Late summer, tough bite blues.

I have a love/hate relationship with the latter part of summer with regard to bass fishing. I've considered getting uber-technical and trying out one of those castable sonars, but cost has kept me appearing the Luddite... though I don't fear the tech, I spend my coin elsewhere.

My bank fishing solution is always downsizing my presentation to finesse or even ultralight. There are pros and cons to it, but the biggest pro is that you still catch fish. One of the notable cons would be the deflated size of the catch.

That said, I've caught plenty of decent fish on 4-6 lbs line and one of my favorite perks is the challenge of landing them on light tackle.

As you can plainly see, my bleeding shad chrome/blue Tiny Trap has seen plenty of battle, and throwing it on a 9'6"ML rod and 4lbs monofilament makes for a memorable tussle with just about any fish.

Catch & Release (videos)

The catch and release versus catch and keep controversy is volatile subject that can end in a thermonuclear cloud over your friendship if you're not careful. So what's forthright, honorable, and just? I'm not even going to pretend to know the complexities involved in maintaining a renewable conservation area, I just try to do my part by following the rules and keeping my back yard clean. But what if my freezer is empty...is it okay to keep a few in a sport riddled with passionate members that would sooner throw YOU into the lake than watch you keep a future five-pounder?

Last year, I was fishing a small lake that is used to water the fields in a sports complex. This is the same place that once gave me a 6 pound oinker that I would never in my life expect to catch in this place because I heard that the lake had nearly run dry in a recent drought. (never trust the grapevine) A confident young guy approached me and asked if I had been doing any good though I suspect he saw the little 19-incher I just threw back and wondered what I was using.

He started going off with choice expletives on how he saw an angler keeping a bass and that they should be offed in some torturous gangster manner. "If you're going to eat fish, eat a catfish. Bass are for sport only!" he boastfully exclaimed in a semi-hostile manner. He talked about how this hole once teemed with fat-daddies, but they're all gone now because the entire Midwest takes bass from it. (a little delusional)

I like the taste of bass. I like it more than most Midwestern freshwater fish, so do we need to throw every single green meanie back? Do we need to practice some form of catch and release? I think the answer to the controversy is "yes & no".

I had recently read an article defending the bass-eater that made sense to me and lay some of my own questions to rest with common sense. 

http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/catch_and_release_bass.html


Here's a release video I made up on my phone. It's fun, check it out. (I did keep the big 20# common carp)

https://youtu.be/SCmz4IFWbd8

Heat Index...

I'm gazing out the door from inside my comfortable 65 degree workplace...eyes glazed over, the roar of air handlers working overtime in the background. Heat radiating from the pavement causing the horizon to look as if it's underwater. Everyone's talking about the heat index today. What does 110 degrees really feel like? 3:30 hits hard like a school bell and the middle aged students-of-life flock to their rolling steel coffins for the arduous commute home. What's on their minds as they roll along the scorching black pathway toward their neighborhoods?

I recall the words of one Adrian Cronauer:

"Were you born on the sun?! It's so hot, I saw little guys in their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot!"

I had plans to go fishing this evening but visions of me working the bank in my Muck Boots tossing a squarebill around structure as the cool breeze blows through my T-shirt cranking in BossHawg are quickly turning to phantasmagoric hallucinations and apprehension. I would normally head out around 6:30 or 7:00 and stay until sundown or boredom, whichever comes first.

"Tonight is just not going to happen", I think to myself "and I'm going to miss out on another day of fishing." I had already promised to watch a movie with my daughter at some point, but that was planned for later.

My passion for bass fishing has steadily eclipsed my once equally fervent passion for mountain biking. The only drawback is that my eating habits haven't changed and though I don't spend my days on the water sitting still on a boat, I've been gradually suffering the physical consequences of the lack of exercise. The thought of me ending up short of breath and riddled with coronary disease like so many of my peers has motivated me to get back on the bike for a reasonable amount of time each day. Exercise is supposed to be tough and unpleasant, right? So with the pit of Hades breathing upon me, I hopped on my bike for a quick 10 miles. A good sweat breaks out within the first half mile and the wind tries its best to dry me out, but as the sweat keeps pouring out...I begin to feel cool and comfortable. By the end of my ride, I'm close to exhaustion but refreshed nonetheless. I put my gear away, hit the shower, and rehydrate.

My mind gravitates back to fishing. That's where my attention rests in my spare time these days. I see it as a duty to myself to get the most out of it while there's no snow on the ground, because once Jack Frost takes over...the Midwest bass lay dormant and trout become the main focus.

Thinking back to how miserable I was the last time I fished with the ambient temperatures in the high 90's, I recall the bite being really fun between 8:00-9:15 and I barely even thought about the hot coals I had walked on to reach that point of the evening. Instead of spending hours on the bank, I'm just going to hit the evening window before the sun goes down. I already had a great ride, spent some time with the family, and cooled down.

