I began part one of an ongoing series about colors and bass fishing. As with many of my pieces, it rapidly went down other worm holes (pun intended). Not only about colors, but strategies, mindsets, and even marketing. The series is not ready to debut as of yet. I began preparing a report of my latest adventure. A fishing report from a trip on 2/18/23 at one of my favorite bodies of water. Not only will this be a conditions report, I also made some important observations that will tie into the upcoming series that I have planned.

 

Twenty six chilly degrees as I left the house on the morning of February 18, 2023, a bit later than I prefer, avoiding people at the launching area, and also avoiding  traffic on the drive. Plus an early start gives me more time, and more time on the water. As a bonus I have an earlier time returning home. Not surprising, no one is at the launch, a man pulls in as I am preparing to put the kayak in the water. We speak for a few minutes, he is after Crappie, he caught them good yesterday on a small tube jig.

 

Putting in,  I begin towards a point in a necked down area that has shallow and deep areas, everything a winter bass would need. Current will often funnel through here setting up the bass in ambush spots to intercept baitfish as they pass through this funnel. Nearing my destination I notice the same man from the parking lot is already hooked up with a nice crappie! Beginning on this point area, I catch three bass. An 18 inch, and a 14 inch Spotted Bass along with a short Largemouth. Typical winter stuff.

 

The night before, I mapped out what I believe would be good late winter spots to locate some bass. I built up a couple new to me rigging methods for my latest version of my do it all soft plastic bait. Half of these places would be great spots to drag a Carolina rig. I have had great success with Carolina rigs over the years, but I want to simplify the process for the kayak. This new rigging method has a small following in certain regions, I began last fall experimenting with it, and yet to have had any success using this method.

 

Covering some water and watching the guys in bass boats I quickly see that they are all hitting the community holes, some off shore spots, and of course boat docks. The same boat docks I see them hit every time. I do understand, that certain docks are better than others, however, the downfall of myself and 90% of all bass anglers is always fishing the same stuff, the same way. A topic I want to cover. Another worm hole we will mostly avoid today, but discussion is always welcome.

 

Paddling on with the  planned route, I pass a tree fallen in the water between two of my stops. I say out loud “crap, no flipping bait rigged”. I have a difficult time passing any cover, my greatest downfall, and a weakness that I openly admit has contributed to some of my greatest failures, but also has given me many of my best successes! I, as most, fall into that 90%.

 

On the other hand, I also try to trust my intuition, and as Tom Brown Jr. learned from Stalking Wolf, to listen to the concentric circles. Can I attribute the decision that follows to listening to the concentric circles? Or as Ed McGAA explains in his book Mother Earth Spirituality “the spirit that moves through all things?” Or was it intuition? Or luck? I do not believe in luck. Luck, if studied can be traced back to one or many happenings leading up to the “luck” Sure, quite often luck can just be being in the right place at the right time. Bad luck, can just be the opposite. Luck can be attributed to odds. People who are considered lucky, or as resentful people like to say “They always fall into a pile of shit and come out smelling like roses” I hate roses so let us move on.

 

These lucky people are doing things that you are blind to, things that create what you call luck. Growing up I heard it over and over “he is a lucky fisherman”. No, he is not. I studied these “lucky” fisherman. They did things that most did not. Did they posses some magic fish hypnotizing power? No.

 

Back to this tree I am paddling by. Should I re rig a bait to flip in? Or stick to my plan? There comes many time in fishing and in life where a decision has a 50/50 chance of success or failure. Good odds? You decide. Spinning the kayak back around and approaching this tree I pick up the rod I have with my “new” bait rigged up. I make a long pitch into the outer limbs of this tree, expecting to get hung I quickly slide this bait through these outer limbs. Still expecting to get hung, I fail to realize a mouthing bite! I swing! See a flash and it is gone! Dang! A bite. A missed opportunity. My failure. Re setting the bait and re positioning the kayak for another pitch I think “was that a fluke?” Pitching back in I work the bait around, it bangs through cover very well, after a couple more pitches that same mouthing bite! Success! I pitch back in, way back in, this is a big tree, this time a little more spirited thump, thump as the bait drops over a limb. That makes three good keepers in less than ten minutes from this one tree. I continue around and even fish the outer most deeper end of this tree. No more bites. Circling back, and fishing the same limbs where the fish were located subconsciously I notice two things that will later come into the conscious world.

 

Continuing with my original plan, I hit some more of my marked places while my focus drifted back to this tree and what was going on. This is where intuition is taking over, diverting my focus from the plan.

 

We often hear anglers talk about the best days they ever had on the water are the days when they “ just went fishing” I am no different in that respect. During my tournament “career” I had many highs and lows. A whole lot of lows. I learned from many of those lows, but also from the highs. One such high, that could have ended in a low was in 1994. The largest tournament trail in the country at the time had a regional stop in my region. I practiced for three days prior and had a good practice. As I entered as a boater, at the pre tournament meeting, I was paired with another boater. I fondly remember the words from these pee tournament meetings “forget your name, remember your number!” We coin flipped to decided who’s boat to run. I lost. We discussed a time and place to meet in the morning. Feeling a little bummed for losing the coin toss, I drove back to the friend's house who had welcomed me in to stay with for the week. Driving back and thinking, I decided that I will just go fishing and hopefully learn something new. You really can learn from anyone. The guy I a was paired with seemed nice enough, he had practiced, but only had very limited stuff to go on. We had fished about the same water so we should have no issues of where to go.

