Improve your bass fishing with proven tactics and techniques for largemouth and smallmouth bass. Learn how to choose the right presentation, retrieve, depth and approach for changing conditions, cover and seasonal patterns. Explore practical how-to articles designed to help you locate bass, recognize patterns and fish more efficiently.
October thru March in the upper Midwest usually means that bass season is pretty much over, most folks take their bass boats in for their end of the season maintenance and winterization and start focusing on deer and waterfowl season. Hey what do you expect it's the North Country; .
Five years ago in March, I was blessed with the birth of my little fishing buddy, Tatum. In an attempt to spend as much time with Tatum as possible, I cut way back on my fishing, opting instead to stay home with her. Although it was a sacrifice I will never regret, .
Anyone that lives south of the Red River knows that "hot" does little to describe the horrific heat we have been experiencing lately. With temperatures surpassing the 100-degree mark for several consecutive days, most folks don’t think about hours on the water as being much fun. In fact, this is the time of year I turn to fishing in the dark, night fishing. Most importantly to me, it is not nearly as hot fishing at night as it is during the day in this time of year.
There are times when I want to specialize my spinnerbait presentation in a way that isn't very popular. I like to go shallow and slow. The way I see it, a bass sees dozens of spinnerbaits fly by his face, "ticking the tops of the weeds", looking for the reaction strike in the course of his life. I want my bait to crawl by making a lot of noise to show him something different.
Sometimes called the idiot rig, something so easy a child could use it, the Carolina-rig is probably the most underrated technique in today's bass fishing arsenal. True, the rig is easy to use, but it becomes more complicated when you expand on its capabilities. Not only is it one of the most productive rigs I have used, it is also the most versatile.
Over the years I have read a lot about where to fish and what to use, there are many talented Bass anglers that can give advice about a multitude of subjects. We all owe thanks to fellow anglers, magazines, television shows and various instructional videos.
Full contact fishing you ask? Could this be a new form of “extreme fishing requiring pads and a crash helmet? In a word, no. However, for many it may be a style of fishing that is very unfamiliar, and in some cases may even seem foolish. The basis of full contact fishing lies in the fact that instead of fishing in and around cover and structure…you fish on it.
One of the biggest lures of bass fishing is the competitive nature of the sport. At any level, it's competing against the fish on an afternoon out, your buddy on a Saturday morning or in the structured setting of a professional tournament, it is competition in a pure form. This fact causes us to occasionally encounter the malady that every competitor, in every sport has to face "The Slump."