I headed toward one of my go-to lakes but as I passed one of the lakes that I rarely fish...I looked over and saw how the sun was casting shadows across the corner near some brush peeking through the surface of the rippling water. Something was telling me to forget "safe" and give it a try. I jammed on my brakes, pulled a U-turn, and pulled in to the gravel parking area. I had only packed a handful of lures due to my limited window. The fishing report says soft plastics in heavy cover are really hot right now, but that just tells me what everyone else is using and what the fish are growing accustomed to seeing all day long. In the effort of being different, I broke out a new yellow and white Bomber Square-A. I would usually go for my Baby Bass or Fire Tiger slam-dunk patterns, but I haven't used this one yet so I thought I'd give it a try...and I'm happy I did.

My first fish (and the best one for the evening) came within 4-5 casts. The little squarebill banged against the rocks and sticks violently and was snatched within 5 feet from the bank. I set the hook and secured my catch...a nice 20" largemouth. I had considered working the dam, but given the fact that I have done the opposite of everything I would normally do to this point...I moved away from the dam and worked the coves. My next little prize was ambitious to say the least. I had worked the little Bomber all the way to the edge of the bank and pulled it out of the water. When the lure was about 2" above the surface, a little sunfish startled me and jumped up out of the water and hung his lips on the front treble hook. I literally laughed out loud!

I was only there another 25 minutes or so, but I landed a couple more largemouth and came home refreshed instead of totally obliterated by the heat and still had time to catch that movie with my kiddo.

A nice midweek break in my own grueling pattern to best enjoy my passion.

I couldn't have said it better myself...

Just posting up a link about the heart and soul of bank fishing by some of the best in the business!


http://www.scout.com/outdoors/wired2fish/story/1467365-the-heart-of-a-bank-fisherman

Midwest Finesse...Tiny Trap's: The Ned Rig of Crankbaits

In the summertime when the weather is hot (Mungo Jerry) I can bass fish all day and sometimes come up completely empty. So frustrating to see some nice heavy cover and know deep down in your heart that there's got to be a nice fish in there hiding from the bright sun...but you throw the book at him and come up empty. It's like seeing a twenty dollar bill laying on the street and as you reach down to pick it up, a gust of wind blows it down the drain. I've come home a few times silently screaming..."Why am I doing this?!!" The summer of 2014 was really tough for me. My wife and kids had weekly Wednesday activities going on, so it had morphed from my mountain bike "ride night" into an almost guaranteed weekly evening of bass fishing. As the summer grew hotter, the bites grew thinner until finally I was considering myself fortunate to have caught just one or two fish in a 2-3 hour evening out.

I hopelessly chased the barometer, the water clarity, wind conditions, cloud cover and sun position fervently like an obsessed OCD crazed lunatic making spreadsheets and calendars of when the best possible bite would occur...but all of my studying and planning was as effective as a 3-legged dog trying to bury a bone on a frozen lake. I mean...that previous spring, I was catching 2-3 pound slimeballs on a regular basis...why must they be so tight-lipped over the summer?!

I read a story  centered around getting back to the roots of fishing and just having fun. These guys were talking about their childhood memories, glass rods, Zebco 202's and how stoked they were to just catch fish. Not big fish, not necessarily any specific species...but just have fun playing and reeling in fish. I took a step back and assessed my situation and realized that the very few bass that I was actually able to allure during the "tough bite" season, were the runts of the litter. They weren't even fun on a medium-heavy rod and a full-sized baitcaster. I thought to myself...wouldn't it be nice if I could throw tiny baits on light tackle so I can "bass fish" all summer long when the juicy toads seem to lay dormant, but still have a total blast like when I was a kid and catch all these little dinks, bluegill, sunfish, and crappie. At this point, I had never heard of the Ned Rig or Midwest Finesse fishing.

Excerpt from the In-Fisherman:

"In addition to [Chuck] Woods, Ray Fincke, Drew Reese, Dwight Keefer, Harold Ensley, Guido Hibdon, Ted Green, Virgil Ward and Bill Ward played a role in making Kansas City the epicenter of bass fishing in the 1960s and '70s, and finesse tackle and tactics are what these men liked to make and employ."

(More: http://www.in-fisherman.com/midwest-finesse/a-short-history-of-midwest-finesse-fishing-for-black-bass-1955-2013/#ixzz4BlRdkW3P)

Unbeknownst to me, I was inventing what had already been out there since the 1960's as a viable, bonafide tough-bite technique. I experimented with finesse worms bit in half (yup, I bite 'em!) with a #2 EWG hook. The action wasn't as fluid as I had hoped, but it did produce...and as a shorline angler, I could appreciate that it was weedless. I moved on to other scaled down baits like the 1/16oz Beetlespin, Strike King Bitsy Bug jigs, Wobblehead Lures Jr., the Tiny 'Trap by Bill Lewis Lures, and many others. All of the sudden, I was catching fish again and having a great time doing it. My favorites have really become the 1/16oz Beetlespin, Wobblehead Jr., 3" weightless Yamasenko, XTS Mini Hopper, Bomber Baby Square-A, and Rat-L-Trap's Tiny 'Trap. After finally studying the Ned Rig / Turd Rig / etc...I have employed the technique with some success. The drawback being the open hook can snag on all sorts of lovely things when throwing them from the bank. When shoreline fishing is all you have, the smaller 1/32oz jighead is usually a must which doesn't work well in the wind. I had communicated with Ned a few times regarding technique and setup and he explained that the general idea of the bait is to stay away from heavy cover. It's more of an open water bait and becomes more productive based on your retrieve technique.

