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FUNdamentals
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About Bass Fishing
Largemouth bass can be recognized by the lower jaw that extends past the back edge of the eye. It is dark green above with silvery sides and belly and a dark stripe across its body. The underside ranges in color from light green to almost white. They have a nearly divided dorsal fin with the anterior portion containing nine spines and the posterior portion containing 12 to 13 soft rays. Also known as Black bass, green trout, bigmouth bass, lineside bass Bass are part of the perch family also (bream and perch), just on the larger side. Hybrids are a cross between a striper and a sand bass and typically do not spawn, although there have been some documented cases. Stripers and hybrids prefer live shad, perch and at times cut up shad. Stripers are typically found in river lakes. They tend to congregate in mossy, sheltered areas to prey on smaller fish, such as minnows. Sand bass like minnows, but are fun to catch on artificial lures like small jigs, spoons and lipless crankbait-type lures. When they are surfacing (chasing shad), they can wear you out. The best time to fish for bass is May through July, using minnows, crayfish, night crawlers, jigs, crank baits and spinner baits. Both live bait and artificial lures will attract bass, but one may be more attractive to smallmouth bass as opposed to largemouth bass. Early morning and late evening are the best time to catch bass as they tend to take shelter from the sun during the day. They are more active when the climate is cooler and the sun is not as bright. Smallmouth and spotted bass are usually found in deep clear-water lakes, some rivers, they are tough to catch, picky eaters and typically stay in deeper water. Black bass on the other hand, are probably the most pursued freshwater fish in the south. although they will hit live shad and shiners, most anglers use artificial baits. Types of Bass:
Black Bass Black Bass are a challenge. Black sea bass are regarded as a good-eating, flavorful fish. Bottom fishing from boats near structure (rocks, wrecks, and reefs) using squid and other natural baits works best.
The
black basses are sometimes erroneously called black trout, but the
name trout more correctly refers to certain members of the salmon family. The black basses are distributed throughout a large area east of the Rocky Mountains in North America, from the Hudson Bay basin in Canada to northeastern Mexico. Several species, notably the Largemouth and Smallmouth basses, have been very widely introduced throughout the world, and are now considered cosmopolitan. Black bass of all species are highly sought-after game fish, and bass fishing is an extremely popular sport throughout the bass's native range. These fish are well known as strong fighters, and their meat is eaten, being quite edible and firm. All Micropterus species have a dull-green base coloring with dark patterns on the sides. Most reach a maximum overall length of 16–24 in, but some strains of the largemouth bass have been reported to grow to just over three feet in length. The male builds a "bed" (nest) in which a female is induced to deposit her eggs and then fertilizes them. The male continues to guard the eggs and fry until they disperse from the nest.
Black
bass can be found in shallow to deep water at all times of the year. They are predators, relying on their large mouths and swift movements to capture their prey, typically crabs, mussels, razor clams, and fishes.
Spinnerbaits,
lipless crankbaits, diving
crankbaits, Texas- and Carolina-rigged worms, grubs
and centipede type baits all work well, some better at different
times of the year than others. Colors can vary also, but the best
rule of thumb is dark colors on dark days, light colors on bright
days and sticking to the colors that most closely resemble the food
source of the fish. Largemouth Bass
The Largemouth Bass and smallmouth bass are probably the most popular sport fish. They are excellent fighters when caught on light spinning tackle. Popular methods of fishing are fly-fishing, bait casting, or bottom fishing, and good baits include live minnows, night crawlers, and worms. Laremouth Bass are one of the main targets of freshwater sport fishermen. Most are released back into their habitat, but many are eaten. Largemouths also control fish populations of smaller fish, such as Bluegill and Yellow Perch. The largemouth bass is a freshwater gamefish in the sunfish family, a species of black bass native to North America. It is known by a variety of regional names, such as the brown bass, widemouth bass, bigmouth bass, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, gilsdorf bass, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth and (paradoxically) northern largemouth. They can grow over two feet long and weigh up to 20 pounds, although this is rare. A five pound Largemouth is considered very big. Largemouth Bass are usually olive to dark-green in color with greenish-yellow sides. They have a dark stripe down the side of the body. The dorsal (back) fin has two parts, and the front part has spines. Largemouth Bass get their name from their large mouths, which extend past their eyes. Largemouth Bass live in lakes, ponds, resevoirs, large rivers, and slow-moving streams. They like a lot of vegetation, both in the water and along its edges. Largemouths may tend to congregate in schools (group together), but adults are usually solitary. Sometimes several bass