Yellowtail on Fin Bait

We have already discussed the effectiveness of live squid for yellowtail. But what do you do when there are no live squid available? Fin bait is the next best bait, mackerel, sardines and to a lesser degree, anchovies. I will use anchovies for chum, then throw iron jigs for the yellows.

Choveys are small and weak and don't last long when pulling the large size lines usually used for yellows. Large sardines and small mackerel are the bait of choice when yellows are your target. But first before we can catch yellows we must find them.

Yellowtail are members of the jack family and they can be found in many different environments, offshore islands, rocky points, kelp areas, rocky reefs in depths of twenty to two hundred feet, offshore open ocean and just about any other type of near shore area you can think of. I have caught yellows in all of them. Yellows are found away from structure by looking for them crashing bait on the surface and the hordes of birds diving into the schools of bait fish the yellows have chased to the surface.

Tackle for yellows depends on the area being fished and the size of the fish in the area. At the famous Farnsworth Bank at Catalina Island where the reef comes within fifty feet of the surface and forty to fifty pound mossbacks ( very large home guard yellows ) are always a possibility, the prudent angler uses fifty to eighty pound mono on heavy tackle. You may not get as many bites, but, you have an excellent chance of landing the ones you hook. I have had a boatload of anglers go "0 for 40" on Farnsworth yellows because no one had anything heavier than forty pound test on their reels that day, the fish were very large and biting deep that day and even with forty pound test and buttoned down drags, the yellows just pulled you right into the rocks and sawed you off, end of discussion!!

When fishing open water yellows, these fish could have been landed on fifteen or twenty pound test because the bottom is a thousand feet down and there is nothing except the boat bottom to

cut your line on. This can be done on private boats, on party boats I recomend thirty to forty pound outfits to help control your fish and keep clear of other anglers lines. Nothing makes you a target of other anglers scorn and anger faster than fishing with tackle to light for the conditions and having your fish tangle other peoples fish and causing them to lose a fish they have fought for a long time.

If you see fish crashing bait on the surface, a bait cast near the crashing fish will usually get a quick hookup. For sardines I use a 2/0 to 4/0 short shank premium hook. For mackerel I use a 4/0 to 6/0 depending on the size of the bait. Always match your hook size to the size of your bait, a hook that is too large will quickly kill the bait, one that is too small will cause you to

miss many hookups. When you get bit give the fish a chance to get the bait into his mouth before you set the hook. With sardines three to five seconds will work most of the time, with macks I usually let the fish have the bait for six to ten seconds, put the reel in gear, let the line come tight and "pop 'em a good one!"

When the fish starts running just hold on, don't wind the reel, wait until the fish stops then put as much pressure on the fish as you can, but when the fish gets near the boat he will make another run straight down. When the fish is running I change hands holding the rod to rest the rod hand. Yellows make several long runs and several shorter ones and you need to rest your

arms as much as possible during the fight.

Offshore yellows can be found around floating kelp paddys, sometimes as small as a trash can lid, but usually larger ones are best. When I am searching for offshore yellows I troll two CD 18 mackerel pattern Rapalas about 100 ft behind the boat, when I see a kelp paddy my first pass is made about fifty ft from the paddy. As I pass I have someone throw a handfull of sardines next

to the paddy, if no fish are seen boiling on the bait.

Come back for the conclusion to this exciting way to catch yellows!

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Cranking for Bass part 4

Summertime is the time that the balsa crankbaits really shine, this is the time when most of the bass are in the twelve to eighteen foot depth range. The perfect tool for fishing this depth range is the deep diving crank that runs inthe ten to fifteen foot range and my favorite is the Bagley's DB3 in chartreuse over white. I have fished this lure and color combo all over the U.S. and Mexico and have caught bass, crappie, catfish, white bass, stripers, wipers and many others on this one lure. I have caught fish in all calender periods, ( it would not work when the lake was frozen ).

In the cold water periods there are better lure choices, but you can almost always catch fish on it. In cold water periods I putit on a downrigger and slowly swim it just under shad schools sometimes sixty to eighty feet deep, and catch bass and some really big catfish on it. Speed of the lure is an important trigger in the summer, you can't reel too fast for a bass to catch it. If I need to fish the DB3 at a medium speed I opt for a conventional reel with a five to one or a six to one gear ratio and mate it with a six and a half to seven foot medium action fiberglass rod. This rod has a little more bend in it before it loads up and seems to hook more fish than its graphite
counterpart, and since its not as stiff as graphite it is more forgiving when the fish is near the boat and you will have less hooks pull out when the fish is thrashing near the boat.

