Old Timers Round Up Part 2 Deep Water Fishing

[Hellbenderman]

It was great to hear from so many people with decades of experience from the last post. It seems that most of us started the same way, walking around the edge of a pond or river with a relative. The trouble started when we got our first boat, and then just kept banging the shore line because that's where we came from, and, hey, you caught a bunch up on the bank last April. Last summer, June, July, and August, was the best big bass summer I had in decades. Most of this happened on my little local lake. I dropped in here one day to see if anyone else was having a good year, and found nothing but complaints. Admittedly, the shoreline on this lake is spectacular; fallen and standing timber everywhere. It's like a magnet. I came to discover that I was the only one fishing in 15 - 30 feet and ignoring the shoreline. I can remember a ways back when anything over ten feet was just not a consideration. I had no idea what was happening out there! I couldn't "SEE" anything! What was I supposed to cast at?!?! Fortunately, I had great teachers who started me down the right path, and it is a path. I think it takes some years to become proficient at deep water fishing because there is a lot to take into account when you can't "SEE" your quarry or the places your quarry hides. It's an educated guess and it takes a while to get an education. I'm going to assume that somewhere along the way everyone who has been at this as a passion for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, has acquired a good deal of knowledge about deep water bass fishing, so I thought it might be fun to hear about how you became deep water educated and a few tips you might have we can all learn from. Youngsters are welcome. Knowledge is age blind. My first piece of advice is to learn about the life cycle of the bass and his food. This will help convince you the bass are down there and give you confidence you are not wasting your time. It will help you to "be the bass". Second, time on the water X 10. Take the time each trip to spend trying to implement a deep water attack, life cycle considered, even if unsuccessful. Go fishing by yourself if necessary. Time on the water X 10. Eventually, it will all come together. So, tell us what you will about how you came to be deep water savvy!

[Wayne P.]

A long time ago, Buck Perry said there were more fish away from the shore than at the shore. That was good enough for me. The Green Box Lowrance sonar helped me find those off shore breaks. I rarely even get within casing distance of a shoreline anymore.

[Hammer 4]

Deep water spooning and jigging...

[Catt]

Here's mine

1965: At the age of 14 I spend the entire summer working on my uncle Joe Addison's charter fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico where he taught me how to read deep water structure. This education continued for the next several years and yea we had depth finders, they were paper graphs.

1972: Started bass fishing seriously on Toledo Bend at my father-in-law's camp on White's Point in the mouth of Lowe's Creek.

1973/74: Joined two bass clubs whose members included John Torian, John Hall, John Dean, Villis P "Bo" Dowden SR, Harold Allen, Larry Nixon, Tommy Martin, & Zell Roland all guides at Toledo Bend's Pendleton Harbor Marina. Ray Scott would latter come up with the "The Hemphill Gang" moniker arguably the most successful group of professional bass anglers to ever emerge from one small region of the nation.

1976: Attended a 4 day seminar in Houston Texas that totally changed my outlook on bass fishing. The man putting on that seminar was Elwood L. " Buck" Perry, not only did I buy his books but I became a devout student of his teachings. I took what Buck taught about deep structure fishing and applied it to Toledo Bend. Not only did the quantity of bass I caught go up but so did quality.

I'm still an avid student of the following

Elwood L. " Buck" Perry & Bill Murphy: Finding & understanding deep structure

Douglas Hannon, Ken Cook, Shaw Grisby, & Dudley Carver (Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Biologist): Understanding bass behavior

Rick Clunn: Mental aspects of bass fishing

Bobby Murray: Big bass can be caught on light line

That's the who's now for the what's

I was introduce to night fishing in 1973 and have continued until the present. These years of having limited or no visibility has heightened my awareness of what is taking place below the surface. This heightened awareness has made me better at fishing deep water where feeling the bite is harder than finding structure.

[Crestliner2008]

A long time ago, Buck Perry said there were more fish away from the shore than at the shore. That was good enough for me. The Green Box Lowrance sonar helped me find those off shore breaks. I rarely even get within casing distance of a shoreline anymore.

X2 - I memorized his book as a teenager, which taught me well about what structure really is. Most fishermen think that a stump is structure! And even the Lowrance online sonar tutorial alludes to that - sadly. If everyone just got Buck Perry's book and studied it, they could not help but become better fishermen.

