Bass Fishing Beliefs

After the moon myths post earlier in the week it got me thinking, what's something you believe to be true about bass fishing or bass behavior that most people don't agree with?

I'm not sure this is a controversial one but lately I've been convinced that (depending on the area/time of year) I've got my bait in front of a bunch of fish each cast and it just takes that one thing that ticks or sets them off to bite. I imagine it's like fishing in the Bass Pro aquarium except you cant see them obviously

It can be depressing to think that way but it helps me to think that I'm around them and they're just not biting...

I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows. Sorry couldn't pass that up. One thing I believe and catch a lot of flak for is that if the cows are laying then fishing will not be good during that time. I call it animal spirits and learned it from my dad. He read and firmly believed in the Farmers Almanac. He could tell if a hotter and drier summer was coming or a colder and longer winter was coming by the way the animals acted and it usually happened that way. Once when we were squirrel hunting he pointed out how busy the squirrel were gathering nuts and how thick their fur was and predicted a really cold winter. A couple of the squirrel's didn't make it through the winter. They ended up being stew, lol. It really doesn't matter whether anyone else agrees with your beliefs as long as you believe in them. Cows laying never stopped me from going fishing but it did lower my expectations.

I tend to agree with this. I'd be more casts than not there is a fish of a catchable size that is aware that lure is there. Even more disturbing it was either doug hannon or Bob underwood that said they would dive and watch people fish and anglers would never even be aware of most of the bites they got.

This is true. The amount of fish around the structure you fish is far more than the ones that you actually catch. It would be neat to get an underwater camera and see how many didn't eat your bait, but I'm sure it would drive you nuts to know.

If the squirrels are busy, the fish are biting. If the cows are chewing, the fish are biting,and last but not least, WIND IS YOUR FRIEND!!

When cows are feeding in the fields on the way to the lake the day will be a good one. When they are laying down, the fish wont bite.

If you're driving to the ramp, and the cows are lying down... turn around! I still go, but it seems to be true every time!!

If I'm struggling to catch a limit....so is everyone else!


NEVER!

Glen Lau did some awesome underwater footage of large bass inhaling a large crankbait and spitting it out before the angler knew he had a bite on the video "Bigmouth"

Having said that many of the early Rebel Maxi R crankbaits we threw at Monticello had hooks on them that were duller than the last PPT presentation I sat thru...

Here's one: A lot of folks think every bass in the lake comes to the bank to spawn. I fished Ray Hubbard in the mid to late 70's a lot. We caught fish in March & April pulling spinnerbaits & lizards through tree tops in 10-20 feet of water. Those fish were spawning on the forks of the limbs. And I'm not talking 2 pounders here.

I believe the largest bass in Fork never go near the bank even to spawn.

Fish can see my braid...not.

Wind:

West is best

East is least

I live in Dallas. It only blows from the North or the South.

At Fork the bass are ultra sensitive to downscan and sonar.

Ken - Used to do that a lot when Richland Chambers first opened. My first guide trip ever on Fork was with Mark Stevenson fishing those forks in those deep trees using Spinnerbaits, jigs and Zara Spooks. You could barely get a boat through most of that stuff but every once in a while you could even see the tail of a bass fanning above the water.

I know for a fact they spawn in deeper water on Alan Henry.

So many stories from the old days and fishing with the older guys, I could go on for hours. They knew absolutely what a bait had to have going for it to produce more quality Bass. You can't imagine all the techniques and tricks you can learn form fishing with those old guys, if you can even get them to go out on the water any more. These experiences have prompted me to modify baits that play upon every sense that Bass are looking for in sight, sound, smell, taste, vibration and believe it or not a heat signature.

I picked up bits and pieces from many older guys; but none stand out more then the first one I fish with in Texas back in 1982. Mr. Martin seemed to have all the senses put together in his select few baits that he took on the water each day.
- He did not believe in the flash. His skirts on jigs and spinner baits were of the old school wide living rubber using the earth tone colors as most of the West TX. lakes were stained water.
- He hammered the heads flat to get the largest rattling disk eye on the bait as possible for sound and visibility. He believed that Big Bass would always turn on their side and look their pray in the eye before taking it by the head.
- He worked the Scent and Taste to the max. He kept the spinner bait, spook, crank bait and sassy shads in a minnow bucket over night with two dozen minnows. All 4 lines tied on ready to fish without touching the baits the next morning.
- He kept a Blue Flake Lizard and Worm in a Night Crawler box so they were ready to fish. He always handled the wad of Night Crawlers before putting the plastics on the hook.
- He kept his favorite Jig in a coffee can with Crayfish and a mud bath.