When more speed is needed to trigger bass I go with a seven and a half foot medium action spinning rod and a medium saltwater spinning reel loaded with thirty pound spectra, a woven superline with a line diameter close to ten pound monofilament. This small line diameter with no memory like monofilament casts fifty percent farther than with a conventional reel with, TA DA, no backlashes! When you get a backlash with spectra on a baitcasting reel it usually turns out to be the" Mother of All Backlashes" and you might as well put that rod away until you get home because you and it are going to spend a good deal of time together getting that backlash out!

I will put spectra on a baitcasting reel that I intend to fish a dropshot rig on, then put a five foot leader of flourocarbon mono at the end. This is a rig meant to be fished straight down under the boat, and spectra excells at this. Also the spectra with its small diameter will let the DB3 dive four to five extra feet deep and if I need more depth I can KNEEL-N- REEL, put the rod tip straight down in the water almost to the reel and you can get it down another five feet, with
this method you can get the DB3 to hit twenty five foot depths, if I see bass on my depth finder at that depth. The spinning reel lets me take up twenty five percent more line with each turn of the reel handle which makes the lure go that much faster.

In clear water this is necessary so the bass does not have time to get a good look at the lure or the line as spectra is highly visible. The fish either eats the lure or it escapes. Sometimes you need even more speed than just reeling can give you, the solution here is to reel the lure down to its programed depth then with the rod tip almost to the water sweep the rod up to the twelve o-clock position as fast as you can, then reel as fast as you can while dropping the rod tip back to the water, then do it again until the lure is back to the boat, the slight pause while the rod is being lowered and the line is taken up allows the lure to stop and float up a bit then scream off again as if every bass in the lake is after it.

Bass are always competing with each other for food and when a prey gets away from one another is right there to gobble it up. This tactic has caught bass for me when nothing else worked. Another good tactic to do with a crank is bend the line tie a little to the right or left,
this causes the bait to run off to one side or the other, normally you want the bait to run straight, but by making it run to the side you can make it run under a pier or overhanging bush, this lets you fish the bait in places where bass do not usually see a crankbait. I have caught some really nice bass this way, when fishing cranks, I have two other rods rigged, one with a crank that runs right on the right side of the boat and one that runs left on the left side of the boat.

When fishing boat docks with cranks I drift by with the wind and make casts down both sides of the dock then circle around and cast the lures that go off to the side and let them run back under both sides of the dock, I usually catch more fish on the lures that run under the dock than the ones that go straight down the sides as that is the way 99% of the other fishermen fish them. Sometimes you just have to show the fish something a little different than what they are used to.
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Cranking for Bass part 3

As I stated before I now use very few lures for most of my fishing for bass. Most of the articles you read are written by pros or other fishermen that have ties to or are sponsored by lure companies and their agenda is to make you think you need every lure made by their sponsor and in all the colors of the rainbow.

I have no ties to any tackle manufactures or lure makers. When I fished the pro bass circuit, I had the good fortune to have fished with some of the best bass fishermen in the world. Most of them had their rods rigged with just a few lures, and they spent all day fishing without changing them very often. The most seen combos were, 1 rod with a plastic worm, one with a crankbait, one with a spinnerbait, one with a topwater lure and a flipping stick with a jig and trailer or a plastic bait. None of them spent all day changing colors to see what the fish wanted, they may of had favorite colors but mostly they all caught fish no matter what color they fished.

What I learned from this was that color was maybe 5% of the equation, lure type was 10% of the equation, lure speed was 10% and fishing where the fish were was 75% of the equation. A lure is only a tool to help you catch bass in the most efficient way possible once you have found them. Say it is during the spring spawning period and the bass are shallow in brush, what would you fish? A crank would not be too good because It would get hung up too often and you would scare all the bass in an area when you got close to unhook it from the brush, a plastic worm or jig would be too slow for you to cover the maximum amount of water and show the lure to the most fish.

The perfect lure for this situation is the spinnerbait. It can be buzzed on the surface, it can be fished just a little bit slower and run a few inches under the surface causing it to make a little wake on the surface, or it may be reeled slowly by the roots of the brush and right through the beds, even if the bass don't want to eat it, they will want to kill the intruder to keep it away from the nest where the eggs they are guarding are. And it is very weedless, it doesn't get hung up very often. I always have several rods rigged with the same spinnerbait on them, that way if I do get hung I can just pick up one of the other rods and continue fishing until I have fished the area efficiently, then I go retrieve the hung lure and go to my next area.

