July 23, 2008

Recently BASS announced that the Elite Series would do away with co-anglers beginning in 2010.  Not surprisingly, most of the Pros applauded this decision while most of the co-anglers cried foul.  I agree with the Pros on this one.

If tournament bass fishing is to be a professional sport, then individual Pros must do it all on their own without any outside influence.  Anytime that there is more than one angler in a boat, there is an outside influence.  Information is garnered without a word being spoken.  More than one Pro has won a major tournament because of what his co-angler did and through no brilliance of his own design.  It isn’t about the co-anglers catching fish that the Pro might have caught.  It is about having a second person experimenting with techniques and methods that could benefit both anglers.

At every venue there is always a local ringer, a guide or other local expert that knows the water body intimately.  I personally watched Pros take advantage of such a draw and I heard arguments when the local expert took another Pro to his secret spots on the second and third days.  Co-anglers are supposed to be prohibited from sharing their first day Pro’s spots with their second day Pro, but what if the spots were discovered by the co-angler?  Is he then prohibited from taking a second Pro to those spots on the second day of the tournament?  Is the first day Pro prohibited from returning to the spots that the co-angler took him to? 

These are the problems that arise when there is a co-angler in the boat.  If one of the Pros that drew that local expert and fished that local expert’s spots wins the tournament, is it a testament to his ability as a tournament angler or his it due to the luck of the draw?  These are questions that can only be answered when the Pros fish alone and must depend entirely on their own fishing knowledge and ability. 

Just this past week a Pro fishing the Stren series won a tournament on Lake Champlain.  He won because of his co-angler.  On the last day, the Pro was not catching fish while the co-angler was killing them.  The Pro started fishing what the co-angler was using and ended up catching enough to win the tournament.  The question is this: Would the Pro have ever used what his co-angler was using had the co-angler not been in the boat?  By the Pro’s own admission, the answer is a resounding no!  The Pro had a difficult time as it was using the lure and technique that the co-angler was using despite the fact that the co-angler was convincingly “cleaning his clock”.  In my mind, that Pro should have split his winnings with the co-angler.  It is pretty clear to me that without that co-angler, that Pro would not have won the tournament. 

Am I impressed by this Pro’s fishing ability?  Well he was smart enough, eventually, to take advantage of the info available to him, but no I am not impressed with his tournament fishing ability.  Had he done it all on his own, then yes I would be impressed.  However, he didn’t and I am not.

If we want to know who the very best tournament bass anglers are, then they must fish alone without any outside help.  Any angler that consistently wins under these conditions is a true Pro and worthy of the title.  Unfortunately, there is always the question of cheating whenever an angler fishes alone and that is why observers are needed.  Whether BASS will be able to find those observers remains to be seen, but doing away with co-anglers is a big step towards making tournament bass fishing a true profession.  For the sake of professional tournament bass fishing, I hope they succeed.

Do it on your own!

Em

 July 13, 2008

The color factor is perhaps the most debated aspect of lure selection.  Does the color of your lure matter?   Will a particular color of a lure provide more success than another?

I have heard many anglers, pro and novice alike, claim that the color of a lure has absolutely no bearing on an angler’s level of success.  Yet these same anglers carry a multitude of different colored lures in their tackle boxes.  What is up with that?

I believe that the color of a lure can make all the difference between success and failure.  I have experienced too many situations on the water when the color of a particular lure was critical to catching any bass at all.  I have also been on the water when that same critical color that worked like magic failed to boat a single bass.  If color is important, then how is it that both of these statements are true?

Both of the statements are true and color is important.  However, the right color changes just as the right size, weight, depth and speed changes.  Color just changes quicker and more often. 

It is a fact that you cannot have color without light.  Perhaps no other variable changes quicker and more often than the intensity and amount of light.  Every change in the intensity and the amount of light changes how a color appears.  Certain colors are more visible under higher intensities or greater amounts of light.  Other colors are more visible when light is less intense or the amount of light is decreased.  This means that the red colored worm that was working a few seconds ago under intense overhead sunlight may go untouched when that cloud blocks out the sun.  You might find that when that cloud passes over the sun that a black worm is now the “hot” color. 