"Depth & speed control". Everything else is window dressing.

[Lund Explorer]

Much like Catt, my deep water fishing started in the 1960's.  Only my experience came on Lake Michigan during the height of what was called "Coho Fever".

The only other deep water fishing we did was through the ice for species such as lake trout, whitefish, and perch.

As a younger, we were taught the Michigan's lakes were all bowl shaped.  Shallow along the shoreline with gentle slopes out to how ever deep the water was.  When I'd read stories about fishing deep water structure, i.e. creek channels, dropoffs, and such, it didn't really seem like it meant much to someone fishing a bowl.

Fortunately, as I started my bass tournament fishing, I got to meet and fish with several anglers who knew the "secrets" of our deep water structure.  Even our bowl shaped lakes sometimes held underwater humps or sunken islands.  Many of these were the result of receding glaciers leaving what are called tailing's.  the humps are made up of gravel and stones that the glaciers had pushed along and then dropped off.

We also have a few impoundments and of course flooded river mouths along the Lake Michigan shoreline that held many of these so-called "Southern Structures".

While I still do pound the shoreline quite often, I have found myself spending time on these deep water spots.  It has doubled the amount of water I have to explore, and many times when the conditions are right, it has led to some fantastic catches.

Hopefully the tools available today will give today's anglers a chance to discover these hidden fish a lot faster than I did.

[eyedabassman]

Nice Catt, Boy people would kill to fish with most of them! You were lucky to have them!

  As for deep water, I guide at night in S.E. Wisconsin.I love fishing deep water day or night. But I like bassin in the dark  over daylight ( summer ). I know for a fact numbers may go down but size goes way up! Whem fishing at night I fish from 10 to 30 ft.! There is so much to learn and such little time!

[Fish M4ST3R]

There is so much to learn and such little time!

well said

[WRB]

Back in 50's bass fishing was close from Oct 1st and opened May 1st, thus the winter cold water, fall transition and pre spawn bass fishing was unknown.

I knew bass where deep because we caught them accidentally lead lining flutter type trout spoons, which was a problem because the bass could not swim back down with air bladders over inflated.

Before Buck Perry, Jason Lucas wrote about jigging spoons and weighted lures to catch deep summer bass. Perry's spoon plugging methods opened up structure fishing and changed bass fishing.

The fish finder "flasher" was the first affordable tool for the average bass fisherman to locate deep structure, followed by Lowrance's paper graph. Several brand of "flashers were available in the early 60's, the bass fishing paper graph came out in the early 70's.

Deep is relative to where you live and fish. Deeper than 40 feet, bass have a major problem with air bladders and our sport needs to resolve that problem.

Fizzing isn't the answer. Recreational fisherman can simply lower the bass back down using a torpedo sinker rig. Tournament fisherman must weigh in the bass.

WRB

[Catt]

I should have been a little clearer but those are not the book titles but the subject matter contained in the books.  Oh yea I completely forgot to mention Glen Lau's Bigmouth and Bigmouth Forever as well as his many other publications.

[CWB]

Buck Perry is the man! I started fishing with my dad on a small natural lake and we did okay pounding the banks.

Then one day I saw something that changed my life. A boat was trolling and every 5 minutes he would pull in a bass or pike, all good size. I happened to chat with him at the ramp and he had a limit of 5lb+ bass and 34-38" northerns. (No catch and release back then). He was a devout spoonplugger. He gave me the little booklet that is still available today and a spoonplugger was born. I could not find any spoonplugs in the area, but used Bombers, Waterdogs, Hellbenders and later Bagley DB3's. My local tackle shop eventually started stocking Spoonplugs and I had my first run-in with the bait monkey. I still troll big spoonpugs for Musky, but not for bass too much anymore. With todays deep-diving crankbaits and jigs, worms, carolina rigs etc, I find it more fun to cast for them. I still like to fish the shallow slop and cover like docks, laydowns etc, but for consistency, stay deeper.

[stratos 375]

there's always gonna be one in the pack that's different. I'll volunteer for that slot. Eons ago when I fished competitively, many of the circut stops were on lakes that required you to have a decent deep water game. Which I did.

