08-31-2019, 01:23 PM
I just started fishing a month ago or so and I've been struggling trying to find any bass to catch. I primarily fish on lakes Mohave and Mead in AZ so I knew they were out there, but nothing I did seemed to work.
There was no way I was gonna spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a fish finder just because I suck at fishing, so I did the next best thing: I bought a topo map of each lake and signed up for Navionics. I was hoping that by combining the information from the two maps I would be able to deduce the most likely places to find fish.
And it worked!
I plotted out seven different spots to hit within a 7 mile stretch of shoreline, launched at 5am and I was hauling in bass by 5:30. Much to my surprise, I never even left the first spot I anchored in; it was so productive I fished it for almost five hours.
All in all I caught two sun fish (which I wasn't fishing for), four bluegill (which I was fishing for) and nine bass, mostly dinks, but I managed to land a 1.5-pounder, a 1.95-pounder and my new PB, a 2.27-pounder. Considering my previous failures, even the dinks were fun to catch! There was what I'm guessing was a 3+-pounder that slipped off the hook as I was trying to net it, but oh well.
I caught them all on a variety of baits -- robo worms, rattlin' crankbaits, a jerk bait... the 1.95 pounder was caught on my ultralight crappie rig on 2-lb line and a #8 hook with a 1" plastic minnow I was using for bluegill. THAT was fun! Good thing it hadn't eaten breakfast yet that morning
Considering how good the bite was, I was surprised (and disappointed) that nothing bit at either my spinnerbaits or my skirted jigs... not even a nibble the whole time. I tried every color/trailer combination I had -- which was a lot -- but they just could not have cared less. At this point I'm going to assume it was my presentation and not the bait, but who knows.
It feels good to finally haul some fish into the boat, and the good news is I have at least one good spot I know of and 6 more spots to try out next time
[signature]
There was no way I was gonna spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a fish finder just because I suck at fishing, so I did the next best thing: I bought a topo map of each lake and signed up for Navionics. I was hoping that by combining the information from the two maps I would be able to deduce the most likely places to find fish.
And it worked!
I plotted out seven different spots to hit within a 7 mile stretch of shoreline, launched at 5am and I was hauling in bass by 5:30. Much to my surprise, I never even left the first spot I anchored in; it was so productive I fished it for almost five hours.
All in all I caught two sun fish (which I wasn't fishing for), four bluegill (which I was fishing for) and nine bass, mostly dinks, but I managed to land a 1.5-pounder, a 1.95-pounder and my new PB, a 2.27-pounder. Considering my previous failures, even the dinks were fun to catch! There was what I'm guessing was a 3+-pounder that slipped off the hook as I was trying to net it, but oh well.
I caught them all on a variety of baits -- robo worms, rattlin' crankbaits, a jerk bait... the 1.95 pounder was caught on my ultralight crappie rig on 2-lb line and a #8 hook with a 1" plastic minnow I was using for bluegill. THAT was fun! Good thing it hadn't eaten breakfast yet that morning
Considering how good the bite was, I was surprised (and disappointed) that nothing bit at either my spinnerbaits or my skirted jigs... not even a nibble the whole time. I tried every color/trailer combination I had -- which was a lot -- but they just could not have cared less. At this point I'm going to assume it was my presentation and not the bait, but who knows.
It feels good to finally haul some fish into the boat, and the good news is I have at least one good spot I know of and 6 more spots to try out next time
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