It is attention to these types of details that truly separates the really successful anglers from the rest.  If you have ever spent the entire day throwing only one color, you have left bass uncaught.  There has never been, and never will be, a day where the intensity and the amount of light remains uniform throughout the entire day.  Therefore, there never has been, and never will be, a single color of worm that will be the absolute best color from dawn to dusk. 

Another interesting fact about color is that effective colors vary by lure type.  Those colors that are perhaps the best for spinnerbaits and crankbaits could be the absolute worst color choices for soft plastics and jigs.  I believe that this fact has a lot to do with the typical speed of retrieve of the different lure types.  I also suspect that there is more to it than just the speed of retrieve.  What I do know is that before I can give you advice on the best color lure to be using I definitely need to know what type of lure you are throwing.  I would also need to know the depth that you are fishing, the water color, weather (light) conditions and, in many cases, what body of water you are fishing.

Believe it or not, the bass in certain bodies of water have definite color preferences and in many cases those bass also have a lure type preference as well.  I know bodies of water that are crankbait waters, others that are jig and pig waters, and still others that are worm waters.  I am sure that this lure preference is some how related to the forage in those bodies of water, but it really doesn’t matter why.  It is only important to know what the lure preference is and then use it. 

I will close with this final thought.  I believe that there is always a right color for every time and place regardless of what lure type you are using.  I also believe that finding that right color can be the difference between just competing and blowing the competition away.  However, remember this, the best color in the world cannot catch what isn’t there.  You have to find the bass first!

Good bassin’

Em

July 1, 2008

Let’s talk about what it means to be a professional.  Recently there have been instances during major professional bass tournaments where individual contestant’s actions have been called into question.  In all the cases that I am aware of, the questions raised involved tournament rules.

It seems to me that any professional, regardless of his profession, is obligated to be totally familiar with all rules of competition.  Being a professional angler is no different than any other profession.  It is not just about fishing ability.  It is about competing within the framework of the rules. 

A year or so ago, Kevin Van Dam, arguably the best tournament bass angler ever, was disqualified for violation of a tournament rule.  Not only is KVD a terrific bass angler, he is also generally considered one of the “true” professionals out there.  How on earth is it then possible for KVD to be disqualified? 

It is possible because KVD did not pay attention to details.  Being professional is as much about being aware of the rules of competition as it is fishing ability.  Kevin simply did not prepare himself the way a true professional should.  A true professional would know all the rules of competition and he would know them backward and forward.  If he had any questions or uncertainties, he would get clarification from the tournament organizer before the fact.  Kevin was at least professional enough to admit that it was his fault because he wasn’t totally familiar with all the rules as he should have been.  My guess is that Kevin learned his lesson and, as often happens, he learned it the hard way.  Not only did his mistake cost him any chance of making money that week, the disqualification almost certainly cost him another Angler of the Year title. 

My point is that every tournament bass angler must be as knowledgeable as possible concerning all aspects of tournament competition.  This goes for everything from knowing how to properly tow a boat and trailer, how to operate all boat equipment, rules of safe boating, and any rules related to competition.  There is a lot more to being a professional tournament angler than just being able to locate and catch bass consistently.

One final thought.  To me being professional also means being ethical.  It means doing what you do on your own without outside help.  It means finding bass on your own and not moving in on someone else simply because you saw them catching fish.  It means acting within the spirit of the rules and not trying to find ways to bend those rules or circumvent them entirely.  In my mind, true confidence as a tournament angler can only be achieved by fishing ethically.  Achieving success any other way proves nothing about your individual ability and can do nothing to lead you to continued success. 

We cannot all be tournament winners at every tournament, but we can all be ethical.  It is all right not to win every tournament as long as you competed ethically.  Remember this: No one that competes ethically has ever been a loser.  Those that have competed unethically have never truly been winners.  You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you will never fool yourself.

Be professional, compete ethically!

Em

June 19, 2008

 What is more important, knowledge or belief?  Is it more effective to be a knowledgeable angler or is an intuitive angler better? 

 If you are a knowledgeable angler, then you are an angler that makes his decisions based on facts.  If you are an intuitive angler, then you are an angler that makes his decisions based on beliefs.  Does it matter?

