I don't consider myself a "Superstitious" angler, so when my partner told me we would be fishing "Stevie Wonder" style I thought to myself, "We can work it out." If Mr. Wonder can catch over twenty Grammy's playing an instrument he can't even see, I'm sure we can fool a few bass. "Fishing blind" is a term anglers use when their boats sonar system is out. Which may or may not be a big deal depending on the time of year and your style of fishing. In winter when bass migrate to deeper haunts it can be a very helpful tool to find humps and clusters of concentrated large-mouths.
Think of a boats sonar system as a bat flying through a dark cave on the hunt for flying insects. Also referred to as "echolocation" a bat uses the echo of sound waves to determine the shapes of surrounding objects like bugs. A bass boat uses "bassolocation" to help determine where the fish are.
A beautiful crisp winters day at Piru.
We began our day in an area where my partner had success a month ago in shallow water. With the water temperature dropping considerably in the last few weeks (In the lower fifties), my "fishy" sense told me that deeper was the way to go. Not being able to take the blindfold off our boat, we would have to use our deep jigs and drop shots to navigate the lakes bottom like a blind man uses his cane to get down a busy sidewalk. Sure we might bump into an occasional stranger or bush but we'll get where we need to be eventually.
The only problem with this scenario is in a tournament time is an issue. Not only are we up against momma bass we are also battling with father time. We caught our first fish around 9 am near the dam in deeper water on a six inch purple worm rigged on a drop shot. Our second fish coming an hour later also on a drop shot but a different color, prism craw. The last keeper fish of the day was caught around 2 pm in a totally different area then the first two fish. Our three fish limit came in at 7.16 pounds good enough for fifth place out of eleven teams. The winner had a five fish limit weighing 11.58 pounds, their big fish came in at 3.75 lbs and was caught on a jig, something we should have committed more time to.
In summary it was a really tough day on lake Piru. With temperatures as cold as polar bear farts I'm surprised we caught fish at all. On the bright side, not every song Stevie Wonder wrote won a Grammy. Our day was a lot like one of those songs, a good listen but I'm not going to sing it at my daughters wedding.
We are all chasing after something we can't see, hoping what ever it is we are going after, if we catch it at all, fulfills us in some way.
There are many people in life that never go out and get a tackle box. They figure what's the point, I'll never catch anything, why waste the money?
Some people know exactly what to buy and where to cast, catching fish after fish, filling their limit and going home.
Others stay on the water their whole lives, becoming the osprey, searching and catching never looking back. Addicted to the thrill of the game.
Another group of people are confused, not sure where to cast or when to set the hook. "Was that a bite or did I just snag some weeds?" They look back at past catches wondering if they let the "Big One" slip through their fingers. Lost in a murky sea with a blanket of fog on the horizon.
At the end of the day, some people in life don't like to fish at all, some fish to catch a limit, others want to catch everything that swims and the rest of us like to fish but aren't sure why., but all of us that got up out of bed, tied one on and caught a few, wonder about the one that got away... the one we never got to see at all.
Sky man out.
Thought I would bust out a philosophical post for ya'll, considering it's the holidays.
And bite me they did. Our tournament at Pyramid lake October 16th, 2011 was a blast and a half from kick off to the hot dog on the way out. The bite was on early and continued through out the day. It started as a top water bite and evolved to a slower deeper more finesse bite.
2 of our 4 fish limit.
It was only my second time on the lake so I did not know what to expect. The lake was really weedy which made certain lures frustrating to use. Early on it was perfect conditions for top water. The water was warm, there was a lot of shad boiling along the surface and near the shore line and the weeds gave the bass ideal hide out spots to ambush their prey. The majority of our fish came up from the weeds to hit a spinner bait, fluke and popper. We also caught fish on a drop shot, crank bait and Ika.
The Ika master.
A good tip I learned from my partner was how to fish a Fluke Jr. with a stinger hook. I usually fish the full size fluke (5 inch model), but my partner used the smaller 4 inch model and it looked great on the surface! He missed quite a number of fish so he added a stinger hook to the back. The hook weighs the bait down a tad so the action isn't as realistic. When I find myself with this predicament in fishing I always keep the action true on my bait rather then adding a hook or more weight to help land more fish. If you never get the bite to begin with how are you ever going to land them?
Our bass sack for the day.
I was able to catch a fish with the Ika for the first time so that was exciting. I got some tips from the master himself and he taught me to use the rod to move the bait to get more feel rather than using the reel.