 

 

Over 100 boats prepared for takeoff, as the sun rose on this July 1994 Saturday morning. Feeling very chill and relaxed, we took off to our first stop. Tournament rules state that we both get equal time controlling the boat. That works out to approximately 3-4 hours each. We fished around a bit and caught a couple at this first stop, I had the start of a good limit when we began running to the little out of the way spots that I had located during practice. Even though these were spots I had fished for years, and I know that they do not always hold fish, this week they were holding 2-5 pound bass that I shook most off during the practice period. Also during the practice days, I was very observant and casually watched other bass boats, not spying on them with binoculars, as I did not and still do not care what lures they throw, I noticed they all fished the same stuff, the same way. One boat would leave, another would pull in. I also fish these same places. They are easy to get too, often hold fish.

 

Observing this I began to look for plain water. I pieced together a milk run of these places, sort of junk fishing. Soon after we ran to and fished these places, I was up to about a 16 pound limit. A very respectful limit for 1994. My co-boater was not fairing as well, I do not know this but I got the feeling that he was thinking that I just was getting lucky. Even though I still had only utilized about half of my allotted time, with good places remaining. I made the decision to help my co-boater fill his limit. My mistake.

 

 

Now, do not get me wrong. My co-boater was a decent guy. I sensed his frustration. I have been there. (June 1994, Buggs Island, I was there! I was the frustrated one) I knew I had a good limit and was satisfied with my performance, it was flawless. Every bite was hooked and landed. I am not being cocky, but it was one of those days where everything clicked, it felt so easy. I totally relaxed and was in the zone.

 

Fast forward to September. 1999.

 I had the most awesome experience for a bass angler. The B.A.S.S. Top 100 trail was in town! I drove up to watch day three and day four weigh in. After setting up camp in a nearby campground, unknown to me two sites down was Rick Clunn. This was way cool, but I did not feel star struck. Even after only an hour prior watching Rick Weigh in another large bag and having the lead going into day four, I did not feel star struck. It sounds really strange that walking over to say hello to Rick was like going to speak to an angling friend.

Rick was sitting in his boat spooling line. One thing led to another and we decided to go get dinner together! Really cool. By the way, Rick Likes shrimp scampi!

 

I will save the details for later time. We spoke a lot about mindset, the zone, and teaser alert! Rick showed me what a true person that he is! A class act, and the same in person as he is on camera. I was not interested in an autograph or a photo. The pleasure was all mine! I think Rick saw the opportunity to have some dinner and conversation while on the road and speak to another angler and learn from. Me! Little old me! Rick is smart and he realizes that inspiration, experience, and education can come from anyplace, and should not be ignored or discredited.

 

Rewind to July,1994.

I had a great limit, I had no thoughts of winning. It did not even cross my mind, even placing good, never crossed my mind. I had two other spots that I determined during practice to be great spots to fill a limit if needed. My co-boater was needing points to qualify for the regional at season's end. At my discretion we made the long run to these places. I did catch two more, and my co-angler one. These last two did not help me any and my co-angler only caught 3 keepers all day.

 

At weigh, in I ended up with 15-13. In first place by a whole pound. The Win looked like it was all mine. I also had a 4-8 for big fish. The big fish not surprisingly did not hold, but either did the win. Art Singer, a tremendous angler and great guy had me beat by a pound. Oh well. I later spoke to Art, we were on very similar fish. That also, made me quite proud of my accomplishment.

 

Looking back, I realized that I do not have the killer competition gene. If I had, I would have never conceded to my co-boater until I needed to. One more good bite, and I could have culled up to18 pounds and taken the win. That still has my attention, as I was very confident that I had those fish located. The thought during the tournament never once entered my mind. I sometimes wonder if my co-boater should have conceded and allowed me to stay on my plan and add to my weight, and possibly win? In 1994 a single day winning weight there normally ran 13-16 pounds on average. It was not until the late nineties when 18-20 pound bags began to be normal.

 

Fast forward back to February, 2023.

 I abandoned my starting plan. Hit more trees and got bit. Still, just mouthing bites so hooking up was not great. But I was getting bit, and it was consistent. In an attempt to increase bite to hookup ratio, I switched back to a Texas rig and one of my favorite purchased soft plastics. Same results! Good news, bad news. Still getting bit, but still not great hook ups. I think my gear is dialed in, my execution was off a little, these light mouthing bites were difficult to detect, and I did not execute hook sets well enough. The day ended with 15 or so bites and several boated. One, a 20.5” largemouth. I will take it for a February day!

 

You may be asking, what does all of this even mean? I am asking myself that as well. It is a beautiful day out, and I am inside typing away! To sum it all up, listen to your instincts. Just because you have heard that bass are supposed to be doing such and such at this time of year, ignore it. Another thing I left out is the baits, the colors, the techniques, and the specific details. Those are the easy parts. The difficult parts are you, and myself. Our brains. We get so locked into certain things that we never break out and fish or live in the present. I will give you two hints to today's success. 1, The sun. Two, water depth. Both of these two key elements were crucial, not the only crucial elements, but very key. I will not mention baits, or gear. If someone wants to throw some $$ my way, I may be convinced to give you a plug. But for now, no free advertising.

 Parting shot...