What's your percentage of big bass?

[softwateronly]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

If it’s dec-feb, most fish are decent size. If it’s may-august, they are usually dinks

This ^^^ is everything.  I have about 6 weeks a year that I'm probably 25% 4lbs or more, and 60% of the others are 3lbs or more.  But that's when they're aggressive and I know where to find them, also my lake is relatively healthy for "big" bass.  Plus, when it's the right time and even the wrong time, I'll leave 2lb bass for another spot, helping my percentage out.  The other 314 days include some skunks, some ice, dinks, and much more volatility in locating active "big" bass.  

 

I did 25 months straight of at least one open water bass that ended in April of this year (because of work schedule), and at least 9 of those didn't include a 4lber.  I'd love to do one calendar year with at least one a month.  January, Feb, March, Sept and December are my toughest nuts to crack.

 

scott

[Jar11591]

 

Found my numbers from 2023. That year I made “big” bass anything over 19”. In 2023, 1 out of every 6.67 bass were over 19”, and 1 out of 12.1 bass were over 20”. 
 

Didn’t keep track for 2024 but it’s probably a little lower than that. 

[SkippinJimmy]

20 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

Now I'm your fangirl. 

That on the other hand is profile worthy.  Can I put this in my profile and show my kids?

[rboat]

Unless you are in a tournament, I don't think weight should matter. A 2lb bass is beautiful and a 6lb bass is beautiful, both can be really fun to catch. I hate to see anglers taking the time to stop and weigh every fish they catch. It is stressful to the fish and really unnecessary. I think we as anglers put too much emphasis on fish weight. In the deep south people think all there is is giant bass, simply not true. We have all sizes of bass and more large bass predators like gators and raptors. Granted percentage wise we have more large bass simply due to a longer growing season and strain of bass. That being said, most bass caught are smaller younger fish because those are the ones that want to come out and play with lures. Most of the really big fish you see in photos were caught with a guide using live bait, like wild shiners. 

 

To answer your question: I consider a big bass 5lbs or more. My percentage to catch that size is really only about 3-5%. I only do just fun fishing so that may skew the numbers. Some guys are truly just trophy hunters with special gear, and like the musky guys up north it takes patience and perserverance, sometimes just to get one bite.

[Susky River Rat]

I don’t go by the size of the bass. I go by the enjoyment I get for catching them which is pretty much the same everytime. 

[N Florida Mike]

I can’t possibly know the % , because I don’t keep track of total fish caught.

I do know my biggest 10 from when I started bass fishing.

I started keeping track of fish over 4 pounds in 2007. Since then , I’ve caught 79 bass over 4 pounds…

 

[Swamp Girl]

53 minutes ago, SkippinJimmy said:

That on the other hand is profile worthy.  Can I put this in my profile and show my kids?

 

Sure!

 

Caveat: You're pretty new to Bass Resource, so just be forewarned that I'm pretty much the village idiot here. I'm an affable idiot, for sure, but I'm the girl who can only remember the names of about five of my lures and has no idea which rod is right for flipping or jigging and who power fishes with spinning gear, so my fangirldom comes a little smudged. 

 

39 minutes ago, rboat said:

To answer your question: I consider a big bass 5lbs or more. My percentage to catch that size is really only about 3-5%.

 

I think this might be the favorite thread I've started because while there are outliers with stunning big bass percentages, many of us are in the 3-5% range and many of us up north consider four pounds to the cutoff and down south, consider five pounds to be the cutoff. I wouldn't have guessed that there'd be so much consensus because you can put five bassheads in a room and have seven opinions. 

 

24 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

I can’t possibly know the % , because I don’t keep track of total fish caught,

 

So true. You'd need that number, even if only an estimate, to determine a percentage. 

[MIbassyaker]

4 hours ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

I like @MIbassyaker graph - I have only been fishing now for 2 years yet I have kept a note book recording catches - and since it's minus 36 wind chill today I just might crank up the fire place and make a chart....

What is considered "big" is certainly relative to state/location and lake - I believe the heaviest recorded largemouth in MN is 8 lb 15 oz's (23.5 inches long) and largest smallmouth 8 lbs. In comparison the MN Walleye record is 17lb 8oz (35.75 inches)

 The vast majority of catches for me have been 14 to 16 inches long - with the biggest smallmouth being 18.5 inches and largemouth 19.5 inches....I will make a chart and see what the percentages look like.