The hotdog guy!
When it was all said and done we ended the day in third place with a total weight of 9.75 pounds of bass. To help celebrate our great day on the water we bought hot dogs from a guy on the way out, where I got the last bite! I may not eat bass but I love dogs! Sorry peta.
Thanks for the Bass Art Summer Sauce! I hope that's a good knot.
Fishing may knot be your cup of tea but there are some fishing philosophies that translate to all aspects of life. The great UCLA Bruins basketball coach John Wooden would teach his players in their first practices how to tie their shoes. This may sound silly to some but the man has won 10 NCAA titles, so I would at least hear him out. To compete on a high level you must focus in on the details to eliminate possible error. If you have already thought of the things that can go wrong on the water, basketball court or in the game of life and are prepared for them you can concentrate on the task at hand. Silly? I think knot!
In fishing one of the most important details to spend some serious thought on is your knot!
Knot, knot...
Who's there?
Your fishing line...
What do you want fishing line?
You better tie me right or you are knot going to catch many fish!
I can't stress this enough, details are important. There is a famous phrase that says,"The devil is in the details," which to me means looking out for the small details in life is generally a good practice, since it greatly reduces the risk of surprise. While some surprises are pleasant, those planned by the devil are generally knot, so it pays to avoid pratfalls which are preventable by remembering that the devil's in the details.
Below are a few of my favorite knots, so if I were you I would practice these to avoid being thrown into hotel heartbreak where you get to watch Elvis have his way with your girlfriend while you're stuck in a glass box of emotion, courtesy of of bucket mouth billy bass. Shake it billy but don't break it!
The Albright knot: This knot is a great knot to use to tie two different diameter lines together as well as attaching a flurocarbon/mono leader to braid. This knot finishes in the shape of a triangle or pyramid.
The Uni-knot:
This is another knot used to tie two lines together. It is better with two lines that have a similar diameter. The knot itself will be larger than the albright knot so if you are using a shorter leader I would go with the albright knot.
The Palomar knot:
A great all around knot, I originally started using this knot a lot when I got introduced to braid. It does knot slip like a trilene knot which makes it ideal for braid. Also, it is my knot of choice for a drop shot, you just have to pull the line through one more time so your hook is perpendicular with your line.
The Rapala knot:
This is a great knot for lures with a lot of side to side action. It allows more freedom of movement for jointed plugs and some top water walk the dog type baits.
The Trilene knot:
This is another great all around knot like the palomar. It is the first knot I learned to tie and still use it to this day on everything from Texas rigged worms to crank baits.
The Snell knot:
A new knot to my arsenal. This is the knot to use for flipping and pitching into heavy cover with large soft plastics like the brush hog as well as punching rigs. What makes this knot great for these applications is when you set the hook on a fish, the knot pulls the hook up facilitating the hooks penetration into the mouth of the fish. That's what you call a good wing-man!
A good solid double knot on the old basketball shoes should do the job so you can, "forget about it" and drop a triple double on your opponent. If you master these fishing knots you can concentrate on filling your livewell with lunkers and joining coach John Wooden in the trophy room instead of getting thrown into the dirty bed bug infested hotel of heartbreak with the fat Elvis, not the skinny good looking one.
Knot so fast, one last thing. Always lubricate your knots with saliva to avoid friction which can lead to line breakage:)
Now go out and get knotty!
Skyman out
Final knot count: 39
Below is a Mickey's puzzle. See if you can solve the riddle.
When I say Kong I mean giant ape Kong. There is an island on Castaic lake with a giant ape attached to it called Kong Island and it would prove to be pivotal to our success at the Manny Nunez Annual Memorial Bass Tournament held at Castaic Lake this last September. The tournament is a club challenge event that pit our club up against 8 different Southern California Bass Clubs. To win the tournament and get your clubs name on the trophy, would mean you had the highest combined three best weights compared to the other 7 clubs. My partner for this event was George and we were really excited to represent our club and kick some serious bass!
Hello George.
Mr. Kong himself. He loves America.
At the meeting before the tournament I talked with George and he mentioned to me that shad colored worms were a hot bait in the late summer. Anything that went along with a shad pattern was a good bet. So I stopped by Sports Authority (not my usual tackle spot but time was an issue) and cruised the isles for shad baits. I purchased some roboworms in a prizm shad color that looked really good to me in the 4 and a half inch size. I also got a 4 inch BBZ gizzard shad swimbait and tied on a revo topwater popper as well. I was ready for thems basseys.
