Bass Fishing Secrets and Tips

Bass Fishing Tips

One of the more frustrating things as a fisherman is when you are getting bites and miss the hook set. Depending on the type of bait you are using these tips may improve your catch.

1. Sharpen or replace your hook. A dull hook can cost you dearly. If you make sure your hook is always sharp you will increase your hookups.



2. Change the size or color of your lure. Some times a slightly smaller grub or worm or larger one will increase your hook ups. Time to experiment.



3. If you are fishing a plastic expose the hook just a bit. Now if you are working around wood or in weeds this may cause other problems but adding a weedless set up can overcome that.



4. Try a buzz bait, crank bait, or a top water lure (like a PopR) and see if you get an aggression strike. You know they are there see if it helps.



5. Show just a bit more patience before setting the hook. Some times that 1/2 a second delay makes the difference between a hit and a miss.

Of course if all of these fail to help remember that a bad day fishing still beats the best day at work and enjoy your time fishing.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing

Bass fishing is a great sport but the question this time of year becomes do you catch bedding bass? If so do you practice catch and release.

As the water warms up the bass hit the beds for the spawn. It can be a great time to catch huge bass from shallow water. The question and argument is what kind of damage does bass fishing at this time of the year do to the fishery.

Here in Pennsylvania the fishing for bass is out of season until the spawn is completed. In other parts it is not and that is where the debate begins.

Personally, if you practice catch and release on the breeding fish I don't feel it does much harm.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out my site at Bass Fishing Secrets.

For small mouth bass fishing in the northeast US one of my favorite baits is a real simple one.

I love the larger size Berkley Power Grub on a jig head.. What they call white but is actually a tan body with white tail has probably caught me more bass over the years than any other lure.
I have used other colors and had some success but it doesn't seem to matter what the water clarity is the white one wins 9 out of 10 times.

Every time I go out bass fishing I always at least try it and usually it is my first choice.

In the Susquehanna River it is also quite effective for picking up walleye too if you run it on a heavier jig head and retrieve it slowly along the edge of a channel. If you haven't used the simple lead head with a grub you may want to try it. Has been a killer for me.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing Tips

One of the tougher things to do when fishing a new body of water is to locate fish.

You can look for the usual keys that work for you like locating structure. Wood structures, channels and weed beds are usuaully a good first visual key.

Once you find likely structure one of my favorite lures to help locate fish is the rattle trap. You can cover a fairly large area relatively quickly and if you get a strike and miss it take the time to use your other tools.

This is one of the easier ways to start looking and locating spots where bass may be holding.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing Secrets

This has got to be one of the best times of the year for floating the rivers around here for bass.

Grabbing a canoe and floating down the river can be great fun. Nothing like early morning when the sun is just rising to work the top water and watch the bass hit your lure.

Later as the sun comes out and others join you (especially the skiers) and the water gets churned up time to work the little cuts with a grub or rattle trap.

Then as the sun starts to set pull out the fly rod and match the hatch. Even the small bass are fun on a light fly rod. Get a big one and it can be quite interesting.

Yes, this Old Bald Guy just loves floating the river in the summer time.

Bass Fishing Tips

One of my favorite ways to fish for smallmouth is using top water lures. Just nothing quite like the site of seeing the hit. Unfotunately, it is not quite that time of year as it works best during the sunmmer and early fall at least here in PA.

My favorite time of year for this is usually during the dog days of summer early in the morning or just before dusk.

More importantly is that the quality of fish I catch is usually better on top water lures that time of year. If you get out in the early morning before the boat traffic starts stirring things up here and float the flats with a PopR or a Spook it can be a great day.

My best day ever with them though came during the afternoon over a deep channel where we caught 12 smallies and the smallest was 17 inches so time may not be a big factor. Take the time to drift the channels in the heat of the summer and try some top waters. You might just surprise your self with your results.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing Tips

One of the nest things my buddies and I do when we are out fishing is to work as a team to find out what is working.

Now obviously this is not for you if you are tournament fishing. But as we are just 3 guys that enjoy catching fish (and releasing them) we always worked as a team for the first half hour or so.

Now we almost always fished an area that we all were familiar with. This saved us time trying to find various structure etc. We always started at our favorite spots or where we were doing best the last time.

The important thing was that we always started working different types of baits to see what was working.

• One would start with a grub on a jig


• a top water


• a crank bait

Each person would try a variety of their types of lures until we started to come up with the day's winning combination. It always allowed us to really hone in on what was working.

Try it with your fishing buddy and see if it doesn't improve your over all results.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing Tips

Spending a lot of time fishing on the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg has taught me how productive the bridges can be. One of the places we fish regularly is under the Wade bridge.
When none of our usual holes was working you were almost guaranteed if you worked the bridge piers you could find fish.

What usually worked best for us was to anchor on the downstream side of the bridge, throw upstream and try and stay as close to the edge of the piers as possible. You could almost count on a hit as you hit the end of the pier if you did not get one before.

Once you found fish and you usually did it was a matter of lure selection to try and find a good sized bass. If you were using a small lure you would get a lot of Rock Bass.

It really depended on what you wanted to accomplish. If you through grubs you would almost always get ots of fish but primarily smaller bass and rock bass. Use a 3/4 oz spinner bait and you wouldn't get near as many fish but as a rule the quality woud be much better.

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.

Bass Fishing Secrets

Bass Fishing Tips

When I started fishing as a kid it was real easy. All I needed was a can of worms, a couple split shot, a couple bobbers and I was set.

Today that small tackle box that served me so well has been replaced with a virtual suitcase that I take out for a day on the water. It has more trays and slots then the number of hooks and bobbers I carried as a kid.

That doesn't count the extra box with tools and parts. After all you need a varity of sizes of replacement hooks, blades for spinner baits, hook sharpener, knife sharpener, pliers, etc.

For me that makes the soft sided box with a variety of plastic trays. Can keep everythin together and still find the items I need when I need it. Used to use a the larger hard case boxes but found that opening them and trying to sort them on a small jon boat just wasn't fun.

That's what I use - How about you?

For more Bass Fishing Tips check out Bass Fishing Secrets the information site for Bass Fishing.