Bass Fishing Tips - Best Way to Locate Bass (2/2)

Most fishermen spend the day running up and down the lake quickly fishing one spot after another and at days end have very little to show for their efforts except for empty $3.00 a gallon gas tanks. I ran to my favorite bank and set there all day using zero gallons of gas. It was a relaxing day of fishing and we usually catch quite a few bass by day's end. Sometimes when the fish quit hitting the artificial lures I switch to nightcrawlers fished weightless on a small weedless hook. Just cast it out and let it slowly sink to the bottom, once it gets to the bottom I let it sit for a couple of minutes and wiggle, after a minute or so I slowly reel it back to the boat. It should take about five seconds to turn the reel handle one time. Sometimes you will catch more fish while you are SLOWLY reeling the worm back to the boat, this is why you should always reel the live worm back slow and steady without any extra rod action.

Lets say we have caught several bass in the thirty foot range, and we see more down there on our sonar but they just refuse to bite. They are probably responding to heavy boat traffic and fishing pressure. Here in Southern California we have only a few small ( two to four thousand acres ) lakes for many thousands of pleasure boaters, jet skiers, and of course fishermen.

As far as fishermen go, bass soon learn to associate trolling motor noise with danger. Sometimes I just tie my boat to a tree in a brushy cove and watch bass go about their business without trying to catch them, you can learn a lot from observation of your quarry, sometimes much more than catching them.

One major thing I learned from bass watching is that when a bass boat comes around the corner with its trolling motor running the bass just drop back into the heaviest cover and stay there until the bass boat is gone. After the bass boat leaves the bass start appearing again and do what they were doing before the trolling motor alerted them to danger. Here in So. Cal. the bass are educated and fairly hard to fool, the most successful anglers are mostly tournament fishermen with bass boats with all the latest electronics and most know how to use them, they belong to that group that compromises ten percent of the fishermen that catch ninety percent of the fish, and being tournament fishermen they usually release most if not all bass they catch.

While this is very commendable, you soon get a lake with most of the bass having been caught several times. This makes for some very smart and hard to catch bass, especially under adverse conditions. Lots of fishermen, jet skis, pleasure boaters, little or no clouds, clear water, weekend crowds, etc., etc.

I use my two anchors to take away the trolling motor sounds and still be able to put my bait precisely in the spot I want and hold it there for as long as I want, How, you ask?? I first drop the rear anchor in thirty feet of water, let out some scope and tie a bumper ( boat side protector ) to the rope, then using the trolling motor carry the front anchor as far forward as the length of anchor rope will allow, and drop the front anchor. Now we have the boat anchored front and rear in thirty feet of water with about two hundred feet of line between the anchors.

Now by letting out about twenty feet of line on the front anchor and pulling in the same amount on the rear line we can quietly sneak down the bank, no trolling motor noise and the boat stays steady so we can fish straight up and down in the same spot as long as we want. Impossible on a windy day using the trolling motor with one foot while trying to balance yourself with the other. Pretty sneaky eh!!??

Now we have two hundred feet of shoreline to fish without running the trolling motor or starting the big gas motor. We can sneak up and down the shoreline as many times as we want, fishing water from six inches to sixty feet. We can use live bait, or artificials. We can cast to the shoreline or fish straight up and down , and do it all in stealth mode!

Once the anchors are down and the fish come out of their hiding places, we can fish all day in the stealth mode and not scare the fish one time. This works super in early spring when the fish are making their first forays into the shallows in search of crayfish. They are super hungry, and super spooky. Set up on a steep rocky bank, put a small rubber band around the "bug" and put the hook under the band, this way you do not have to put the hook into the bug and it will stay alive all day with no hook through it.

I cast up near the shoreline if the water is stained, or start out in fifteen feet if the water is clear. Cast the bait out and let it sit for thirty seconds then jump it five feet down and repeat or if the fish are really spooky just move them a few inches at a time by turning the reel handle one quarter of a turn at a time. This is slow fishing sometimes but it will catch some of the biggest bass of your life. I always fish the biggest bugs I can find, I want to get the attention of the largest bass in the area! Here in Calif. we have to buy a stamp for our license to fish with two rods, DO IT!!

The bugs fish themselves, let them crawl around and do their own thing while you drop shot a worm straight down into the brush and other hiding holes under the boat. ( don't leave them for too long as they will crawl under a rock or bush and hide ) As soon as you feel a bump set the hook, bass don't fool around they just "eat the bug". This is why I use the largest bugs I can find, It keeps the bluegills and small bass away. If it eats the big bug, its a good fish.