The Heat Signature:

Here is a great story on catching a fish on the first cast. The first older gentleman I fished with in Texas ask me that question; "Have you ever wondered why you catch a fish on the first cast then never get another bite on that lure"? It has happened to me over these 60 years that I have been chasing Bass hundreds of times and never thought anything about it until I fished with Mr. Martin.

His theory was that the lure was laying in the sun on the deck and was very hot. Bass are cold blooded just like a rattle snake and are constantly seeking pray that has a different body temperature than their own. A worm or spinner bait for example thrown in the shallows is several degrees warmer than the water and represents a critter that has been in a bush or on a rock sunning then enters the water. More often than not it gets eaten immediately as it enters the water. For the first 20 years of fishing I threw spinner baits exclusively and this is what I did about this presentation to win two tournaments in a row in early spring when the water was cold.

I had noticed that the blades were hot laying in the sun. I could usually catch a fish on the first cast if I was on fish then nothing else until I picked up another spinner bait. I developed a 6 cell flash light that could be plugged into a cigarette lighter. I lined the inside with cork and aluminum foil to hold the heat and used the tail light of a car flipped over and shinning inside to heat up the blades of the baits. I kept a dozen spinner baits tied on and hanging in this HOT BOX. It was somewhat time consuming to unscrew the lens cover, take one out and replace the one just used; but it worked. It produced 12 keeper fish on 12 consecutive cast to win both tournaments. This was done at the beginning of Feb. on one lake and the end of Feb. on another lake. This gave me the confidence to know that it was working. The down fall is that the blades being very hot would be cold by the time I retrieved it back to the boat and had to change on every cast. If you were not on fish you worked your azz off and I lost interest pretty quickly.

Mr. Martin would simply carry a roll of aluminum foil and a small metal bucket. He would line the bucket with the foil to reflect the heat and just lay his baits in there while fishing. He would take them out one at a time and catch a fish then make a change.

Here is the concept behind this:
Over the years I have determined that Bass have the ability to sense a heat signature different from that of their own.  This comes from the lateral line on the fish and is the most important factor in the way a fish feeds.  It is more important than sight, sound, taste, vibration and smell.  It has to do with them being cold blooded like a rattle snake.

Using the lateral line, a bass can feel the nearness of a prey or obstacle before it can see the object. Especially in water of low visibility, fish that swim in tight-knit groups, called schools, use their lateral lines to sense and coordinate sudden turns. Highly sensitive olfactory, or smell organs, permits fish to sense chemicals in the water, which helps identify food. Some fish, such as minnows, are also sensitive to chemicals in the skin of other members of their species. When released to the water during a bass attack, these chemicals stimulate a fright response that warns other minnows to escape, and at the same time gives Mr. Bass a trail to follow. The lateral line is also used for the fish to determine its depth in the water. This helps to distinguish up from down.

It is my belief that there is a fourth sense of the lateral line; sensing hot or cold thermal temperature changes in the food chain. As organisms move to the surface to feed, their body temperature is different from the organisms on the surface. The Bass’s lateral line processes this information and allows the Bass to track and feed on baitfish that have a different body temperature than their own. Any critter entering the water off the rocks or a bush is warm and produces a vicious strike.

If you would like to help in the development of this concept send me a PM..

I subscribe to the cattle myth...

Fish a tournament when the cows are laying down and there will be plenty of fish brought to weigh in, so even if the cows are laying down, fish are still biting for people who don't know that the cows are laying down.

I'm a big believer in the wind is your friend. Besides the obvious, it keeps more folks off the water.

A feller once said to me : If airplanes are leaving a vapor trail ( not smoke ) the fishing would be good. And, he also said, if you feel a tug on your line that to is a good sign.

Never eat fish on a fishing trip no matter how good the fried catfish plate looks.

I had a friend teach me about the 3 taps theory to worm or jig fishing. It goes like this:

First tap is when the fish picks up the bait

Second tap is when the fish spits out the bait.

Third tap is when my buddy would tap my shoulder and tell me I missed one.

I’ve always believed heavily in this theory.

Even if the cows are laying down and you shake a range cube sack they will get up and eat the range cubes. Just like dragging a big old fat lizard on a c-rig in front of a big old lazy fat bass he will eat it......

Launched the boat this past Wednesday morning and all the cows near the ramp were laying down as were most that I noticed in my drive to the lake. We ended up catching fish all day long. Fish were super aggressive and active.

I subscribe to the fact that cows lie. Literally and figurately.

What about when the cows are bedded on one side and grazing on the other ?

I will add this: when leaving the marina if the wake boats are still there, it will be a good day! At least for a little while. I swear they always find me unless I'm hiding in the stumps.

