Fish making a fool out of me!

[stylgeo]

It all started when i decided to try my luck on a small pond a mile from my home! It's a 2 minute drive from where I live, and it's actually very small, you can walk around it in less than 10 minutes and in some places you can cast your bait on the opposite shore.

I haven't fished there for a looong time for 2 reasons. One, the last time I went there, a couple of years ago I caught absolutelly nothing (I was fishing for carp) and the second reason, that time I was arrested by the police for tresspassing because it is a private area :P. Anyway, I had nothing to do, the sun was going to set in an hour so I went there to try my luck. There were some fishermen there, there weren't any "no tresspassing" signs so I was covered, I would just say that I wasn't aware it was a private lake.

To my point now. The bass were jumping all over the lake. And some really big bass were spotted there. And I tried lots of different bait but nothing hit anything that I presented them. I tried a pop-r, some crankbait, some jerkbait, I even tried some swimbait that i had bought the previous day but nothing hit it. On a couple of occations, the bass broke the surface 2 feet from my bait. I kept throwing on the same spot, and really big bass were constantly jumping out of the water there but were completelly ignoring my bait.

What should I do? How many tries should I have with a certain bait before I consider it a failure for that day and change it? Should I try some really big bait I have? I have some 6inch crankbaits that I thought were too big for bass. Should I try them too? Trying any bait that fishes in the bottom would be a disaster because I would loose it on the first cast, since the pond is full of underwater structure like trees and branches, not to mention lots of stolen vehicles that were dumped in there!

[wargoth]

Soft plastic worms, especially "Senko" style stick baits rigged texas and weightless are VERY productive for many of us. Spinners? Jigs? Throw everything in your arsenal at them. Chances are, they will eventually bite at something. See if you can figure out what they are eating, frogs could be the ticket if they are hitting topwater, or maybe buzzbaits.

Are you sure they are bass? Just another thought. I keep seeing carp around here that like to jump, and could be mistaken for bass at a quick glance.

Other than that, I don't know what to tell you other than be persistent.

[stylgeo]

I thought that they might be carp too, but when a fish jumped two feet from my popper I saw that it was clearly a bass. I've never fished with a plastic worm before. Don't they work at the bottom? I am sure that I will lose my bait if I try fishing them deeper than 10 feet. But I'll give it a try! Frogs might do the trick now that I think about it!

Thanks for the advice. I think I should be more persistent with each bait I use. I tend to change the bait after 5-6 tries.

[bassfisher02]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, might not be bass, but if you saw them then thats that. Now about this not fishing the bottom. Theres a little saying around here, if you arent losing a bait every now and then you arent fishing where the bass are! When fishing with a jig, I will throw a jig completely into a fallen tree. You cant worry about losing lures, it happens. although, I dont know what the quality of the braid is over there, but here there is a brand called Powerpro, and using 20lb powerpro I have actually pulled up small[ish] sunken trees, I've completely straightened out hooks, I've pulled the boat against wind to the snag and never has the knot or lure been lost. Usually I have to change the lure from broken or straightened out hooks. Braid is very hard to break. that bottom structure sounds ideal for bass. I used to fish a quarry that had an old semi at the bottom, always pulled fish off of it.

When using the senko type worm, make sure to texas-rig it, bassically making it weedless. There is a diagram I believe on the top of the message boards that shows how to texas-rig and what not.

Bummer that you got arrested for tresspassing, I've been told to please leave and to stop fishing places before, but most people dont make a big enough deal about it to involve police...

[zooker]

Originally Posted by stylgeo

To my point now. The bass were jumping all over the lake. And some really big bass were spotted there. And I tried lots of different bait but nothing hit anything that I presented them. I tried a pop-r, some crankbait, some jerkbait, I even tried some swimbait that i had bought the previous day but nothing hit it. On a couple of occations, the bass broke the surface 2 feet from my bait. I kept throwing on the same spot, and really big bass were constantly jumping out of the water there but were completelly ignoring my bait.

What should I do? How many tries should I have with a certain bait before I consider it a failure for that day and change it? Should I try some really big bait I have? I have some 6inch crankbaits that I thought were too big for bass. Should I try them too? Trying any bait that fishes in the bottom would be a disaster because I would loose it on the first cast, since the pond is full of underwater structure like trees and branches, not to mention lots of stolen vehicles that were dumped in there!

wow he has a point ok hoss i loath it when they do this. i find a very fast spinnerbait to be the key to there undoing..

now as for changing baits. i usally fish about 45 mintues at differant speeds and retrives to find out what works..

trees are cool this is where your missing out.. in blunt terms "fear no evil just chunk the bait" i would use a spinner bait on them.

zooker

[zooker]

now about bait size.. here is a big bait a lucky craft cb flat d-20. cost ehh around $18 EACH..


this is a $5 norman deep lil n.


this is probly my favorite bait to probe brush piles/trees a bandit 100 around $5 here..



everyone of the above fish came from brush piles..

as for the bait color well it seems they like the trout colored one stick with this color..

any questions??

zooker

[wargoth]

Yeah, what they said...

