Contrary Bass

I fish from the deck of a marina that is in deep, crystal clear water, and usually see a lot of bass in the boat stalls. Sometimes, they are suspending beside a boat lift, sometimes slowly moving around two or three feet below the surface, and occasionally they will swim by in a wolf pack, ten to 20 in a pack.

They drive me crazy because they normally ignore any kind of lure I place in front of them, or use trying to trigger a bite, such as spoons, swimming tail plastic jigs, tubes, drop-shot rigs, senkos, wacky rigs. When I can catch minnows with the throw net, I can sometimes get one to take a lively minnow, rigged without any weight on the line, or sometimes dropped down with the weight of a split shot. And more often than not, they won’t even take a minnow.

If anyone has a suggestion for anything I have not tried, other than dynamite, I’d like to try it. At times during the year, I can catch catfish, crappie, and bluegills, but the catfish and crappie are seasonal at the marina. I see bass and bluegill year around. Usually I can find a way to trigger fish to bite, but these bass are extremely hard to catch and have me frustrated.

Go at night, and don't step foot on that dock. The moment you step on that dock the fish are going to know you are there and they are going to be mighty tough to catch. I was talking to John Hope one time and he told me a story about a fish he was tracking that lived near a dock. He said one night he was tracking the fish, which had been on the same hunting patter for hours. All the sudden a kid walked out on the dock and the bass immediately broke off it's feeding pattern, suspended, and did feed again for several hours.

Thanks for the reply J. I’ll definitely try a quieter approach in the future.

Assume if you see them, they see you!

You must live on Lake Travis. These bass drive me nuts. Can't tell you how many times the better bass (over 3 pounds +) swim out on a fast moving bait right up behind it...then...nope...that ain't real. Dang!

Don’t live on Travis, but fish out there. Fishing clear water is definitely challenging. The dang bluegill even do the same thing — swim up close, take a look at a piece of nightcrawler, something they normally can’t resist, and if they see a little uncovered hook, they back away. Unreal!