If you fish a lot during the summer and you should because it can be an awesome time to enjoy great weather and a good bite. You need to be prepared to care for the fish you catch and choose to put in a live well if fishing in a tournament or for taking a picture of later before you release the fish. There are several ways you can reduce stress on fish. First make sure you have the right overall livewell equipment. Make sure that you have live well additives to treat the water making it an extra healthy environment for the fish. Then, it is important to begin looking at the tools you use to manage your fish like what type of cull buoy’s you use. Caring ice to cool the water temperature on a hot day can make a big difference, same with having a needle to be able to pop a fish that is in need of equalizing its swim bladder.
Live well System
The pump is the number one component that you need to make sure is properly functioning. The next most important thing to remember is to run your pump on a regular basis. As long as you are in decent water conditions turn that pump on at regular intervals. I try and turn on the pump while fishing and luckily enough have a switch right up in the front next to the trolling motor so it makes it easy to turn on and off. Many boats also have automatic switches so you don’t have to worry about turning the pump on and off you can just set the timer and every few moments the fish will be getting fresh water. If I am on better fish and have full live wells I also like flush out some of the water as toxins can build up in the tank from secretions from the fish and so it is good for the tank to get flushed occasionally especially during the stressful times of the spawn and the summer when the water is warmer.
Water Additives
The salts and chemicals found inside of the various live well additive products really do help the fish stay healthy and protects them from potential damage inside of the live well by protecting their outer slim layer. The formulas are designed to help the fish protect any wounds they may have from infection. One of the biggest effects I have noticed is it really seems to calm the fish down while they are in the box and this seems to really help their survivability since they are not thrashing inside of the live well.
Extra Tools
If you are planning on using cull buoys to tag your fish while in a tournament use the kind cull kit that does not poke an additional hole in the fishes lip. The plastic clips work just as effectively and do not cause any additional stress on your fish. If the weather is going to be very hot and you have water temperatures north of 85 degrees, I suggest having a few water bottles frozen the night before and place them in your cooler. In the middle of the day you can place on bottle in the live well occasionally to provide some cooling to the water to help the fish. Do not place regular ice in the live well as there is chemicals that can kill the fish and do not place to much ice in the well at once as the temperature shock can also have harmful effects. It is a good idea to switch your live well tank into recirculation mode so that you don’t flush the cold water back into the lake. You can also use an additional oxygen bubble tool to produce dissolved oxygen in your live well. If you are fishing a waterway that does not have a high oxygen level in the water it can be a good idea to use one of these battery operated devices. There are ones that can be professionally installed into a live well system and their also smaller devices like the Mr. Bubbles that provides a portable solution you can choose to use just in the high stress times of year to preserve your catch.
If you plan on fishing at any depths deeper than 20+ feet I suggest you carry a needle and understand how to properly needle a fish to release the air from its air bladder.
If you don’t have a fizz kit go here Don Iovino Fizz Kit this will do the trick and you can learn more about this special technique that will save fish from the problems that can arise from being caught deeply.
Here are two videos about fizzing a bass caught deep with a needle.
Fizzing the bass in the side
Fizzing the bass in the mouth
Here are a few of the products needed to have a great live well set up.
Mr. Bubbles live well aerator
Mayfair Bilge Pump
Portable aerator – Great solution for people in smaller boats or using homemade ice chest live wells
The Lake Fork Magic shad is a unique swimbait. This bait can be fished on a standard swimbait jig head or the weighted hook variety for a subtle swimming bait that gives off a little vibration in the water. The unique “cuts” in the baits design allow for a real slick looking swimming action.
This bait in my opinion excels though once you place it on the back of a traditional swim jig or a chatter bait. The Lake Fork Magic shad bait really comes to live with a well matched jig skirt the bait can imitate just about any bait fish in the ponds where you fish. The shaking of a chatter bait blade really makes this bait dance in the water and look like a wounded fish darting around and bumping into cover. I generally pair the medium sized bait up with a 1/2oz jig and I like to paint the blades to match the color of the jig, if I am fishing a darker color I do not like the bright silver or gold blades, so I generally paint them brown to help like a green pumpkin jig and lake fork magic shad keep that look. This combo is a great fish catcher. The colors of the lake fork shad’s allow for some great combination’s to make with your jig collection and go catch some toads on a big chatter bait and magic shad. I usually fish the chatter bait on braided line especially n the spring if the water is muddy, but will switch to a flourocarbon as the water clears up, especially when throwing the bait on a regular swim jig. This ends of being a more subtle approach and is a great technique around the docks and clearer water situations. With a light weight jig this bait will just float along slowly in the water when fished really slow and can entice a fish to come out and smack it.
I have really liked throwing the Jackall cover craws in a variety of different situations from heavy flipping with a big punching weight to light line finesse techniques. The baits are very compact, yet very soft like you see in custom hand pour worms.