[keithdog]

I'm with you zooker, spinnerbait em. And add a plastic 4 inch twister tail to that spinnerbait. I prefer a white spinnerbait with a yellow or chartruese trailor twister grub. A soft plastic jerk bait rigged weightless would also be a good option.

[zooker]

i prefure a 4" spike it grub on my blades but this is just me..

zooker

[lizardsrule]

Try to cast your popper out, and let it splash, and don't move it. Let all the ripples dissapear, then give it just the slightest of twitches, I mean the slightest, then again let it sit till all the ripples go away. Then give it a couple of easy, pop's and then again, let it sit till all the ripples disappear. This takes patience, but at times can be very productive. And I have NEVER caught a small bass doing this technique either. Other than that, hooks, and line are relatively cheap. Throw into that wood, bass just love wood, almost as much a Brittany Spears does. Also as already stated, plan on losing baits, it's part of fishing. I personally wood bang the spinnerbaits and cranks as zooker stated all over that stuff. Get a squared billed crankbait, it deflects better off of things. Also make sure it's a floating crankbait. Practice with cranks and wood will give you confidence as to how to throw them in the nastiest stuff around. You will learn how when you bang something to allow the bait to rise up above it, then start retieve again so you go over the item. There are also lure retrievers that will help you get back your baits you can purchase. A weightless Lizard or fluke would be a very good choice also, but you gotta have patience, and let them slowly fall down to the cover if necceassy. If the fish are active, then quick twitches with long pauses may be the answer.

Lizards

[stylgeo]

Well, I've seen carp jumping before, but they just brake the surface with a small splash. These fish were exploding on the surface, sometimes jumping so high they would expose their whole body for a moment. But I still wasn't sure if it was bass or not until it jumped some 12 feet away. That was definitelly a bass!

Thanks everyone for the advice! I will try not to be so wary about losing a bait. The problem is the price. One Cyprus £ (pound) buys 2 US$, and the prices you gave me in dollars are the same in Cyprus, only in pounds, so it's exactly twice as expensive.

Those are some nice bass zooker. I use the same colour lure as the one on the first picture, on the other lake I fish, with great success, just a lot smaller. I guess because it resembles both the colour of the carp and the colour of small bass. I will try using larger bait.

I haven't tried using spinnerbait! I've lost two swimbait there and I knew that if I lost them I was deffinitelly gonna lose the spinners too.

I wasn't using braid at the time, bassfisher. I had another rod and reel, that were telescopic, foldable and more compact, so that i could hide on a bag I had with me. I was using a 10lb mono. I think I lost them on a pick-up truck because I can remember one time when the water level was very low, you could see the roof of a truck that is now completelly submerged!

As for the police, well, the thing is that the lake is owned by a company now. It used to belong to a wealthy land owner and used it to water his crop. After an unfortunate accident 8 years ago, when an old man with Altzheimers drowned in the lake, the company decided to forbid access there. So, I don't think it's something personal with people fishing there, it's just to stay away from trouble.

Lizards, I loved your advice for the popper. I just love surface baits, so I'll definitelly give it a try, though it means I'll have to be there at sunrise before the wind picks up!

Bottom line, I have to go and buy some plastic worms and lizards. But I think I'll give spinnerbaits a chance next time I visit!

Thanks again!

[hackattack]

stickbaits are awesome...nuff said

[bassfisher02]

Deffinitely rig on some braid, bass will easily break you off on some of that structure even if you arent fishing the bottom, they will instantly head down as soon as they realize they are hooked. That mono wont do the trick. Braid will deffinitely allow you to control where the bass is going more effectively, although it will cut if theres something sharp down there... its not indestructable ahah. But that mono is deffinitely a no go. As well, foldable and collapsable rods dont always have a strong enough backbone as some would like fishing your situation. I liek a rod that I can horse the bass wherever I want, keeping them away from the bottom and all those cars and what not.

[ESipes_89]

Hey,

Your popper should do the trick. Just be slow with it, I've been having the same problems as you lately and when I slowed it down the catch resumed as normal. I, like the others, would recommend braided line for that pond. I prefer 30lb. PowerPro line but it's just pesonal preferance. Also, never worry about size. I've caught 12" (about 30cm I think, just in case your not familiar with inches) on 6" cranks many times (and not the skinny jerk-bait lookin' ones either).

