Large Mouth Bass fishing

[BigBill]

I can't wait for springtime this year to go bass fishing again. I had back problems lastyear and i later found out when i switched from the 5'6" / 6' rods to the 6'6" / 7' rods my back got even worse. You have to figure using lures only were between 500 to 1,000 casts an outing.
Now with that solved I'm using a very handy tool to have, its a portable fish/depth finder by hummingbird. You cast out the probe and read the screen on a wristwatch. Before i was using my two sons to drill holes to learn the bottom of the body of water to find the drop off's and flats. Then when this new tool became available its a shore fishermans dream come true.
I also use a Combo "C" Lector too where i can. Its an electronic tool that tells us what color lure to use in the type of water conditions we have at that moment. It also reads out the water PH and the Water Temp at certain depths too. It was designed by Doctor Loren Hill of Ok univercity. It took him ten years to develope it. I have tested this for about one week to see if it was correct or just a waste of my $$. I also found out that Kevin VanDam also uses this tool on tough days too. It picks the best color for the water clarity. Dr. Hill found out that at certain times only certain colors are visible to the fish "on some days". With the different water conditions(huses) can change the colors of the lures to the fish. Plus if the fish could see the baifish all the time there wouldn't be one left in the body of water. This is why sometimes the fish can't see your lures. Lure color, lure action, lure size, plus the presentation is very important.

No tool can beat time and experience on the water fishing but i wanted to have some sort of a head start in the right direction.

My test facts;

1st day; The color it chose was red. I used a red crankbait and caught fish. I tried a green, a brown and other colors too but nothing caught fish but the red one.

2nd day; The color it chose was brown. I used the brown crankbait and caught fish when no other color worked. I went back to brown again and it repeated catching fish.

3rd day; The color it chose was green. I threw a green crankbait and again caught fish when no other color worked.

4th day; It picked more combinations of colors so i tried all the colors 1 by 1. Each color worked.

It taught me that sometimes lure color matters and sometimes it doesn't. There is a newer color selector being offered right now but i haven't got one yet to try it to see if its as good as the old ones.

I also found out that the bass can be really finiky too on lure size. I try to have 2 or 3 different sizes of each lure and color to use too. I have noticed when the bass bite is on and your catching many bass back to back and it slows down to a hault its time to up size your lures by going to the next size up. I've done this many times and the fish got bigger. I figured out the smaller bass attracted the bigger bass with there feeding frenzy and the bigger fish came in to see whats going on and chased the smaller fish away. So when it slows down change the size of your lures.

When fishing in the evenings;
I'm throwing a 1/4oz joesflies inline spinner with a silver blade and black trailer (blackgnat). I was catching bass as the sun was going down and the bite stopped. Now i figured the lower light condition changed what the fish could see. I switched to the 1/4oz joesflies in the firetiger colors and continued to catch a few more bass until dark.

I'm still learning something new on every trip, bass fishing is awesome. I'm just fishing from shore too. You just have to find the drop off's, flats and the rocky points that are close to shore. Trust me you don't need a boat to catch big bass. In the low light conditions the big bass are chasing the bait fish near the shore to box then in and ambush them. The only thing is you need to be very stealthy and quiet not to spook them. There very smart thats why they got to be big in the first place. If you stay focused you will catch them. Remember its noty luck in bass fishing its skill. And don't pass up fishing those little farm ponds there the best i like the smaller places and they can also hold big bass too. BB