 These are the types of questions that a guy begins asking himself after way too many years of tournament angling.  I am, by nature, a logical individual prone to making decisions based in fact.  I have tried very hard to absorb all the factual information I could find on bass and bass fishing.  One thing that I discovered along the way was that there are extremely few facts related to bass or bass fishing.  Most of the information is belief founded on experience.  Facts, to me, are axioms that never vary and cannot be proven wrong.  Too many times things that I thought were fact were proven wrong on the water.  Too many times I found the bass where logically they weren’t supposed to be and doing things that they logically weren’t supposed to be doing.  Don’t get me wrong.  I still think that knowledge is absolutely essential. But knowledge alone will not get you where you want to be.  Intuition and a real belief in what works for you are just as important as all the knowledge in the world. 

 It has taken me over 60 years to finally realize that people aren’t really interested in knowledge, particularly if that knowledge contradicts what they believe.  There are some things that people just know to be true and the facts will never change their mind.  I know this to be true, but I think it is just this attitude that keeps most anglers from ever becoming all they could be. 

 It is the blending of knowledge with belief that makes the very best anglers.  It is the ability to not allow what is logical from keeping you from doing what you believe.  It is the understanding that beliefs are founded in intuitive knowledge.  It is the understanding that, even though no conscious thought is involved in intuitive knowledge, intuitive knowledge can still be founded in fact.  We do not often consider intuition as based in fact simply because we cannot explain logically what our intuition is based on.  Where is it written that something cannot be fact unless we can explain it logically?  Our senses are real and what they interpret is often fact.  Yet we feel and interpret without any conscious effort.  Without conscious effort being involved we can never logically explain where intuitions come from or what they are based on, but intuitions can be fact none the less.  Our senses and instincts, and intuitions derived from those senses and instincts, have saved our lives time and again.  Our senses and instincts were in fact the sole basis for our decision making before the development of reason and logical thinking.  If it worked then, it will still work now.  Trust you instincts, but learn all you can. 

 Catch a big ‘un

Em

June 10, 2008

Does anyone really know just how many different styles of soft plastics lures are out there?  Does an angler need to carry and use all of these different styles of lures?  If he does, how on earth could he do it?  Nobody has a tackle box or boat that big.

I am of the belief that all the different styles (shapes) of soft plastics are designed more to catch the angler than the bass.  I believe that the size of a bait matters, but I don’t necessarily buy into the argument that the shape matters.  Now when I speak of size I am speaking about girth and weight as well as length.  I believe that the size of a lure is important because I believe that bass either want a big lure or they want a small lure.  I do not believe that the bass care what shape that lure is.  I believe the bass only care whether it is big or small.

I also believe that big and small are defined by more than just length.  There are big 4” soft plastic lures and there are small 4” soft plastic lures.  Compare a 4” finesse worm to a 4” heavy flipping tube and you will see what I am talking about.  There will be times when the 4” finesse worm will totally out fish the 4” flipping tube and there will be times when it is just the opposite. 

I only carry 3 styles of soft plastics; worms, tubes and soft stick baits.  I don’t believe that a lizard shape will out fish a worm simply because of its shape.  I think a guy using a lizard could out fish a guy using a worm if the worm is not the same size, in girth, weight and length, but not because of the shape.  Most lizard shaped soft plastics are considerably thicker than plastic worms of comparable length.  Therein lays the difference.  Fish a worm of the same thickness and length and I believe that you will catch as many bass as you will with the lizard.

It is not the bass’ nature to be overly concerned with shape.  Bass do not specialize on any single prey shape.  A bass is a generalist and will feed on anything that appears alive regardless of shape.  There may be times where a particular size of prey is necessary to trigger a response, but it is the size and not the shape that is the triggering factor. 

I don’t think that it really matters which style soft plastic lure you decide to use as long as you have different sizes of that soft plastic bait available.  The reason I carry worms, soft stick baits and tubes is simply because tubes and stick baits are thicker and a thicker lure is a bigger lure.  If I could achieve that same thickness with just worms, I wouldn’t be carrying tubes and stick baits, but I can’t so I do. 

My point is this: You do not need every shape of soft plastic lure that is made.  Pick one or two styles that provide big sizes and little sizes, thin lures and thick lures, and forget about the rest.  Learn to experiment with size without concern for shape and see if you don’t fare better in your results.  Catching bass consistently can be difficult enough as it is without clouding the issue by adding a zillion different shapes to choose from.  When you throw color into the mix, it becomes next to impossible. Sometimes simpler is better.