Light Tackle Options

The lighter the bait, the more difficult it is to throw on baitcasting gear without becoming suicidal. You won't efficiently throw these baby lures on full size "man gear". Throwing a 1/32oz beetlespin on 15# line with your favorite casting reel is almost a direct invitation to a game of Duckett Golf but there are more options now than ever for nearly any mini-angler's budget seeking finesse tackle. No matter the hobby or passion, there's guaranteed to be a huge following complete with forums, chat groups, and articles to get lost in and rob you of your valuable time. Light tackle fishing is no different but beware...the BFS underworld or "Bait Finesse System" is a virtual vortex aimed directly at your wallet and has the capabilities of replacing time on the water with long hours of overtime at work just to afford the highly specialized gear. Since this is "Blue Collar Bankfishing", I'll stress that there are more budget friendly options that will get the job done almost as well as the alluring $1500 BFS rod and reel at 1/10 the cost.

Obviously, spinning gear is going to shine in most finesse situations unless you are like me...a died in the wool lover of finely tuned levelwind reels. If you love spinning gear, an inexpensive Light to Medium setup will only set you back a few bucks. I'm a total gearhead and bigtime baitcaster junkie. I like the spool control, accuracy, palming comfort...pretty much everything about them. I tried for a year to utilize a more budget-minded baitcaster like the Wally Marshall or CrappieMaxx models, but professional overrun became the norm. A used Daiwa Pixy is not terribly expensive and will chuck a Tiny 'Trap like it's a 1/2oz Rat-L-Trap. The key here is a super light, low capacity spool that will turn when you look at it cross-eyed and a magnetic braking system that is easy to fine-tune.

I've become a fan of the BPS MicroLITE series of rods because of their affordability and performance. Best bang-for-your-buck light tackle rods out there in my opinion. I've got a 9'6" ML with a Pfleuger Trion spooled with 4# line, and a 6' ML casting rod with a Daiwa PX68R that I found used from Japan. If you keep your eyes and ears open and watch the sales, you can BFS with the best of them for $150 or less.

More often than not, average sized fish will be your bread and butter with this style. Midwest Finesse (see "Ned Rig") style of fishing is kind of an open challenge to catch 100 fish of any size in an outing. The target isn't trophy bass but quantity. There is however the occasional fat-daddy on the end of the line. I've found that the Tiny 'Trap has given me larger fish on light line than other finesse baits that I frequently visit.

A report from my personal bests blog:

Last year, I snagged a 4-foot grass carp on 12lbs mono that I eventually lost. I fought that monster for an eternity and got his tail onto the bank...TOUCHING THE GRASS!! Then I reached down to try to lip him and he flopped his tail twice, broke my line and went on his merry way. Frustration set in and I considered calling it quits for the weekend, but I'm so very happy that I kept at it because the following morning I was completely blessed with a trophy-sized fish in the form of a 16" Crappie caught on light tackle and a Tiny Trap in the exact same place where I snagged the carp. The following week, I did the same thing in the same place and was rewarded with another beautiful crappie measuring 15". There's something magic about that little fishing hole for sure.

The same weekend yielded a new personal record for me on light tackle (at the time) by way of a 4lbs largemouth bass on 4lbs line. I was throwing a chrome / blue back bleeding Tiny 'Trap on 4lbs mono and an ultralight glass rod sporting a vintage 1980's Ryobi ultralight V-Mag 3 reel. This is not the most ideal casting combo for light baits due to the rudimentary design of the reel, but it will handle 1/8oz 'Traps just fine. Tiny Trap's are the virtual Ned Rig of crankbaits and seem to really pay out in that role. I recall this little future 5-pounder fighting me in and out of the weeds a couple times. I was beginning to wonder which of us would fail, but my line held firm and I kept a cool noodle and was rewarded with new line-class self respect.

Days later, I landed a beautiful 16" White Bass on a Pink / Black Tiny Trap in the same area as the 4lbs largemouth. This was my third Missouri Angler Award for 2015 and a real confidence booster in the capabilities of pink lures. I have since literally annihilated white bass on pink Tiny 'Traps.

I've read about anglers just "staying on the 'Trap" all day and they get fish. This often rings true with the Tiny 'Trap. I've caught everything from green sunfish to crappie to bluegill to bass on it and it just plain works. On the off day that the bite slows down or there are too many snags, there are plenty of other finesse presentations to try. The Tiny Trap has proven to catch fish for me when they're not hungry but also puts the big meat on the line, thus it is often going to be the first on my line. It's one of my light tackle bank fishing confidence baits and I can count on it to deliver smiles for miles.

