Turtle Fight!

https://youtu.be/WVW8nHCoLok

Five Best Bass Lures

Bass fishing can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be.  Especially for those new to the sport, lure choices can leave you feeling overwhelmed.  Visit a Bass Pro or a Cabella's, and you might end up in the corner in a fetal position due to choice overload.

The truth is that you only need a handful of those lures to be off to a good start.  The first and absolutely most important, in my opinion, is a crankbait.  Go with natural colors for clearer water, and go with darker colors or red colors for more stained water.

Next up, you need a swim bait.  Don't forget to rig it with a slip sinker aka bullet weight.  I have a separate post that will go into more detail.

The number three spot goes to a spinner bait.  The same color rule for crank baits applies to spinners.

Next up, have a jig and a good trailer.  You can't go wrong putting a craw trailer on a jig.  Again, the same color rule for cranks and spinners applies to jigs.

Last but by no means least, get yourself a Rattle-L-Trap.  Sometimes bass prefer the tight action of a trap to the more eradic action of a crank.

Tight lines in 2016!

Bass Fishing: Swim Baits

When it comes to bass lures, a lot of the focus tends to be on crank baits and spinners.  There's good reason.  They're both very effective.

That said, we've all had days where we struck out with one or both.  On those days, don't forget about another option:  swim baits.  Take a look.

These baits look like something a bass would hit.  This design is red on the bottom, which helps them show up in stained water.  However, there are numerous designs, including a realistic gizzard shad.  Here's what they look like out of the package.

That large tail is key.  The action on it mimicks the way a minnow swims.  I recommend sliding a bullet weight onto your line first and then tying this bait on.  This will greatly increase your casting range.

Here's the bass I caught with my swim lure.

I released her to fight another day.  Tight lines!

Best Way to Guarantee a Catch (Almost)

Here in the U.S., the pecking order of coveted game fish goes like this: bass, catfish, crappie.  However, these game fish are not easy to catch.  Not by a long shot.

So here's what I suggest.  In addition to whichever game fish you're trying for, rig a pole for carp.  Granted, they're not exactly beautiful.  In my opinion, they're not the best to eat.  All of that said, pound for pound, nothing fights like a carp.  They get big too!

I was trying for bass yesterday evening and decided to set up a carp rig as insurance, in case the bass weren't feeling the red crank bait I had to offer.

Guess what?  The bass weren't feeling it, but this 5 lbs carp was!

In fact, the fish nearly got away with my pole before I could grab it!  All you need is a little size 6 bait holder hook and some whole kernel sweet corn.  It may not be a bass, but it's a lot better than catching nothing!

There's always a chance that even the carp aren't biting, but they're the closest thing you can get to a guarantee!  Make sure corn's legal in your area.  The fish was released unharmed.

Tight lines!

Bass Fishing: A Great Crank Bait for Murky Water

Over the passed week, I've caught three different bass on the same crank bait.  That's fantastic consistency, especially for our turbid water here in West Texas!  A picture's worth a thousand words, so here they are.

That's an RC Series 2 crank bait.  The pattern  on the side is actually a crayfish, which makes the lure all the more appealing.  Tight lines!

Bass Fishing: Picking the Right Color

When it comes to lures, the variety can be overwhelming.  There are big lures and small lures that are designed to imitate almost anything a bass might possibly eat.  The color combinations are endless.

When you think about color, don't worry about specific colors.  It's not about green vs red.  It's actually about the clarity, or lack of it, in the body of water you're fishing.

Bass have great eyesight.  If the water's clear, they'll be able to see a lot of detail. In that situation, your lure needs to look similar to the actual prey that a bass would attack.  In the picture below, the crank bait has the same color as an actual gizzard shad.

You'll notice that the water in the background above is murky.  I might very well have caught more than that one bass if I had gone a different color direction.  Here's a closer look at our water in this area.

You can see that with only a few inches of this murky water, the bottom is no longer visible.  You can't see very far off at all.  Guess what?  Neither can the bass ... at least not well enough to distinguish one color from another.

In this world of murk, what a bass most likely sees are silhouettes.  Regardless of the color on these crank baits, the silhouette will be the right shape.  How visible the silhouette is will depend ENTIRELY on the color.

In murky water, bright colors make the lure visible to the bass.  What we see is a brightly-colored, ridiculous object.  What the bass sees in murky water is an outline that's brigher than the rest of its world, and that outline has the shape of a fish.  Score!

Look at that bright red crank bait!  It delivered with that little bass and then with a much bigger one.

I literally caught them within five minutes of each other!  So if your water's a murky mess like ours in West Texas ... think bright.  Think neon even!  The same is true for your plastics like worms, etc.

All fish were released unharmed.  Tight lines!

Big Mudcat

When I think mudcat, I think small.  That's for good reason.  Most will not exceed two pounds.  However, there's an exception to every rule.

That bottom bullhead was the largest.  I don't think either of them broke the two pound marker, but they were fun to catch.

One other thing to note, the largest one hung me up on something toward the bottom of the creek, probably a tree root.  I fought the snag for a few minutes, and I could still feel this fish on the line.

The thought finally occurred to me to let the fish do the work.  I gave the line some slack, and voila!  The fish swam out from behind whatever had the line snagged.  Then I was able to land the fish.

The baits were worms and hotdog weenies.  All fish were released.  Tight lines!