                                           Simplify your bassin’

                                                     Em

May 27, 2008

 Did you ever notice that some truly good tournament bass anglers are known for one particular lure or technique?  Denny Brauer is known as a jig fisherman.  Rick Clunn is a shallow water crankbait fisherman.  Kevin Van Dam is known as a run and gun spinnerbait/crankbait fisherman.  David Fritts is a deep water crankbait pro.  Larry Nixon is the King of the worm fishermen.  Tommy Biffle is a flipper.  I could go on, but I think you get the point.  If a key to being consistently successful as a tournament bass angler is versatility, how the heck did these guys get where they are at? 

I believe that if an angler keys on one lure type and learns all the presentations and techniques for that lure type, he can be a very formidable competitor.  That angler will make that lure type work when other anglers, less versed in that lure’s use, cannot.  Although this may be true, I believe that the days of being a one lure purist are coming to a close.  There are just too many knowledgeable and talented anglers today.  One or two of them will also be using the same lure and the same technique and they’ll be just as dedicated to it as you are.

The trouble with being married to one lure type is that you are putting all your emphasis on presentation and you are doing it way too early in the process.  If you are a crankbait purist, then there are locations on the water that you will never fish.  This is true simply because there are locations where a crankbait cannot be fished effectively.  What this means is that you will be eliminating certain locations before you even start.  Any fisherman that eliminates any location capable of holding bass simply by virtue of his chosen lure type is eventually going to eliminate the bass as well. 

My experience has been that every time I have gotten married to a lure type, I have crashed and burned.  Sooner or later I will be trying to make my favorite lure type work in a location where it is not the best lure type for the job.  Other times I will fail to fish the locations holding the bass simply because my pet lure is ineffective there.  This is why I believe that an angler must follow the formula Fish + Location + Presentation = Success and that he must follow it in that precise order.  An angler must always allow the location to dictate the lure choice and not vice versa.  I know that the above mentioned anglers have made a lot of money doing what they do, but how much more could they have won had they followed the formula?  I guess we will never know.

Every fisherman will end up with a favorite lure and a favorite presentation for that lure.  It is just the way we humans are built.  It is all right to have a favorite.  However don’t let your favorite lure dictate your locations.  Let the locations dictate your favorite lure.

     To quote a very good tournament angler that I know, “Wishin’ I was fishin’”

                                                     Em 

May 02, 2008 

If you are a tournament bass angler, then you are not a big bass fisherman. There is a significant difference between tournament bass anglers and those anglers that pursue only the largest bass. Tournament bass fishing is a game of numbers. The heaviest total weight is what determines the winner so catching the maximum allowable number of bass each day is mandatory. Tournament bass angling is all about quantity, while angling for only the largest bass is all about quality.

If an angler must produce the maximum allowable number of bass each day, that angler must play the percentages and use presentations that are apt to attract the greatest amount of interest from bass of all sizes. The largest bass in any population of bass make up but a tiny percentage of the overall bass population. Any angler pursuing this tiny percentage is limited before he starts and, except under the most favorable of conditions, has very little chance of catching the maximum number allowed each day. In most cases and on most water types, a limit catch of keeper sized bass will easily out weigh a catch of one or two of the largest bass in that body of water. This is one reason why fishing strictly for the largest bass available is not a productive tournament approach.

There is another reason that fishing strictly for the largest bass available is not a practical approach to tournament angling. In my opinion, the largest bass must be fished for differently and the techniques that are most effective on the largest bass are not the same techniques that are productive on the smaller bass. While it is true that the largest bass are occasionally caught while using techniques that are effective on the smaller bass, smaller bass are seldom caught when fishing with nothing but big fish techniques. When an angler makes a decision to fish for only the largest bass, he is also making a decision that he is going to get fewer bites and catch fewer fish. No one catches the largest bass on a daily basis and seldom does anyone catch them in any significant numbers. It is little different from hunting deer. The methods that may produce a deer of any size or sex are totally different from the methods required to produce only the largest buck in the area.

