.

I think it was somewhere between the Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon administrations

that I figured out that when it came to bass fishing, I really liked to cast & retrieve my offering.

Whatever it was.  Back in the day it was mudbugs & hellbenders, jitterbugs & crazy crawlers, rebel minnows & daredevil spoons, spinnerbaits and the Black Fury.  Despite many of my better bass coming on the Creme rigged night crawler (2 hooks a spinning prop and some beads) I disliked it, as the effective presentation had to be so slow.

Fast forward 11 presidents later, I haven't changed all that much.

While the bait's and places I throw them certainly have, the favorite premise is still the same.

Chunk & wind; most always for northern Michigan brown bass.

Latest deals for me that have proven to check all the boxes are

Swing heads, swimbaits, A-Rig & a Vibrating Jig.

Jerkbaits are in my soul at this point. 

Top waters and spinnerbaits are still big players as is a wide variety of shallow & medium running crankbaits.  When it gets tough, I'll fish a traditional jig/ craw and feel fairly confident with it.

But these days I'm rarely reaching for it first. 

Don't even remember the last time I pitched a 'rubber worm' at anything. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

 

[gim]

You're lucky that the bass you target are so willing to take on the whopper popper @ol'crickety.  Eventually the fish will wise up to that presentation if you fish it long enough.  I haven't been on a good topwater bite in a long time.  The fish around here used to take topwater with regularity, but I think the clear water and increased pressure put a halt to that.

 

A lot of the places I fish have way too many weeds in the summer time to use a topwater lure with treble hooks anyways.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

One thing that never gets talked in regard to the Covid pandemic, it put tremendous pressure on fisheries, and it all but killed the only public stocked trout stream in Alabama.   

 

To this point, and gimruis's point about pressure......my mentality towards Bass behavior and my lure selection is heavily predicated on pressure.     I will start throwing a new bait simply because I think the fish in a body of water haven't seen it.   Some baits will always work like T-rig bottom contact stuff, but I've found other baits become less appealing to fish over time if I throw them enough.     

 

I got into big swimbaits recently because I know nobody is throwing these things on my homelake, and the big fish haven't seen them.     It's a lot of work and requires special tackle and expensive baits.    I view this the same way I like to fish in bad weather, I'm putting myself in a position to catch fish that the majority of anglers on said body of water aren't having.     My goal is to catch big Bass, not trick the smartest Bass on the lake into biting lol. 

 

[gim]

13 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

I will start throwing a new bait simply because I think the fish in a body of water haven't seen it. 

This concept has been going on in the muskie fishing realm for a long time.  They wise up really quick when there's a lot of lures tossed at them and all they do is follow without biting.

 

I generally try to avoid fishing highly pressured waters where there is a lot of tournaments.  I know that not everyone has that ability simply because there aren't a lot of lakes or rivers to fish in the area.  I feel fortunate to live in the land of 10,000 lakes and many more miles of river.  Some of the smaller lakes a little further away from me receive little to no bass fishing pressure.

[Swamp Girl]

Great post, A-Jay.

 

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You're lucky that the bass you target are so willing to take on the whopper popper @ol'crickety.  Eventually the fish will wise up to that presentation if you fish it long enough. 

 

I rue that day, IF it ever comes, but I'm nearly always the only one fishing a body of water and I fished 15 bodies of water this year and will fish at least that many new ponds and bogs in 2023, so the bass aren't seeing a Whopper Plopper every day or even every week. Plus, as I stated earlier, I fish with five rods and only one has a Whopper Plopper. Generally all five rods catch fish, so I'm not a one-trick pony. I'm a five-trick pony!*

 

 

 

 

*I know five tricks shouldn't be a point of pride, but it's all I've got.

 

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Some of the smaller lakes a little further away from me receive little to no bass fishing pressure.

 

Well, to be frank, ^this^ is my trick. And stealth. 

[Woody B]

44 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

.......................................................................................................................................................................................

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Fish Hard

A-Jay

 

 

What's the lure pictured?  I've got several of them.  I caught a few bass on them last Winter.  

 

I try to be different that the other people I see fishing.  They're all fishing spinnerbaits, buzz baits and wacky rigs.   I used to fish a spinner bait quite a bit but don't so much now.  I've never fished a wacky rig.   I've caught multiple 5 pounders this year on a devils horse.  1 was right behind a guy fishing a buzz bait.   He come flying up and cut in at a lay down that was less than 30 feet in front of me.   He was 50 feet away when I caught the 5 pounder right behind him.  I held it up and yelled "hey, you forgot this".

 

[A-Jay]

43 minutes ago, Woody B said:

What's the lure pictured?  I've got several of them.  I caught a few bass on them last Winter.  

 

I try to be different that the other people I see fishing.  They're all fishing spinnerbaits, buzz baits and wacky rigs.   I used to fish a spinner bait quite a bit but don't so much now.  I've never fished a wacky rig.   I've caught multiple 5 pounders this year on a devils horse.  1 was right behind a guy fishing a buzz bait.   He come flying up and cut in at a lay down that was less than 30 feet in front of me.   He was 50 feet away when I caught the 5 pounder right behind him.  I held it up and yelled "hey, you forgot this".

 

Fred Arbogast Mud Bug

A-Jay