will gather in a very small area, but they do not interact. Largemouth bass seek protective cover such as logs, rock ledges, vegetation, and man-made structures. They prefer clear quiet water, but will survive quite well in a variety of habitats. They like large, slow moving rivers or streams with soft bottoms. Largemouth Bass will usually come into the shallows to feed in the early morning and in evenings. They will then patrol weed beds, lily pads, and other vegetation looking for food. Adult largemouths eat mostly smaller fish. They will also eat frogs, crayfish, aquatic insects, and surface insects. Largemouth Bass have interesting breeding habits. The male will prepare the nest, usually in one to four feet of water. He will use his fins to expose gravel, shells, or plant roots on the bottom, making a circle two to three feet wide. The males are very territorial. Once the nest is built, the female will arrive and lay between 2,000 and 40,000 eggs, depending on her size. The male will stay and guard the eggs, which will hatch in about a week. When the fry (group of baby fish) hatch, they will stay in the nest for another week. The fish fry (also called "larvae") will begin eating small creatures, such as copepods and waterfleas. The largemouth larvae will stay in the school, called a "brood swarm," under the guard of their father. They will leave, to be on their own, after three to four weeks. Because, of the large size of adult Largemouth Bass, they have few predators. When young, largemouths are preyed upon by birds, such as Great Blue Herons and raptors, and larger fish.
It
is important to know size restrictions at different bodies of water.
It is often illegal to take Largemouth Bass of a certain size. When
handling a Largemouth Bass, hold it by its lips or body, never by its
gills. To release it, gently place it in the water and move the fish
carefully back and forth to allow water to pass through its gills. Rock Bass AKA: Redeye, redeye bass, goggle eye, rock sunfish This species of freshwater fish is not really a bass, but a member of the sunfish family, associated with bass because of its rocky habitat. Rock Bass is frequently seen in groups, particularly near other sunfishes. Anglers take them using much the same methods that work for other bluegill species. Rock bass have a very deep and laterally compressed body. They usually have red to orange eyes, large, terminal mouth, body coloring from golden brown to olive, with white to silver belly, and 5 to 7 spines in the anal fin and 12 in the dorsal. Rock bass are less colorful than the bluegill, but have the ability to rapidly change its color to silver or blackish to match its surroundings. Rock Bass can grow between about 6 to 8 inches and weighing less than a pound. Rock bass can be found in all the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River system, Wisconsin, the upper and middle Mississippi River, and down to Missouri, northern Alabama and Georgia in the south, as well as from Québec to Saskatchewan in Canada. Rock bass prefer clear, vegetated and rocky lake margins and stream pools. Their favorite habitat is clear, cool to warm waters, with gravel or rocky bottoms, and some vegetation. Rock Bass species are usually found near stone-armored shorelines and breakwaters.
Rock
bass species are carnivorous, eating insects, crustaceans and
smaller fish and crayfish. Adult Rock bass may eat heavily,
particularly in the evening and early in the morning. Younger species
become food for larger predatory fish such as northern pike,
muskellunge and large bass. Smallmouth Bass
AKA: Brown bass, brownie, bronze bass Smallmouth bass can be caught on a wide variety of live and artificial baits. Many anglers prefer the less expensive soft, plastic artificial bait, grubs and tubes, because lure loss is a certainty when fishing prime smallmouth bass habitat. Light spinning tackle is the most popular and least tiresome after casting and catching fish all day. Fly fishing is next in popularity, followed by bait casting. The smallmouth bass is generally green, brown, bronze, or tan in general color with dark vertical bands rather than a horizontal band along the side. There are 13 to 15 soft rays in the dorsal fin. The best characteristic to distinguish a smallmouth from a largemouth bass is the position of the maxillary, or large flap at the posterior end of the upper jaw. With the fish’s mouth closed, the maxillary will reach, but not obviously extend beyond the eye, and the upper jaw never extends beyond the eye. In largemouth bass the maxillary always extends past the back edge of the eye. The usual smallmouth is 8 to 15 inches long, and weighs less than three pounds. Smallmouth bass originally ranged north into Minnesota and southern Quebec, south to the Tennessee River in Alabama and west to eastern Oklahoma and southwestern Arkansas. Today there are few states, east or west of the Rocky Mountains, where populations have not become established. Florida and Louisiana are apparently free of smallmouth bass. Smallmouth bass prefer large clear-water lakes (greater than 100 acres, more than 30 feet deep) and cool, clear streams with moderate current. Their preferred habit has a gravel or rubble substrate, boulders, some shade and cover, along with deep pools. In general, adult smallmouth bass feed on aquatic and terrestrial insects, crayfish, and fish. Because they feed on the water surface, in the water mass, and off the bottom, and consume such a wide variety of foods, they are considered "angler friendly".
