mcaetano2905

Most people use hudds in winter (both the 8" and 68). Some good tips here: https://youtu.be/3nqzxzhM5Lg and here: . You want baits that swim at very slow speeds. In december and most of january most of the big fish are in deeper water most of the time, but they still come to shallow water to try to feed at dawn and dusk (just a lot less often than in warmer water). If you have those sunny warm afternoons where you can wear only a t-shirt (or almost) fish usually come up to warm up. And you can attract fish from deep water up to a big wake bait in the middle of winter if you fish it really slow and deadstick it. By late january/early february the big fish start feeding more and moving shallow a lot more. You can fish faster. If you're not getting bites just slow down and try fishing deeper. Even a glide bait can work in winter. Just fish it at the slowest possible speed that still makes the bait swim. Good luck!

Looks great! Some bluegill baits have problems with hook placement and hookups are not great. This hook placement looks like a good option!

i wish bass in the lakes where I fish had some big forage like that, but forage here is mainly 4" pumpkinseed.

I don't know if they make bass hit more, but I think it might help. It can help them have the bait in their mouths for a longer time too. I've caught some nice bass both with and without scent... People who made more serious experiences with them say it really makes a difference and they get more bites. Bill Murphy, Mike Long, Brett Richardson always say they get more bites with scent. Some say it makes a difference even in fast moving baits. But I've seen many great trophy hunters who don't use them. Where I think it can really help, specially with big baits is that they make the bait more slippery and you'll snag them less. And the most important thing: when bass grab a swimbait a hold it, you need to move the bait in their mouths to set the hook, otherwhise they'll open the mouth and release the bait. You'll move the bait much easier if you use an oily scent on the baits.

I think bass are opportunistic and if they see something moving in the water they instinctively know it usually is good for them to eat. They might get somewhat conditioned to be less wary of the prey they eat the most, but they still eat things they've never seen from time to time. They also learn to avoid prey with foul taste like some amphibians. About rats/mice, I think in most lakes, most bass don't even see one in their whole lifes, or may see just a couple ones in some lakes, but they still compute something moving in the water as a possible prey. I've seen results from many studies using bass stomach contents and in most studies with hundreds of bass they don't even find a single rat/mouse. I've seen a couple studies where they found just one or two mice, a few amphibians, and a couple reptiles and birds, but 99% of what big bass eat are usually fish and crawdads. Small bass or bass in lakes with a lot of vegetation eat many insects too. I don't think most bast "compute" a rat bait as a rat/mouse, unless they've seen some of those creatures in his life a few times. Many may "think" that rat bait is a fish or they just "think": "here's something moving in the water. It's a size I can fit in my mouth and usually things moving in the water are good to eat". And then they attack it. I think baits like rats and worms work so well because they have a natural shape and really move like something alive.

This is not about what anyone thinks. Those are facts. Of course there are exceptions... For example, in lakes with trout it might be different. But if you have a few lakes with the same prey species and good numbers of both baitfish and crawdads, fish will eat more crawdads in the lakes with clear water than in the lakes with dirty water (where they eat more baitfish). I've seen many studies that consistently show this. And that's not an opinion of someone: these are data from many bass stomach contents from various studies done in many parts over the world over some decades! Lab studies may not be the best, but they show the same: they put bass in tanks with clear and dirty water and baitfish and crawdads. Bass always find and eat more baitfish (specially sunfish) in the dirty water and more crawdads in the clear water tanks... But I understand what you're saying. Jigs are good in dirty water too, specially in the pre-spawn. Confused? You have to remember no lure is exactly like a real prey and jigs make more noise (even without rattles, because of the weight hitting rocks and wood) than a crawdad. And even though many anglers fish jigs slowly, they still fish them faster than the speed most crawdads move most of the time, making them easier to detect. Many people also catch bass on jigs while pitching and flipping and bass hit them on the fall. While fishing them this way they are moving more and look more like a fish, because most of the crawdads bass catch are on the bottom, not falling. An angler using live crawdads, letting them walk freely on the bottom will tell you it's difficult to get a bite in dirty water. Fish in the same water with a jig and it's not the same. Crawdads stop moving and stay that way a lot of time and move very slowly most of the time. Because they are on the bottom most of the time, they are harder to detect because they don't move much and on the bottom they're more difficult to see. A fish, because it may be higher in the water column can be viewed against the lighter background of the top of the water/sky and has an easier to see silhouette. Fish also move more and displace more water while moving. Many fish are also bigger than crawdads. Sunfish have a big rounded silhouette and are easier to see in darker water than longer fish. With that said, in pre-spawn, for whatever reason bass really seem to search for crawdads more than any other prey and if a dirty water lake has a huge population of crawdads, because there's so many of them they may end up eating more crawdads than anything else. To fininish: as I said before, this is just a study to give a better idea about bass feeding habitats and it may help some people. Everyone fishes a little different and uses different lures, has confidence in different lures, and a lure is not exactly like the prey they mimic, so, your experience is always the most important thing.