Just means half of them are tired or lazy.

Dang millennial cows.

Thanks for clearing that up. The unbelievers will get their comeuppance sooner or later. They don't believe the cows but love to eat'em.

You speak the truth and the truth will set you free.

Amen brother Harold. I bet you're a constitutional conservative too.

You are right on Ken, Dreabon Joiner told me that years ago and he should know. I believe that most of the really huge fish, ones that live the longest, never come to shore to spawn.

-Spit on your worm

-Downsize when the fish aren't biting - When I used to do demos at BPS years back, the big fish would not usually hit a small or moving bait but pitch a bulky jig or a big creature and they would kill it.

-Top water only works early and late

If water wasn't such a good insulator, this would have merit. Unfortunately thermal changes happen very slowly underwater. You tell it with such vigor though.

Maybe they see the heat?

Never understood how they can see a black worm at night....

No Bass can sense the heat of it's pray. They seem to single out bait that is a different body temperature than their own.

We took 3 minnows out of a large aquarium that had bass in it. The tails were marked with a magic marker to tell them apart. Took those to the minnow tank where the minnows was being raised which was much warmer water. Just left them in the dip net for about 5 mins. to up their body temp.. When we put those 3 back in the aquarium with the other minnows they went straight to the school of minnows. One of the larger Bass moved into the school and chased down all 3 of them. She did not bother the others.

We thought the results might be because of the fright chemicals or stress in the minnows that the Bass was sensing. The next test was with 6 minnows. 3 went to the warm water tank and 3 stayed in captivity in the Bass tank. We saw the same results. The 3 HOT minnow were immediately eaten.

We did these same test by lowering the body temperature of the minnow to less than that of the aquarium with the same results. We tested Bluegill, Crappie, and salamanders with all having the same results. They truly hate any critter with a different body temp. than there own and will chase it down quickly.

So you store all your tackle trays in the cooler full of ice on your boat?

You always catch em good when you bring bananas on the boat.

What if they are laying down in one field and feeding in another?

at Lake Fork when the gates are open and water is running out the fish don't bite.

Except at Mega Bass this past March when they tore them up.

Go to the lake that's closest to the ones feeding.

That's a thought. There are lots of ways to accomplish this short term; but changing baits every cast gets old. Just can't find the right people to make the long term version that I have been working on for many years.

I absolutely do believe the moon and sun panacea make a difference in not only fishing but anything that lives on the planet.
I also believe almost everyone on the lake fished too close to me.

I was being somewhat facetious. But yeah, it would probably last one cast and the water temperature would heat it up to the point of irrelevancy.

Yessir!

Wind in the East, fish bite the least.
Wind in the West, fish bite the best.

Cow are up---fish are feeding too! :-)}

If you have the time, read the book "Knowing Bass" by Keith Jones. It gets VERY technical but a great read nonetheless. For bass to sense heat, the water would have to be thermally conductive in order for them to differentiate a temperature change. That would take an inordinate amount of time as water (even impure water) doesn't conduct heat well at all. What would be more plausible, and it's a stretch, would be for the bass to have some special heat sensing receptors in the retina of their eye like Steez mentioned but that's getting a bit Sci-Fi and not very practical for cold blooded animals.

Don't get me wrong, I wish this had merit. You'd just keep a space heater fired up or your cooler of beer open and give the spinner bait a dunk in between each cast. Even I'd bring more fish to weigh in.

I think Josh's point remains true.... We all have our superstitions/beliefs and if it works for you, great.

I wish my banner days on the water were somehow correlated to the moon, the cows grazing or the almanac. Unfortunately fish are still individuals.... opportunistic ones, at that.

Whatever works.... I'm all for it!

I understand your point on thermal conductivity. I just don't know how to de-bunk the test when the Bass are going after live bait with a different body temperature and not taking out others when there are many to choose from.

I put a Hydrowave on my boat and headed out day one. I started catching fish immediately and beat them up for about an hour. I was kicking myself for not buying it earlier. I decided I better confirm the settings for future trips and realized I hadn't turned it on!
It's all about confidence!

This is very true.
My big thing is confidence, courage, and concentration. If I’m clicking on all three, chances are I’m gonna do well that day. I think Rick Clunn said those three things related to fishing?-I may have read that from him but for whatever reason those stuck for me.

Bass don’t like 2 people fishing for them. It’s like they sense they are in a disadvantage. Proof: Have you noticed when one sits down to take a break, bite into a sandwich or retie the fish seem to turn on for your partner?