 

To be fair, a lot of things are working against a higher percentage of larger fish in that chart. 

 

For one, it includes catches from 30-some lakes and rivers, most of which I only fish once or twice per year, and only a few of produce larger fish regularly, but I keep going back because I enjoy the location.  In other words, I'm not selecting the 3-4 best waters and hitting them repeatedly.  If I did, that would improve things a lot.  Also, a lot of the smaller fish come from the same handful of places where you simply have to wade through dozens of dinks before you hook anything of size.  I also don't get to fish much during the best times of year for big bass, pre-spawn and fall. 

[SkippinJimmy]

8 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

I'm the girl who can only remember the names of about five of my lures and has no idea which rod is right for flipping or jigging and who power fishes with spinning gear, so my fangirldom comes a little smudged. 

I’ll help you out.  I think the flippin’ rod is the one with the spinning reel on it and the only lure you need is a Hula Popper.

[Swamp Girl]

15 minutes ago, SkippinJimmy said:

I’ll help you out.  I think the flippin’ rod is the one with the spinning reel on it and the only lure you need is a Hula Popper.

 

Ha! You are so close to my reality. I caught hundreds of bass in 2024 with poppers. I love fun, noisy lures like poppers. Thankfully bass like 'em too! In 2024, I caught my first bass on spinnerbaits and walking-the-dog lures. Now I'm gaga for both those lures. My avatar bass was a walking-the-dog bass and that morning, I had to paddle a creepy canyon in total darkness with white, fallen trees looming out of the foggy gloom and then paddle a couple miles of a little river winding through mud flats. It was coldish too and oh-so-muddy. I worked for that bass, but at least I caught it with a fun, noisy lure!

[king fisher]

For me it depends on the lake.  One lake I fish regularly, I have yet to catch a bass over 6 pounds at.  Another lake I fish I fish more than half of the bass I catch are over 7 pounds.  The first lake I catch many in the two pound range, and the second I only catch bass that are less than a pound or more than 7 pounds.

 

The trophy lake has almost zero bass from 1 to 7 pounds.  I attribute this to the extremely aggressive gill netting for Tilapia.  The mesh size that catches the Tilapia is the same size a small bass will get stuck in too.  Baby bass swim right through the gill net and large bass can not get their head inside the mesh.  Apparently there are enough large bass to produce a large population of baby bass every year, and the few medium size bass that survive grow to trophy size very quickly.  The baby bass hug the shoreline, and I could catch dozens of those a day, but I prefer to fish for the trophy bass off shore.  Even during the rainy season when the large bass are in the shallows with the baby bass, the small bass are in different areas.  I guess the small bass don't want to be the next trophy bass meal.

 

There is a down size to this accidental trophy management.  In the 5 years I have fished this lake I have caught more bass over 7 pounds than I have 2 pound bass, but I have also been skunked about half of the days I have fished the lake.  Some days a I call skunks are not officially skunk days because I do catch an odd 1/2 pound bass now and then while targeting the big girls, but I consider one or two baby bass a skunk day.  

[WRB]

My last giant bass over 15 lbs (15.4) was caught at lake Casitas February  2008 on a swimbait, nearly 17 years ago. I was fishing near the off limit buoy line the separates Aires creek from the main lake using a big Black Dog Tail Wagger Trout lure. I heard a splash behind me and made a long cast to the swirl spot and the bass struck the lure immediately when it hit the water. Never would have made that cast without hearing the splash.

What are odds dividing 17 years into 1 bass….,(.003 % ) very low and lower today!

Tom

[little giant]

South Florida here. I don't keep a fishing log. If the big bass cut off is 5 lbs, my percentage would be small. I fish often and catch many, majority under 5. Guessing around 15 over 5 in 2024.

So here's an example:

Last March,  me and my bud went out in his boat, Everglades rim canal. Fished about 4 miles, 7am to 2pm. I caught 22, he caught 24. A great day, but the biggest bass was 4 lbs. The biggest fish: Bowfin! 7- 8 lbs! Great fight! Years ago, the bass were bigger.....