Yes, I agree with you. Even if you can really prove bass are eating more crawdads than baitfishyear round on a specific place, if you go there and fish for many days with jigs only and get only a few fish, and when you fish swimbaits for many days you catch a lot of big fish, then why would you fish jigs most of the time? Unless you really like to fish jigs and catch fish on them... I've never fished a tidal river but I know conditions change a lot. Like I said, I posted that study to give some help and extra information. Sometimes that helps. For example, if a person is starting to throw swimbaits and want to go to the Delta but don't know what color to use on swimbaits looking at that study can give him the information that many bass there eat prickly sculpins (probably smaller bass), baby bass, bluegill, redear sunfish and bullhead catfish, and those would be some good colors to use on a swimbait. Then, experience could validate that, or that angler could learn that he caught even more and bigger bass on a bright yellow or pink swimbait. It happens... Also, if you look to the bottom graphs, unlike the top ones where you can see information for bass over 19.6", on the bottom graphs you can only see information for bass under 6" and bass over 6". A bass just 7 or 8" can have (and usually has) a diet very different from a big bass.

I'm sorry I didn't understood those parts. I'm portuguese and sometimes I may not get the meaning of some things right. You're right: catfish is an easy prey too and in many places they're everywhere. Yes, you can fish a worm (or any bait) any way you want. I just mentioned slow fishing it because usually that's the way most people use them for big bass, because big bass most of the time are not very active and react better to slow moving prey. Have a nice 2017 full of big bass!

Yes, it changes with the body of water, but I've seen many studies and the results on most are similar, even in smaller reservoirs... Of course there are exceptions. I've seen data from reservoirs where big bass diet was more than 80% crawdads year round and others where they ate more than 80% big prey fish year round. Places with hatchery trout should be different. Places without crawdads of course are different... In places in Florida or other areas with a lot of vegetation year round may have fish eat more shiners... The type of structure and cover makes a big difference too. I shared that study because I think it's interesting and gives us some clues, specially to people that are starting to fish now. Then, we need to study the lakes we fish by ourselves and fish a lot!

Congratulations! A bass that size would be a great PB for me.

Well, this is a swimbait forum and I don't want to diverge much from swimbait talking. About a bass not passing up a fat craw: in many places, specially in the beginning of summer many bass will react better to a fish than to a crawdad. Also, even in winter, if there are some consecutive calm sunny days bass will be more active and they may react better to a swimbait than to a slowly worked jig or big worm. A big worm may imitate a snake or eel, or it just looks like an easy to catch easy to swallow prey. I think jigs, big worms and swimbaits are very effective at catching trophy bass, and there are times when each of of those will outfish the others. Even if you fish only one of those baits 100% of the time you can be very successful. Look at Butch Brown, who fishes swimbaits almost all the time. And there are a lot of people doing that... And I've seen many people who fish jigs a lot (Brett Richardson and Mitch Looper, both catching a lot of HUGE northern strain largemouth) and ctch fish on them year round. Matt Allen from tacticalbassin.com uses both jigs and swimbaits (and other baits) and catches a lot of huge fish on both. Try to match the hatch, or just fish the baits you like and have confidence in and you can be successful both ways. In this forum it's all about swimbaits. Personaly it's the bait that I have more fun fishing.