Spawning
occurs in the spring when water temperatures approach 60°F.
Males move into spawning areas with the nests usually located near
shore in lakes; downstream from boulders or some other obstruction
that offers protection against strong current in streams. Mature
females may contain 2,000 to 15,000 golden yellow eggs. Males may
spawn with several females on a single nest. On average each nest
contains about 2,500 eggs, but nests may contain as many as 10,000
eggs. Eggs hatch in about 10 days if water temperatures are in the
mid-50s, but can hatch in 2 to 3 days if temperatures are in the
mid-70s. Males guard the nest from the time eggs are laid until fry
begin to disperse, a period of up to a month. Fry begin feeding on
zoo plankton, switching to insect larvae and finally fish and
crayfish as they grow.
Striped Bass
Striped bass are one of the most prized marine sport fish. Methods for taking them are legion and include everything from casting flies to trolling large “spoons” and other lures to fishing with complex “umbrella” rigs. A wide variety of fishing methods are successfully employed, including trolling, jigging, bait fishing, surf casting, fly fishing, and spinning. Baits and lures include mullet, squid, eels, crabs, clams, bloodworms, plugs, spoons, flies, and casting lures. Striped bass is a silvery fish that gets its name from the seven or eight dark, continuous stripes along the side of its body. The body is compressed with dorsal fins well separated and a forked, olive green, blue, or black caudal fin. Striped bass can grow as long as 60 inches. On the Atlantic coast, striped bass range from St. Lawrence River, Canada to St. Johns River, Florida, although they are most prevalent from Maine to North Carolina. Striped bass tend to move north to near shore waters of the New England coast during the summer, and south to the North Carolina and Virginia Capes during the winter. Striped bass have also been successfully stocked in freshwater reservoirs and lakes. Striped bass inhabit coastal waters and are commonly found in bays but may enter rivers in the spring to spawn. Some populations are landlocked. They are anadromous fish that migrate between fresh and salt water.
Larvae
feed on zoo plankton. Juveniles take in small shrimp and other
crustaceans, annelid worms, and insects. Adults feed on a wide
variety of fishes, crustaceans, squids, mussels, and worms. White Bass
White bass look like short stripers. They are silvery-white with five to eight dusky black stripes on the sides. Stripes below the lateral line are faint and may be uneven. Whites are stockier than stripers, with a smaller head, and dorsal fins are set closer together. White bass are found mostly in the Apalachicola and Ochlockonee river systems. Male white bass move upstream in big schools to a dam or other barrier in early spring, Females follow, and spawning occurs in moving water over shoals or hard bottoms. Females may lay as many as half a million adhesive eggs that stick to rocks and gravel. White bass eat minnows and open-water baitfish like gizzard or threadfin shad.
Their
aggressive nature and schooling tendency make them easy fish to
catch. Use light tackle, with flies, spinners, small plugs or minnows
for bait. Look for feeding schools that occur toward evening in
shallow areas. Yellow Bass
The yellow bass or barfish, is a species of temperate bass native to the south and midwestern United States. It is an inhabitant of lakes, ponds and areas of large rivers with reduced current such as backwaters and pools. This species can reach a length of 18 in TL though most are only around 9.4 in. The greatest recorded weight for a specimen of this species is 2.95 pounds and was caught at Morse Reservoir in Indiana. This species is sought after as a game fish.