-Eric

P.S. 02, I've been wonderin' why do you spell like, liek? It's in almost all your posts and it just makes me curious. Is there a background story to this?

[cdubya]

I've had bass poppin' the top before and I'd throw a c-rigged worm in that direction and they'd have it as soon as it hit the surface.. also try a tiny torpedo I've had a ton of luck w/ those using what I call a devided reel in.. cast let set for 10sec (reel in slack while counting) jerk twice lightly let set 5sec (reel in slack againg while counting) and then 3 light jerks and set for 5 sec.. usually they hit on the first 3 jerk interval have a secondary rig like a pop-r or c/t-rig set up if a fish pops it but misses and cast in the same spot..

[bassfisher02]

ESipes, I dont mean to spell like 'liek.' It just happens when I'm trying to type fast. Especially late at night when I dont feel like correcting the mistake.

A good thing to note when seeing topwater hits, is that the bass will usually return to the bottom [when in shallower water] or at a certain comfortable depth after making the hit. This way they can get ready for a secondary strike if need be. Thats why fishing something along the bottom or deeper under the surface is pretty successful. Or fishing something like a fluke weightless and letting it flutter down, it will simulate whatever that bass just nailed coming down, wounded or what not.

[JB]

02,
enjoy this brief but idiotic rant... “omg liek i dont nede 2 typ proprly cus dis is da internet !!!! go away nerd looser !!!”

What you have just read is an example of a disturbingly prevalent attitude on the internet, particularly among the younger community: the quality of language that one would expect to find with reasonable frequency on instant messaging services, message boards and online games. Oh, there are all sorts of arguments for that method of typing; ranging from the almighty “This isn’t an English classroom” to the highly versatile “I’m too lazy to type properly”. Those aren’t accurate representations of the arguments themselves, of course, due to the fact that they were actually spelt properly. Shame.

How does your typing style on the internet affect you? It seems like the sort of question with an obvious answer that would never require a three-page rant by the author on what exactly the answer is. Unfortunately for you wonderful readers, it isn’t. It’s only going to be one page, because there’s a suggested word limit that I am using up rather effectively with these sentences. Ooh, look at this one! It’s doing it too! Ahem.

The way you type affects you in several ways: how well you communicate your ideas, how people reading your messages view you, and how well you type in the future.

The first of these is arguably one of the easier points to explain. Cohesion is something that one only achieves in - get this - cohesive statements. One cannot expect to communicate complex ideas efficiently when readers have to translate several tons of linguistic garbage in order to understand the text. This may seem strange to many people who are accustomed to using internet shorthand, but the general idea behind the written form of any language is that it is meant to be easily understood by anyone who understands the spoken form of the language.

While shorthand may be easily understood by those who have already been tainted by its foul talons, it may require some translation for those who are not “hip” or “with the times”. This isn’t really a problem, per se, in an online game such as Runescape where the majority of the community is “in the zone”, but it is an inconvenience - and a large one at that - for people who do not wish to translate crude phonetic representations of words.

Secondly, the way you type affects how people view you as an individual. It might not be obvious, because you may be surrounded by people who type the same way you do, but to an outside observer, many of you are like slavering chimpanzees at a keyboard playing an online adventure game. Shorthand might still register as communication in the minds of more sophisticated people, but those who type it would probably register as human only by default. Some people may not mind seeing their language slaughtered, but most people with at least a decent educational background may find your digital presence distasteful.

You may be seen as crude, ignorant, lazy, uneducated or even rude; all bad things for public relations. I’ll go out on a limb here and assume that you probably aren‘t. It shouldn’t be a question, however, because in most cases, in order to not appear as such, all you have to do is TAKE THE TIME TO PRESS TWO EXTRA KEYS. Come on, you can do it. You were given eight fingers and two thumbs so you could use them all on a keyboard, not so you can be a slob and just use three to “save time”. Hey, you probably only save a fraction of a second for every twenty points you deduct from your perceived IQ. The occasional typo may be ignored in instant messaging or any other real-time chat interface, or even in forums. Blatantly misspelt words and poorly-constructed sentences, however, have almost no reason to be on a message board.

The flipside of this, of course, is the way your clique views you. Strangely enough, some groups I have encountered during my time on the internet find it in poor taste to type properly, because it does not fit in with their subculture of “non-conformists” and “cool people”. Well, alright. If it’s “cool” for them to appear lazy and uneducated, more power to them.