I think that it is important that tournament anglers understand these facts and then use these facts to their advantage in tournament competition. While it makes little sense to start most tournament days using nothing but big fish techniques, there may be occasions and tournament locations where doing just that is a viable option. When an angler has amassed a limit catch of bass, it would certainly make sense to switch to big bass techniques and then fish for strictly bigger bass. Too many anglers believe that simply catching more bass is a practical approach to increasing their chances of catching bigger bass. In fact simply catching more bass seldom results in increased numbers of truly bigger bass. This is because the techniques have not been changed and the techniques that have been catching bass are often not the techniques needed for catching big bass.

If you are a tournament angler, you need to understand these facts and use them to your best advantage.

                                                              Em

April 22, 2008

Recently, at the Falcon Lake Elite Series event, the issue of ethics reared its ugly head. What happened, and it usually does happen, is that several of the pros located the same identical spots that were holding the biggest bass. The fact that this happens should surprise absolutely no one. However, what usually happens is that each pro that finds the spot on his own feels that he owns that spot. Each pro then feels that the other pros "stole" the spot from them. Boat draw number now becomes the determining factor in which pro gets to fish the spot because possession is nine tenths of the law and whoever gets there first owns it for that day. Pros now spend most of the day jawing at each other and normally neither of them fares the better for that fact. At Falcon, the pros with the best draw the first day of the tournament somehow felt entitled to those spots simply because they got there first during tournament hours. Had their boat draw numbers been reversed the first day, they would have been the encroachers and not the guys that they ended up accusing of being the encroachers.

How do you resolve this problem? Should the spot belong to the angler that first found it? How would you determine who found it first? Can any angler claim any area on public water as his exclusive fishing domain?

At one time there was a rule that would have allowed the anglers that arrived at the spot first to claim it for the day. All they would have had to do was lower their anchor and raise their trolling motors and they could claim a 50 foot circle. Unfortunately that rule was dropped so now there is no rule that prohibits another angler from encroaching on any angler’s "spot".

You often hear of an "unwritten code" that the pro anglers abide by, but clearly this code, if it ever existed to begin with, is not universally accepted by all "pros". It is expensive to fish professionally and there are BIG bucks up for grabs. The idea that individual anglers will abide by some unwritten code of ethics is laughable. Hell, too many "pros" don’t abide by the written rules as it is so the likelihood that they will abide by unwritten rules is just ridiculous.

In any bass tournament involving more than just a few contestants, many anglers will discover the same fish holding locations. It most cases these anglers will find these locations on their own, but regardless of how they find these locations they are certainly within their rights in fishing them. The luck of the draw will forever determine which angler gets to the location first and that is not likely to change. The draw is a part of tournament competition and it is something that every angler has to learn to factor into his tournament day. No angler can be guaranteed a spot for more than a single tournament day and even that likelihood is remote given the lack of rules prohibiting encroachment.

What can be changed is how close one angler can get to another angler’s boat during the tournament day. A simple rule that prohibits any angler from encroaching within a 50 foot circle of another angler’s boat would suffice. If certain anglers prefer to accord more respect than the 50 feet that is certainly their right, but it does not require that other anglers have to do likewise. Ethics are a matter of personal choice based on beliefs. Beliefs are not facts and because they are not they can never be enforced universally. It seems to me that a simple rule that says that you must accord other competitors a personal zone of exclusivity of at least 50 feet is a reasonable solution to the problem. It is a rule that could be consistently applied and easily enforced by the anglers. As it stands now there is no written rule on exclusivity and it is clear that all the "pros’ don’t behave according the same code of ethics.

Another thing about ethics is that the tournament organizers are not the ones that should be defining the standards. It should be the professionals that do that. Every profession that I know of has a standard code of ethics for its members. If a member violates that code, the professional organization imposes the penalty for that violation and the potential penalty always includes revocation of membership in the organization. When professional bass fishing has such an organization of professionals with the authority to banish members from competition, then tournament bass fishing will be a profession. Until then, it is nothing more than a contest wherein each individual competitor is free to act according to his own ethics. That is a scary, scary state of affairs.

Em

April 9, 2008

Holy Cow!!  Just how good can KVD be?  He recently won a tournament in Florida and that is no easy task for an angler groomed on Northern bass.  I believe that fishing for Florida bass is almost akin to fishing for a totally different species of fish and yet Kevin Van Dam got it done.  Before 2008 is over, he will probably eclipse 3 million dollars in career tournament winnings in BASS tournaments alone.  Wow!!