The last tournaments I fished were in the mid 80's, since then I only fish where I choose, and for 25 years, I've chosen tidewater about 60% of the time. Deepwater skills not required. The other 40% of the time I'm at my small home lakes where I never have to fish more than 10' deep, and do extremely well. It's weird, I still have the ability & skills to fish deep water, but I just don't care to. Oh yea, I forgot to add, sometimes it can be boring out there among the marker bouys bobbing up & down watchin a LCD screen.

I've turned into a shallow water slop fisherman, and it's great! Sidefinders, underwater cameras, color LCD's & marker bouys & GPS. I don't need any of that crap to catch fish. At this point in my life, deep water fishing is just a distraction from my real fishing strengths which are pitchin jigs and throwin jerkbaits.

I work weekends so it enables me to fish Monday thru Friday, every day if I want to. If I somehow feel that I won't catch 'em shallow, rather than have to fish deep, I'll just grab the varmit rifle, walk out the backdoor & go kill something.

To you guys who ply the deep waters, my hat's off to you. I know that there are some large & sometimes stacked fish out there, but the're all yours.

[eyedabassman]

there's always gonna be one in the pack that's different. I'll volunteer for that slot. Eons ago when I fished competitively, many of the circut stops were on lakes that required you to have a decent deep water game. Which I did.

The last tournaments I fished were in the mid 80's, since then I only fish where I choose, and for 25 years, I've chosen tidewater about 60% of the time. Deepwater skills not required. The other 40% of the time I'm at my small home lakes where I never have to fish more than 10' deep, and do extremely well. It's weird, I still have the ability & skills to fish deep water, but I just don't care to. Oh yea, I forgot to add, sometimes it can be boring out there among the marker bouys bobbing up & down watchin a LCD screen.

I've turned into a shallow water slop fisherman, and it's great! Sidefinders, underwater cameras, color LCD's & marker bouys & GPS. I don't need any of that crap to catch fish. At this point in my life, deep water fishing is just a distraction from my real fishing strengths which are pitchin jigs and throwin jerkbaits.

I work weekends so it enables me to fish Monday thru Friday, every day if I want to. If I somehow feel that I won't catch 'em shallow, rather than have to fish deep, I'll just grab the varmit rifle, walk out the backdoor & go kill something.

To you guys who ply the deep waters, my hat's off to you. I know that there are some large & sometimes stacked fish out there, but the're all yours.

I agree with everything you said! And I too am getting to want to fish the slop ( Or the cheese ) most of the time! But I guide at night and they pay for the biggins. So the deep water is were it is at. And don't get me wrong I love to fish deep water bass.I do think if you can catch bass in deep water, you now have the skill to catch bass anywere on a lake!

[stratos 375]

bassman, it would seem that we may be on the same page as far as this topic is concerned, however I will respectfully disagree with your last statement." if you can catch bass in deep water, you can catch them anywhere on the lake"

When a guy who spends the majority of his time in deep water heads in to the realm of 2-4' deep, he won't be as sucessful as the guy who fishes shallow all the time. Conversely, when a dedicated shallow water fisherman heads out to a 30' deep channel ledge, he won't be as sucessful as a guy who spends most of his time out there.

That said, the deep water fishing takes more time to learn, as it relies heavily on electronics, and is definately  the harder of the two techniques to learn. True shallow water fishin requires a skill set all it's own. You can drop a jar of pork rind on the deck in 30' of water & still catch fish.

Drop something on your deck, or scrape your tr. motor on the bottom a few times in shallow water, & for the most part, you are done

Also for any newer anglers who think you just have to master deep water fishin to be sucessful, take a historical look at the B.A.S.S classics and invitationals. How many were won by guys out in the middle of the lake workin marker bouys? How many were won within a cast's length of the bank, and in water less than 8' deep?

[WRB]

There seems to be a disconnect between fishing deep water and bank pounding. For the vast majority of bass anglers positioning the boat a cast away from the bank is the what over 90% of all bass anglers fish, who have a boat. The shore anglers don't have a lot of choices and can only cast out away from the bank at some angle. This reduces the bass water to about 30 yards around the perimeter of the lake.