A spinnerbait is also a crankbait that gives you so many options on how to fish it. It can be fished topwater, or one to thirty or more feet down. It can be cast out and let it settle to the bottom ( always have the reel in gear and the rod in the seven o-clock position as its sinking, as bass love to hit this lure on the sink and the rod needs to be in the best position for a good hookset.) I cast it out and let it sink to the bottom and count it down, one thousand and one, one thousand and two, until it hits the bottom. If it hits the bottom at one thousand fifteen, the water is approximately fifteen feet deep, now if on my next cast into the same depth, my line goes slack at one thousand and ten, I know a fish has probably hit it and I set the hook hard, maybe it wasn't a fish, but the lure stopped on the top of a bush in ten feet of water, when I set on nothing the lure really jumps off that bush at warp two, by the time my rod is at the twelve o-clock I know there is no fish there so I continue to let it keep sinking on a tight line and follow it down with the rod tip, dropping the rod tip just fast enough so there is no slack in the line and I can feel the spinner vibrating as it sinks, if the spinner stops vibrating or the line jumps or goes slack, I presume a bass has hit it and set the hook, anytime something feels different set the hook!!!

I have caught a lot of bass after I set the hook on nothing and quickly jumped the lure from where it was to six or more feet away in one second, this quick escape move by the lure got the bass's attention, and when it stopped and slowly made its way back to the bottom, it became on easy meal for the bass and he ate it. This is much the same way a crawdad tries to escape, a quick charge to the rear and a slow sink to the bottom watching out for danger as it sinks, but another predator behind and below the escaping crawdad is not seen and easily captures the hapless prey.

If I could only fish one lure for the rest of my life it would be a spinnerbait!
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Bass Fishing part 1

I have been a bass nut since I caught my first one at age 9 or 10. This fish hit a Mepps #2 spinner cast into holes and trails in the lily pads. It probably weighed less than two lbs. But it was a beautiful, wonderful, exciting fish that sent me down a road of discovery, that has stayed with me all my life.

Most of my fishing is done in the ocean now but fresh water bass fishing has remained the type of fishing that is always near the top of my list of favorites. There are many ways and methods for catching largemouth bass, some work well at certain times of the year, others work well year round in temperate climates ( no frozen water periods ).

My favorite all time bass lure is the spinnerbait. It is a very versatile lure, that can be fished fast in the search mode to find which areas, and type of cover are holding fish. Then slowed down and become an effective lure for less aggressive fish. In the search mode the spinnerbait is cast near shoreline cover, trees, brush, rockpiles, and any other form of shallow cover suspected of holding bass. A cast is made, and right before the lure hits the water, the reel is engaged and you start reeling as the lure hits the water. This may sound complicated, but with some practice it becomes second nature. The spinnerbait is very weedless, and can be cast into some very snaggy places without hanging up.

Most of the year reeling it on the surface with the blades bubbling on the surface is the best way to fish this bait. It can also be slowed down and fished just under the surface. During the cold water time of the year, it can be fished like a jig, cast out and let flutter to the bottom, then slowly fished back to the boat with a slow lift and drop. In the winter I have found that a pork frog added to the lure makes it much more effective.

In clear water a tandem silver blade model works well, in muddy water a single bronze Colorado blade is best. As far as color is concerned, use green and white in clear water, red in muddy water and black at night. Use the color guides as general information as color is the least likely variable to cause a bass to strike. Vibration and motion are the variables which cause a bass to strike more times than not. I have only seen a few times that color made much of a difference. Manufactures use colors to get you to buy many more of their products than you need.
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Big Baits part 10

I was pulling as hard as the light line would allow, and slowly but surely the fish started coming up closer to the surface, one more feeble run and the fish gave up, now I was gaining line steadily. I looked into the depths as I wound the fish to the surface, now I could see it, WOW, it was a giant halibut! It was the largest halibut I had ever seen, outside of Alaska. One swing of the gaff and it was on the boat, her tail beating loudly on the deck, I could not believe what I was seeing, here was the biggest California halibut I had ever caught, or had been caught on my boat.

As she was flopping on the deck, she spit out 5 mackerel, up to 2 1/2 lbs. probably eight pounds worth. Later on the scales she hit 49 1/2 pounds, add the 8 pounds of macks she spit up, and she would have easily broke the California state record and the IGFA all tackle record for Calif. halibut.

But after I received my certificate for my 21st IGFA world record, I promised my self I would let all record fish go until I had helped others catch 21 World records. My clients are now at 20 world records, and I have only 1 more to go to fulfill my promise, in the meantime I have released over 70 record class fish that I have caught. I am a professional fisherman and I should be able to break records, but helping others catch a record fish is a very special feeling, 100

times more special than catching my own!!!!

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Big Baits part 9 (2)

Suddenly I realized I had a very large fish on the line, what it was I did not know, it made a medium distance powerful run of about 50 to 75 feet, what was it, how big was it, could I hold it on the light bass rod and12 lb. test line I was using? As I fought the fish with light but steady pressure, I realized I had a iron jig with a single barbless hook, I couldn'tpump the fish as I usually did because the heavy iron lure would just fall out of the fish's mouth.

After what seemed like hours, but what was really around 10 minutes, the large fish got closer to the surface and made another prolonged run for the bottom, I wasn't worried about the bottom, the water was really deep here, I didn't know what kind of fish I had, or whether it had sharp teeth, maybe it was a shark and had sandpaper skin that could wear right through the line, I was mostly curious about what I had on the end of my line. I have caught many large fish in my life, including a great white shark that weighed close to 3000 lbs and was 18 to 20 feet long ( it was released ).

This was not a question of, gosh, this is the fish of a lifetime, but just I was very curious about what this was on the end of my line, especially since it was from a zone where I very seldom had caught anything in the past, at least at the depth I had hooked this one. I am always on the lookout for new places and new techniques in the area I fish.

LIFE LESSON # 6: You can never know too much or have too much information on the areas you fish.

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Big Baits part 9 (1)

After coming back to California in 1975, I started fishing for halibut down here where a 15 pounder was considered large and 20 pounds and up was a trophy. The standard fare was anchovies, and if you could get them sardines. I caught a lot of keepers ( 22 inches and up in Calif, ) but only a few were large enough to be considered trophies.

Then I started thinking about Alaskan halibut. I started experimenting with larger baits, and quickly started catching more of the big girls. In most fish species the female is much larger, probably because eggs are much larger than a sperm, and even a small male could fertilize the largest females eggs. I found that the larger sized smelt, herring, lizard fish, tomcod, and medium perch and small to medium mackerel worked well for the bigger halibut.

Then one day I was catching mackerel for shark bait, I was using a medium iron lure as the "frogs" just ate it up. It came with a treble hook which made unhooking the "frogs" a chore, so I cut off two of the hooks and pinched down the barb on the last hook, this made unhooking the bait very easy, as all I had to do was grab the lure, turn it upside down and the macks just slid off into the bait tank or cooler. After making about 30 pieces of bait the macks disappeared, so thinking they may have gone deeper I dropped the iron down to about 50 feet, and started jigging the iron up and down.

On the third jig the lure stopped, I raised the rod to set the hook, but was surprised to find the iron stuck on the bottom. How could this be, I said to myself? I was fishing in 200 feet of water! Suddenly the bottom started swimming away!
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Big Baits part 8

I lived in Alaska from 1969 to 1975 and did quite a bit of halibut fishing, first on charter boats out of Homer, but that was rather expensive, so we bought a 16 foot aluminum boat, that we launched from the beach at Deep Creek.

On the charter boats they used herring for bait, putting several on

a large hook, and dropping it to the bottom. We caught lots of " chicken halibut, " fish from 20 to 30 lbs. and a few larger ones, but none of the giants the area is famous for.

The party boats were pretty expensive, so we bought a 16 foot aluminum boat with a 10hp motor, and launched it from the beach at Deep Creek and several other places where creeks ran into the sea.

We soon learned that the small herring mostly caught smaller halibut, fish fishermen in Southern Calif. would do anything for. ( 20 -30 lbs. )

First we tried a fillet from a pink salmon and the halibut we caught started getting bigger, so we tried the whole fish and started catching some really big fish, plus we didn't have to waste our time with all the little trash fish that always seemed to be stealing our herring. We learned that the big girls were found at the first drop off out from the river mouths. We figured they laid out there on the bottom eating dead salmon that had washed down from the spawning rivers, and that is why they got so big, they just lie there and the current brings them food in large amounts, and since dead salmon don't run very fast, they were very easy to catch!