My favorites:

Duckett Golf...how's your conduct?

I recall one day last year hammering away at some lily pads with a plastic worm. The topwater frog bite was nonexistent, so I would cast out to the end of the pads and walk the worm back toward me, shaking the pads and then dropping into and out of open holes on the journey back to my rod tip. It wasn't a exceedingly productive day with few fish, but still quite amusing nonetheless. I likened it to target practice and enjoyed honing my skills while the cool breeze brought the sunny day to level 11 on the fun scale. There was a good size fella across the cove from me wielding a stark white Duckett micro rod like a light saber and having about as much fun as a pregnant mom on a roller coaster. He appeared to be targeting some Midwest species of Flying Fish given the placement of his lures on the low-hanging branches in front of him. The guy finally decided that Duckett Golf was more his passion than fishing because he started practicing his chip shot with that poor little skinny Duckett micro. He laid into the surrounding waist-high native grass and weeds like a John Deere bush hog until his arms were tired all the while shouting obscenities and cursing the day fish were invented. It didn't take a perceptive person to know...it just wasn't his day. I'll admit that it also took my focus off of my trick worm target practice and made the cool breeze seem more like hot air.

This is supposed to be fun, not frustrating. Some days just aren't your day, be it fishing, driving, or surfing your favorite TV stations. It's not worth throwing a toddler sized tantrum and destroying nice equipment, all the while bringing other people down in the process. I believe how we conduct ourselves out on the water during adverse conditions provides a clear window into who we really are as people.

I was approached by a young kid one day that was throwing the wrong bait at the wrong time. He asked me what I was using, so I pulled my 2.5" coffee tube jig with jig spinner off the end of my line and gave it to him. "I make these myself and have a ton of them", I said as I handed it over. I never saw if it helped his cause, but seeing his smile when I gave him my favorite bait at the time really brought some camaraderie to the water that morning. 

I stopped & talked to a couple of kids that were having a rough day about a month ago. The one kid had just lost his new Excalibur squarebill and had no budget to buy new baits. After sharing this with me, I said "I just found an Excalibur squarebill a couple hours ago at a nearby lake, why don't you take it?" I really had to be persistent because nobody takes anything for free anymore. It's like they're afraid of nice people or something, but I finally talked him in to it and he was happy because it was the same size and color as the one he lost.

These are the positive experiences these kids need to be a part of, not watching uncle dad snap his rod in half like he struck out at the world series. I don't know if there's an actual bank fishing code of conduct documented, but I'm pretty sure Duckett Golf isn't in it.

Sometimes it's tough to be cool, I get it. You accidentally over-spooled your reel by 20 yards and now your trying to toss a weightless finesse worm with it into the wind. First a backlash, followed by a spontaneous accuracy issue because now you've got the brakes set so high that the bait is going where your spool commands it instead of your rod tip. The results often ending in fishing for woodpeckers.

Take a breath and a moment to get it figured out. Take a moment to pull some line off that spool & lose the amateur overrun. Move over to an area with fewer branches to throw under. Keep cool and enjoy the day. That's the most important part...enjoy the day, man! We all started this because it's fun to catch fish. If we routinely caught fish on every other cast, believe it or not...it wouldn't be as fun. This is why we celebrate so hard over a 5 pound largie. It's just difficult enough that consistent results reward the good student. Your catch rate goes up with time and effort, so don't get frustrated when the sun doesn't shine on you tomorrow. The clouds won't last forever.

The 40-Minute Rule...

I have the pleasure of fishing multiple small public waters in close vicinity to my home. There are perks and drawbacks to this style of bass fishing for sure. A sample of the negative aspects might be the fact that boats are prohibited…bank angling only. One of the beautiful things about boat fishing besides the fact that you can get to some pretty far-out spots with ease, is that when the bass are in the weeds on the shoreline they often hold tight until you tempt them with some bass crack. When approaching them from the shoreline…they often spook and flee to open water away from the weed line. They have few predators in the water. The otters, raccoon, etc…that approach from the shore are a genuine concern and barely more than a shadow can cause that “digital camo green” torpedo to misfire out into no man’s land. Nothing ruins your morning quicker than watching gallons of displaced water followed by rooster tails as you assumed you were approaching your honey-hole with the utmost stealth. AAARRRRGH!!

Another maddening aspect to landlocked lure lunking is the cost associated with losing lures to snags. Even in my float tube, I’m able to retrieve most of my lures snatched by giant multi-legged lake monsters. When I’m on dry land however, it sometimes feels like I’ve lost an entire paycheck in a couple hours of a decent crankbait bite. I’ve come home like a whoop’d pup dragging my tail because I know I have to face my wife and kindly ask her permission to replace a few pieces of my arsenal to the thieving bandits that mugged me at the puddle.

