Hey!

[Bassassinator]

Hey Guys! i am new here and just wante dto say hi and ask a few questions. 1st, I just caught my first ever Smallmouth Bass weighing 3 Lbs. 3 days ago. I need some help though, I want to be better at Bass fishing and fishing in general really, But I went to wal-mart about 3 years ago and bought a Shakespear Ugly Stick rod & Reel Spinning Combo, i'd love to give you more details but it's late here and i would make a bit of noise trying to get to my gear. I live in Northern MA, and go fishing almost every day. I know that the action for my rod is MH, and the typical bait that I use for lake fishing is small scale sunfish, perch, Berkeley PowerBait, or crawlers from the local stores. I have a little money invested into some lures, like crankbait, and spinners, as well as Spinnerbaits and Buzz Baits. I mainly concentrate on my Lake fishing, and i guess my questions are, What time is the best to be lakeside, and what/how do i use the recommended bait?

[Jim80]

Welcome aboard man , your spinnerbaits nd such are pretty much just cast and retrieve , the key to crankbaits is contact with cover the bottom pretty much whatever you can knock it off during the retrieve . I can't really give ya much of an anwser about the live bait thing except to let it sit there until something grabs it . You powerbait worm and such you just have to play with different retrieves until ya find what the fish want . Another thing is give your bait time to work make a couple extra casts with it before you decide it isn't working and really get used to how the bait feel coming through the water or bumping along the bottom .


Jim

[nofearengineer]

First...welcome to the site!

Second...whew...that's a lot of questions to take in all at once. It sounds like you're doing pretty well already. A 3 lb. smallie is just crazy, man.

I would just snoop around on the site for a while, read as much as you can, absorb some of it, then start asking more focused questions. There really is no "best time" to be at your local fishing spot, or "best bait". That will all depend on what time of year it is, what the weather is, what you're fishing for...you get the picture. If you search the site, I would bet you can find someone who has asked a question almostt exactly like what you wish to know, and had a bunch of answers given.

Happy fishing (and learning)!

[Bassassinator]

ok I will try that with the Crankbait, since that's what i would most like to use, or improve at using...i will try to vary my retrieve speeds and play with it a bit. How important is it to set the drag on my reel? i have never touched it before, but heard it said i should adjust it?

Welcome bassassinator!!!!
I will try and answer the questions as I was taught myself. The best time to bass fish is when ever you get on the water. Being young into this fishing craze, the best advice I can give is to go buy yourself a notebook and a pen. not a pencil a pen. Why? If you jot something down with a pen you actually see what was on your head when you wrote it down. If you write with a pencil you sometimes use your eraser to erase what you wrote. What you erased away might be the key to why you caught or didn't catch fish. shewww I'm glad that was over with.
I am a big believer in notes. I think notes help us out in so many ways its not funny. What works on my lake or river might not work on yours but I will tell you this. If I were you I would go buy 2 baits. A jig and A Texas rigged worm. I would throw them until I was completely confident in those two baits. You might not catch the fish you want but the experience you will get will pay off in the end. Guaranteed.
Now I'm probably about to bore you lol.
The next bait I would learn how to throw would be the spinnerbait. I love chunking a spinnerbait in the mornings in summertime and in winter and fall. Especially fall. I like throwing a spinnerbait with a lot of flash. You can slow roll it, you can burn it, you can give it a yo yo effect, you can rip it threw grass but my favorite way to fish a spinner bait is with a steady twitch. almost like throwing a jerkbait or a trick worm.
My next bait I would throw is a crankbait. Crankbaits can be fished all year but I really like them in early spring, summer and fall. I go for the more natural look on a crankbait. I really like throwing a rattle trap in the winter and fall and also a shad rap. im gonna throw them into the crankbait category for the time being. I'm gonna stop there for right now because I dont want you to buy $7,000 worth of baits you dont need for now.
I try to throw baits that closely resemble the baitfish. On heavy pressured waters I will some times throw something a little off the nature path. Something that looks natural but with some weird color added to it. I also like my spinnerbaits to be around 1/4 - 3/8 oz. same with buzz baits. I like white, chartreuse or white/chartreuse. Same for spinner baits and buzz baits.
Now on Rods and reels. I love my sponsors and without them I couldnt do what I do but Im not going to recommend any of their products. Well rod and reel at this point.
The baits I fish, I fish for a reason. They catch fish but so will every other product on the market. what works for me might not suit your fishing style, but back to the gear.
I would go to walmart and buy a cherry wood spinning rod 7ft medium heavy $20.00. Then I would go buy a mitchell spinning reel. mitchell300xe. I think its like $20.00 as well.
I would throw my texas rig worms on that and then I would purchase a decent little baitcaster to practice with. Something under $80.00 for the rod and reel. I would set it to be tight and slowly loosen it up each cast until you can throw it. I would throw my spinnerbait on that and my jig. You can throw your crank bait on either.
Next is line. Get a good brand like Trilene or Stren 10 to 17lb test. on my spinnerbaits, crankbait and jigs I like 14-17lb but on y texas rigged worm I like 10-12lb.
You just have to basically find yourself in fishing. You may be really good at spinnerbaits and you might suck on fishing texas rigged worms, but you have to learn them all. I'm about done lol.
You have to think of baits as tools. When your working on your car do you use a screwdriver to unloosen a 1/4 inch nut? No you use a 1/4 in wrench or 1/4 socket and ratchet. Think of your tackle box as a tool box and you will catch a lot more fish.
I sure hope I helped

Also you have to take into concideration that weather plays a huge part in bass fishing. You have to know that the fish hold tight to cover in high pressure situations and in low pressure situations fish will scatter. So for instance. If I'm fishing on a bright sunny day I am more likely to throw a jig or a worm. On a cloudy, stormy,rainy day I will pick up a faster moving bait like a spinner bait or a crank bait. If you need advice I will be glad to help you. just email me.

