Bass that suck

Anyway, When I was fishing, I found out that California bass Suck, they don't strike. At first I thought it was bream or trout, sucking on my lures.

I was fishing with a tournament fisherman that fished this lake often (Paris Lake), and a visiting professional (they flew out there) bass fishermen, who like me, had never fished this lake. They put me in the back, and they shared the front of the boat (I was back seated like never before :-), On the first bites,, if you call them that, I kept waiting for the bass to swim off with the lure, tug hard , hell anything except that little bit of pressure I felt, I kept saying come on, go ahead and take it, but they never did,, the guys in the front would finally yell at me to set the hook, I would laugh at them,, but what the heck, I gave a good yank, and how about that ,, that is a bass. All day long these guys would take the lure, and just hold it for a second or two, well sometimes for 30 seconds,, they would not pull, they just would sit there holding the lure in their mouth, I just could not get it into my mind to set the hook when I felt resistance,, I missed over 30 sucks that day,, I did manage to boat as many bass as them combined, and mine were bigger, but the bite was the strangest I have ever felt, sometimes I would set the hook, and the bass just followed my retrieval to the boat, with out me even knowing they where hooked, until they saw me, then all hell broke loose.

The guy that fished this lake often,, said this is how they strike soft plastics, he was drop shotting, I was wiggling, and the other pro was carolina fishing. (who only caught one fish)

This is an extremely high presure lake, on the weekends, they will actually turn boaters away because the lake has too many boats on it, their possession limit is only two bass per person. The biggest I boated was around 3 and 1/2 lbs, most were in the two pound class.

You west coast guys,, is it normal for those bass to suck, instead of strike :-),, or was this guy telling me a fib, and this was just a slow fishing day ? Oh yeah , we started fishing at 11 AM , and fished to 5 PM, the fish were in 20 to 30 feet of water,

I did "steal" a fish from my front seaters, they were watching the flasher and said there was a fish right under the trolling motor, I flipped "under" their lines letting my weight and lure drop right next to the trolling motor, 20 sec. later, I said, there is not one there now, as I was un hooking it :-)

WE did have a ball, with a lot of joking going on through out the day, it would have made a great fishing show

I fish slack line a lot so I see more strikes based on line movement or stoppage of line movement than I feel, but I have to agree our half Californian bass suck it down and just sit there about half the time.

Even thowing spinner baits and crank baits, I have caught fish and the only reason I knew I had one on was because it felt a little heavier than just having a weedball on the hooks.

I think it may have to do with the way you are fishing than anything else. I have this happen a lot when flipping to the edge of pencil tulies. I think the bass is just sitting in the edge of the weeds, and he comes out just enough to suck down an easy meal.

I do have a hard time getting the hookset right when I get that heavy feel. Since I am a line watcher, and fish slack line a lot I usually get that when cranking up my slack line before moving the bait to another spot. My instinct is to drop the rod, crank down on it then set the hook. By then the fish has spit out the bait almost every time. If I get that heavy feeling with the rod fairly low sometimes I can overcome my instinct and just set the hook. I quite often get a fish on then, but it is difficult to get a solidd hookset because you never feel it when the rod is in the ideal position for a positive hookest. By switch to almost exclusively medium/heavy and heavy fast action rods I have improved this, but I can see why a lot of guys will often go for a second hookset.

Next time you are out this way why don't you stop by and show me how you were nailing those soft biters.

I always tell my clients to set the hook anytime they feel anything different. Sometimes it's a weed or a snag, but many times it's a fish.

I need someone else to show me how to nail them

Larry might have missed two strikes,, he just did get get the sucks I was getting.

Thinking about it,, I think these fish were like a toddler, sucking his binky, I think if it had not been for the "Mega Strike" I was using on the lures,, I would not have caught a single fish >

I usually fish this rig with a circle hook, I just let them swim off and they set the hook. When I Carolina rigged, I would always gave them slack and let them swim off as well before setting the hook.

I learned a lot from all this.

I think one of the biggest problems with me in this is all the tub fishing I have done, where you need the bass to hold the bait to get the crowd excited, since we never use hooks in those demos. It's a mental thing with me I guess,, I need to do more actual fishing instead of just testing, as I don't use hooks anytime I am doing underwater filming either. I don't do any serious fishing, like tournaments either.

Jeff

On Thu, 27 May 2004 12:19:54 -0500, Rodney <rod@ezknot.com.> sent into the ether:

danl4x@charter.net Remove the x for e-mail reply www.outdoorfrontiers.com

Brad Coovert 2003 Angler of the Year, Greenfield Bassmasters http://www.greenfieldbassmasters.com

That's why I tell clients to set the hook anytime something feels different, because you never know.....

I used to get a kick out of an old buddy complaining about me catching more fish while he was watching his line go tick tick tick, and cursing the "bluegills".

Brad Coovert 2003 Angler of the Year, Greenfield Bassmasters http://www.greenfieldbassmasters.com