There is also the point that naturally, some people have the notion that they should type as quickly as possible and thus cut as many corners as they can. A bit of advice for these sorts of people - nobody cares how fast you type. What many people care about is how you type. Real-time chat, message board, whatever -- misspelling with the intent to save a few precious milliseconds is looked down upon by people with any respect for their language. Of course, there may be the excuse that one is not a native English speaker, is still in his or her teens, or is a busy sort of person. Oh, hey. I’m all three of those. Fancy that.

On to the next point: your typing style is a habit. Unless you take steps to fix it, you’re going to be typing like that for a while. I can tell you now that that is a bad thing. I’ve known and seen people with IQs reaching into the low 130s handing in major assignments with horrible grammar and several counts of the crime that is shorthand. These are people whom I know to be intelligent human beings, but had I been an outside observer with no personal knowledge of those individuals, I would have chalked them up as Class B semi-morons. Why do they type poorly? Simple. Because it’s a habit that they haven’t bothered to rid themselves of.

Ah, yes. I can almost hear the argument screeching out of the collective subconscious like a banshee chained to a jet engine. “The internet is not an English classroom”. Sadly enough, it is, in its own indirect way. The quality of language you are exposed to most often is the quality of language that you adopt. This is the reason why I have an Australian accent, and why Irish people have Irish accents. It is the language we are exposed to, and thus we adopt it.

For written expression, nothing influences people as much as what they read and write themselves. Sadly, for many of the young people who play Internet games, the only language they are exposed to is the internet‘s, judging by the demographic data on what young people these days are exposed to for entertainment - predominantly passive activities such as watching the television, playing games or listening to, ah… music.

These things - TV, games, music, etc. - in themselves cannot be blamed for a degradation in the quality of language in the community as a whole. It is the combination of these media and the lack of exposure to high-quality literary works that fuels the car on its way to the brick wall. Expose yourself to a good book and hit the brakes today.

[bassfisher02]

JB, ii aint understood what you be sayin dawg. yo writin too much for me eyzzz 2 read homiie. taKe a chillaxer skillet and get on da comedown knawww meannn?!?!?!?!1 this aint no english class son dis be da web son ii be juss chillin on hurrrrrrr.........1 ya understood goon????!?!?!?!!?!??!1 ya alwayzzz be lurkin and chirpin bout dat grammatics its fryin mah brain dawg.

I think by just writing that, I've decreased my IQ by atleast 10 points. It literally took 5 minutes to write that out. There is one thing truthfully stated in that paragraph, I didnt read all that you wrote ahaha. But I'll have you know that I'm in AP Language and Compostion this year. Thats right a college level english class. As well, abbreviations are a bit of a pet peeve for me, and furthermore [yes thats right, using transitional words] I cant stand looking at sentences that dont exhibit proper structure, to some extent.

[JB]

nice!

[brushhog]

You guys are always worth the price of admission!!! thanks for the entertainment!

[Kawabuggy]

JB, while I applaud your attempt to help make some posts easier on the eyes, I must inform you that your efforts are largely misdirected....

You are the proverbial boy holding his finger in the leaky dam as it crumbles all around him.

I used to have a vice similar to yours.. I hated poor drivers. I took every opportunity to explain to my passengers what the other drivers were doing wrong. What I learned is that constantly pointing out other peoples flaws, I was essentially making a flaw in myself.

Look at the amount of time you spent typing out everything in your post. Now, stop and think what other activities you could have been doing with that lost time. Do you have children, or grandchildren? If so, the time you spent typing your post could have been used to send them an e-card expressing how much you really love, care, and miss them when they are not around.

This is how I cured my problem with $h!tty drivers.. Whenever something happened while driving, instead of getting upset about it, I would force myself to think of something positive at that very moment. I would make a list of 3 things at that moment. Eventually, I did not notice the other mistakes that the drivers were making. Trust me when I tell you I could go on a rant for hours about crappy drivers. Put that into perspective.. You are having an issue with the way people write. Last I heard poor grammar skills never killed anyone. My rant was bad drivers. When you look at how many people are killed every year due to inattentiveness, DUI, DWI, falling asleep at the wheel, and just being outright STUPID behind the wheel, you can understand why I thought it so important to be a good driver myself. What I realized is that the problem is not with the other drivers, but with myself. I realized I was never going to miraculously make them any smarter, or make them suddenly want to pay attention to what they are doing behind the wheel. People are going to be, do, & say, exactly what they want, when they want-irregardless of how many times you try and correct them.

What you need to realize is that their focus is on OTHER THINGS. When they don't cater to what is important to you, then it becomes a problem. A problem for whom? For YOU! I am not criticizing you, merely pointing out that the problem is with you, and that you can quit wasting your time trying to fix the grammatical world one person at a time. You are choosing a battle that you have a snowballs chance in hell of changing, or evenly remotely affecting. A wise man will realize how futile that venture is.