Amongst the negatives of the enraged, lipless-losing, fish-frightening, bank anglers…can be a multitude of wonderful positive experiences. One of my favorites being the “40-minute rule”. I made this up a couple years ago when I realized that not all bodies of water are created equal. The surface temp may be the same. They may share the same types of vegetation. They might even have similar shadows from near identical tree lines within a quarter mile of eachother…but if they’re not biting in one lake, they could still be active in another. I went to a local power plant last year to catch what was supposed to be some whoppin’ monsterville largemouth. The power plant uses the lake to cool its core so the growing season really never stops due to the equatorial water temperatures all year long. I was really expecting some Floridian behemoth results. My burning expectations were doused like a European beach loaded with floppy senior citizens. I spent the better part of the day on the water and barely caught a thing. All I could think about was my “40-minute rule” which states: “If you’re not catching anything substantial in 40 minutes, move to a neighboring puddle and try again.” Being restrained to a boat makes for a heavy commitment when deciding to move to a new lake.

I have on several occasions employed my 40-minute rule with successful results. I recall inviting my good friend over to fish with me one Saturday morning. The intention was to get him on some fish because his local water hole wasn’t producing. We hammered away at one of my go-to favorites with very little results, so we moved over to another that I had lay to rest for a while. Not long into our journey, I had 5 pounds of toad choking on a Fat Ika. Incidentally, I hadn’t made much noise during the whole ordeal so when I pulled the bull from the chute, I held it up right behind my bud’s face and said…”Look at this!” He jumped back and ‘bout pee’d his knickers while I nearly did the same just from laughing so hard.

Another successful 40 minute morning was when I was fishing with my Dad and only turned up with 2 or 3 fish in 40 minutes. We hooked up for a quick chat and his results mirrored mine, so we moved about ¼ mile over to another lake that I rarely fished. Within the next hour, I pulled 9 fish right out from under the guys that were already fishing this spot. I would normally never, ever fish near another angler for fear of ruining their chances but it was obvious they weren’t enthusiast anglers and likely just out for the fresh air, so I didn’t mind. They said they’d been there all morning and weren’t doing well and wondered what kind of “magic bait” I was using, so I responded with “Fairy Dust!” I probably should have suggested they dump the 100lbs tackle boxes and chairs for a light backpack and good hiking boots. Anyhoo…at the end of my 9-fish streak came a basswhale to cap off the most amazing morning. 

Believe it or not…nearly the exact thing happened to me less than a year later. I employed the 40M-rule and caught my personal best to date at the next body of water. Obviously, this is not always the case. I’ve tried 40 minutes here, an hour there with no results…but more often than not, it works for me.

I don’t know if it’s the fresh perspective, new confidence in a new body of water, or just breaking-free from a pressured hole that’s getting ready to implode…the 40M-rule has boosted my results on a fairly regular basis. This practice has saved me tons of frustration from wasting hours of my life beating a dead horse with a whippy rod and reel. Take delight in knowing that the boat angler can't do it. Take every advantage you can when it comes to beating the bank because your fellow boat angler is surely reaping the rewards of theirs. Feel free to give it a try and post your results.

Float Fishing, an Affordable Alternative...

Most bank anglers have their reasons for fishing from the shoreline. Be it the initial sticker shock of the fishing vessel itself, or a myriad of insecurities regarding owning and operating a boat...it's just not on every fisherman's radar. I've found so many wonderful places to fish that don't even allow you to drop any type of vessel into the water...you must really weigh your options and decide if a boat is really for you.

Having said that, many a time I have looked out at the weed lines at some of my local lakes and wished I could get just 10 yards closer to the rustling caused by those beauties feeding near the shorline in some fairly unreachable locations. On my best day with the wind at my back and a healthy cry out to the great Almighty, I couldn't accurately and stealthily cast that far. It may as well be in Castaic Lake as unreachable as it appears. Why, oh why can't a boat just fall out of the sky into my lap?

My youngest daughter who loves to spend time with me intermittently began fishing with me a few years ago and just loves collecting those beautiful, shiny trinkets to tie on the end of her line. She actually reminds me of myself at a much younger age, how she oogles all of the different lures designed to catch the fisherman...not necessarily the fish. She loves to do just about anything with me outdoors and would get buried up to her chin in gear just to prove it. She has a 20" Specialized Hotrock mountain bike and tears up the trails in front of me on my overpriced leg-powered motocross bike. Her desire for a Chipmunk 22LR was really just a parallel to my hunting and target practicing fetish. I'm quite sure she'd rather just walk around out in the woods taking pictures of animals versus eating them.

Without getting too far off topic, I'll admit that her request for a fishing float tube for her birthday this past January caught me a bit off guard. Pondering the thought of the two of us bobbing around on some lake in inner tubes fishing seemed uncomfortable at first, but the more I thought about it...the more I wanted to give it a shot. I pulled the trigger on a tube for her and I decided to put one on my own birthday list which occurs in May. My only regret is that the poor darling had to wait 5 months to use her birthday gift. Any time my wife buys me gear to feed my outdoor passion just makes her that much more of a stone-cold fox in my eyes and she didn't disappoint me on my birthday. In addition to somehow buying me 4 more Rat-L-Traps that I didn't currently own, she was able to secure me a brand new Caddis $150 superfly float tube for a mere $40. (Double bonus!!)