I prescribe to the confidence thing. As can be seen from some of my other post, I am trying to learn and be more of a tactical fisherman rather than a chunk and reel kinda guy.

Anyhow, been reading a ton, watching countless videos.

First trip out in the new boat last week was a skunk. After a week of the above I went out yesterday and had a great day. But I went with confidence this time from what I had learned.

First, we'd need a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time.

Then we'd need a large facility with holding tanks specialized at maintaining exact temperatures of large water quantities and a big sample size to be sure our group of fish represented those found in nature. This would give us "statistical significance" and rule out chance. We'd need a control group of fish, either strictly largemouth or of all the black bass and then a few test groups.

We'd need another couple of facilities in other regions (multicenter) to give our results more power and be sure we weren't directing the results to what we wanted to see (consciously or unconsciously).

We'd also want it "blinded".....

We'd want it "randomized"....

We'd need our friendly statistician there to show us the fallacy in our design so when we were done we'd have something valid and worth publishing.

Yes, it would be possible to get good evidence for the theory but not for the faint of heart.

My brain hurts.....

Tight lines!

Studies are not needed. I already know it works. All I want to do is get the capsules built right and put those in the hands of the right people to win tournaments on them. Then put the product on the market for sale. This is just like all the other baits that have hit the market and sold millions of dollars. Fishing results is the key to sales.

Scientific data is great to have if you are building something that effects the lives of people. These are Bass feeding on a concept that fisherman have missed. You can have all the proof in the world that science can give; but it all comes down to what technique did the Winner use to catch all those fish.

Man, y'all making this way too complicated. It's simple really...cows up and eating, fish bite -- cows laying down, fish don't bite!

Half of them up and half down equals half a chance.

+1

I believe my jersey is the reason I catch more fish.

We had a little club tourney on TB last weekend and some nasty storms kept me out of my routine for getting groceries the day before. That and there was a big oil man tourney going on and I didn't want to give up my electric plug at Cypress Bend. I checked to see what the wife threw in my grocery sack and there were two things..... trail mix and bananas.

It took every ounce of courage I had but I took the bananas the next day and fished through the nasty cold front and turned in one of the best sacks I've had in a long time.

Bill dance speaks wisdom.

That's it. Always let the wife pack your lunch.

I've always heard to be quiet on the boat / bank because the fish can hear you. Any truth to that? I see people talking at a normal level all the time on boats and some even have music playing. I've never been able to notice one way or the other if noise level will have an impact on whether a fish will bite a lure or not.

Sound does not travel well from the air to the water. I would have zero worries about casual conversation. Now, hull noise is another story all together. Drop a pair of pliers or have a heavy footed partner. That could definitely spook fish. John Hope told me an interesting story. He said he had been tracking a monster bass for a few nights. He said you could set your watch to her pattern. Every night she'd fire up at the same time and hunt the same stretch of shoreline like a robot back and forth. However, he said one night a kid walked out onto the dock in the stretch, and the fish immediately shot out of there and didn't come back for several hours. Food for thought.

Any type of lotion, sunscreen, bugspray, etc. on your hands will transfer to your baits and the fish will not bite anything you handle.

I had 2 maybe 3 bananas on board the day I caught my public water pb.
I didn’t even know about the banana thing.

I stay low and wear dull color clothing when fishing quiet clear water in the spring especially.
I wear pale blue shirt on sunny days and a khaki color shirt on cloudy days.
I bring a bright picture shirt to occasionally change if I catch a big one.

The little wind saying that I don't remember where I heard, and not sure if anybody else has either.

North- Fisherman should not venture forth.
East- Fish bite the least.
South- Blows the bait to the fishes' mouth.
West- Fish bite the best.

I'm with you on the thermal idea as a possibility. I have had similar thoughts. All the people talking impossibilities, it may not even be heat, but increased electrical activity that they are detecting.

I like the thought. I know a lot of times when I am crappie fishing in the summer I keep about 4 rods with different color jigs on. A lot of times it will get slow on the go to color and you can pick up a different color and immediately get bit and then they won't touch that one, get another off the deck and BAM, catch another. I was thinking color but a lot of times it is wildly different colors, wasn't thinking it was those lures was laying on the carpet and had heated up. Especially up here in cold, clear water where the temp gets a lot different in 15-25 feet. I may try an experiment or two.

Winds outta the East, Fish bite the least. Winds outta the west, fish bite the best.

If my granddaddy spit Garrett's chew on our bait on the cane pole that's what was attracting the fish we caught !!! according to him .

some fish spawn in the fall.

That's it! I'm taking bananas with me every trip from now on!!

Ken A was right on about Hubbard. I have spent many hours fishing the tree forks north of hiway 66.