I'm a biologist and I like to read scientific studies on largemouth bass ecology, specially studies about bass diet. I came across this study: http://www.water.ca.gov/aes/docs/Vella_ESWorkshopPoster_Sept10.pdf You have to read all the information and look at the graphs. If you have doubts about that information just ask me. Basically, you should be looking only to the right side of the top graphs (where it says >150 (which means bass over 6")), specially to the colored lines above the place where it says >500 (bass over 19.6"). In the bottom graphs you can only see information for bass under 6" and bass over 6". Of course you should look for the bars with information on bass over 6". Basically, big bass on the Delta (and in most places I've seen) eat mostly fish (usually bluegill, other sunfish and baby bass rather than shiners or other schooling fish) and crawdads. In the winter they eat much more fish than crawdads in places with heavy submerged vegetation. The consumption of crawdads increases with a decrease in vegetation. In the spring they eat both crawdads and fish in similar quantities or maybe a little more crawdads, in all quatities of vegetation. In the summer and fall they eat both similar quantities of fish and crawdads both in heavy and little or no vegetation but eat a lot more fish in intermediate vegetation areas. From what I've seen in other studies, bass are usually able to eat more crawdads when the water is clear, because it's a prey that's on the bottom and doesn't move much (and usually moves slow and doesn't displace a lot of water). In places with dirty water bass eat a lot less crawdads and eat a lot more fish than crawdads, specially bluegill or other sunfish because they share the same microhabitat and their shape is easier to see, and they move more and displace more water, so they are easier to detect. If bass live in lakes with some irregularities in the shoreline or on the bottom they can ambush or push the fish into and eat a lot more fish. If a lake is featureless they have a harder time catching baitfish and may eat more crawdads (easier prey to catch), specially if the water is clear. If there is no vegetation, they usually eat more crawdads, unless there are some rocks, trees or other ambush places. They eat more fish with some aquatic vegetation that both attracts fish and bass use it to ambush. If there is A LOT of aquatic vegetation baitfish like bluegill may easily escape into it and not get caught, and bass may eat more crawdads (if the bottom is not covered by soft moss. In that case they may have a hard time findind crawdads). Of course there are a lot of other factors that cange some of these things and the experience of anyone is very important, but hope this helps!

I'm 100% of the time fishing for trophy bass. I use swimbaits the size of the most abundant prey fish in the lakes I fish (usually between 4 and 6") and jigs (to imitate crawdads) most of the time and use spinnerbaits, senkos, jerkbaits, float & fly and other small baits too, specially when I feel big bass are eating small prey or when they are in a neutral or negative mood (for example in very cold or very hot water). Many trophy hunters use (or used) both big and small lures to catch trophy bass. Bill Murphy caught A LOT of 10lb+ bass on 4" worms and small live crawdads. He made many experiments and said some days trophy bass prefered a 4" worm (or other very small baits) over a big one, specially in very cold or hot water. Doug Hannon favorite lure was a 6" worm. He caught a lot of bass over 10lbs on that lure. Mike Long uses giant swimbaits when big bass are eating giant prey fish, but his favorite swimbait size is 6" because he says that's the size of most prey fish trophy bass feed on in the lakes he fishes. Also, He says his favorite lures for trophy bass are: 1 - jigs, 2 - 7" senkos, 3 - swimbaits and 4 - big worms. His favorite lure for giant bass is the jig and I think he caught more bass over 15lbs on a jig than on swimbaits (he caught a total of over 80 bass over 15lbs!). Of course you have Butch Brown who uses big swimbaits almost exclusively and has caught over 1600 bass over 10lbs. My point is: if you're after trophy bass it's wise to try to match the hatch: if they're eating 4" baitfish you'll have a better chance at a true trophy fishing a 4" swimbait than an 8" one. If they're eating mostly crawdads you'll have a better chance of catching a true giant if you fish jigs slowly on the bottom. If you want to catch trophies on big swimbaits just fish big swimbaits!