Some lakes have a lot of bass located on similar cover, structure and depth as you are catching the bass along the bank. You simply need to look out over your shoulder away from the bank. The best example of what I'm talking about is follow a long tapering point out into deeper water. Fish this deeper water like you do the bank, except you can't see the shoreline line, you fish the break line.

Take a look at a good topo map and will may find shallower water surrounded by deep water. If this shallower water has cover or structure that attracts bait, the bass will be there, just like they are near the bank. It's really not fishing "deep" water, it's fishing where the bass are located.

During the winter the warmest water may be deep, then that where the bass will be the majority of the time, some may come up to feed shallower, but bass rarely travel very far to go from deep to shallow. During the hot summer days the bass tend to go deeper to find cooler water and move up shallower at night. The shallower at night doesn't always mean the bank, it can also be those outside areas with shallower water surrounding them. The bank fisherman can't walk out to those deeper water areas, boat fisherman can and should learn to look out over their shoulder.

WRB

[stratos 375]

  Mr. WRB not to be a disagreeable, but your statement puzzles me. You said"during the winter the warmest water may be deep"  The only way that's possible if if there is a deepwater spring pushin out water. Otherwise, that defies modern physics as I know it.

cold water is more dense, it'll naturally be the deepest. If you have warm water below cold water, it will turn over

[WRB]

Mr. WRB not to be a disagreeable, but your statement puzzles me. You said"during the winter the warmest water may be deep" The only way that's possible if if there is a deepwater spring pushin out water. Otherwise, that defies modern physics as I know it.

cold water is more dense, it'll naturally be the deepest. If you have warm water below cold water, it will turn over

You are right to a point; water gets less dense or lighter at 39.4 degrees F. 3 factors to consider; spring water, current and the affects of convective heating from the earth.

The earth is about 60 degrees at 6 feet or so below the ground, within the basses normal range. The cold air cools the surface water and slowly falls down through the water column, saturating the warmer water below, until it reaches a depth where warmer water neutralizes the colder water; if the lake is deep enough and has current or springs. If there is enough DO at deep depths, the bass go deep to find the warmest water available to survive. In shallow natural lakes without springs, current or convected heating; 39.4 degrees is warmer than 38 degrees or 32 degree ice and is deeper.

WRB

[Catt]

Deep water is relative to the body of water you are fishing!

While many anglers refer to it as "Deep" water fishing it is in reality structure fishing and structure fishing is not only about deep water. I can promise you that our pro tournament brothers are fishing structure fishing even when working a shore-line.

It is a known fact that bass travel along breaks/break-lines and so when looking at a contour map the first break-line is the shore-line and the last break-line is the bottom of the creek/river (when present).

The type of fishing some here are referring to is often called "Off Shore" or "Open Water" and even it can be about shallow water fishing. I can be 2 miles offshore on Toledo Bend and still fishing in 10-15' of water because I'm working a hump, ridge, flat or some type of structure.

Regardless of water depth y'all had better be fishing structure

[WRB]

Catt, I asked Don Iovino about fishing outside structure at El Salto when he first starting guiding down there. Don told me that the best fisherman he guided at El Salto came from Texas, usually the the Toledo Bend area because they understood what he was doing. Almost all his other clients wanted to fish the shoreline with everyone else, until he showed them pictures of all the 10+ bass he was getting off of mid lake structure.

TB must be a fun lake, big bass and lot of places to fish without the traffic. Our small CA lakes can be dangerous with recreational boaters not watching where they are going.

WRB

[stratos 375]

convective heating, the earth tempeature,warm water neutralizing cold water, disolved oxygen? please don't take offense, but it sounds like a lot of regurgitated research to me. I'm starting to get a migraine, I think I need to start wearing my tin foil hat again.

It really isn't near as complicated as all that, the're either bitin deep or they aint. Reams of research can probably be dubunked with a 3 dollar jiggin spoon. What's next, the coriolis effect, sunspot interference or maybe the latest shuttle launch? The trouble with research is that it's usually done by a researcher, not a bass fisherman.

again, please don't take any offense as I respect everyone's opinion and truly enjoy reading other's points of view. Especially from guys in the old geezer group, myself included.