Though
sometimes confused with white bass or striped
bass, it is distinguished by its yellow belly and the broken
pattern in its lowermost stripes. It can also mate with the white bass. Tips on How to Catch Bass
Save Shredded Worms When your plastic worms get torn up, save ’em. Bass like to ambush wounded prey, so a beat-up worm is perfect to use, especially in shallow water. Anthony Gagliardi, 2006 FLW Tour Land O’Lakes Angler of the Year Red Fools the Fish In shallow cover — wood, stumps, clumps of grass — I like to use a spinner bait with a red or pink head, and a crank bait with red hooks. The red makes the fish think the bait’s injured, and they’ll bite at it. George Cochran, 2005 Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship winner Skip Your Bait When you cast, stop halfway instead of following through, similar to a check swing in baseball. This makes the lure hit the surface of the water a few feet before your target, so the lure skitters over the water. It’s a good way to get under docks and other structures. Mike Iaconelli, 2004 CITGO Bassmaster Classic champion Keep Your Hooks Sharp I use a file to sharpen my hooks every time I catch a fish and before every trip. It takes 30 seconds. Bass have boney jaws, so a sharp hook is more apt to penetrate the fish. Mark Zona, host of ESPN Outdoors Look at Your Livewell Water When you put a bass in the livewell, they’re notorious for spitting up what they were feeding on. From there you can tell what color lure or kind of lure to throw the rest of the day. Matt Herren, No. 2 ranked angler, 2006 Wal-Mart FLW Tour Face the Wind Sacrifice some distance in your casts and fish with the wind in your face. Bass always swim with the current, so it’s better for them to find your bait before they find your boat. Plus, the noise of water slapping your hull will carry away from the spot you’re fishing, which is good. Ish Monroe, winner of the 2006 Battle on the Border Fish Shallow in the Spring In the spring bass hang out in spawning beds. Concentrate on shallow areas, especially in pockets and coves protected from the wind because this is where they like to guard their eggs. They’ll bite as much out of irritation with the lure as they will out of hunger. Jay Yelas, 2003 Bassmaster Angler of the Year Make Your Bait Seasonal Bass eat different bait depending on the time of year. The general rule is early in the year they like crawfish, so use peach-colored patterns. In the summer and fall they like shad, so use chrome or silver baits. Mike Hawkes, 2006 Wal-Mart FLW Series event winner, Lake Cumberland Fish before the storm The best time to fish bass is before a front comes through, and the worst time to fish them is after. The pressure makes the bass more active, so watch for a wall of clouds moving in. When it’s too pretty out, bass aren’t likely to bite. Forrest L. Wood, Ranger Boats founder and namesake of FLW Outdoors Bug Those Bass Bass is an ornery fish. You have to keep tapping at it to upset it into biting your hook. Bass position themselves in cover, and like the lure presented to them at different angles. I’ve tossed lures a hundred times onto the same location until finally getting a bite. Ray Scott, bass fishing legend and founder of BASS Bass Fishing Biggest Myths
Along with all of the information available about bass fishing, there is also a lot of misinformation! “The problem isn’t that anglers are ignorant, it’s that they know so many things that just ain’t so.” - Al Houser Every angler group has its widely held fallacies, perhaps none more than bass anglers. That’s perhaps surprising, given the volume of research directed at black bass. Moreover, superbly skilled professional anglers often offer commentary on fishing and fishery management topics. Yet, despite their talents and big winnings, many pro anglers are as guilty as anyone else of clinging to myths. Here’s a selection of firmly held beliefs that just ain’t so. Bass Become Dormant in Cold Water With the fall season approaching, we’ll undoubtedly hear how bass fishing will be bountiful, since fish stock up prior to their long winter of inactivity. No doubt fall is a fine time to fish, and big fish seem more active. But this shift has as much to do with altered habitat and prey movements as with bass seeking their last meal in months. As poikilothermic animals (blood the same temperature as environment), the metabolic systems of fish adjust to temperature changes to maintain life in the same conditions they’ve evolved in. Members of the sunfish family undergo physiological changes in chemical balances and size of the heart that prepare them for cold. Relative movement of bass declines and digestion slows, but bass bite well in northern waters as lakes approach the freezing point. Largemouths strike lures jigged below a hole in the ice and eat large suckers and shiners set on tip-ups. In northeastern states, many of the biggest bass caught each year come through the ice. Few North Country anglers target bass