Mr. Revo
So the tournament kicked off with a bang! George took us to Kong Island which was about 100 yards from shore and had an anchored booey with a King Kong figure attached to it and an American flag sticking out of its rear end.
Yo mister monkey, you mind if we fish here?
We pull up to the island and start fishing. I got a blow up on the revo and was not paying attention so the fish was able to spit out the hooks before I could get a good hook set. A good sign that the fish were active, but made me feel dumb. A few more minutes passed and fish on! This time I got em, a nice 2 pounder on the drop shot prizim craw robo worm. Ten minutes later, another fish on and as soon as you can flip a pancake we had 4 fish in the live well and it was only 8:30 am. That's what you call a good morning of fishing.
Another view point of the Island.
I gave George some of my worms because the fish were not getting excited for the color he was throwing. The only problem was I only had one bag! Drama! Usually I don't like to share worms with just anybody, but George is a cool enough guy and since I am a team player, I did what I thought would give us the best odds of getting our clubs name on that trophy. So George grabbed a worm out of my sack and we did laps around that island like we were middle school kids running the mile, all morning long drop shoting our roboworms.
A Castaic Lake Landscape.
The conditions changed on us around 11:00 am, the sun came out, the wind picked up and the bite died down. We made a move to another part of the Lake which turned out to be a bust so back to the muscular arms of our buddy Kong once again! Hold on loosely Kong, but don't let go. We caught 7 keepers for the day which ended at 12:30 pm, not bad. Of the ten worms that I had at the start of the day, only one remained at the buzzer. Our total weight was 6.8 pounds good enough for 2nd place with in our Club and more importantly our weight was included in our clubs weight. Thanks to our great ape friend, the Castaic Bass Club got it's name on the Trophy for 2011!
The final weights for the day.
Our total weight.
All in all a great day out on the water. We had a BBQ at the end of the day where I ate two burgers, one for me and one for my primate brother from another mother, the Gorilla on the rocks.
Bubba Sparks is my favorite rapper of all time! I love me some Tupac and Biggie but neither incorporated my favorite hobby into one of their songs. Bubba on the other hand, must be an avid angler because in his very popular song deliverance he talks about getting tore up on moonshine while traveling with his favorite companion, Mr. Rod himself. I can definitely relate to the traveling, fishing and boozing! I don't always know where I am going but with a fishing pole in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other I don't really care.
Speaking of boozing and bassing check out this video of the back woods Bill Gates, real name Norm Price. He came up with the brilliant idea of making lures out of beer bottle caps! Hell Yeah Norm! He has stumbled upon a hat trick of Wayne Gretzkey proportions! Oh the life, catching a buzz a bass and some bucks all while recycling. This ones for your Norm! You inspire me.
Backwoods Bill Gates.
Maybe Bubba will run into Norm on one of his traveling benders and they will become best friends. I think they would have a lot to talk about, I just sure hope they invite me for a day out on the water. Their guiding service would be called Bubba and Backwood Billy's Beer Bottle Cap Bassin Adventures, Their slogan would read, "We can't guarantee you catch a bass but we can guarantee you a good buzz!"
I have been reading a book called Double Whammy, a murder mystery with a comedic twist that takes place within the tournament bass fishing world of South Florida by Carl Hiaasen. The book is entertaining but really stereotypes bass fisherman. For example see quote below:
"On the night of January 15, Dickie Lockhart got dog-sucking drunk on Bourbon Street and was booted out of a topless joint for tossing rubber night-crawlers on the dancers. The worms were a freebie from a national tackle company whose sales reps had some to town for the big bass tournament. The sales reps had given Dickie Lockhart four bags of assorted lures hooks, plus a thousand dollars cash as incentive to win the tournament using the company's equipment. Dickie blew the entire grand in the French Quarter, buying rock cocaine and rainbow colored cocktails for exquisitely painted women, most of whom turned out to be flaming he-she's out trolling for cock. In disgust Dickie Lockhart had retreated to the strip joints, where at least the boobs were genuine. The trouble happened when he ran out of five dollar bills for tips; finding only the slippery night crawlers in his pockets, he began flicking them up at the nude performers. In his drunken state he was vastly entertained by the way the gooey worms clung to the dancers thighs and nipples, and would occasionally tangle in their pubic hair. The night-crawlers looked (and felt) so authentic that the strippers began shrieking and clawing at their own flesh; one frail acrobat even collapsed and rolled about the stage as if she were on fire. Dickie thought the whole scene was hysterical; obviously these girls had never been fishing. He was mildly baffled when the bouncers heaved him out of the joint (hadn't they seen him on TV?), but took some satisfaction when other patrons booed the rough manner in which he was expelled."
