My goal as a newbee for 2009

[Little Luey]

This will be my second year bass fishing, I have tried a few technics and cought some fish but at this point I think it has been luck more than know-how.

This year I will learn how to properly use the Texas rig, shaky head jig and spinnerbaits. I have been reading articles on these lures presentations and stuff.

For the plastics I have a few spinning rods, from 6' to 7' medium action and for the spinnerbaits I have a bait caster and a 6'5" medium action rod.

My plan is to take only those lures on every outing and try them the whole time I am out there, I am bound to catch something, right?

would you care to give some advice?

[Big Tom]

My best advice is good luck and stick with it.  Fishing slow moving lures requires a bunch of patience but it will pay off huge for you if you stick with it.

Although it has typed a thousand times, I will do it again: Try not to work your baits too fast.

[Imgonnamissher]

I'm of the same mindset as you man.  I gotta stick with the flies and lures I'm not good at and be more patient.

Goals: Get better with soft plastics in general, but especially the shaky head and Texas rig, become more proficient with Clouser minnows, better casting with conventional and fly tackle, and the most important is finding the fish and being confident in my choices.  I feel like I either fished way too much vacant water this year, or I passed over good numbers of fish because I didn't stay long enough to figure them out.

Less realistic goals:  Get a boat, get my wife to enjoy fishing enough to spend some time out on the water without dying of boredom, and get my neurotic psychopath dogs, Belle and Tucker, to calm down enough to fish with me (one at a time of course...both at once would scare every fish up to three lakes over).

[Little Luey]

Fishing slow moving lures requires a bunch of patience

thanks for the comments. I know I need to work on my patience and slowing down. The few time I tried last year I lost concentration and started moving a lot faster.

I don't take my dog fishing a whole lot anymore, unless I bring the kids with me because then I know I won't be doing much fishing anyway, more like babysitting out there. There is fishing with kids and pets and then there is real fishing IMO.

[Little Luey]

Less realistic goals: Get a boat, get my wife to enjoy fishing enough to spend some time out on the water without dying of boredom, and get my neurotic psychopath dogs, Belle and Tucker, to calm down enough to fish with me (one at a time of course...both at once would scare every fish up to three lakes over).

that is funny but I know just what you mean, my wife has gone only a couple of times with me and she completly dislike it, she is not the outdoor type at all. I still do ask because I like to appear concern about spending time with her, you know what I mean

my dog discovered she loves to swim so there is no way I can take her anymore, she would be in the water the whole time, I had been wading and she swims to me, I have to take her back to the bank but she comes right back after a few minutes.

[zaraspook_dylan2]

I would use the baitcaster for the worms over the spin-cast any day. I only use a spin-cast when im using small, light topwater lures or small crankbaits.

Good luck

[Newman12Fan]

This is a good plan, and one I followed last year.  I used only plastics and jigs last year.  I now feel very comfortable using them, so this year I am getting a baitcaster and trying crankbaits.

I would 2nd or 3rd the slowing down with worms.  Quick story, I thought I WAS going slow.  Just this week I was out for an hour and got nothing.  About 45 mins in, and old guy came up next to me and caught 3 fish on his first 3 casts.  After the first one, I watched him on the next 2 casts.  I was burning my worm compaired to what he was doing.  I went home frustrated but came back the next day.  I took a deep breath and went as slow as I could.  Landed a 5 pounder on the 3rd cast!

[NCbassproAK]

I think you should also keep your mind set on catching fish because you know how to fish, not luck....it all comes into play after you get some tactics down pat.

[Little Luey]

thanks for commenting.

I should have said, I do use the baitcaster for the texas rig, but I was thinking about the jigs on the spinning combo.

What I think I will do also is to cast the worm in the back yard and see how my retrive is, right now I am thinking it is medium and I need to slow it down more but I have a hard time "seeing" the worm move on the bottom.

I do want to practice these technics so I can be confident about them. The one technic I know I can catch fish with is the dropshot, I use it most of the time and I can catch the fish doing that. Unfortunatly I am not very confident with spinnerbaits, (even when my first fish came on a spinnerbait) and the crankbaits and top water, I have cougth fish using them but I am not very confident I can't consistently do it.

[Hammer 4]

Bingo..Worming is hard work, and as said requires LOTS of patience..it'll payoff ..Also, I use a spinng set up for my worms, seems to work fine, have caught fish on my bc'r too..I personally don't see a difference in either.

One last thing re: worms ect..you'll get a good feel for the bottom of the lake.

My best advice is good luck and stick with it. Fishing slow moving lures requires a bunch of patience but it will pay off huge for you if you stick with it.

Although it has typed a thousand times, I will do it again: Try not to work your baits too fast.

[Drew9586]

There are times I try to drag the worm back to the boat keeping it moveing constantly, but at other times I will slow it down so much that a single cast can take 10 or 12 minutes to get back to the boat.  An example is the year before last a friend asked me to go to Lake Dardanelle on the 4th of July.  There was not a single time where 5 minutes would go by without another boat comming by fishing or a jet ski or ski-boat going by like a bat outta heck.  The other boats were mostly nice bass boats while we were in a worn out old 16' jonboat with a 20hp motor... and anchored at a grassy point that leads out to a deep section 50ft or so off shore.  The other boats would see us not even move our lines and ask if fish were biteing live bait since they were not biteing artificials.  We musta caught 20 that day, all on 6" pumpkinseed finess worms.  The thing is the guys comming by with no patience couldnt catch anything, while we caught a lot.  The moral of this rambeling is when fishing worms sometimes fast is ok, but others you need to slow down.  When you think your slow enough, cut that speed in half.  Then slow down a little more... works like magic on high pressure days or lakes.

For spinner baits... keep in mind that nothing in nature moves in a straight line at constant speeds.  If you throw out and real in at a constant speed you'll be lucky to get anything, and if you do it will be small.  Slow down, speed up, raise your rod tip, lower your rod tip, move it side to side, jerk it some, even practice your hooksets from time to time.  If your actually useing a sinnerbait right you'll wear yourself out and WANT to tie on a worm for a break now and then!

[Drew9586]

One more thing on spinnerbaits... its ok to move at one speed if your trying to provoke a reaction strike... then reel as fast as you can and try to bang the bait into wood or rocks... when you hit those things stop reeling for half a second and hold on, that can get your rod jerked right out of your hands!

[Btech]

I think those are great goals just stick with them - It will be tough at least it was for me to stick to 3 or 4 baits. Id want to change up to somthing else all the time when i see a new lure.

Good luck and post some pix of the hawgs u get.

[adclem]

For me this year it is to learn PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE!!!!!!

Got to learn to make myself work my plastics and jigs slower as well as some of the other lures I use.

Later,

[Little Luey]

There are times I try to drag the worm back to the boat keeping it moveing constantly, but at other times I will slow it down so much that a single cast can take 10 or 12 minutes to get back to the boat. !

LOL, I certainly have not done that. That puts a new light on what SLOW really means.

Great help everyone, thanks a bunch and I really hope to have some big ones to post pictures of.

[CatBassin]

I would use the baitcaster for the worms over the spin-cast any day. I only use a spin-cast when im using small, light topwater lures or small crankbaits.

Good luck

I also prefer a baitcaster for soft plastics, and usually fish my spiinerbaits on a spinning reel.