Today was the day. The glorious "christening" of our odd-shaped fishing vessels, and we had an absolute ball! Knowing that my kiddo is only 9 years old brought my expectations down to the level of a dining experience at McDonalds, but we were both a little surprised at how much fun it was. She was definitely apprehensive of the possibility of alligators and man-eating carp in our amazonian Missouri fresh water lakes, but I was able to talk her through the jitters and we hit the water with vigor.

As I had silently predicted, she didn't care to fish this first time just as her hunting trips to the woods became scenic hikes. I wasn't going to miss a chance to finally reach those unreachable Castaic shores that I had been losing sleep over for a few years, so I brought my brand new rod and reel that my wonderful parents gave me for my very recent 40th birthday. My parents are no slouch when it comes to good gear, mind you. This maiden voyage was complete with a Lew's Tournament LITE strapped to a Falcon Buccoo Micro rod with 12lbs Stren original mono. (my brand of choice)

It took us a few minutes to find our stride paddling blind toward our target adorned with flippers and swim trunks, but we soon figured it out and reached that blessed feeding ground where I just knew all of the bass had to be hiding. About five minutes in to working the "Glory Hole", I hooked a pretty nice fish. I hadn't really checked my gear well prior to dropping a line and found myself fighting a reel that had been ejected from the reel seat like a parachute on the back of Pro Mod drag car fueled by a nitro-burning 4.5 pound largemouth. I was able to get the reel locked back in and finished my fight. My first fish on my new rod and reel and my new float tube was a healthy 19.5 inches long with a 13-14 inch girth and I couldn't be happier.

Most of the rest of our time on the water was spent hooting and hollering and listening to my little girl laugh at how her float tube makes her farts sound but we couldn't once say we were bored. My daughter never did unstrap her rod and reel from the carrier on the side of my tube on this first trip, but her words to me melted my heart to the core and made this decision beyond worthwhile. "Dad, you make everything more fun. I love doing things like this with you."

Victory over adversity...

Bass fishing from the bank is often a puzzle that when put together correctly can produce a beautiful picture. However, when you lay a 1000 piece puzzle in front of a child, frustration is eminent. If you walk toward the lake with a lure already in your mind that you plan to use without first assessing conditions, failure or at least frustration could soon pay you a visit.

I've been reminded of this more than a couple of times when traveling to my wife's parents home in the country. It sounds so swanky when I say it like that, but when I say country...I mean "the sticks". My magic farm pond belongs to their neighbors on 80 acres of rough and tumble. I have to hike 1/2 mile one way through chest high native grass dodging bovine land mines, ankle eating hoof holes, and the occasional slithering surprise to the 300 yard long body of water. My best fishing is generally from the dam which spans the 180 yard width of the quaint little "farm pond". (It's a good size puddle)

It's one of those places that seems predictable until you try to predict it. If the magic pond gets any sense of over confidence from the approaching angler, it will eat you for lunch just for amusement.

For instance, in December of 2014 (winter in the Midwest) I was catching 16 largemouth per hour. In February of this year, I was catching 26 largemouth per hour. Amazing fishing for winter. I was so excited about February, I confidently invited my own Dad a couple of weeks later to fish this massive honey hole. He caught zero, I caught only 2. We were on the back side of a cold front that day and it tore us a new one.

Usually in the winter months there's not much vegetation to foul out my lures so my very best results occur when the sun warms the surface and I employ a slow moving flashy bait that I can keep high in the column. In this case, dressed silver Mepps Aglia #4. When the planets align on this place, there is no better weapon. These bass are extremely optimistic when the surface temp increases a couple degrees, so they become very active.

Spring wreaks havoc by way of weeds. I'm not a botanist, but it seems as if the entire pond has a layer of coontail, milfoil, moss, and whatever else grows there. Usually (I have to whisper this so the pond doesn't hear me) when the weeds bear their pretty faces, I descend on the place  loaded with plastics and frogs and annihilate it like a silent sniper at a practice range.

Of course this spring is different. It has to be different, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this account of near defeat. We've had ridiculous amounts of rain, hail, and just general crazy weather recently. It all seemed to start leveling off as nature found her peace so I approached this weekend with a fairly rigid and pointed plan. Annihilate!

The day before we left, the skies opened up on my little town and rained down holy terror in the form of golf ball plus-sized hail. My poor 2001 Dodge Dakota with only 45k original miles lost the title of Super Truck to the new moniker: Dimples. Sad, sad day. It didn't take me long to stop thinking about my beautiful disaster of a truck sitting in Amber Flame dimples, and start wondering what all this weather was going to do to my weekend at the in-laws. Incidentally, it's MY weekend because it's my 40th birthday.