A few years back there was the Greatest Angler Debate and Rick Clunn emerged as the winner.  At the time of the debate, I agreed with that result 100%.  To me, Rick Clunn had been the single greatest tournament bass angler to ever fish the tournament circuits.  Rick won every big money tournament that existed and, of course, he won the Bassmaster Classic 4 times.  But, to me, what made him the best was that he did it on his own without any outside help.  In my opinion, too many other “great” tournament bass anglers succeeded because they had outside help.  I rated KVD in the top 5.

The only reason I didn’t rate KVD as the greatest was he hadn’t done it for as long nor had he done it on as many different circuits as had Rick.  Remember, Rick won a couple of U. S. Opens, a Redman All American, FLW Tour events, a Megabucks, plus his Classic and other BASS wins.  He made a career of winning the highest paying tournaments out there regardless of what organization conducted them.  Just what Rick’s total career tournament earnings are for all the tournament circuits he has fished would be hard to figure, but it has to be way up there. 

Professional tournament bass angling is just like any other profession however, so you had better continue to dominate if you want to stay number 1.  Rick has not been able to do that.  That is why I now consider KVD to be the greatest tournament bass angler out there and, perhaps, the best ever.  KVD seems to just be getting better and better and I would be totally shocked if he doesn’t continue his winning ways.  When KVD is finished with his career, I suspect that his career victories will surpass those of Rick.  If that happens, and I see no way that it won’t, it doesn’t mean that Rick should be forgotten.  After all, the appearance of Tiger in golf hasn’t erased the careers of Jack or Arnie.

One thing that I will say with certainty is this.  If you want a role model to emulate, you can’t go wrong by emulating either KVD or Rick Clunn.  In my mind they are the two best tournament bass anglers to have ever fished the major circuits.  I am too old to have heroes, but if I wasn’t, Kevin and Rick would be the ones.

                                               Catch a big ‘un    

                                                        Em

March 29, 2008


So, you want to be a pro tournament bass angler?  How on earth do you get started and how do you get to the “Big Show”?

I would suggest starting as young as you can.  Start by studying the bass and learning all that you can about the species and what makes it tick.  Learn about the different types of waters and what makes them different.  Learn all you can about weather and its effect on the fish and the water types.  Learn about the seasonal effects on waters and on bass.  Spend as much time as you can fishing and hone your physical fishing skills.  Learn as many lure types as you can and all the techniques and presentations.  Once you master all this, then join a local bass club.

At the local bass club level you will get a chance to exchange ideas and techniques with hardcore bass anglers.  You will also get the chance to compete head to head in tournament competition.  The only way to truly judge where you are in your bass fishing development is to test your skills against others.  Should you find that you have a good deal of success and you are consistently finishing at the top of the standings in your local club’s tournaments, then it is time to try and move to a higher level. 

Depending upon which National organization your local club is affiliated with, you could move on to State level tournaments or regional tournaments.  Either way, you should now be fishing against a field of anglers at a higher skill level.  If you continue to have a great deal of success and consistently finish in the money, it is time to move on to National level.  This will be the BASS Open tournaments, the Stren tournaments or the FLW Series tournaments.  If you do well enough here, you will qualify to move up to the top level: the BASS Elite or the FLW Tour.

One thing that is true and it is something that I personally disagree with, is that you will probably have to become a better salesman than you are a fisherman.  It is a fact that very few tournament anglers can make a good living strictly from tournament winnings.  It therefore becomes necessary to make money doing something other than fishing.  In tournament bass fishing that almost always equates to hiring on as a salesman for some company that rates bass fishing addicts as prime consumers of their products.  I disagree with this concept because it often has absolutely nothing to do with an angler’s fishing ability.  I could name several pro anglers that make hundreds of thousands of dollars from sponsors while seldom winning enough in prize money to pay entry fees.  If that doesn’t prove that salesmanship is more important than fishing skill, I don’t know what does.

Anyway, that’s the way I would go to try to become a pro tournament bass angler.  If you decide to give a go, God bless you!  I wish you the best of luck even though I know that luck will have nothing to do with your success or failure.  Try not to get too disillusioned and remember it’s the sport you love and not the politics of the business.  Live your dream!                   