For some people this is a negative because the bait will tear up on you as you catch fish with it. Don’t expect to catch a dozen fish on one bait, I usually get at least 2-3 fish per bait. While heavy flipping can beat these baits up over time if you are flipping into the really thick matted vegetation that requires a 1 1/2oz weight to get through.
This bait is shaped similar to a Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits Ika which I like to rig backwards and insert a small piece of lead in the head of the bait. Use the little nail weights and pitch this bait underneath a dock and the bait will actually go away from you, “yes, like the flying lure” but this technique can be deadly on 10-12lbs test with a round bend hook pitched to docks and other areas when the water is clearer. This same technique can be deadly when fishing lay downs, tules, and other cover that is hard to get deep inside while flipping, just make sure you have 15+ line before you pitch this into a big old tree.
I really like a couple of the colors that they are making for this bait and they are as follows.
Cola
and my other favorite for this bait is Green Pumpkin Candy a great late spring and all summer long color
I suggest picking up a few packs of the Jackall cover craws from one of your local dealers or your favorite online retailer. The cover craw will get you bites and because it is the right crawdad and small baitfish profile and really soft when they eat it they will hold on to it. Good Fishing
This giant largemouth bass was caught using live bait a Japanese koi (carp) at Lake Biwa, Shiga Prefecture Japan. The fish weighed on a certified scale 10.12 kilos. This will basically tie the existing dubious record held by George Perry, but considered by most giant bass trophy hunters as the new target to beat. It certainly isn’t the largest bass ever caught just the one that was brought in doing the right things to be considered an angling record. This same Japanese lake gave up a 25lbs bass to net fisherman who was fishing commercially and Lake Dixon in Southern California had a 25 lbs fish caught out of it that was snagged off a bed and not consider a legitimate catch.
The history of largemouth trophy fishing can be found at http://www.monteburke.com/ the book Sowbelly gives a great amount of detail about the fish that turned out to be 25lbs in Lake Dixon.
I received the First Strike Desktop Fisherman Toy this Christmas. It is a cool novelty for any die hard bass fisherman. The toy is a angler that has a little trigger on his back that enables him to cast his bait towards any of the 6 largemouth bass that come in the package. At the end of the anglers line is a small magnet that when cast near the fish will connect with the fish and then you can reel in the fish. It is fun idea and surprisingly the mechanics work quite well and is a fun diversion from the regular grind of a desk job for any fisherman.
The Reaction Innovation Squeaky Dolphin bait is a buzzbait that has been designed to provide a unique presentation compared to any other buzzbaits on the market. This buzzbait has a few unique features that help draw in fish and make them commit to strike the lure. Like all Reaction Innovation baits the Squeaky Dolphin comes in assortment of great colors, with even a yellow headed blackbird imitation.
The Squeaky Dolphin is accurately named due to the special rivet system that has been designed to emit a squeak as the buzzbait blade turns in the water as you reel it back to the boat. The rivet creates pressure on the blade creating a different sound than what normal buzzbaits make, even if you hang it out your truck window when driving trying to wear out the rivet. You don’t need to do that with this buzzbait it squeaks correctly right out of the package.
The head on this buzzbait has an innovative feature, a small brass ball is embedded onto the top of the head and raised just high enough to occasionally clack with the blade as it is retrieved. This causes an additional layer of sound of and vibration to present largemouth bass a bait that they are not accustomed to seeing swimming by their homes.
The bottom of this buzzbait head has nice size red eye on the underside to help the fish focus in on the head of buzzbait ensuring that the bait is engulfed. This little feature assists in the hook up ratio as I rarely have fish miss this bait compared to other buzzbaits and since I am tossing in very heavy cover most of the time I fish a buzzbait without a trailer most of the time.
I find this buzzbait excels around heavy cover and in water that is off color to muddy. The unique sounds from the squeaking and brass ball clacker emit the necessary sound and vibration to entice a bass that is hunkered down in heavy cover, but willing to crush a topwater bait. I like to toss the bait into the thickest cover and slowly crawl it out, attempting to bump it into as many trees, tules, or weed clump edges that I can as I bring it back to the boat. When the fish eats the buzzbait it is usually either a very violent strike or just a small slurp where the bait seems to just vanish under the surface of the water, in either case just keep reeling for a second or two and the set the hook. You need to give the fish a second to take the bait into their mouth before tightening up and hitting them, but if you can hesitate the first second most of the time the fish will have eaten the head of the bait and be on their way into your livewell.
Top 10 Gifts for a Bass Fisherman under a $100
1. Bass Pro Shop Gift Card – $100
While it is great to pick out the perfect gift it is hard to beat the gift card which allows for the angler in your life to get the stuff they use the most.
2. Bionic Plus Rod & Reel Combo – $80
3. Frogg Toggs Rain Gear outfit – $59 A solid performing rainsuit that’s sure to keep you fishing when everyone else has packed it in.
