What, where, when, why, how.

"The idea is to make decisions and act on them -- to decide what is important to accomplish, to decide how something can best be accomplished, to find time to work at it and to get it done."

-Karen Kakascik

     The task of choosing a place to fish can be a daunting task, especially on a new or large body of water.  On your home lake you may only fish a handful of spots without moving around, it may be a convenience issue.  I know I have fished close to the launch just to get more time on the water instead of driving way up the lake.  Many of us fall into patterns of fishing where we have caught fish before without taking into account the current conditions.  The goal of any trip is to catch fish and by breaking down which species your going after, seasonal influences, and current conditions, you can put yourself in a position to do just that.

    If your just getting started fishing for bass, all of the information can be overwhelming.   Simplify your approach until you find out what you are comfortable fishing.  Stick with high percentage areas like points or bridges, these places will hold some fish year round.   If you plan on fishing competitively and want to be successful, you will have to learn the intricacies of these little green fish and be able to think on the fly to catch them when point hopping will not do.  That starts with the seasonal approach.

     Largemouth bass follow fairly predictable seasonal habits that can put you in their general vicinity.    “Migration” is a term that is used a lot, but you need to understand that bass do not have to move very far like ducks to migrate.  Most bass have a fairly small home range that will rarely be over a mile or two.  They will have shallow water to spawn and deeper water to feel safe, the migration will happen between these two along any definable edge.  An edge could be a drop off, a ditch, a row of trees, a fence line, road bed, basically anything different the fish can follow between seasons.  We can get even more specific by breaking down the four major times of year.

Spring:

     Longer periods of sunlight and rising temperatures will start to tip off the bass that it’s time to look for thinner water for their yearly love fest.  They will begin to pile up in staging areas.  Look for large areas that are less than 8 feet deep, also known as flats.  On a map flats will have their contour lines further apart than more vertical structure.  After a flat has been located, concentrate on the places where the flat drops off into deeper water with some kind of feature that makes it different.  Any cover you find on these breaks have the potential to load the boat.  The northern side and upper end of reservoirs are the first places fish spawn because the water warms there first.   Once the water reaches 55-60 degrees, the bass will move up to shallow water in droves during heightened lunar periods.  Hard bottoms are best and the fish will rarely be found below the depth at which sunlight can penetrate.  So the dirtier the water the shallower they will be.  Tributaries that are protected from cold North winds are a great place to start your search.  As spring progresses into post spawn, the bass will follow the same migration routes back out to deeper water.  The fish are normally sluggish right now and tend to suspend by vertical cover- dock pilings, stick ups, or anything different around their migration routes.  You can catch these fish by using reaction baits if they are guarding fry.  My favorite is a Zoom Horny Toad.

Summer:

     Summer patterns will begin to take shape once the water exceeds 75 degrees.  The first place most bass stop on their way back out to the main lake is slow tapering points.  Some bass will stay on these points all summer long and just move up and down the point as conditions dictate.  Many other fish will move to more channel oriented structure.  Look for humps, points, saddles, ledges, drop offs, weed beds- that are within a hundred yards of a creek or river channel.  Figuring out what depth the fish are using is crucial any time of the year and this is especially true during summer.  When you leave the ramp, keep your eyes on your sonar to determine what depth most of the fish are using, including bait.  You should see a general depth that is pretty consistent.  Now you want to find some structure that intersects that depth.  Water clarity will affect the fish and the activity depth level.  Bass will hold at the lower end of the light penetration spectrum.  This allows bass to be hidden from most bait and where they can still see.  Another consideration is the dam schedule.  A lot of bass here in Alabama are conditioned to feed when the upper dam releases water, they stack up on these structures and put on the feed bags.  This is when you want to be on your spots fishing and not moving around.

Fall:

     Once the water temperature drops below 75 or a rapid drop of more than 10 degrees, bass will line up at the buffet for their fall gorge.  They will start to move into the creeks and are more baitfish oriented now than any other time of the year.  They tend to be scattered out now so fish fast until you locate them and then refine your pattern.  Long slow tapering points are great early in the fall and offer fast action before the fish move up tributary arms.  The general rule is that the further you are into the fall, the further the fish will be up the creek arms.  In early fall start at the main lake or secondary points.  Look for shad flipping, if you don’t see any activity move further up until you find them.  Don’t sit and fish a spot if you’re not catching fish.  If the fish are there, they should be active.  Also keep your lure higher in the water column, save the bottom bumping lures for when you have located fish and they stop biting your quicker presentation.  

