I spent Saturday with a young guy in my boat talking about big fish and telling him about John Hope and his work tracking big fish. He had never heard of John and that conversation got me re-reading this piece from a couple of years ago. I know some of you have seen it, for those that have not I think it's a pretty interesting read.

John Hope article link

Great article Ken. The most fascinating thing to me is the story he told of the fish that traveled 18 miles in one day to return to where it had been caught.

I consider his book(s) the Bible of bass fishing. Based on science, observation and time on the water. I used to make it a point to sit in on every seminar he did during the old boat shows.

I don't think he's on the forum, buy I heard Tommy Martin tell a story and if I remember the details right he caught a fish on Toledo that traveled 27 miles in a day...if he's on here or someone knows him well ask him about us and see if he can give us more details.

Wow, sure enjoyed the read. Now I'm ready to go out and catch some of those shallow bass during winter....Thanks!

was fishing a tourney on lake martin(Al.) years ago,caught a 4lb bass out of brushpile in front of a dock in Blue Creek...this fish had unusual scar/depression on it's back...weighed in the fish and released it at Pineywoods landing up in north part of the lake....two weeks later caught same fish out the same brushpile ironically on the same bait(jig &pig)...no mistaking it was the same fish because of the unusual marking/scar....this fish in two weeks had to swim approx. 15 miles including several miles of open water plus turn into a creek and another 3-4 miles up the creek into an inlet with several docks...
had a very similar story from guy who used to put tournaments on in southwest Louisiana...his story involved a fish that taggedby a student doing research for a class project...this fish was tagged and released at weigh-in site and two weeks later caught again at same spot it was originally caught.....this fish has swam approx. 14 miles and had to make several turns in and out of canals and bayous to get back to where he was caught...
obviously fish and animals have some sort of homing instinct because there's too many instances such as the two above.....

Good read

So my question would be, when water temperatures hover in the mid to high 40s, do those fish still remain in the 8-12 ft. range? If so, I�m staying shallow.

Great book. I�ve read it again recently. His words in the book are a little different as presented in the article

Here is a direct link to the page to order the book. I suggest anyone who pursues bass to read it at least once


https://www.thebookpatch.com/BookStore/trackin-trophies/96f56779-2f7b-4eb2-872d-49f07aefefa5

It's not just animals, you can release a 17 year old boy miles from the house in a mall and at some point, generally when he's hungry, he can find his way back home

Funny thing is Myself and Jason Hoffman and Dennis Canada had breakfast this morning and we were talking about this tracking thing with DC big fish and Johns fish and some of the fish I tagged back in the days and how they moved.

I tagged a couple years ago out of white oak and turned them loose in Wolf and three days later they were back in White Oak on beds.

Dennis gave us some real insight on how his big bass never left wolf branch. She stayed in there year after year and I think he caught her 3 X.

He and John Hope did some things together back in the days. In fact JH put the transmitter in DC fish. We were still talking about all of this at lunch time.

Funny how you get to talking about fishing and the good old days and time just fly's by. Dennis and I have been good friends for many of years.

Yep, 30 year old daughter's can find their way back home after being gone for 11 years too, lol. Oh wait, cancel the lol.

Good read.

I remember being new to Fork after coming home from the service. Sherry Ruslink took me under her wing. I spent many hours following her around the lake learning the boat lanes. After knowing her a year her and my wife at the time realized Sherry�s daughter and my wife were close friends in Jr Hi.

Anyway I remember her introducing me to John Hope and the talk about cover vs structure. I also remember them telling me that if they put me in a perfectly square pasture at mid day and said they would be back in an hour that when they got back I�d be anywhere at the edge of the pasture. Now if that pasture had a singular pole in it or even a tree, when they came back in an hour I�d be up against the cover.

His ideas and concepts are so easy to understand. Even the anaology about people getting up and using the same path every day to go to the fridge for food. Flusher feeding bass will do this same thing.