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Fishing in the Canal
Image by M.V. Jantzen via Flickr

To give yourself a better chance of catching more bass fish, learning some basic bass fishing techniques is recommended. One such technique involves selecting a dark coloured spoon, crankbait, or spinner when fishing in clear water for bass.

Light coloured bait will not be easily seen in clear water by bass, so your chances of catching any are not as great. Whereas dark coloured baits can be easily spotted and will be more attractive to bass, which of course gives you are greater opportunity for success.

Also, the temperature of the weather you are fishing in also plays a role. There are cold water bass fishing techniques when fishing during the winter months, and also summer bass fishing techniques for warmer temperatures.

Schools Of Bait Fish

Another simple bass fishing technique is that when you are on a large lake and looking for bass, you should first be on the lookout for schools of bait fish. If you find these schools, you can then rest assured that the bass will be lurking about somewhere close-by. The reason for this is that the predatory bass will always lurk close to their dinner and so you can use such a simple bass fishing technique to help you locate your bass.

Bass fish are selective and will be swimming at deeper depths, at least smallmouth will anyway. When looking for bass fish, you will do well to investigate deeper structures with your spinner and even spoons. The likelihood of getting good results will go up on a slow day.

Species

The type of species will play a role in the type of techniques you should employ. For instance, if you are fishing for striped bass, smallmouth, or largemouth you will to use certain techniques to have success catching each one.

For a smallmouth bass, an important technique is to is to be persistent in your efforts because they are more aggressive and unique than other types.

Meanwhile, skill is more emphasized when attempting to catch largemouth bass. This is in reference specifically to the retrieval process once the fish has taken the bait.

In regard to angling for striped bass, the bass fishing techniques are different. Since striped bass are larger, they will put a great deal of effort and force into escaping once they have taken the bait. Therefore, you will really have to use your strength in order to subdue striped bass.

The basic truth is that the bass fishing techniques used to catch largemouth and smallmouth bass is completely different from those used for striped bass. The striped bass is large, does not show any predictability of behaviour and will cover lot of water.

This means you will have to track them over long distances. Because they have these traits, in order to succeed in catching striped bass, you will have to use the fishing techniques that match their behaviour.

See Also: More striped bass fishing techniques

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Learning The Joy of Bass Fishing

Smallmouth Bass caught on the Missouri River i...
Image via Wikipedia

Bass fishing tips are great for any beginner as knowledge is power. Knowing a few details about the metabolism of a bass can make the difference between fishing and catching.

The temperature of the water you fish needs to be within a specific range to have your best days. I have gone when it’s a bit too early here and the water temperature was too low and it was as if there were no bass in the water at all.

A day or two later and the temperature of the water raised enough to make those bass extremely active. So pay attention to the water temperature and you will have better days.

A great bass fishing tip is, when the water is too cold for bass to be very active move to shallower water if possible, where the sun warms it up faster. It can be dyn-o-might fishing.

I have been fishing smallmouth bass here in New Brunswick and at the start of each new fishing season I head to the spots that warm up first and very seldom get skunked. Although last year I took a friend to spot I thought was going to be perfect but the water was considerably colder than any other year I have fished there in the spring.

Water temperatures for optimal smallmouth bass fishing conditions are between 10 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius. Get above 25 or below 10, approx, and they will tend to shut down, so find the water that is between these two values and you should be catching fish if they are there.

I say ‘if they are there’ because I was fishing a spot hoping for a few smallies and this little ole lady came up to me laughing at me and telling me that pond never had fish in it and then she walked away laughing. You never know until you try.

Fish tend to school or travel in groups of similar sized fish so you can use this as an indicator of whether you should choose to move on if all you are catching are small smallies. Although I have caught some big bass after a number of little guys were caught, so take this piece of advice any way you would like.

As a rule if I go too long with the same size fish I will move on.

After saying all this it still comes down to going with my gut because some days all the conditions seem right yet nothing is happening. That’s the time I start thinking about what they eat and find a location where their source of food is more plentiful.

That might mean to start checking out the little bays and coves where the wind may have forced the bait fish into.

Get the first few tips right and you should be having a good time smallmouth bass fishing.

The colder it gets here in New Brunswick the more memories of fishing in Florida rush into my mind screaming to take me south. I just have to plan a Florida fishing trip for next winter. I just have to remember to get my passport this year as we no longer can use our license to get into the U.S. from Canada.

