new to bass fishing...

[BIGDOGINMS]

Hello all. I'm new to the phenom of bass fishing. I've always fished trout, steelhead and salmon (being from seattle and all). I'm now stationed at FT Campbell, KY and have found the secret lake on post with monster bass. There are two "coves" and numerous trees jutting off the cliffs at the water level. I've heard the depth ranges from anywhere to 50-200 feet max. water temp is cool, clarity is clear, and the perch and bass mingle together all the time. My friend and I have had great luck (4-5 pounders and a ton of 1-3 pounders) with Rapala F-9s original floater. along the shore there are only four places to cast off of (we're only allowed to fish from shore). One is at the bottom of a cliff with a slight curve to it and an unkown depth. One is a cove where the "river" drains in to the lake. One is the entry road to the old quarry. And finally one is across from the entry road in a cove that is a half circle mess of fallen trees, concrete and everything else. depth is from 6-30(?) feet. My questions, after being specific as possible, is what kind of lures, live bait, or plastics would one use if limited to casting off of the shore only. All of the spots allow parrallel casting to both side out to about 30 feet, and of course out to the "middle" of the lake. Do I cast side to side? and if so, which lure do i use? if i cast out into the lake, what lure should i use there? Thanks for all of your help, I've already figured out what i was doing wrong with my CrawFish lures. Great site

[Rich]

Welcome to the forum!

Looks like you already have a pretty good background and are on the right track. A couple of baits I'd suggest would be a lipless crankbait like a Rat-L-Trap, which is a bait you can throw for a pretty good distance-here is a recent thread that might help:

http://www.bassfishin.com/cgi-bin/ya...num=1116542182

and a soft stickbait-there are several brands-Senko is the original but I really like a bait called a Tiki Stick. Here is what one looks like:



And two good ways to rig them: Weedless



except I keep the point of the hook buried in the plastic, and rigged wacky:



It looks strange but it catches fish. In each case cast them out, let them settle, and work them with gentle twitches of the rod tip. Be sure to watch your line though-most of the time you don't feel a hit-your line just starts getting tight or moving off in a different direction than it should.

[okefenokee010]

Welcome to the forum Benny.

One thing I would add to Reb's post is a couple of spinner baits. Particularly around all of the fallen trees and concrete. The plastics will work well there, too. Just another option.

And I don't know how important it is to you or if you have the money to spend, but there is a fish finder made by humminbird that you tie the transmitter to your line and cast it out. It transmits back to you what is below it. You can reel it in and a bit at a time, get a good feel for what is below the surface.

Thanks for the information. I'll be trying the worms off the "launch" and in the cove below the "river". I'm having ok luck with worms in the cove with all the fallen trees and junk in it, but now that i know how to use them (thanks again to this site) i should have better luck.

Thanks for all the info.

[Bassin_Dude]

yep, the tiki stiks are great. i would also like to add the tiki dipstik, and a jig. cant believe nobody mentioned a jig anyways, add a trailor to the jig, i like the zoom salty chunks and just about any other craw type lure, just thread it unto the hook of the jigand poke the hook thru it. btw, welcome to the site. oh yeah, cast parrallel to the shore. this will produce more fish for you.

[macgyver]

[quote author=benny1369 link=board=news;num=1116732126;start=0#0 date=05/21/05 at 23:22:06]Hello all. I'm new to the phenom of bass fishing. I've always fished trout, steelhead and salmon (being from seattle and all). I'm now stationed at FT Campbell, KY and have found the secret lake on post with monster bass. There are two "coves" and numerous trees jutting off the cliffs at the water level. I've heard the depth ranges from anywhere to 50-200 feet max. water temp is cool, clarity is clear, and the perch and bass mingle together all the time. My friend and I have had great luck (4-5 pounders and a ton of 1-3 pounders) with Rapala F-9s original floater. along the shore there are only four places to cast off of (we're only allowed to fish from shore). One is at the bottom of a cliff with a slight curve to it and an unkown depth. One is a cove where the "river" drains in to the lake. One is the entry road to the old quarry. And finally one is across from the entry road in a cove that is a half circle mess of fallen trees, concrete and everything else. depth is from 6-30(?) feet. My questions, after being specific as possible, is what kind of lures, live bait, or plastics would one use if limited to casting off of the shore only. All of the spots allow parrallel casting to both side out to about 30 feet, and of course out to the "middle" of the lake. Do I cast side to side? and if so, which lure do i use? if i cast out into the lake, what lure should i use there? Thanks for all of your help, I've already figured out what i was doing wrong with my CrawFish lures. Great site [/quote]


First off welcome to the show. Always glad to have any one of our service folks aboard. Now you say this is a secret lake on a post is an oximoron As for it being 200 ft deep, that's a real difficult one to swallow, if it was that deep, no way is it small or secret ??? All the suggestions could work, some better than others. To me it's a trial and error thing. I would definately throw a fluke out there, and lizards are just hard to beat around wood. Why can't you have a boat there? Anyway lots of lures will work, there is absolutely no wonderful, fantastic do all bait. Try everything and see what works. But my guess is depending on conditions, different baits will work better at different times. Keep making us safe, and catch a Hawg ;D

Lizards

[jglassguy]

lizards we have some of the best fishing there is in Ky, and i just wonder if he's fishing a old gravel pit
Up here pits are a dime a dozen,and you'd think they were all super deep, but many are just 10-15 ft with humps of gravel, and then some right next to them are 600 ft down there
If ya ever do go walking the pea gravel banks of a pit be carefull, they are real easy to slide into and hard to get out of.
We have lost the rights to almost all the best pits around here due to trespassing, litering, and most often drowning victems.
So when I hear of a pond that is deep , often times I can believe it cus this area thrives with limestone quarrys. 8)

[BIGDOGINMS]

the quarry is an old gravel pit, about a 1/4 long and a little shorter than that wide. The army won't let us have boats in there for some reason, no one at the Hunting and Fishing station could give me a good one. They're fighting to get boats in there though. No power of course due to the small size. the center of the lake is deeper than 100 yards cause thats when i ran out of rope. some of the other sections around the edges you can feel the road that wound down into the bottom of the pit. today my friend and i found out there are ledges 2-5' deep (under water)all around the lake that are about 2-3' long. apparently there are also some HUGE brown trout hanging out in the lake as well. One of the MWR guys used to be SF and dove the lake a lot when it was open to boats and swimming. Again, thanks for all the info. Going fishing again when I get home from seattle... couse i'm salmon fishing at home...