I am not standing in judgment of you. I am a very flawed person. No doubt about it. My fishing skills SUCK! I still post here though in hopes that my involvement will allow some of those skills of the better anglers to rub off on me. Thanks for letting me be a part of this site! Goodnight!

[bassfisher02]

Who is this guy? Dr. Phil???

I think grammer skills are very important to the future of this country. Ignorance can be shown in the way someone types, and examples such as those both JB and I used are examples of ignorant people who dont take the time, or rather take extra time to type incorrectly and use poor grammer than to use correct grammer, why? Well for no apperent reason other than they think they are 'cool.' Its sad to see my generation setting bad examples and taking knowledge as a backroad to life. And its only a sign that things will keep getting worse with younger generations if parents dont raise their kids right and teach them that knowledge is an important factor in a successful life. I know I will teach my kids whats right. And by no means do I put education as my number one thing in all of the world, I take it all in stride. Keeping a good social life, doing things I enjoy such as fishing, hunting, music and hanging out with friends all come hand in hand with my education. I can just do both and not take anything away from one another. A lot of kids these days choose to take social life over education and that will lead to a future problem or problems. The key is having it all in stride. I dont think poor driving will ultimately lead to the downfall of America.

[stylgeo]

I actually read every word of everything written here, even JB's dissertation on proper typing. It was actually a good read.

I am propably the last guy that should reply to any of these since 1)I am from Europe, 2) My language is Greek and all the English I know is when I was studying in England and 3) I've never even been to America to see how people drive there.

What I do know is that people should be proud of their language and try to preserve it. Us Greeks are sometimes too proud of our language, which is spoken non-stop for more than 3000 years now, with very little changes. One should cherish his language and feel proud of having the honor to speak it. The problem with me when i post on this forum is that I rarely realise when I make a mistake, and when I read back something I posted and find one, I feel bad about it. I know it's not the end of the world but I do feel that now that i am trying to speak the language, the least I could do is speak it (or type it) properly. But I think I am doing considerably ok.

I personaly don't mind typo's, like bassfisher's "liek" which as he explained is just a typo. What i do mind is people constantly paraphrasing words. I can't think of an example right now, but I guess you know what I mean. This wasn't what bassfisher was doing. He just made a typographic mistake, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, we are all people and we all make mistakes. That's where I think that, even though JB's thoughts were very good and amazingly written (I should copy that for future reference), it was cruel blaming bassfisher for all the stupid kids that talk the internet slung.

As for bad drivers, I totally get what Kawabuggy says. He realised that JB had a "thing" with typos, he has a "thing" with bad drivers (don't we all?) so he thought of saying what he felt as an example to JB's feelings on bat typing. No need to judge someone, especially someone who tries to help us. Just being the devil's advocate here!

Just my two cents!

PS: Who's Dr Phil?

[Kawabuggy]

Let he who has no fault (sin?) cast the first stone. Finding fault in others simply means that you believe you are better than others. You're not. You mention "ignorant people who dont take the time, or rather take extra time to type incorrectly and use poor grammer than to use correct grammer". You're no better than any of them. Don't be offended. These are facts.

Take a moment and look inside yourself. Start there with your faults, and when you finally have them all corrected, then you can move on to correcting faults in others. If you have a problem with "ignorant" people, this life is going to be real tough on you. The funny thing is, people you know, or work with, probably think YOU are the ignorant one. Think about it.

Someone who is really balanced in their word, deed, & action need not have to explain it to anyone else-as it is obvious. But thanks for sharing your (future?) parenting skills plan, and how you plan to navigate the world and the ignorant people that occupy it. Hey, that's your thing & I can respect that you have an opinion that you are passionate about.

For the record, I agree that grammar skills are tantamount to being successful in most professions. Professional angler? Not so much. Quasi-anonymous poster on a fishing web-site? Even less. Can we get back to fishing now?

[zooker]

Originally Posted by stylgeo

I am propably the last guy that should reply to any of these since 1)I am from Europe, 2) My language is Greek and all the English I know is when I was studying in England and 3) I've never even been to America to see how people drive there.


PS: Who's Dr Phil?

ya your right stylgeo we can't blame you for learning proper "kings" english. or drivin on the wrong side the dam road..

there is some of us in this board with collage degrees that can't spell fer sh!t..my self inculded..

as for bad drivers. well it is called insurance. trust me i have YET to get a truck paid off afore i smash it slap up.. working on my 5th truck since 98..

dr phil is an relationship doctor.. and he is a jackazz..



zooker