on frozen lakes, and that may be a good thing from a conservation standpoint. According to Roger Hugill, Minnesota DNR fishery biologist, a contingent of ice anglers sought to block catch-and-release regulations on a local lake. The reason, they argued, was that winter was the best time to catch the bass they liked to bake, those juicy 5-pounders! Physiological models suggest that at 40°F bass need consume only about one third as much food to maintain nutrition as they do at 70°F. Preyfish abundance is lowest in winter as well. But bass still eat. In some systems, particularly rivers, bass tend to be sedentary during winter, mostly because critical habitat is limited at that time. In lakes and reservoirs, however, underwater cameras show bass cruising along shallow and deep, often approaching the camera for a better look. Bass Strike Red Hooks Because They Resemble Blood Manufacturers have rushed to capitalize on the latest craze by offering lures with red hooks, red sinkers and blades, red line, even red reel spools. I’ve heard pros state in seminars that red hooks or a red highlight can attract extra bites by simulating the blood of a baitfish, gills, or perhaps a crawfish. Studies of bass vision indicate they detect red easily and can discriminate among shades. No research shows, however, any instinctive attraction to it. While anglers might reason that blood is red, bleeding baitfish are vulnerable to attack, so fish should attack objects with red markings;
bass
don’t think like that. Bass are capable of quickly learning to bite what brings a reward, ignore what brings no benefit, and avoid dangerous stimuli. But the idea that bass can associate reddish markings on baitfish with red on artificial lures is far-fetched, according to what we know about their learning process. A Bass is a Bass . . . While most knowledgeable anglers recognize the differences in behavior, habitat, and prey choice between largemouth and smallmouth bass, many accept the adage that largemouths behave similarly everywhere you find them. This phrase may boost an angler’s confidence when fishing a new body of water but is biologically groundless. The largemouth is generally considered a single species divided into two subspecies, Florida and northern largemouth. But further genetic studies show variation in the DNA of fish even from nearby watersheds within the same state. And differences in diet, water color, and cover type also make bass from different lakes behave differently. In some, topwater lures work all summer while they zero in other lakes. Night-fishing is fine some places and a waste of time elsewhere. Lure color preferences can be pronounced as well, and feeding and spawning behavior can also vary. Local experts and guides are tuned to bass behavior and can teach visitors their tricks. For this reason, tournament anglers often hire a guide or consult renowned locals when researching for an upcoming tournament. Modern Livewells Make Fish Care Easy Gene Gilliland is a veteran bass biologist at the Oklahoma Fishery Research Lab in Norman, an epicenter of U.S. bassin’ fervor. Moreover, he’s an accomplished tournament fisherman and fishing industry analyst. For nearly 20 years, he’s been trying to teach tournament anglers to take better care of their catch. In 2002, he and Dr. Hal Schramm published Keeping Bass Alive: A Guidebook for Anglers and Tournament Organizers. Too bad so many avid bassers don’t like to read, and have for years failed to heed valuable advice that promises to add bonus ounces to tournament tallies and at the same time save bass from delayed mortality. “When I give seminars on this topic,” Gilliland says, “I still get the comment, ‘Well, how am I supposed to know how much air a bass needs?’ “Too many anglers simply put their catch in a livewell, turn the switch to auto, and forget about them until weigh-in time. While that amount of aeration may be sufficient for a modest catch in cool water, limits of bass weighing in the teens are oxygen-deprived in 80°F+ water. Anglers need to take measures to improve conditions: Run aerators constantly to add fresh water; add ice to lower livewell temperatures 5°F to 8°F; or run pure oxygen into the well.” While today’s bass boats are longer and heavier, many models have not substantially increased livewell volume. Some manufacturers are to be commended, however, for taking fish care seriously, sacrificing a bit of storage and adding aeration features that work. Deficiencies in livewell design and angler behavior were evident when Bassmaster Elite pros sacked limits of huge bass at Lake Falcon this spring, and both immediate and delayed mortality ran high. TV coverage of tournaments often exposes pros depositing their first fish in a dry livewell, then turning on the pump. That’s beyond poor handling practice, and less experienced anglers might copy them. You Need a Big, Fast Boat to Fish Efficiently Boat manufacturers and the pro anglers they sponsor sometimes seem to imply that the