We arrived at the farm and I commenced to assembling my arsenal of rods, reels, tackle bag, rain gear, boots...yada. I woke up early Saturday morning and headed out with (first mistake) my first lure in mind. I hiked a half mile in rain gear because the morning dew was waist-high. At first glance, there wasn't a weed in sight!! I was stoked like Shaun White dropping into a 20 -foot pipe. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the rain had increased the water level to just barely above the weeds. It was difficult to tell where the weeds even were.

I started the day with the infamous Whopper Plopper. This bait is new to me but looked so intriguing that I couldn't resist. I caught 3 in the first hour because the moss on the weeds kept getting wrapped up in the Whopper Plopper Prop. I guess you'd call it "Whopper Plopper Slopper Propper syndrome". I switched to a Senko in hopes that the soft plastic time of year would get me through it all. The Senko was a total frustration because it would get loaded with moss as I pulled it to me.

There wasn't much weed-mat structure to throw a frog on, so I pulled a hard-stop before frustration set in and thought about the situation. I know these guys are still eating shad and little fish, so I loaded up with wake baits and a Topwater Perch and tried again. I worked the wake baits around sections of weeds, and threw the topwater perch into where I suspected the thicker weeds to be.

I could hear victory trumpets as I started yanking in largemouth after largemouth, over and over. In the next couple hours, I had amassed a total of 43 fish...the highlights being several in the 3.5-5 pound range and a 6 pound Toad.

Thank God I took a minute to reassess the situation because I turned a frustrating day on the banks of a volatile place into a killer time that I'll never ever forget!

Enjoy some of the highlight pictures from my day below. Click for larger image.

Fire Tiger, Still Hot as Ever!!!

 A New Personal Best

(click for large image)

A new personal best for me...I never thought it would happen to a guy like me in a place like this...

I live in a large Midwest metro area and fish from the bank. (kinda the whole point of the blog) No electronics, no 10x rigs on the deck of a pretty boat all tied up and ready...only a rod and reel and what I can comfortably carry on my back. Until 2014, my personal best Largemouth was a 4# cutie from Kansas caught on a 1/2oz Rat-l-trap in Classic Fire Tiger that I nabbed in my teens. Heck, back then I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't try to read structure or conditions. I threw what looked fun. I picked out lures like the ladies pick out cars..."ooh, that's a pretty blue one!"

Fast-forward 20+ years and I finally decided to actually learn how to somewhat intelligently structure-fish according to conditions and it paid off in spades with a 6 pound beauty on a medium diving sexxy shad. I hadn't ever considered catching lunker Bass in my region. In my mind, that fairy tale was reserved for places like Texas, Florida, and California. I caught a ton of bass in '14 in the 2-5 pound range and loved every minute of it, but the following year would be my first taste of an award-size trophy lunker in the form of an 8.25# toad. 2015 was a wonderful year for this bank-fisherman and catching what everyone told me was a once-in-a-lifetime lunker largemouth in my region was the sweetest icing on the cake. The small public waters that I frequent are busy and pressured. I often wonder how I catch anything at all, but with some persistence and creativity, I've been blessed with some of the greatest days on the water anyone could ask for. 

I can confidently say I've come full circle in a manner of speaking as of just 2 days ago. I was fishing a small public lake that was stirred up and pretty murky from recent rainfall. Visibility was maybe a foot or so (normal, murky, crappy) and the warm evening sun was beginning to leave me with a chill in the air. I had caught a few little ones on a Blueberry Perch Supernatural Knocking Rat-l-trap when disaster struck and I snagged and lost it. Man I was bummed!! Given the fact that the sun was nearly set and the visibility very low, I opted for my old friend the Classic Fire Tiger to cut through the murk. I tied it on and began working my way back to the truck when I thought I snagged again. I mean this hook-up was SOLID!! My snag started moving and fighting and I soon saw the beautiful beast on the end of my line. She made a run towards me and I thought for a split second that she was gone, but my 6.8:1 ratio kept up with her and kept my line tight.

At this point, I wasn't aware of the magnitude of the situation because she had yet to make a wholehearted escape, but when she was 3 feet from the bank, she decided to turn-tail and run. And run...she did!! She stripped line off my reel like the brakes were gone and headed for cover. Seconds seemed like an eternity, but I fought her for maybe another half a minute and reached down to lip her. As I grabbed her jaw, her mouth made my big sausage fingers seem small. I mean...I've got pretty big hands. I generally opt for large grips and I can palm my old Lew Childre's BB-1 LMG original Speed Spool quite comfortably.

Mind you even at this point, I had no idea that this bass would eclipse my 8.25# Largemouth from July of last year. The water was murky, the sun was set, and all I could see was part of the head. When I reached in and started pulling her out of the water, the sheer girth of this toad really shocked me. Fat, fat belly and a big wide back. It all seemed to happen in slow motion at that point, just watching all that fish come out of my little local public fishing hole. She was 9 pounds. 

As I reflected back on the near impossibility of me catching another trophy-sized largemouth from the pressured banks in my region of the USA, I know now that anything is possible and I'm so happy to have caught my new personal best on the same classic bait that fueled my fire as an early teen Angler.

My Personal Best Over the Years

(As of 4/9/16...)

