mcaetano2905 Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Hi everyone! I live in Portugal and I've been fishing swimbaits here without much success. Some people here might know me from other swimbait forums. I had some of my best swimbait days 11 years ago in February/March. Those days I caught from 3 to 6 fish from 1 to 3.5 lbs on a 6" swimbait (Osprey style swimbait). Not big fish... Then I had some years without fishing much, In 2013 I caught a 4.13lb bass in February on a 7" bass colored MS Slammer fished slowly on top. My 2rd biggest bass ever (my PB is only 5lb)! In July of the same year I caught a 4.02lb bass on a Mattlures Baby Bass. Actually the 4.02lb bass was the same bass I caught earlier at 4.13lb! That was the last swimbait bass I caught. I only fish from the bank and bass here are northern strain. Prey is mostly red swamp crawdads and pumpkinseed sunfish (sometimes baby bass and in a couple of lakes a fish similar to hitch too). I've been throwing 6" swimbaits and the 7" MS Slammer at about 50% of the time I'm on the water. The water in some places is crystal clear, but even so I haven't had many followers. Some 8 or 9" bass on the few times I had followers. I'm starting to think these lakes don't have many bass in them. When I'm not throwing swimbaits I throw mostly jigs and only catch 2 or 3 fish on them in a year! Even when I occasionally fish senkos I don't catch many bass. In these lakes (and in almost all lakes here) 99.9% of the anglers keep all the bass they catch, specially the bigger bass! I have a reservoir here that is absolutely huge and with very deep crystal clear water most of the time, but I don't get to fish it often. Most of the lakes I fish are small reservoirs, usually with 15 to 20ft maximum depth. Some have many weeds while others are more rocky with steeper banks. Some have crystal clear water while others are stained. The weather here is maybe like North California. The lakes don't freeze (but in same very shallow places less than 1" depth I've seen some ice on the surface). The air temperature rarely gets bellow 32ºF and that occurs maybe a couple nights, usually in January. In the summer the air temperature during the day can get up to 110ºF a couple July days, but usually less than that. From March 15th to May 15th is closed season, so I can't fish right now. With all this information what do you recommend me to do? Should I keep throwing the 7" MS Slammer and the floating 6" BBZ's? I have 2 Mattlures U2 Bluegills. Fished them many times without catching anything on them. I'm thinking about fishing mostly swimbaits this year. Even more than before. I really want to start catching fish consistently on them. Maybe I should start throwing them to deeper water more? Maybe I should fish even bigger baits to attract some bigger fish that no one catches? I have an 8" Hudd and fished it sometimes but haven't had a single follower... I'm also thinking about matching the hatch more. Fishing Mattlures U2 and Ultimate Gill in pumpkinseed colors more. The baby bass colored MS Slammer (my 2 biggest swimbait catches were on two different baby bass colored swimbaits, and those were not the baits I fished most of the time). I'm thinking about getting a Jackall Gantarel. It's expensive to me, but it floats, so it's more difficult to loose it. I'll fish pumpkinseed/bluegill and baby bass swimbaits most of the time, fishing some shad/hitch style swimbaits when I go to the lakes where the main forage is a fish similar to that. With all this information what do you think are the best baits for me? Am I right in the baits I'm thinking about using? Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post! (I'm showing you the 4lb+ bass that I caught two times the same year with a picture to compare the markings on the fish). SwimbaitSam123, fishaholic211 and IsaacM619 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassbass Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Nice fish and welcome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogervang Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Those are some good fishes. Welcome to SU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcaetano2905 Posted March 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Those are some good fishes. Welcome to SU. Thanks! Actually it is just one fish caught 2 times in the same year. You can compare the markings on the fish in my last picture. I guess most people will not read the entire post because it's huge. I'll try to write less next time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilcatfish Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wallyc Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Thanks! Actually it is just one fish caught 2 times in the same year. You can compare the markings on the fish in my last picture. I guess most people will not read the entire post because it's huge. I'll try to write less next time. Welcome to the membership Marco, Once , twice, it's a nice bass no matter how many times you get it to commit. Heck, if you catch it a third time....give it a name...LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckycraft Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Nice fish brother! Welcome to the underground! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcaetano2905 Posted March 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Welcome to the membership Marco, Once , twice, it's a nice bass no matter how many times you get it to commit. Heck, if you catch it a third time....give it a name...LOL Ahah. Thanks everyone! This forum looks a lot nicer than other forums. Some places are full of haters. I don't like that. Fishing is our passion and something that should make us happy, not something to get angry. We're here to share, teach and learn. I'm mostly learning right now, but as I gain more experience I'll not think twice: I'll share as much knowledge as I can with all of you. If someone says something you don't like, just talk calmly with that person. I've seen pictures here of people bank fishing and showing fish full of dirt. That's not good for the fish. But in other forums there would be a lot of haters replying to that picture. Here I've not seen that! Just calmly say to that person that it's better if he tries no to get dirt on that fish (I bank fish too and I always go to the edge of the bank to lip the fish. If I have to put it down I'll put it on top of grass or something like that). I think I'll relate more to people from the NE because as in Portugal they have northern strain and in many places bass eat mostly sunfish. MA Frog Man and wallyc 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcaetano2905 Posted March 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Welcome to the membership Marco, Once , twice, it's a nice bass no matter how many times you get it to commit. Heck, if you catch it a third time....give it a name...LOL I hope I catch that fish a third time! It will be my new PB for sure! It's been 3 years since I caught it and my PB is only 5lb. By the way, my PB was 19.3" long and this fish was also exactly 19.3" long, so it tied the lenght of my PB. In Japan people give more importance to the lenght than the weight. A bass over 60cm (23.6") is a trophy to them. I kind of agree that lenght should be more important than weight. The lenght of a fish is always increasing. The weight varies a lot. As you see this 4 pounder I caught was less heavy the second time I caught it. Of course changing the importance to the lenght would change a lot of things. Florida would start to have the "biggest" bass instead of California, because of their long fish. Either way - if you give more importance to lenght or weight - a trophy is a trophy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcaetano2905 Posted March 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Welcome to the membership Marco, Once , twice, it's a nice bass no matter how many times you get it to commit. Heck, if you catch it a third time....give it a name...LOL I remember I already have a name for that bass: it's Hannibal! lol Because the two times I caught her was on bass colored swimbaits. Hannibal the cannibal. wallyc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whompuscat658 Posted March 28, 2016 Report Share Posted March 28, 2016 Thx for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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