[WRB]

convective heating, the earth tempeature,warm water neutralizing cold water, disolved oxygen? please don't take offense, but it sounds like a lot of regurgitated research to me. I'm starting to get a migraine, I think I need to start wearing my tin foil hat again.

It really isn't near as complicated as all that, the're either bitin deep or they aint. Reams of research can probably be dubunked with a 3 dollar jiggin spoon. What's next, the coriolis effect, sunspot interference or maybe the latest shuttle launch? The trouble with research is that it's usually done by a researcher, not a bass fisherman.

again, please don't take any offense as I respect everyone's opinion and truly enjoy reading other's points of view. Especially from guys in the old geezer group, myself included.

Fish where they are and they aint there, then fish where the aint and they are there. That's what the old timer told me back in the 40's when I started fishing.

It only took me about 25 years to figure out what he was saying. Just remember bass can't read and have the brain the size of a pea, shouldn't be too hard to catch them.

WRB

PS; the deepest bass I have caught (smallmouth) was around 100 feet deep from Crow Lake, Ontario Canada fishing for lake trout. Crow lake is just north of Nestor Falls and is extremely clear and freezes to 6 feet of ice, cold deep lake. What a bass was doing that deep in July is any one's guess.

[NeedAnewScreenName-587943]

fish deep!

from the Gaussian perspective, the shallows have been thoroughly seined; move offshore and catch the cows that see 10% of the pressure.

[BigEbass]

I am a newB bass junky weekend warrior (btw, I need to be able to fish 5 days a week  :-/

These are a few of my thoughts...being that I am new to the scene, consider them questions rather than assertions!!

I read Bill Seinmantel's book last year....and he pretty much kept it simple enough - fish the best spots (points, humps, flats, creekbeds, ledges) and consider shallow cover of course....and especially "spot on spot" type scenarios.....so if the spot is deep, fish it deep, and if it is shallow, fish it shallow....that is pretty much his words anyway. Now I am becoming more aware of deep structure and am trying to learn to fish it as of this unusually cold Alabama winter - but nothin beats an Alabama bucket mouth exploding on topwater people, thats just all there is to it in my book - it is this display of their ferocity that makes the largemouth so popular - not their size IMO - even a moderate or small size pig blowin up on my worm fished on the top is the best feeling for me  However...I have yet to catch many bass that were over 5 lbs  > but I have only been fishing for a year and mine is coming weather it be deep or shallow!

I will play devil's advocate quickly.... :

How deep was the two world record largemouth bass caught - as I recall they were both caught not with verticle jigging or deep trolling techniques....correct??  Doug Hannon said in an article I had read last year that the majority of his big bass over 9 pounds were caught on a 7 inch texas rigged worm - he did not say if he was fishing primarily in 30 feet - but I believe he fishes heavy cover in that little boat of his primarily?? Not saying all you veritcle only deep water folks should throw away your techniques - I am simply pointing out that there seems to me to be a great many ways to catch the oppurtunistic largemouth bass....and deep water is no exception (except for me cause I stink at is so far, you all are gonna help me with that)

Anyway, fish shallow only, fish deep only, fish both - some may avoid deep because of its technical difficulties or they may simply not prefer that type of fishing, but I think there is no one way to skin this catfish....like Bill Sienmantel says in his book - fish the best spots at various depths and find the fish, then catch em....seems like good advice to me (which does require deep water skills btw), but I dont know much yet

[BigEbass]

For someone trying to learn how to go about this deep water techniques, where do I start?  Someone suggest a first read or a website for me?

[eyedabassman]

Stratos 375,WRB,Catt, would it be cool to have a round table debate or a raido show with all of us?

  Let me explain that statment that I made! I do beleave that a GOOD deep water bass fisherman can be a very good shallow water fisherman! But I think a good shallow water bass fisherman will have more trouble fishing deep water! All bass relate to a object and when I fish deep water I am fishing some kind of a object or structure.

The lakes up here in S.E. Wisconsin get very pounded on weekends so it is very hard to fish at times. So I started to guide at night about 12 years ago.So I had to get good at fishing deep water. And I did learn some very cool thing along the way.

  I think no one is wrong here! I would like share our little tricks about deep water fishing or what you fish in deep water?

PS. I would rather fish in the wright place with the wrong bait than fish in the wrong place with the wright bait!