The angler I fished with at Castaic Lake in July was the opposite of Dickie Lockhart. His name was Jim and he is a retired Aeronautical Engineer. When I got in his Toyota Land cruiser to back his boat down to the water instead of the usual country tunes of Tobby Keith or Hank Williams the soothing sounds of classical music tickled my inner ear. Don't get me wrong I love me some Country Music, I even attended the Country music festival Stagecoach this year in Indio, ca, but it was nice to see something outside the norm. I don't consider myself a stereotypical bass fisherman so it was refreshing to meet a fellow angler that didn't necessarily fit into the typical tackle box.
What up Jim! Oh, you want two more beers?
Back to the fishing, well it was a lot more casting than catching that's for sure. We started in the back part of the lake, Elizabeth Canyon to be exact and had some action early in the day but it died off around 9:30 am. Bass like to feed early in the summer months and then retreat to the cool temperature after they have gotten their fill. Jim caught our first fish on a split shot worm. It was a decent 2 pound bass, but it was our only bass of the day. I caught a catfish on a drop shot worm which was fun, but would not count toward our total weight at the end of the day.
The anticipation before a big day on the water. Will I catch a ten pounder today?
Castaic Lake ladies and gentleman.
The steep rocky slopes of Castaic. Different from the lakes I am used to.
Jim's bass and my catfish, "Dude, you're weird looking."
"No bro you have whiskers growing out of your face! Get out of here with that non-sense. What do you think you are a cat or something?"
Peddle to the medal Jim!
Random dead rabbit on the lake. "You silly rabbit, where is your life vest?"
Take home lesson of the day, not all bass fisherman listen to the same music and go for the same political candidate, but we do share a common love of the outdoors and a good hard tug on our rods :)
The very next tournament after my first place finish with the Bass Amushers was at Lopez Lake at the end of June. I did some research before to the tournament by calling the Marina (805) 489-1006 and asking them a few questions. The information that I gathered that I thought would be useful was the fact that there were no more closed off coves since the spawn was over. Water temperature was in the 70's and the Lake is up 8 feet from the 13 inches of rain that it got this winter.
A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.
What I thought would be a key to victory was the fact that the Arroyo Grande arm of the lake was no longer closed off. I figured these fish have not been pressured by anglers much and decided it would be a great place to start. I didn't expect the fish to be in full summer mode because the weather has been so mild this year. The one thing I didn't know was if the fish were in post spawn I am not going to bite mode, or post spawn FEED ME mode.
Started with some senkos, topwater revo, spinnerbait with some success. My dad caught one right off the bat on a spinnerbait then not much time later caught one on a senko. So I figured we had a good pattern going, shallow water senkos and spinnerbaits. This was again reassured by a keeper I caught on a senko. The problem was the bite died off and we didn't make the right adjustments.
He is starting to look like a bass fisherman ladies and gentlemen.
The winner kicked everyones BASS big time by a margin I have never seen before. With 22 pounds of bass he left everyone in the dust by 12 pounds! He was fishing the main lake and caught them on spinnerbaits and drop shoting. I think the key was he fished the main lake which probably had a summer pattern going on, shallow early then deeper later on. I was impressed after bringing in only one keeper for the day. The winner is our clubs current Angler of the Year so he knows what he is doing. It is encouraging to think that you can reach a level of skill that can set you apart from the pack by 12 pounds.
The drive back from the lake.
One of the positives for the day was my dad had his best turn out yet. He brought two keepers to the scales and beat me.
Here in the real world, with my two feet on the ground, I often feel like the fish. It's a little bit of a role reversal and maybe that's why I like fishing so much it gives me the chance to do the hooking! Speaking of hooking part of the reason I was inspired to write this entry was the fact that I was just in Las Vegas. Everywhere I turned someone or something was trying to lure me in to giving them my money! "Hey you! Check this out, put your money in here, I can show you a great time but I need $2,000. Go wait in that line or give me $100 and you're in. DAM you hot, let's hang out...but I need your money." I felt like a 3 inch sucker fish in a giant pool filled with 9 pound hungry bucketmouth fatties.