I don't agree. There are small swimbaits to match the hatch when they feed on smaller prey. Even huge bass may be feeding on smaller prey in some places or some times of the year. And in a lot of places trophy size bass eat a lot of crawdads, sometimes much more than big prey fish.

Just like me! I fish finesse and everything, but always trying to catch trophy bass, but fish swimbaits and jigs most of the time.

I live in Portugal, but we have some exotic fish here (including largemouth bass ). I know that's bad for our native species, but I LOVE fishing for bass! I release them, although I know I shouldn't. This year the fishing laws have changed and I think now we have to kill all exotic species. As a biologist I know that's the right thing to do to protect our native species, but as a bass angler I don't like it... Mixed feelings... In some smaller ponds and lakes without connection to rivers there aren't many of our native species. They don't thrive there. In those places I don't think it's bad to have bass. I don't know if I can take home a big bass. Maybe smaller ones... This way it's better for the native species because there will be less bass, but because there's less competition, the bass will get bigger. I think that's what happened in Japan, where you have to kill all bass... I don't know what I would fish here if there were no bass. We have native brown trout, but only in northern Portugal. I live in the south where the climate is similar to California's. Well, now back to the original post: bass forage here is red swamp crawdads (in many places it's the main forage) and pumpkinseed sunfish (average size is 4"). This is on smaller lakes and ponds. In bigger lakes one of the main forages is bleak (Alburnus alburnus) with an average between 4 and 6". It's a fish similar to shiners or shad. We have carp, but bass rarely eat them. They eat baby bass more than carp. The lake with bleak that I fish the most is one of the biggest reservoirs in Europe, with a surface area of 62.000 acres! I'm starting to use smaller swimbaits because I've used 7 and 8" swimbaits for years and only caught a bass on a 7" swimbait (a 4lb bass on a 7" Slammer). If big bass here eat mostly 4 to 6" baitfish, then that's the best size of swimbaits to use. This Summer I almost caught my PB on a 168 S-Waver (the bass in my profile picture, just under 5lbs). But even with 6" swimbaits I go for many many trips without getting bit. In this lake bass eat crawdads and 3-5" pumpkinseed. I caught most of my biggest bass here on 4-6" swimbaits (with my 4th biggest on a 7" Slammer), jigs and spinnerbaits.

As for line, I don't have huge bass here and use 12lb test for all swimbaits. I never had a bass break my line even though I used 6lb test for spinnerbaits for some years and I've been fishing for almost 20 years now. I used 12lb test for the 7" Slammer and even fished an 8" hudd in a few trips without any problems. A swimbait bite may feel a lot of different ways: sometimes it's just a small tick, other times they slam it. Sometimes you don't feel anything, its just added weight. To learn how to set the hook watch this video: https://youtu.be/aR9QzybInoQ

To me 5 to 7ft is clear water. I fish small lakes usually without much structure and bass smaller than that. My advice on baits are: Mattlures U2 Bluegill Keitech Swing Impact Fat 4.8" Spro BBZ-1 Shad MS Mini Slammer River2Sea S-Waver 168 Jackall Gantarel Jr. Start with those baits or just select 3 of them: one for topwater, one for middle water column and one for the bottom. Try to match the size and color of those shad and bluegill. After you catch some fish try 7" MS Slammer and Huddleston 68 and see if it works. In my lakes it doesn't. I've fished a 7" Slammer for countless hours in the best areas of the lakes for years and only got 1 bass. A nice 4lb bass, but just one... Big fish in my lakes feed on the abundant pumpkinseed. Most are 4" long... I would say: start with a BBZ-1 Shad, a S-Waver 168 and the Keitech 4.8. Then, after you have confidence try the more expensive baits if you can. Really learn how to work the S-Waver using just the reel. Make quick 1/2 reel handle turns and 1/4 reel handle turns to make it glide further and just keep the rod parallel to the water and pointed at the lure while working it. Fish it parallel to the docks making it glide under the docks. It's great and I almost broke my PB this year on it this summer. Concentrate on the docks and if you have some weeds or trees fish those too. Drop offs and points are great. The coves are good for fish feeding on bluegill, specially if they have weeds. Visit www.tacticalbassin.com and explore the website. They have good info on swimbait fishing. Good luck!