I caught my PB in 2016, 12.3 lbs, nothing Over 10 since, close maybe.

I watch Roland consistently catch 7+ lb bass at Headwaters or Lake O. Not here anymore.

 

[F14A-B]

7 hours ago, Crow Horse said:

I'd estimate it would be around 15%-20% with an explanation. 15%-20% of bass greater than 4#'s is not because of some high skill level I possess (although I would like to think that). It's because of the pond I fish holds larger bass and I fish for them. It's pretty rare that I catch a dink.

 

I can't overstate this.  It's because of the water I fish and NOT an expert skill level. I will say that I pretty much do better than my 2 fishing buddies and they tend to catch smaller fish which most probably is because of the different strategies used.

 

I'm a large lure = large fish guy which I believe really plusses up the percentage. More often than not, a larger bass won't be gut hooked (although they could be) and unhooking with a large lure and there is less damage to the fish and me. Smaller lures tend to get gut hooked more often which makes releasing them problematic.

Totally agree. Some folks claim superiority but the truth is fishing water that HAS a known propensity to give up bigger LMB. The same reality applies to hunting… 

[Swamp Girl]

17 minutes ago, WRB said:

My last giant bass over 15 lbs (15.4) was caught at lake Casitas February  2008 on a swimbait, nearly 17 years ago. I was fishing near the off limit buoy line the separates Aires creek from the main lake using a big Black Dog Tail Wagger Trout lure. I heard a splash behind me and made a long cast to the swirl spot and the bass struck the lure immediately when it hit the water. Never would have made that cast without hearing the splash.

What are odds dividing 17 years into 1 bass….,very low and lower today!

Tom

 

Tom, you ascended Mount Olympus a long, long time ago, Once you're there, you're forever golden. I actually have some footage of you arriving. Yeah, I was the Mount Olympus videographer for a few years.

 

[Pat Brown]

Gee wiz it's hard to say exactly but I'd say we catch a fair percentage that I'd call big - for me it's basically anything over 4 lb in NC feels like a pretty big fish/the kind of fish that could win you a tournament pretty well on most lakes I fish.

 

I think of 2-3 lbers as good fish for the fight and the thrill and we catch a fair number of those and then there's the dinks of which I also catch a fair number every year.

 

Id say probably somewhere around 30%/30%/30% or something like that for big/good/dink.

 

Usually every 3rd fish or there abouts around here is a 4+ give or take for me probably.

 

Sometimes there are droughts and sometimes when it rains it is pouring.  But that's probably about how it shakes out for the year.

 

It COMPLETELY depends on which bodies of water I'm fishing the most - all those who said that - agree.

[Swamp Girl]

20 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

 

Usually every 3rd fish or there abouts around here is a 4+ give or take for me probably.

 

You're a heckuva angler, Pat.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

As I always say, they don't call him Big Fish Pat for no reason 😉

[Tackleholic]

Very sadly, my percentage is dropping each year.  I moved to this well known Ozarks lake 13 years ago.  There were 7 pounders being caught and 6 pounders were common.  It's been years since I heard of a 7 pound LM or 6 pound SM.  These past two years I've accounted for two 6# LM and two 5# SM,  I'm a catch and release guy.  The number of tournaments seems to increase yearly, and I think of the study done in Alabama which concluded that between 40% and 50% of weighed in tournament fish do not survive, and those are the largest ones caught.  Add that to mishandling for photos and all the fish fry seekers.  These days 4# is a big fish and they are getting scarcer;  mostly 1-3 pounders being caught.  There is more than enough forage.  Sad to hear of similar declines in other lakes.

[LrgmouthShad]

Y’all catch fish?

[king fisher]

14 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Y’all catch fish?

Yes and the big ones are caught on spinnerbaits

[MIbassyaker]

18 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Y’all catch fish?

 

Only when they let me

[12poundbass]

 

Dink numbers have been decent the last couple years but, the big bass numbers, nada.

[Swamp Girl]

32 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Y’all catch fish?

 

With Photo Shop, it sure looks like I do, huh?

[padlin]

Big to me is over 6 lbs, I’ve had 2 in however many years I’ve been fishing.