[fishen green]

Hey and welcome I am new as well I like this place

I feel that the best way to enjoy fishing is to use something your comfortable with what ever that is bass bite any thing they are aggressive and even though a fussy bass may not bite aggressively getting into the sport on fussy bass isn't allot of fun and if you are comfortable with what you are fishing with you will have a better time and wont be thinking of what bait to switch to now after only a few minutes.

I always say that lures catch fisherman and fisherman catch fish enjoy the sport its great

[carolina-rig-01]

all the advice above seems pretty solid so i will just say welcome to the site.

[JB]

ditto and welcome, join in an post pics of recent catches or whatever ya want

[islandbass]

Welcome and greetings from the Pacific Northwest! Any relation to the governator?

[MallenManson]

Welcome to the site, glad to have you aboard!
As far as the best time to be at the lake, I stumbled across something a month or so ago that should help.
Weather.com has a fishing forecast. You can enter a specific lake name but there's a good chance they won't have it if it's a smaller lake, so just go the zip code route instead.
Just go to their site, put your cursor on "outdoor activities" (on the top of the page), until a menu pops up and click on "fishing reports".
Seems to be pretty accurate. A buddy of mine told me it's all set up by the barometric pressure.

[wargoth]

Originally Posted by MallenManson

Welcome to the site, glad to have you aboard!
As far as the best time to be at the lake, I stumbled across something a month or so ago that should help.
Weather.com has a fishing forecast. You can enter a specific lake name but there's a good chance they won't have it if it's a smaller lake, so just go the zip code route instead.
Just go to their site, put your cursor on "outdoor activities" (on the top of the page), until a menu pops up and click on "fishing reports".
Seems to be pretty accurate. A buddy of mine told me it's all set up by the barometric pressure.

Hmmm... I can see perhaps it being useful for one species, in one location but man, there are so many species, and they turn on or off under different conditions... seems more like a "fish horoscope" to me...

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by MallenManson

Welcome to the site, glad to have you aboard!
As far as the best time to be at the lake, I stumbled across something a month or so ago that should help.
Weather.com has a fishing forecast. You can enter a specific lake name but there's a good chance they won't have it if it's a smaller lake, so just go the zip code route instead.
Just go to their site, put your cursor on "outdoor activities" (on the top of the page), until a menu pops up and click on "fishing reports".
Seems to be pretty accurate. A buddy of mine told me it's all set up by the barometric pressure.

I too look at the weather.com fishing forecast, but mostly just for the heck of it. It pretty much tells you what we already know...fishing is good at dawn and dusk...

By the way, the chart is constructed using solar and lunar (hence "Solunar" table) positional data, due to the gravitational effect of those bodies on the tides. In all honesty, those charts are mainly useful for inshore saltwater fishing, as those are the areas that are most affected by tides. If you look at the peaks on those charts, each one will coincide with a low tide, slack tide, high tide, etc. No need for a pretty graph, any shorebound saltwater angler checks the tide times in the local paper before he heads out to fish. When a slack tide coincides with dawn or dusk, watch out.

As freshwater lakes have no tides to speak of, the effect of sun and moon gravitational forces is questionable there.

[Patrick Krueger, Jr.]

About setting the drag: I read that you should set your drag to half the weight of your line. If you have a scale just tie your line around the hook and pull. If you've got ten pound line you want it to release it at five pounds of pressure WITH the rod bent.

The only trouble with that is you get hung up a little and end up tightening it to pop it free and it's too much of a hassle to keep setting it like that. I just mess with it during the fight. With light line on a spinning reel I just set it to backreel and I'd suggest you do that if you have such a set up or an inferior drag system.

[nofearengineer]

That's good advice, Patrick, but I would add one caveat.

It really doesn't matter if the rod is bent. All a fishing rod does is redirect a straightline force (line tension) by way of a moment (your grip on the rod's end).

My suggestion would be to make sure the line pulling on the scale is perfectly perpendicular to the scale. That is the only weigh () the scale's reading will be accurate. That's why if you have a 5lb weight, for instance, no matter how you hold the rod, as long as the weight is hanging motionless from the tip, the drag will be holding 5 lbs. (Of course, this neglects rod guide friction, but that is almost negligible.)

I always set my drag tight. I never let the fish have a chance to win. Thats mainly because I do fish braid. I use to fish mono with my drag set loose and when I went to set the hook I would miss because of line stretch and sometimes I would have the drag too loose and line would strip free. Also if you fight the fish too long it can wear them out and cause to much stress on them. To each their own but I just dont loosen my drag. Even with mono now i dont set my drag. Thanks for reading and God Bless

[Bassassinator]

Wow...holy cow, so many awesome welcomes and responses to my questions I love being out on the lake at dawn anyways, and dusk is good cuz it'll give me time to wear out the three yr old lol. but I haven't tried a jig yet, but i have noticed that Texas rigged worm soft-baits are one of my favs right now, i'm not sure what sort of action I am supposed to perform with the rod, or even what how to adjust my reel speed, but i know that i can cast pretty far, even with just a spinning combe that I have. but i have 2 crankbaits, 1 Rapala sectional (pivoting tail just don't know the proper name for it lol), and a solid body with three hooksets. also 2 Spinnerbaits, one generic walmart 75cent special and a Bleederbait, from Strike king Spinnerbait. I also, don't own a boat yet and as such do all of my fishing so far from Surfcasting, but I catch alot of Smallies, Pickerel, and Sunfish. I need advice as to throwing my baits and how to retrieve the line after casting.....what sort of motions do i want to make with the rod tip? with....Cranks? Spinnerbaits? or texas-rigged wormbait?