I went south with my brother a couple of times and did some off shore fishing. That was great fun but since then I have gotten kind of addicted to bass fishing, but I have never hooked a largemouth so that’ s what the goal is for my Florida fishing getaway for next year.

I think I will contact a few bass fishing in Florida web site owners and see if we can work out something so I can fish a few great largemouth spots andmaybe even a few places to stay that aren’t to expensive.

The more money I can save on accommodations the more I can spend on my fishing desires, err I mean fishing needs. I have simple needs really and just want to fish.

Seriously though the plan is to fish Florida for largemouth bass. I am even willing to camp to save money so that I would be able to go sooner. I say camping but one year my wife, son and I had planned to camp in Florida to save money but found that the hotel right next door to the camp ground was $5.00 cheaper and they had a complete kitchenette as well. So if that happens again I will not be camping.

Okay, that’s it for now, back to day dreaming about Florida and warmer weather.

Fly Fishing For Smallmouth Bass in New Brunswick

Smallmouth Bass from Eagle Lake in Ontario, Ca...
Image via Wikipedia

After years of fly fishing Atlantic salmon and Brook trout in New Brunswick, every chance I got, I was introduced to smallmouth bass fishing and decided to give my fly rod a try on some smallies. That’s a day I will not soon forget as it was an experience that was completely different from any other fly fishing experience I had to that point.

Fly fishing for salmon and trout has a specific feel when the strike comes but nothing even close to a smallmouth strike on a fly. It was a powerful strike and the fight was spectacular with so many jumps and spins I was dizzy. Oh yeah, plus that fact that they spin your float tube around and around if you can’t lock your feet to the bottom some how. Great fun.

I can thank my friend Kerry for that experience although he never tried the fly rod so he doesn’t know what he missed. It was completely different that fishing smallies with a spinning rod, as much fun as that is.

Even the water I fished was different than the brooks, ponds and rivers I fished for salmon and trout. Now I was fly fishing lakes looking for lily pads and weeds more than open water.

Smallmouth bass on the fly is heart stopping action and I can’t get enough of it. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do all the fishing I want to do, bummer. Maybe we need to move to a more southern climate, eh? Not really though, I love New Brunswick.

I guess, for now, I will just have keep dreaming about fly fishing for smallmouth bass in New Brunswick, well at least until spring arrives once again.

Great Fun With Casey on Lake Petit

If you have been following this blog you might remember that the first three times Casey and I went smallmouth bass fishing in Lake Petit you know we had problems with strong winds the first three times out.

Well yesterday we went out with Casey’s new boat. He is already fixing it up so that everything is exactly where it should be so he can concentrate on fishing and not fiddling with the boat.

caseys-lowe-boat

Of course due to the fact that Casey came and picked me up at my house and after all it’s his boat, so I let him catch the first few bass and even the biggest bass of the day. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

The wind has been so strong over the past week or so that even though the wind was almost gone the water was still pretty stirred up so my polarized sunglasses didn’t help me see more than a foot into the water.

Mother Nature Getting Artistic

mother-nature-at-workThe colours in the leaves of so many trees are just starting to change from green to oranges, yellows and reds. They get so vivid and beautiful that it can be hard to concentrate of fishing so I was fumbling around trying to keep my fishing rod in the water, keep it reeling and take a few pictures all at the same time.

It’s really cool how the trees change colours here and there while the rest of the tree stays green a while longer.

We fished the base of the tree but I think the bass were admiring it while we were there and just ignored us, so we had to move on.

casey-caught-a-bassLike I said Casey caught the most and the biggest bass while I just tried to keep one on my line long enough to get one in the boat. A few small ones stayed on the line. I think they just felt sorry for me.

I used Casey’s camera to take a couple of pictures and only managed to snap one with my camera but it still looks good.

Casey measured it at 16 inches but it fought like it was 20 inches.

I grabbed Casey’s net and tried my best to knock it off the hook but the hooks got caught up in the net and I accidently landed it for him. Maybe next time.

Seriously though it hit like a freight train as it bolted from the water and then it was doing everything in it’s power to keep from boarding the boat.

Now I am sure that I had a bigger fish but I don’t like to hurt them so I don’t use hooks, which means I don’t always see how big they are but I know they were bigger than Casey’s little 16 incher.

As the afternoon was drawing to a close and the sun was going down we headed up a little creek which Casey had never gone up before because it was so shallow.