Winter:

Bass again move out to the main lake or deeper parts of tributaries when the water gets close to 50 degrees.  The clearer the water the deeper they will be.  The deepest I have caught them was just over 30 feet, but I have heard of people catching them over 60 feet deep on some really clear lakes.  The fish will be very lethargic during the colder months and will relate to vertical structure that is close to but not directly in the current.  Creek channel ledges, bluff banks, and fast sloping points are all prime time wintering holes.  Bass hold on these spots so they can move up and down in the water column without having to swim very far.  Slow moving lures are a must right now and most people fish suspending jerkbaits or grubs on light jig heads.  The biggest factor during winter is water temperature.  If you can find water that is a little bit warmer than the rest of the lake, even a few degrees, you stand a good chance at getting bit.  The mid to lower regions of the lake are usually a good starting point and areas that are protected from the north wind and contain a lot of rock will warm up a little quicker during the day.  I had a tournament on Lay Lake on January 1^st this year and won it with 3 pounds and some change.  If you go out now and brave the elements you have to be prepared for a couple of bites or none at all.  During that particular tournament I practiced two miserable days without a bite.  I did find that Beeswax Creek had abundant bait fish and the water had more clarity and was three degrees warmer than any other place I could find.  In the end I was the only person who caught two fish and my partner came in second with a 3 pound spot. 

  By figuring out the seasonal setting you can eliminate a large segment of the lake and put yourself in the vicinity of where most of the fish should be.  These are not written in stone and you can catch some fish shallow or deep any time of year if you spend enough time.  The key is to be in high percentage spots for the given time of year to make the most of your time on the water.  Keep a journal of where and when you caught fish on any body of water and you should be able to return and catch fish when given the same set of circumstances.   Get out of your comfort zone and do something different, tournaments are not the time to learn new skills.  Your practice time and fun fishing is the perfect opportunity to go explore and get out of the habit of beating the bank.  This general outline should help get you started on finding more fish all year long.

Cashing Checks

"The more I practice, the luckier I get. "

    

 

Last October I had two tournaments on Lake Martin, AL.  The first was a club tournament and the Second was the Bassmasters Federation State Championship, a two day tournament.  At this point I had to change my definition of “winning”, it wasn’t necessarily getting first place.  I had to look at winning as getting better over time, learning from every fish, every trip, every partner.  I looked at not catching fish as a positive, because it told me what not to do for a given set of circumstances.  When I broke something I learned how to fix it.  Everything was taken in stride and as long as I was learning by doing, I was moving forward.  I was feeling pretty good after winning the big fish night tournament on Lay Lake and coming in second by a quarter of a pound on Lake Guntersville.  I had accomplished two goals so far- 1) catch a limit in a tournament and 2) cash a check.  I had to keep it going and I wanted to win a tournament as a boater which I knew would happen in time and I also wanted to finish in the top six in my club.  I had no idea what to expect from the State Championship but wanted to have a good showing.  The club tournament two weeks before would give me an idea of what to expect from Lake Martin.

I was paired out with Mathew Hebert (nickname Shrek) who was a giant guy from Wisconsin.  He hadn’t done to well in the tournaments so far and I wasn’t sure how the trip would go.  After talking to him I was reassured at the very least we would have fun since he was such a nice guy.  Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to finish strong but fishing with someone who was not a jerk was also pretty high on my list.  To this day, I have never fished with anyone in any of these tournaments that I couldn’t get along with, but I have heard some horror stories.   This was also the first tournament that my partner asked if I had any spots I wanted to fish.  You are supposed to split the day and the front of the boat with your partner.  If you didn’t have any spots to go to or were unfamiliar with the lake you would generally give up this split and just sit your butt in the back of the boat.  Not sure why he wanted my input but I was happy to give him my 2 cents and tell him where I thought the fish should be.

      The weather had been cooling down and I thought the fish should have started making their migration back into the creeks from the main lake.  I wanted to fish secondary and main lake points and try to find some fish along the breaks of these points.  He thought that was an okay idea, then I saw some fish busting just outside of where we were launching on a secondary point.  After everyone blasted off, we idled over to the point and I started throwing a green pumpkin trick worm on a 3/16^th oz weight.  I quickly boated two keepers and Matthew kept chunking his crankbait to no avail.   We jumped a couple of points and I had two more and Mathew had started throw a worm too.  He had one small keeper and I had four that were barely over 12 inches. 

     We shot up river since we weren’t catching the fish we needed.  When we got to our new spot a couple of miles up river the outboard made a loud noise and we quickly found out all we had was a trolling motor.  Mathew said he always had engine trouble, which was nice to know since we were in the middle of a tournament.  We fished some rip rap near a point on the main river and I caught a decent 2 pound spotted bass on a watermelon  Berkley Dover Crawler.  I had five but couldn’t cull up.  We limped the boat all the way back to the ramp with the trolling motor and that took us the rest of the day.  With the blue bird skies and post front conditions the bite was really tough.  It only took 7.73 pounds to win, and my 6.16 was good enough for third.  Three tournaments in a row, three checks cashed.   

Takeaways:

·          Always carry your cell phone and make sure it’s charged!!!

·         Even on tough days fish will eat a finesse worm.