craft makes the angler. In fact, it is the angler’s craft, as in being crafty, rather than boat choice that prevails. As in past times, many of the best bass fishermen still use small, underpowered boats. Small boats are suited to small waters where giant bass dwell, from Florida to Iowa to California. Full-sized bass boats can’t get into key shallow zones and have trouble maneuvering through dense timber or vegetation. When they do, the commotion often spooks lunkers. Even on large waters, small, slow boats force anglers to slow down and concentrate on the fish and its environment, always a boon to good catching. Witness the many huge bass taken by shorebound anglers up to their elbows in the bass’ environment. Big, fast boats are way cool and mighty comfortable, allowing us to haul untold hundreds of bass baits, few of which get used in a year, let alone in a day. Even in tournament competition, I know anglers who always score high, yet fish from small boats that make them the last guy to a given spot. Tournaments Harm Bass Populations Despite booming bass fisheries in recent decades, this myth refuses to die. Anglers and managers opposed to tournaments, for one reason or another, propagate the idea that excessive mortality hurts fishing quality. In defense of competition, one need only check the weights caught at waters fished incessantly by tournament competitors for decades—Grand Lake, Oklahoma; Kentucky Lake, Kentucky; Lake Seminole, Georgia-Alabama; Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota; and Sam Rayburn, Texas, to name but a few. Catches today typically are as good as they’ve ever been. Rayburn hosts more than 300 tournaments a year and has done so for decades. More than half the anglers there participate in tournaments, according to a recent analysis by biologists with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.* That tagging study found tournament mortality contributed from 1 to 16 percent of total annual mortality of the largemouth population, while non-tournament catch-and-release fishing were 2 to 17 percent of the total, and angler harvest (non-tournament) comprised 16 to 38 percent of annual bass mortality. Fishing pressure doubtless makes bass harder to catch, but blame cannot be placed solely on competitive anglers. All who wield a rod contribute. Social issues have always been with us, and we can only hope that etiquette, fair play, and sportsmanship prevail on the water. Bass Abandon Areas Treated with Herbicides I’m generally as opposed to herbicide treatments as the next avid basser. I’ve seen habitat damage from chemical applications and am concerned about disease breakouts. But in some situations, treatments may be necessary for navigation and recreation, and even for the health of bass populations. Excessively thick plant growth limits bass feeding and cuts the abundance of key preyfish like shad. Scientific evidence suggests that bass are not negatively affected by correct application of herbicides. Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Mark Bain and Suzanne Boltz of Auburn University tracked largemouths as herbicides were applied to their home areas on Lake Guntersville in Alabama. Fish didn’t evacuate as the chemicals were applied or as plants dwindled, and collections of bass in treated and untreated areas were similar. Recently, other Auburn researchers studied the reaction of bass to plant reduction by herbicides at another waterway where treatments have been controversial, Lake Seminole on the Georgia-Florida border. The Corps of Engineers treated the Spring Creek arm with fluridone at 6 parts per billion, which reduces hydrilla but is tolerated by most native plants. There, treatments didn’t change bass behavior in the short term but, as plants dwindled, bass moved into deeper water and switched habitat from hydrilla flats to standing timber. Removal of hydrilla in smaller, shallower coves in another creek arm had contrasting results. Instead of moving deeper, bass moved shallower into floating and emergent vegetation that represented the best habitat once hydrilla dwindled. In both cases, however, changes in fishing strategy would be required to maintain catch rates. During summer, stable environments typically offer the most consistent fishing, and habitat changes may temporarily reduce catchability. In a final experiment, the scientists applied herbicide directly on nesting bass and water onto others, as a control. Bass didn’t abandon nests, and reproduction in treated areas was similar to that in untreated ones. Vegetation removal should be viewed as a last resort by lake managers, but careful treatments in limited areas should not harm bass fisheries. Big Baits Catch Big Bass
This