                                                           Em 

March 21, 2008

     If an angler can fish soft plastics, jigs and spinnerbaits, he can compete with anyone, anywhere and at any time, provided that he can find the bass.  This business of finding the bass may just be the toughest part of successful bass fishing. 

     Each body of water is different and the bass will adapt accordingly.  Assuming that an angler knows and understands bass as a species, understanding different water types (natural lakes, man-made lakes, rivers, ponds, tidal waters, etc.) is a must.  Understanding the effect of seasonal weather changes is a must as is an understanding of the effects of weather.  It is only through an understanding of all of these factors that an angler can try to predict where the bass may be located on any body of water.

     What too many bass anglers don’t seem to grasp is that the bass in each individual body of water are unique.  An oft repeated phrase in bass fishing is that a bass is a bass is a bass.  While this phrase is elementarily true, it is way too simplistic when it comes to trying to understand bass and what it takes to locate bass on all types of water, under all types of conditions, and in any season. 

     It is true that an angler must understand the basic behavioral traits of bass as a species, but it is too often forgotten that bass are perhaps the most adaptable of all fresh water game fish.  So although there are basic behavioral traits that are specific to the bass as a species, how the bass on each individual body of water exercise those behavioral traits will vary.  In addition, there appear to be individualistic traits in certain bass that causes different behavioral patterns from what might be considered the norm. 

     What this all means is that if you accept that a bass is a bass is a bass, you are limiting your potential success before you even start.  Understanding bass, or any species for that matter, is just not that simple.  Remember that a species does not evolve by mistake and that all species evolve to fill a biological niche.  No two species will ever fill the same precise niche and genetic differences always dictate behavioral differences.  Sub-species are genetically different animals and therefore are behaviorally different as well.  There is a reason for the genetic difference and that difference has to relate to behavior as well.  If it didn’t, there would be no need for the genetic difference.  The original species would have sufficed and there would have been no need for change. 

     What this means is that a Florida largemouth will behave differently than a Northern largemouth and that intergrades of the two will behave differently than either the Florida or the Northern.  Now do you understand why some pro anglers never succeed in Florida while others never succeed up North?  A bass is a bass is a bass, but if you wish to succeed anywhere, at any time, on any water, you had better forget you ever heard the statement a bass is a bass and approach every bass and every body of water as being unique.

                                           

                                          Good Bassin’

                                                 Em

March 12, 2008

     How do I select the lures that I use?  First off, my experience has proven that there are but a few lure types that work in all types of water, on all species of bass, under all conditions, and on both large and small bass.  What are these lure types?  They are: soft plastic lures, spinnerbaits, and jigs.

     Soft plastic lures will catch largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and spotted bass.  They will also catch bass of all sizes from the smallest to the largest.  Colors, sizes, and techniques may vary, but the lure remains constant.  Soft plastic lures have probably caught more bass than any other single lure type.  Common sense tells me that I need to know how to fish soft plastic lures.  In the early 70’s I fished soft plastic lures almost exclusively for several years.  They were fairly new to the Northeast then (at least the Texas rig was) and it took me a while to learn how to fish them successfully.  My conclusion is that there really isn’t a bad way to fish them. 

     It is a fact that bass are often found in and around heavy cover.  A Texas rigged soft plastic lure is one of the few lure types that can be fished successfully in such cover.  It also requires that you fish slowly to maintain contact with the cover.  Soft plastic lure types give off very few negative clues and they have an almost natural texture.  All these factors are favorable to catching bass, big or small.  Bass, and particularly larger bass, are used to working for their meals.  They are also used to the randomness of movement so often displayed by their prey.  The way that soft plastic lures are most often fished, slowly with a randomness of movement in and around heavy cover, is consistent with the behavior of the natural prey that bass feed on.  Since there are virtually no negative clues to indicate that soft plastic lures are artificial, the bass are instinctively mandated to eat them.  Colors, sizes, and shapes may vary.  Fishing methods, techniques, and presentations may vary.  But the lure type remains constant.  Make soft plastic lure types a main stay in your bass fishing arsenal.  You’ll be glad that you did.