Vegas knows how to seduce you and finesse you into a money spending daze like no where else in the world. If I was a lure designer I would travel to Vegas to study the many ways they use to lure people in, get them to bite and bring them to the boat. Is it the flashy lights? The color red which you see everywhere, the margaritas in the foot long plastic cups, the amount of walking you do to get anywhere, the water fountains, pirate shows, bars that do not close, the beautiful women in bikinis smiling at you making you feel like Burt Reynolds or a combination of all those things, whatever it is it works.
Anglerfishes are members of the teleost order Lophiiformes. They are bony fishes named for their characteristic mode of predation, wherein a fleshy growth from the fish's head (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure; this is considered analogous to angling. Doesn't the angler fish remind you of Las Vegas and we are represented my little nemo. "Get out of there it's a trap!"
In a way it's depressing because you want to think people are being nice to you because they are genuinely interested in who you are, but you begin to realize everyone is after the small 6 and 3/16 inch green things in your wallet. Call it paranoia, but that is how I felt. It's definitely not just Vegas the rest of the world is this way as well and I have come to accept it. Money makes the world go round, it is just ever more apparent in Vegas where everything is bigger and magnified! I am glad to be out of sin city and have a chance to go fishing, where I am more comfortable being the hooker then the hookie.
Skyman out.
References: Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Lophiiformes" in FishBase. February 2006 version.
When I started fishing again I wrote down a couple of goal's I had for myself and one of them was to win a tournament. I did not expect this to happen to me yet because my knowledge of the sport and the techniques are still in their teenage years. Well, sometimes life hands you things when you are not expecting it and that's what happened to me at Santa Margarita Lake April 23, 2011.
This was a spring time tournament meaning shallow water bass bonanza! I reviewed my Santa Margarita Lake map and looked for some good shallow water flats. The back end of the lake, which is called the river, has the most productive water for this time of year. With the amount of rain we got this winter, there would be lots of newly flooded vegetation, great for spawning bass.
My go to lure would be the senko in watermelon with red/black flakes, pitched at isolated clumps of weeds and trees. I like the five inch size senko because I read in the book, Knowing Bass The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish, by Keith A. Jones, PhD, that a bass's strike response is greater to soft plastics in the 4" to 5" length.
Driving up to the lake early in the morning with my dad I realized I had not gone to the ATM the night before to get enough money for all the options. Time being an issue, I decided to just get in the basic tournament option which is $ 25. When we arrived at the lake I talked with the tournament director and he informed me a lot of good sticks were fishing this tournament and there was about 40 people in all. Whoops. Should have borrowed $ from pops, it was the chance for a nice check.
The day started off great! It was one of those days that I'll probably remember forever. I had a limit by 10:30 am. Once we were in the right stretch of water, it was fish after fish. I was calling out where I thought a fish would be, casting there and hooking into them. I was the Babe Ruth of Bassin that day! With success in life comes a few failures along the way and even this day had a few. I lost a couple good fish one that could have been big fish of the tournament. The big one I lost kind of popped off leading me to believe my drag was a little too tight. I also noticed my hook sets weren't that strong which I believe is because my rod is a little short; ) I use a 6'6" rod when I should probably be using a 7 footer. My final weight for the day was 18.14 pounds, one hell of a bass sack, good enough for first place out of 39 guys!
My culling system. Those are some big bass baby!
Another lesson learned this trip was about fishing etiquette. As the saying goes in life, treat others the way you want to be treated, same rules apply in fishing. Give others their space and don't be nosey while the tournament is going on. I had another fisherman who I had a small conversation with earlier in the day kind of mosey over my way when he noticed me catching fish. He asked me what I was doing, which I should have ignored but since I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills, I told him. I would never ask another angler what he was using and get close to him while he was fishing. At the end of the day I might ask a few questions, but definitely not during the competition.
The ride back to the weigh in.
Pops with a good sack!
Feeling like a bass boss!
Now that's a sack!
Since I was the champion I got to do an interview with Wayne Shaw the outdoor writer for the local paper. On the phone he was very nice and I told him the story of how I caught the fish and the techniques that I used, but like society tends to do he focused on the negatives in his article. Really rubbing it in that I did not get in all the money options. To be honest, I thought that by being in the basic tournament option I would be able to win some money, but so sorry:( Anyway, I lost out on $435 but like I said earlier I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills.