Some are light line personal bests, some are big fish personal bests, but all were a total blast to catch. I'll give a quick muddled rundown of them in the order of which they were caught. Keep in mind that all but one was caught from the bank:

The oldest picture chronologically is that of my Dad and I posing with my big ol' Drum that barely overshadows my big ol' afro. I gotta be honest, I barely remember this. All I remember is how there were limbs hanging over the water where I was fishing, and I actually got the perm to look like my second cousin.

Obviously lacking in style and a tan above the elbows...next in line is the one of me as a sophomore in highschool in my Mom's kitchen posing as a fishing nerd with my personal best largemouth that held for years until I decided to take the time and effort to learn some technique. I this was the first real bass experience for me and I caught it on a Classic Fire Tiger Rat-L-Trap. This is also the only personal best I caught from a boat.

The next one in order of time would be the one of me standing on a dock of the least likely place I would think I could catch this 21.5" beauty that had my jaw dropping for hours. My daughter and I had just left WalMart where I had purchased a 3-pack of Bomber crankbaits. I really wanted to test them out and see how they were tuned, so I got sidetracked on the way home at a small lake near a neighborhood not too far from my home. I had heard that this lake had nearly been milked dry a couple years prior due to a drought, so I wasn't intending to feel any opposition on the end of my line, but on the 4th cast with the Sexy Shad color...my rod doubled over and IT WAS ON!! I caught so many bass that year, but none larger. My daughter didn't understand why I was so excited...but I was flipping out even an hour after I landed it.

The big Hawg 8.25lbs largemouth would come next on the timeline. I often follow a "40-minute rule" that states if I haven't done well at a location in 40-minutes, I'll move to a new body of water. This particular morning, my Dad and I were fishing a small lake and I had only caught 2x little dinks in 40 minutes. We decided to shove-off to another smaller lake and follow the 40-minute rule. My Dad went left, I went right...I started yanking them out left and right and capped off the awesome morning with this beautiful trophy largemouth that I had been seeking since my early 'teens.

About 1 month later, I snagged a 4-foot grass carp in the exact same hole on 12lbs mono that I eventually lost. I fought that monster for an eternity and got his tail onto the bank...TOUCHING THE GRASS!! Then I reached down to try to lip him and he flopped his tail twice, broke my line and went on his merry way. The following morning, I was completely blessed with yet another master angler-sized fish in the form of a 16" Crappie caught on light tackle and a Tiny Trap in the exact same place from whence I pulled the big Hawg bass. The following week, I did the same thing in the same place and was rewarded with another beautiful crappie measuring 15". There's something magic about that little fishing hole for sure. 

The same weekend yielded a new personal record for me on light tackle by way of a 4lbs largemouth bass. I was throwing a chrome / blue back bleeding Tiny Trap on 4lbs mono and an ultralight glass rod sporting a vintage 1980's Ryobi ultralight V-Mag 3 reel. This I believe was the straw that broke the Rat-L-Trap's back and afforded me the opportunity with Bill Lewis Outdoors as a Field Staffer. I tend to approach bass fishing a little differently by way of light tackle when the bite gets tough or I just want a different experience. Tiny Trap's are the virtual Ned Rig of crankbaits and seem to really pay out in that arena.

Days later, I landed this beautiful 16" White Bass on a Pink / Black Tiny Trap in the same area as the 4lbs largemouth. This was my third Angler Award for the year and a real confidence booster in the capabilities of pink lures. I have literally annihilated white bass on pink 'Traps.

In the spirit of light tackle, the image of me with the 13" White Crappie was a wonderful morning adventure at the most surprising little pond that ever held a nice crappie. No larger than 35yds across, I've caught several nice crappie out of this little puddle in the ground...and tossed them back to fight another day. It's one of those little magic spots that I don't think anyone even realizes can hold a fish. Likely why they are big and voracious.

This year (2016) has been a little different in that I have been wrestling Moby Dick on a more regular basis by way of Carp. The image of me holding the 27 pound grass carp is my personal biggest freshwater fish caught on MH bass gear and 14# Stren monofilament. The largemouth weren't biting anything I threw at them. I had finally coaxed one ashore with a silver Mepp's Aglia #4, so I stuck with the little inline spinner in hopes that I would run into his friends. This was the second grass carp I have accidentally snagged with that lure.

Only 4 days later, the panfish were calling my name. I headed to a big local lake with my Diawa Pixy spooled with 8lbs monofilament and my ML Bass Pro Micro Lite rod. The water looked like it was boiling in places, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was causing it. I threw a 1/32oz Beetlespin for into the turbulent mire and thought I got hung up, but my snag started talking back. I tussled with the 20# Common Carp for 10 minutes and got him within a foot of the bank. To my terror, I saw that my safety pin jig spinner had come unclipped and was just barely holding on for the ride. I reached out and clipped it right as the gargantuan carp hit round 2. I fought him for another 5-10 minutes and finally lipped him to shore.

It's still early in the year and I plan to add more to this as I go, so stay tuned.