4. Shimano Symetre Spinning Reel. $99 The Symetre Spinning Reel from Shimano offers an impressive mix of features at a great price!
5. Strike King Kevin Van Dam Sexy Shad Crankbait Kit $59
8. Seaguar Carbon Pro Flourocarbon Line – 1,000 Yard Spool – $80 – $100 Depending on the line size. This spool will provide enough line for most fisherman for an entire year.
9. Quantum® Energy PT Spinning Rods – $99 – A perfect match for the spinning reel listed above.
10. Stearns® Auto Inflatable Vest – Model 1331NAV – $120 it is a little more than $100 but the most important piece of equipment a bass fisherman should have is a quality life jacket and the auto inflatable types are light weight making them easy to wear, which means they will actually get used.
Stearns® Auto Inflatable Vest – Model 1331NAV
Since this is the list of the best items for under a $100 the Bass Pro Shops® XPS® Deluxe Fishing Vest is an excellent choice for under $100, coming in at $50, this will do the job just right.
One item that should be in every tournament anglers box is a set of cull buoy’s whether they are the old school clips and bobbers or the newer more fish friendly models which dont actually break the fishes skin. Either way if you use a set of cull buoy’s to keep track of your keepers in the boat you will make swapping out fish you catch with smaller ones from earlier in the day much easier and less stressful.
I use a basic digital scale and weigh every fish before it goes into the well, then write down the weight next to the color tab that the buoy has for that fish. You will now be able to quickly look at your list when you catch your sixth fish and know which one to swap it out with. This will save time and most importantly you wont be second guessing yourself as you cull out a fish, you know which on is smaller and makes tossing one over that much easier.
After the spoon article I was thinking I should also spend a few minutes to talk about the need for supercharged hooks in other words hooks that don’t bend when a large fish is pulling hard on a long run and you are fishing with a rod that has some back bone and putting a lot of pressure on the fish. Somewhere the pressure is going to give either in the line, the split rings, or the hooks and so I like to eliminate the variables. We will talk about split rings in another article some other time because they are extremely as important as well.
The strong 2x and 4x gamakatsu treble hooks are very sticky hooks that will hold onto the toughest of fish. I personally only will use the 4x hooks on my large topwater baits because either a giant largemouth or a big stripped bass can easily bend out wimpy stock hooks. Bringing a bait back to the boat with no hooks or one that is completely mangled is a situation that can be prepared for and eliminated by your choice of tackle. This is where guys that consistently catch big fish excel over the average angler is that the guys that prepare before they get on the water to do battle with the big dogs rarely fail because of their equipment. So many factors come into play when fishing for big fish and determine whether that fish is in a picture with you or just a fish story. I don’t want to have another fish story about the hook that got bent out which is why I will only use the strongest Gamakatsu and Owner hooks available when I am fishing big baits like pencil poppers, spooks, 3/4oz rattle traps, swimbaits or when I am fishing where it is known big fish hang out with will upsize smaller crankbaits and jerk baits and use the superline versions of other hooks if the pond is known for kicking out toads.
It is fall time and out west on the California Delta that means the Stripped bass will be running into the river. The topwater action with a lunker punker, pencil popper, or oversized spook can be deadly. However the fish usually only chew the topwaters in the early morning and if you are lucky enough to run into a big school with bait and birds on top. The rest of the day mst guys either soak bait or toss rattle traps and big hammer swimbaits which I also like to use in a similar to fashion to the way I fish for the stripers with a spoon.
One of the funniest things to me is locating a group of fish or a single fish on my graph that is on a sharp ledge or a nice current break and in anywhere from 10 – 30ft deep and drop a spoon down on top of their head. Usually if the striper is going to eat the spoon it will do so pretty quickly after bouncing it around it heads for a little while. The strikes on the spoon can really vary sometimes they just engulf if when the line is tight and it feels like a freight train smashing the bait. Other times you will feel a slight tick on the down fall of the fluttering spoon and when you go to pick up the bait the rod loads up and the fish will be there. The stripers also like to take a swipe at the spoon sometimes with their tail like they are trying to kill the bait before they eat it, when you feel a fish, but then he is instatly gone that is what is happening dont jerk your rod suddenly just continue slowly pumping the rod and letting the bait fall usually it only takes one or two more times to get the fish to eat.
I like to use a 3/4 oz hopkins spoon for about 80% of the spooning that I do when fishing for either largemouths or striped bass. The Hopkins is a solid design and well made spoon, however that doesn’t mean I fish it with the stock hooks. Always upgrade your spoon hooks to the stickier owners or gamakatsu style hooks and when striper fishing I prefer to up the hook to a 2x or 4x strength hook to prevent hook failure. I use a 7 and a half foot flipping stick when spooning for stripers because you want a little additional backbone in the rod to fight a good sized fish and I usually go with 15 to 20lbs test flourocarbon line because of the sensitivity of and strength.