Sometimes I feel a little crazy as a fisherman. I mean who goes out on a lake fishing when it's freezing and raining? Awesome anglers that's who! I had these images on my camera from when I went out the weekend before a tournament at Lopez Lake to do a little pre-fishing and had some success so I decided to share. This trip was in early to mid February and the weather had been pretty brutal. I think air temps were in the 40's-50's along with some serious rain. If you have the proper equipment and gear (rain suit and boots) it's really not that bad. If you like solitude on the lake then this is your favorite time to be on the water. I mean look at the boat ramp, it's just me:)
The one and only angler on the lake.
Winter time bassing for me = rip baits, suspending jerk baits & crankbaits, drop shots, and jigs. The key words for winter time angling are slow and slower (kind of like dumb & dumber). Depending on the water temperature deep water is also a key for success. A basses metabolism slows down considerably in the winter time and therefore doesn't eat as much. Given the basses predatory nature you can still catch them if you get close enough to them, enter their strike zone and move at a speed they are comfortable with, or you cause a reaction strike where they don't have much time to think, they just react.
Something to consider is the temperature of the water and if the lake is turned over or not. In the winter time at some point the temperature towards the surface becomes cooler and denser (aka heavier) and sinks taking a lot of oxygen down with it. During this time the lake stratifies or develops layers. A thermocline separates the two or three major layers of water. The thermocline is the area where greatest change in temperature with depth occurs. Below are a couple of articles that talk about the thermocline:
Simply put, the thermocline is a thin layer of water in a lake which is sandwiched between the upper layer of water (the epilimnion) and the lower, colder layer of water (hypolimnion). During the summer months, surface water is heated by the sun and the surface temp could be 80 degrees or more. This floats over a layer of colder more denser water called the hypolimnion. Now, between these 2 layers you have a thin layer in which the water temp drops substantially. This will be the thermocline. The temp at this level may be high 60's and up in about the middle of spring.
Graph for ocean of depth vs.temperature. Reference site.
The temperature in a lake is seldom the same from the surface to the bottom. Usually there is a warm layer of water and a cooler layer. Where these layers meet is called a thermocline. The depth and thickness of the thermocline can vary with the season or time of day. In deep lakes there may be two or more thermoclines. This is important because many species of game fish like to suspend in, just above, or just below the thermocline. Many times baitfish will be above the thermocline while larger game fish will suspend in or just below it. Fortunately, this difference in temperatures can be seen on the sonar screen. The greater the temperature differential, the denser the thermocline shows on the screen.
During the late winter there is usually no stratification on most lakes. As a result the water will undergo a temporary oxygenation process. Strong winds, feeder streams feed the lake with spring rains and plant growth begins. So under normal conditions the deeper end of a water body will be quite saturated with oxygen. Since the lower layer is much colder than the surface (averages 10 to 25 degrees difference) the deeper portions can retain the oxygen molecules sent its way during the pre-stratification.
Why does the hypolimnion lose it's oxygen? The thermocline and the upper layer of water are continually replenishing their oxygen supply and the hypolimnion gradually loses it for several reasons.Probably the most important reason is there is very little or no plant life beyond the 30 foot level. Unless the water is gin clear the suns rays cannot penetrate the lake deep enough to grow any vegetation.
Key points from this reading:
Lake turns over in Fall (October, November) when cool water on the bottom is pushed up by the even colder more dense water on the surface (caused by dropping air temperatures).
Fish will be deep (hypolimnion) when oxygen levels are greater there then near the surface (usually winter). Also known as the pre-stratification period.
When the lake becomes stratified or layered (thermocline developed and seen on sonar) most bass will be found in the thermocline because it is most comfortable for them (not too much light and more oxygen then hypolimnion). This is usually late winter early spring.
The bass below was caught on a rip-bait, a 4 in. River to Sea bait to be exact. I was fishing the inside of secondary points on steep angled banks targeting suspending fish. An interesting thing happened during this outing that is worth taking note. I caught my first fish after I got a backlash and was messing with the line. The lure was out there and down to its running depth of about 8 feet. While I was messing with the line the bait was suspended and not moving at all for probably close to 30 seconds and that's when the fish hit! This told me I needed to really slow down! I caught 2 fish in 3 hours and developed a good pattern because both these fish weighted more than three pounds.
The only problem was the next week the weather totally changed on me! The front passed and there was high pressure and clear blue bird sky's. I was able to catch two keepers but my original plan fell through and I had to scramble to catch those two. I forget what the winner caught them on but I think the bass were not suspending but were relating more to the bottom.
Makes the trip worth wile. Three pound late winter bass!
Below are a couple of instructional videos on how to fish a suspending jerkbait aka rip bait:
