merc1997 Bo

i hate to hear that about your night vision. we have so much daytime summer time traffic on all of our area lakes anymore that it just makes daytime fishing during that time if not impossible, at least not much fun. bo

i am not fishing boat docks, and the fish that were out suspended will all be gone. you will not see a one out there on your electronics, but they will be on the bank adjacent to where they were suspended. bo

nice going. i have been wanting to get on a shallow bite to test some lures, but i JUST CAN NOT FIND THEM!!! you were catching them on just what i have been trying to. i just have to go when i have the chance, and i just have not been able to find a shallow bite. i finally give up and go deep water fishing and catch them. bo

i am sure that bill IS an experienced fisherman, but in his post, he only mentioned watching them on the electronics, which meant to me that they did not cast any. just thought it worth mentioning to help others when dealing with that situation. bo

bill was reading about watching bass come up to your bait and shy away. this is when you have to back away from the bass and cast. i have even seen times when the bite is forty feet deep and you could not get over them. you had to cast and work your lure through them. we experienced this yesterday the 3rd. we caught at least 80% of our bass by casting. this is where it takes practice in knowing how to maintain a somewhat constant level with the lure you are using., but it will pay dividends on those days when you can not get a bite while over the bass. bo

bill where did you see the eagles?? we never saw a one all day. many times when you are in an area with shad, but do not really see any activity at all, not need to start banging the bottom under or adjacent to the shad. it is slow going, but you will eventually get one to bite, and that in itself will cause a flurry. this is how we caught all of our early bass. bass are not going to be very far from the food source, and if you are not seeing them suspended, they are flat on the bottom resting, imo. now, is when you have to create a reaction bite, and the best way i have found is to beat them on the head with something. i have seem times when the blacks will suspend in trees close to the shad, and these can be caught also, but it is tricky staying glued to a tree and the wind is howling. boat control with the trolling motor is something that i know there are many would increase their bass catching abilities if they just worked on that area. i have fished with many bassers that are either fishing or running the trolling motor. that does not work for pinpoint accuracy with lure presentation. you need to be able to fish, run the troller, and watch electronics all at the same time. bo

got to get out today for a bit of fishing. i think i saw babbler in big creek this morning. fishing was just ok today. had to work for bites, and we caught them from 10 ft. to 60 ft. it seemed that even the deeper bass, you could not get over the top of them we caught a lot of our bass casting and retrieving back. this is a bit tricky to do when the bass are suspended. we did manage one nice 4lber, a couple of big whites, and 4 other keepers. the warmer weather seems to have scattered them somewhat. there was another thread about how much do you use sonar. we saw lots of bank beaters but never did see them catch a fish. not to say that someplace there are some shallow bass. with the extended cold weather coming i would expect from shell knob on down, that much of the bite will be from 40ft. on down. bo

even in the spring, unless i am up a river, i will spend time looking around for fish. many times even in the spring, especially on the lower end, bass will be suspended out over deeper water. when night fishing, this is very good information, because those bass suspended will go right over to the bank sometime during the night. you can sometimes just go bank beating and get some, but bass are school fish, and the mother load will most of the time be in one spot. learn to use your electronics and it will sure help you catch more bass, or any type of fish. bo

some of both. i know there are several that report catching them shallow, but i just have not found enough bite shallow to keep my interest. bo

fished the cambell point area yesterday. it was a very busy day once i figured out where the bass were. ended up catching way too many to count, and had 8 largemouth keepers that all were 16 to 17 inches. almost all were caught 50 ft. deep until very close to dark, and then they came up, some were even busting top. best weapon, a jigging spoon and a BLITZ football head. hope i get to go at least once more before wrist surgery on the 12th. bo

good job, and you had a great day of fishing. bo

good job! bo

any of us "Old Timers" around here are familiar with 3j spoons. the 3j company was local. the original brass models have a completely different fall than any other jigging spoons. they will glide out side ways shimmer, and take off another direction while falling. they did hang really bad is cedars because of their erratic path and would wind your line around limbs. there are not many of us that still have a few of the originals. that is why i only use them for tournaments. the zinc copies do fairly well, but do not quite have the same action as the original brass ones. bo

I also use three colors of spoons, chrome, white, and chartreuse. Bo

i use the original 3j's only in tournaments. The rest of the time I use some that were made. From the three j mold, but out of zinc and not brass. I use a flutter spoon when bass are from twenty feet up quite a bit. Seems like when bass are in the shallower water column, the slower decent of a flutter spoon works better. I have been wanting to find a spinner bait bite, but can not find one. It just seems like the majority of the bass went deep every where. Bo

Tried in vain for three hours to find a shallow bite in the hurricane. We just could not find one. Went looking deep and ended up with 5 keepers. All were caught 50 feet deep and all were largemouth. That tells me that there are not too many shallow bass. Caught all of them on a spoon. Bo

Fished around Big M. Did not find anything shallow. We ended up catching somewhere around 30 bass. 4 keepers all large mouth. Three large white bass. All were caught around 40 feet deep on spoons. Bo

that was a really nice brownie too. bo

the shad were around 5 to 10 feet deep. it was quite as a mouse as far as any activity. bo

put in at viola monday night to see how the river bite was going. fished from viola up to deer bluff. caught several shorts, and three keepers. bites were scattered and varying depths, from the bank to 18ft. caught fish on both a 3/8 and 1/2 oz. NuJig. one of the keepers i caught on a 3/8 SpinJig with a #5 nickle colorado blade. i did notice shad near the surface everywhere on the graph. water temp was about 62. bo

very nice bass. bo

we fished from dark to around 12:30am

finally got to a bit of fishing since my shoulder surgery. fished the dam area tuesday night and once we figured out where they were, it was sure a whole lot of fun. we ended up with 14 keepers. several of those were in the 3lb. range with one brownie in the 4lb. range. all were caught on a 1/2 NuJig with a large flapper type trailer. i did catch several on the new NuJig Blitz 1/2 oz. football head. we found them on areas very close to very deep water. probably because of the front. the majority of the bites were in the 15 ft. range. the weather was very comfortable, and we were the only boat out. we never heard of saw another boat. just the way i like it!!! bo

nice going, am glad that you are discovering the fish catching ability of a spoon. bo

lower your trailer tongue to get more ground clearance on the lower unit. always fill until oil comes out top hole. insert top plug, have bottom plug ready to insert as you take oil tube out of bottom hole. loss will be minimal unless you drop the plug . in that case, cover hole with finger while you retrieve plug. bo