myth isn’t a fallacy. Largemouth bass are a most appropriately named fish. Endowed with a capacious maw, they eat anything they can catch and engulf—bats, rats, snakes, turtles, clams, birds, and amphibians, plus all sorts of invertebrates and fish. Scientists have calculated the sizes of prey that bass consume. For narrow-bodied, soft-finned prey like shad or trout, bass may eat items up to half their own length. Wide-bodied, finny prey are selected at smaller sizes. According to this formula, a thin, 6-inch baitfish is fair game for a keeper-sized bass. And a 24-inch lunker shouldn’t shy from a foot-long preyfish or a swimbait of similar dimensions. So, if you heave 8-inch baits weighing a couple ounces, lunkers aren’t guaranteed, but don’t be surprised by the 16-inch bass attacking them. The key to catching big bass with big baits is placing them in a vulnerable position where big bass live and hunt. Long, main-lake points, interfaces of deep water and offshore vertical structure, and deep weedlines are a few examples. Researchers at the University of Arizona, curious about bass found choking on tilapia, conducted experiments to test bass choices. Adult bass were offered green sunfish, redear sunfish, and tilapia with body depths around and beyond the maximum size vulnerable to attack, according to calculations. Bass pursued and attacked prey larger than predicted, often choking on them. This result helps explain why at times miniature bass attack topwaters, worms, and floating minnowbaits almost their own length. At the other extreme, adult bass eat items as small as nearly microscopic water fleas (Daphnia), even subsisting on them for months when larger prey are scarce. Field Editor Ned Kehde is a finesse tactician, often found on Kansas’ hard-fished public impoundments wielding a 1/16- or even 1/32-ounce jighead with a 21/2-inch portion of a Strike King Zero. He likes action and often tallies dozens of bass in a short outing. But he regularly accounts for bass from 3 to nearly 6 pounds on these tiny offerings. Catching Nesting Bass is like Picking Cherries Some anglers look down on sight-fishing for bedding bass as unsporting and unethical, in that it takes advantage of bass at their most vulnerable moments. Rather, it’s a feast-or-famine approach to fishing that’s part of angling tradition in many areas. Catching a bedding bass can be easy, or it can be so difficult as to approach impossibility. I hear bass pros rue the fact that they spent several hours trying to tempt a bedding lunker to bite, in the end failing and returning to weigh-in without a limit. Editor In Chief Doug Stange once spent the better part of an afternoon with Florida guide Gene Holbrook trying to catch a big bass Holbrook had found after three days of searching. The lunker nipped baits, temporarily abandoned the nest, and frustrated them for hours, until a change of lures finally turned the trick on the 11-pounder. Sight-fishing is an art, and skilled anglers can read the behavior of a particular bass and determine the likelihood of its capture. It takes years of practice, plus powers of observation, patience, and gamesmanship to do it well. On the other hand, some bass, particularly in lightly fished waters, may swim off a bed to eat nearly any bait tossed its way. So, when it comes to sight-fishing, if you don’t like it, then don’t do it. Planting Brushpiles Increases Bass Populations In most cases, brush and other attractors concentrate bass but do little to enhance reproduction, lake-wide biomass, or growth. As a result, some fishery managers are reluctant to encourage their use, feeling that bass exploitation may rise if catch-and-release rates are low. Attractors can improve habitat by increasing the surface area available for invertebrates that feed small fish, but effects are local, not population-wide. Big Bass Live in Deep Water Big bass live where living conditions and prey availability support their bulk. That can be shallow, deep, or in between, depending on available habitat and prey type. In northern lakes, many of the biggest bass of summer are caught underneath boat docks in a couple of feet of water, or within lily-pad beds of similar depth. Tracking studies have shown that some big bass hold on deep structure during the day but move into the 10-foot zone to feed after dark. In deep, clear lakes, lunkers may hold in open water, but they’re often suspended at levels where baitfish are most available. Bass Seek Crayfish in Spring for Nutrition Benefits Crayfish are a favorite bass food wherever they’re found, and in some cases spring consumption exceeds that of summer. Crayfish are rather poor food, however, from the standpoint of nutrition. They require substantial handling time, both to subdue the clawed critter and to extract the edible portion from its chitinous shell, which amounts to about a third of its total mass. Low fat content and caloric value also make craws less nutritious than most fish. But they’re easy to find and catch, particularly in spring when weed growth is thin. In summer, craws find shelter in dense weed beds that shield them from bass predation.
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have me put onto this web page,
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