Once we started into this little spot it immediately went from just over 2 feet deep to more than 8 feet deep and it went back quite a ways, all the way to Salisbury road.

shadows-on-weeds

Casey had a dinner engagement with his wife for about 6pm and the wind was starting to pick up again so we decided to call it a day and headed back out to the main river and home. But just before we were out the sun came out from the clouds and gave us the shot above. A great ending to another great day on the water.

Thanks again Casey.

Three Strikes And Your Outta Here Jim

casey-bass-fishingMy fishing buddy Casey gave me a call yesterday to see if I was up for a day on Lake Petit again. Ha, that’s funny as I live to fish.

The last couple of times we were out on Lake Petit it was windy and the water was like chocolate milk, well yesterday wasn’t any different.

I looked out one of my office windows into my backyard and could see the tree tops swaying. It was another windy day but that wasn’t going to stop me from hitting the water.

Our first two trips out on Lake Petit we were skunked and as I was getting into Casey’s truck I laughed and said ‘Three strikes and I’m outta here.’

The waves were bigger than the first couple of times we were out so we decided we would head up Turtle Creek and see how it was in there.

It was much less windy in there but you could see the effect the wind had had on the water already. The creek, normally pretty clear water and stoney bottom was chruned up and dark but the wind was much less in there.

covered-bridge

 

There was a covered bridge up the river a bit that I didn’t even know existed. It was here that Casey could see that the water was up a two feet higher than normal.

We have had a lot of rain this summer so it didn’t surprise me. Jamie and I have been out a few times to places that would normally be almost dried up at this time of year and the water is still there.

casey-and-bassWe headed up the creek and I caught the first bass, but it was too big to fit in a picture so you will just have to imagine it.

Okay it was all of 8 inches long. I laughed and asked him to go get his mother and gently dropped him back into the water.

A little further up Casey had a strike and jumped up saying it was a great hit.

Just as he said that I saw it jump and to me it looked about the same size as the one I had. I said ‘No, I don’t think so, he just thinks he is big.” and then I laughed.

When Casey brought it to the boat it was considerably bigger than I had thought. I guess I need new prescripton sunglasses.

We fished way up Turtle Creek, way further than Casey had gone before as the water was pretty high.

We pulled up beside another fisher who had just released a 19″ smallie, which lifted our hopes. He said he was fishing a plastic worm and that the fish were right on the bottom.

We saw him again later but he hadn’t caught anything else.

Shortly after that I caught another huge smallmouth bass. Well it was bigger than my first bass. I am sure it went all the way to 11 inches.

The places we fished had a gravel bottom. I think it would be a great place to catch pre-spawning bass. We will have to give that a go next year.

It was still a whole lot better than sitting in my office typing all day.

Fishing For Largemouth Bass

Erie Canal Largemouth Bass
Image by sailorbill via Flickr

When you’re any one who is a beginner at largemouth bass fishing then you have to understand that this unlikely to be anything that you are going to perfect straightaway. When it comes down to improving at fishing for largemouth bass it is extremely difficult. Irrespective of how accomplished you get at fishing for largemouth bass there’ll always be someonethat is far more seasoned at it than you. The concept is to learn a good largemouth bass fishing tip if you can so you are alwayslearning and getting practice. Fishing for largemouth bass is great fun and exhilarating but it will also mean lots of stoicism and discipline.

Largemouth bass fishing is very much about attempting to experience as much information as feasible so you know as much as you can. Often the best knowledge can be gained from an experienced angler. Do not forget to keep in mind though that not all you’re going to learn about fishing for largemouth bass is going to work for you. Be patient and try out other systems and find out which one works the best for you.

Acquiring Knowledge

You will find that when it comes down to studying fishing for largemouth bass there are several places you can go for guidance. There are number of sites where people who have a large amount of experience fishing will come together to share stories and to give recommendation on fishing for largemouth bass. Many pros give advice, tips, and hints in order to help other folk with fishing for largemouth bass.  Or perhaps do a straightforward search for angling chat rooms or web forums and you’ll be astonished at all the different places you can get assistance from.

Furthermore, there are heaps of television shows where folks give all kinds of tips and recommendation on how to fish properly. With the knowledge from these tips from the experts you can surely learn enough to get a little better at fishing for largemouth bass. Maybe buy a fishing dvd, which can be picked up and watched whenever and they are always there again for reference. In the end, with enough learning and reading on fishing for largemouth bass, you’ll have lots of knowledge on the topic and should be ready to even help somebody else out.


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