The State Championship was coming up in two weeks and I wanted to be prepared.  I broke down all my reels and cleaned them.  I also cleaned all the bearings in the reels.  To do this- take a small metal or glass container and put an inch or so of lighter fluid in it.  Heat up the lighter fluid so it is warm , I use a plug in stove top looking deal.  I have heard of people using a coffee brewer.  Once the fluid is warm drop your bearing in there for at least 30 minutes.  Dry them with a paper towel and then dip them in thinner.  The thinner will remove all of the residue and they will work like new.  Let them dry overnight and then lubricate them.  Make sure you don’t put to much oil on them.  One drop of Quantum Hot Sauce is what I use.  I have replaced a lot of my bearings with ceramic ABEC-7 bearings which require no maintenance, but it cost about $50 per reel to do this.  If you have a lot of the same reels it’s a little cheaper because you can buy bulk packs of 4 in each size.  They make a huge difference and  I get my bearings from Boca Bearings.  


 
Nice Largemouth practicing for State Championship -Lake Martin


 Good spot practicing for State Championship- Lake Martin

Lay it on the LINE!

     If you want to become a better fisherman you will have to learn the advantages and disadvantages of Fluorocarbon, Monofilament and Braid.  Spending time with each line type in different tests and from different brands with different applications also will be crucial in moving forward.  I fell into the trap of making bad line decisions based on a small number of outings with one brand of line.  I was extremely skeptical about the benefits of fluorocarbon and thought it was just another way the proverbial “they” got us to spend more money.  This was based on a few times I broke fish off on the hook set with an unnamed brands fluoro.  It wasn’t until I was fishing on lake Guntersville as a co-angler, when the light bulb went off.  My partner and I were both dragging 10 inch worms around isolated brush in 10 feet of water.  By chance I bought a spool of Seaguar Red Fluorocarbon and had spooled two reels.  He was using mono and I was out fishing him 3 to one out of the back of the boat.  He kept asking what I was doing different, and “I” wasn’t doing anything different, my line however was making all the difference.  I ended up an ounce or so out of first place and he was left with wondering how the guy in the back of the boat beat him.  He did introduce me to a scent called "Nitro Gravy"  that worked really well on Guntersville.  It stunk so bad my wife threw my clothes away- but back to the line conversation. 

     As someone who fishes a ton of soft plastics,  polyvinylidene fluoride or fluorocarbon has made an enormous improvement in my hook ups and the number of bites I get.  This is because it’s virtually invisible to bass, has less stretch than mono which improves sensitivity, doesn’t absorb water (which is what weakens mono), is abraision resistant, and is unaffected by UV rays ( which also weaken mono).  I have had a few issues with finding a knot that I like with it, but hopefully I will get that figured out soon.  A Palomar knot  crimps over on itself and will cause the line to weaken more than a cinch knot.  I like the Trilene knot but am still experimenting with this.

       I probably fish fluorocarbon 90% of the time and buy it bulk spools to make it affordable.  The only time I will not use it is with topwater baits and when fishing heavy  cover.  Monofilament is far superior with topwaters because fluorocarbon sinks and has little stretch.  That will  affect the action of most topwaters in a negative way and the lack of stretch will cause you to pull most visual baits away from the fish before they have a chance to get it.  When I’m fishing frogs or swim jigs in weeds or slop I opt for braid because it will cut through that stuff like a knife. 

Choosing a rod based on the line your using can also make a difference.  I don’t have very good luck using heavy action rods with fluoro for most soft plastic applications.  The heavy action seems to let the fish feel me before I feel him.  By using a medium heavy with a softer tip, I still have the backbone needed to drive the hook home and the fish will on to the bait longer because I will get a couple more seconds before they feel pressure.  With braid you may also want to scale down the action of your rod and really rely on your drag a little more.  Heavy action rods and drags that are tightened all the way down will cost you fish.  The drag should slip a little bit on the hookset with and I would loosen it even more once you get the fish  out of cover.  If the action is to stiff, you could rip a large hole in the fishes mouth or it could cause the knot to slip if your like me and have trouble lightening up you hook sets.  Neither of those things are good when your trying to get fish to the boat.

Softbaits- this needs it’s own category for me since it’s what I do most.

-Finesse/Shakey Head, Swim Jig Head- 8 pound Invizx

-Normal Bottom Draggin’- 15 Invizx

-Flipping Plastics in heavy cover- 25 pound test fluoro or 20-25 low stretch mono.  I like Trilene XT  if I use mono.  Fluoro is great but I cannot tone down my hook sets most of the time so the heavier mono has a little more shock absorption and I rarely flip more than 20 or 30 feet so I still get good hook sets.

-Carolina rig- 15 pound Invizx fluoro with a 10 pound fluoro leader

 Every Thing Else-

*Crabkbaits-  12 pound Yozuri Hybrid or 15 Invizx.  Yozuri Hybrid is a copolymer line which I really like and it’s tough as nails.  Copolymers are a blend of mono and fluorocarbon.  With shallow crankbaits I will use mono because it casts a little better and

*Spinnerbaits, Spoons- 15 fluoro

*Topwater- 12-17 mono depending on the size of the lure I’m using

*Jigs- swimming 50-65 braid, draggin 15 fluoro

*Frogs- slop-65 braid, Toads- 15 fluoro, braid in heavy cover

The number one tip for all lines is to go out and find out for yourself what you like with what you like doing.  

 Here's one of those I caught from the back of the boat.