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| Week of 10/15/00 #145 |
| Question: You are fishing a large feeder creek that has schools of baitfish visibly near the surface. The water depth is about eight feet. You are located about 75 feet off a small secondary point that tapers off to the eight foot depth. A large school of shad is between your boat and the end of the point. You presume that the bass are under the baitfish at some point between you and the shoreline. How would you go about fishing this situation? |
| Winning Answer: I would pick a lipless Crankbait such as a Rattle-Trap that was the same size and color of the shad. Then I would present it all around the point counting it down to various depths until the Bass were located. Then, I would thoroughly fish the area at that depth. |
Week of 9/26/00 #144 |
| Question: The lake you are on is fairly shallow. In the past week to ten days the air temperature has gotten quite cool especially at night. That, along with heavy rains have caused the water temperatures to fall at least five degrees from the summer highs. In August you were fishing main lake point structure with plastic worms using both Texas and Carolina rigs and doing fairly well. Now that the water is starting to cool you feel that you should start fishing shallower back into the secondary points of the larger creeks. Your buddy Bob says you should go back to where the action was a few weeks ago because the fish will still be there but now more active. Buddy Tom says you are both wrong. He says you should start further up the creeks and fish shallow shoreline cover. Whose most likely has the right starting pattern and why? |
| Winning Answer: After discussing it with Tom, I realized he had the best starting pattern. Shallow water in the mouths of creeks is a classic FALL pattern. Food, oxygen, and cool water are all being washed in. The water has been too hot, but is now ideal. We can use fast moving lures such as buzzbaits, spinnerbaits, prop lures, and shallow crankbaits. Early morning is the prime time for fishing shallow. If we do not try the shallows first we may miss a great bite. We can try the other patterns at any time of the day if the starting pattern does not produce. |
Week of 9/16/00 #143 |
| Question: You are fishing a tournament. The weather is changing quickly. A fast moving storm has passed though last evening and the skies are still overcast although the rain has stopped. The lake you are fishing is fairly shallow so you figure the fish will react quickly to the changing conditions. There is a 15 mile an hour wind blowing and you see small blue openings in the quickly passing clouds. A couple of days ago you did some pre-fishing under partly cloudy skies and stable weather conditions. You were doing well with light colored spinner baits fishing shoreline cover with the 80 degree water temps. What will be your primary and secondary starting patterns as you begin today’s tournament. |
| Winning Answer: Primary Pattern would be to fish the same Spinnerbait that I pre fished with. Chart/white tandem with gold blades. If the fish would not take that and the weather kept clearing I would start flipping a black/blue jig tight to the cover that the fish where in before. |
Week of 9/4/00 #142 |
| Question: It has been a dry, hot summer. The lake you are fishing is down at least eight feet from it’s normal levels. Up until this week the water has been very clear. A tropical storm passed through a few days ago dumping over six inches of rain. Water temps are still in the eighties but now the water is quite muddy and silty. It looks like the water level is up about one foot from last week. Before the storm you were fishing with small finesse baits and catching largemouth and spots in 15 to 30 feet of water. Now you have three thoughts on what your approach should be: 1. Continue fishing the areas you were catching on last week but upgrade the size of your baits and switch to darker colors. 2. Abandon your old pattern and head for the shorelines. Fish fast moving spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and lipless crankbaits. 3. Move to the first major drop off near the shoreline or to points that have fast tapering or stepped edges. Fish these area with bright colored crankbaits. Which of these patterns would you go to? Or, would you do something else? |
| Winning Answer: I would go with #3 and use lures with loud rattles and vary brightly painted (mainly chartreuse color, it is very bright), and very shiny spinnerbaits. |
Week of 8/28/00 #141 |
| Question: It's dog days of summer, water temp is in the low 90's, the hydrilla is bunched on top of the water in mats out to 18-20 foot breakline. It hasn't rained in weeks the weather is stable with no fronts in months and the daytime highs are 98-105 degrees. What are your tactics going to be for the day? |
| Winning Answer: In a situation like this, fishing the hyacinth is a great idea, but just how do you do that? Well, quite simple really. Using a lure like a Powercraw from Berkeley, or a plastic worm Texas rigged with a 3/4 to a 1 ounce weight is perfect. This allows you to "punch" through the hyacinth and get down to where the fish are. Next time you face a situation like this, try this method using heavy line and about a seven foot rod. I think you'll be impressed. |
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Disclaimer: The answers to these questions are very subjective. There certainly are more than one correct answer to each of these questions. The Bass Fishing USA staff's decision is final. By entering this contest, if you are the winner, you agree to having your answer and name published on this site. |