     I love spinnerbaits and so do the bass.  If you fished a spinnerbait long enough, you would catch bass.  I fished spinnerbaits almost exclusively in the mid to late 70’s for several years.  This was at a time when spinnerbaits were virtually unknown in the Northeast.  I killed the fish.  Not just bass either, but every species of game fish that swims up here.  The fish had never seen anything quite like it.  It was easy to score high in tournaments back then.  Just throw spinnerbaits around cover all day and weigh in my limit.  My theory back then was to make as many casts as I could and cover as much water as I could.  Now I know better.  It’s not the number of casts that you make, but where you make those casts that counts.  Some where along the line I learned to fish a single spin on the drop.  I thought I had the world by the butt, however, like every presentation technique, it doesn’t always work.  Learn to fish spinnerbaits and learn every presentation technique.  Spinnerbaits will catch a lot of bass and they will catch bigger bass as well.

     Jigs are super bass lures.  Jigs are super fishing lures period.  They are so good that if a lure is included in a survival kit, it will always be a jig.  Jigs will catch anything that swims.  Jigs may be the single best lure type for strictly large bass.  This is particularly true if the jig is tipped with a soft plastic or pork trailer.  I fished this lure type almost exclusively for several years in the early 80’s.  The average size of the bass I caught went up, as did my total weight, but I didn’t always catch them.  What was immediately clear was that when the bass were hitting the jig and pig, I did well.  When they weren’t, I didn’t.  One can never be sure when he comes in empty handed whether it was because the lure was ineffective or whether he failed because he didn’t fish the right location.  I suspect that location was probably my biggest problem, but jigs aren’t always the answer to catching bass either.  There will be times that other lure types are more effective.  However, when it comes to truly large bass, jigs are a lure type that I know will catch big bass.  For that reason alone, jigs have a home in my boat in any tournament I fish.  I suggest you make a home for jigs in your boat too.

                                       Good bassin’

                                            Em

March 7, 2008

   

      If you are a tournament bass angler, it doesn’t take you long to figure out that there are more lures and presentations available than any one man could fish in a lifetime.  That being the case, how on earth are you supposed to know which lures and which presentations will be most effective?
 

     The first logical thing to do is to try to organize what is out there.  Lures are tools and, just like tools, lures should be designed to accomplish a specific task.  You can drive a nail with a screwdriver, but why not use the tool designed to drive a nail, a hammer?  There are three basic lure types.  There are top water tools, free running tools, and bottom bumping tools.  Sometimes these tools are designed to be weed less, but their purpose remains the same.  Every lure should have a purpose.  If you have lures and you do not immediately know what purpose they serve, get rid of them.  You do not need them and will probably never use them.

     To be an effective tournament angler I believe that any angler must know how to fish soft plastics, jigs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and top waters.  I would consider soft plastics and jigs to be the high percentage lures and spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and top waters to be situational lures.  If you are just starting out, learn soft plastics and jigs first. Then worry about spinnerbaits, crankbaits, and top waters.
 

     In my opinion, the only truly effective way to learn the real value of any lure type is to fish exclusively with that lure type to the exclusion of all others.  If you want to learn how to fish soft plastics, then fish with soft plastics and nothing else.  Don’t even take other lure types with you.  This way you are forced to experiment and try different presentations, depths and speeds.  When you get to the point that you can almost always catch some bass on that lure type every time you go out, you are ready to move on to another lure type.  Periodically you should refresh you memory by once again fishing with only that lure type.
 

     One thing that you should soon realize is that being a consistently successful tournament angler involves a tremendous amount of well directed hard work and self-imposed discipline.  If you are not willing to continue fishing with spinnerbaits while everyone else is catching bass on soft plastics, then you will never realize the true capabilities that spinnerbaits offer.  Of course I’m only talking about practice fishing here and not tournament competition.  You have to learn to crawl before you can walk and tournaments are not the place to be trying to learn new presentations and techniques.  Like any profession, it is experience that truly separates the beginners from the pros.  The luckiest tournament bass anglers are the tournament bass anglers that work the hardest learning their trade.  Remember this, practice without a purpose serves no purpose.  If you don’t practice to improve your knowledge and your skills, then you are just out for a boat ride.  Being a consistently good tournament bass angler is hard work.  Anything worth achieving is.    

                               Tight lines & good bassin’

                                            Em

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