That's Bad... Hope they start making the line tie right...

I use Big Game and I ALWAYS use a Palomar knot. Never had a bass break my line/knot. I used other monos in the past, and when I started bass fishing I used spinnerbaits with 6 and 8lb test mono. NEVER had a bass break my line EVER! Yes, fish here are northern strain and not very big, but I caught my 5lb PB on a spinnerbait and 6lb mono and a bass between 4 and 5lb on the same spinnerbait and 8lb mono.. Now I use 12lb Big Game for a Gantarel, 7" Slammer, S-Waver 168 and some 6" baits (even used this same line for fishing an 8" Hudd for a few trips) and never had a bass break my line. I only brake my line while bass fishing when a bait gets stuck on a tree or rock... I even caught a 15lb wels catfish using the same 12lb Big Game.

Congratulations!

I've never used the 200, but the 168 works great for me. I've seen Matt Allen and Tim Little from tacticalbassin.com using the 200 a lot too with success. Watch this video: https://youtu.be/zFOiXbzhL9k

I wanted to say " Most of the pictures of giants from California I saw...", not Florida lol

Well, I almost broke my PB on a S-Waver. That's my favorite, but I've never tried other glide baits. But I like the S-Waver: it attracts big fish and for an angler like me who fishes from the bank and doesn't have much money, the S-Waver is great! If I could afford it I would buy a Deps Slide Swimmer 175 (or a 250 if I were fishing in a place with bigger bass and bigger prey).

I respect your opinion, but I do not agree. Classifying fish by weight and by length are two perfectly valid ways of classifying a fish. People in the USA are used to classify fish by weight. It's a habit for people in the USA, and records are classified by weight too. But people in Japan and other places are used to classify by length. It's a habit for them. I respect both ways and I always weight my fish and not always measure the length (because I talk about fishing mostly with people in the USA, and even in Portugal people use weight more), but I agree more with classifying by length. It makes more sense to me. An individual fish is always growing in length, but in weight it fluctuates a lot even during a week. If you use length, a fish will be about the same "size" (length) all year and you can catch that fish at the same length at any time of the year. If you use weight there are times when you have a better chance at catching that same fish at a bigger size, because it has been eating more and it has more fat or it's full of prey. You're thinking just in terms of weight. To a person who thinks in terms of length, the bigger fish is the fish that's the longest. In Portugal, when we say "bigger", that word has a meaning usually more like "longest" than "heaviest". To people in the USA it's the opposite. For example, to me, the biggest snake on Earth is the reticulated python, because it's the longest. To a person in the USA the biggest snake is the anaconda, because it's the heaviest. Just like in your example, if a japanese angler catches a fish that's 27" and 15lbs and another fish that's 29" and 15lbs too, he can say that if going strictly off of weight, that'd do a fish like that (the longest) and others like it a great injustice to put it in the same class as a fish that measured much less. As I said before, both ways are valid, they're just two different ways of classifying a fish. Also, a fish that isn't too fat usually fights more. My personal best was the fatest bass I've ever caught. I caught it in January, on a regular sized spinnerbait using 6lb mono! The fight was only 15 seconds or less! I've caught a fish the same lenght of that one but it wasn't as fat and the fight was much better. I think it has more merit to catch that fish than it was to catch my PB, because with my PB it wasn't much of a fight... I've actually caught that fish the same size as my PB twice in the same year. I caught in February and in July. In February it was a bit heavier, and the length was about the same. In July, when I caught it the second time the fight was harder, but the fish weighted a bit less. As I've said, different ways of looking at things... Of course, the best thing to do is to both measure and weight the fish. That way you know how long it was and how it weighted and people will have a better idea of the shape of your fish. I usually measure and weight my fish, and many people in the USA and Japan do the same. That way all the people will be satisfied. I just wasn't able to measure my latest big fish because it fell into the water just after weighting it and taking pictures. It was less than 2oz shy of my 14 year old PB, but the fish was clearly not as fat, so I guess it was probably my longest fish ever. It would have been my PB by the japanese classifying system.