The fishing seemed to be best at low tide, probably since the tide goes down 30 feet and the water goes out 1/2 mile off shore, so the current takes the dead salmon much farther out at low tide. We even went so far as to collect spawned out, dead salmon from creek banks and the halibut just gobbled them up, but they sure smelled BAD!! We finally settled on salmon skins from salmon we caught and skinned, looked big, tasted right, but was a lot easier to carry and fish with, without the awful smell!! The skins were also easier to reel up than a 10 pound dead fish.

Tomorrow big baits for Calif Halibut.

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Big Baits part 7

We seemed to lose so many fish when we fished the big baits back under the kelp canopies, especially the less skilled fishermen on my charters. No matter what I did or said, most of my customers just were not skilled enough to get the really big fish out of their kelp forest homes.

One day as I was looking in my shark box for a large hook, I noticed some single strand wire shark leader in 25 lb test. You know how in cartoons, the little light goes on in someones head?
Well that's just what happened to me, I picked up the wire, cut a piece about 18 inches long and tied it to the end of my line. Then I put a 6/0 hook on the end, attached a "frog", and cast it towards the edge of the kelp.

The mackerel ran back under the kelp to get away from the boat, where he had spent a few scary hours in my bait tank. He had gone only about 30 ft. when I felt the telltale, THUMP, of a large fish. I let the fish pull about 20 ft. of line off my reel to give it time to get the big bait turned and swallowed, before I set the hook. I clamped down on the spool with my thumb, the rod started to bend, I put the reel in gear and set the hook with one smooth motion.

The fish ran for the nearest kelp stringer and was soon tightly wedged in a vee. Now to try out my idea, the fish was firmly stuck in the kelp, so I dropped the rod tip slowly and the fish helped to pull it down, then I raised the tip smartly and again let the fish pull the tip down, suddenly the fish came free, the thin light wire had sawed the kelp in two and the fish came forward about 12 or 15 feet, then, hung again. But repeating the prior maneuver got the same result, kelp sawed off, fish in boat. YEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAA!!!

This should work anywhere you have big fish and weeds together.

Next up, big baits for California Halibut.
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Big Baits part 6

I threw the "frog" ( mackerel ) to the edge of the kelp, and he ran back under the canopy. The skipper had told me, " every 10 feet or so stop him by putting your thumb down on the spool, when you can't stop him with your thumb, that's a big bass, put the reel in gear, and when the rod starts to bend, "HIT HIM HARD!"

I put my thumb on the spool, and the frog stopped, I could feel him shaking at the end of the line, suddenly the line started going out again, I pressed harder on the spool and the line kept going out. I put the reel in gear and swung hard to set the hook, the rod only got about halfway up before it was pulled violently down to the waters edge, and I could not seem to raise it.

Now I was in a real tug of war with a very large fish who did not want to come out of his kelp Forest. "WIND, WIND" yelled the skipper,"PULL HARD!!"

I was winding and pulling for all I was worth, and more line seemed to be going out than coming in. I had caught many calicos in the four to seven lb range, and nothing had come close to pulling this hard. Now I knew why the skipper wanted me to use forty pound test, the fish kept getting hung on the kelp stringers that kept the kelp anchored to the bottom. Long story short, I finally got my "calico" in, but it wasn't a "calico" it was a forty one pound white sea bass. I was hooked on big baits!

I spent many trips fishing big baits under the kelp, and was always amazed when a four pound bass ate a one pound mackerel. Some days we caught 15 or 20 bass over 6 lbs on the "frogs!"
The hardest part was not hooking the fish but getting them out of the kelp forest they lived in, as soon as you hooked one they would run for the bottom, and the rocks that were always present. Many broke you off in the rocks, or got stuck in the V's the kelp made where it branched off.

Your line would go in the V as the fish ran for the bottom, and as you wound him up would get his mouth stuck behind the V and you could not pull him past it.

Tomorrow: a simple solution to fish caught in the kelp!
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Big Baits pt 5

Over the course of more than 25 years of running my own charters, running1 / 2 day, 3 / 4 day, all day, and overnight party boats, ( boats that carry 20 to 60 passengers ) I saw first hand the use of big baits usually caught the larger fish.

Back in the early 70's before I got my own boat, I took many trips on party boats, and got to know many of the " old school skippers. " Once they saw me all the time, and saw my passion for fishing, ( and the fact that I won the Jackpot many times, and gave it, less the price of my ticket, to the crew. The jackpot on party boats is, everyone puts in $1 to $5, and the person catching the biggest fish wins it all. ) I was invited to be a " deadhead. "

A deadhead is a person who is allowed to fish for free, usually given one of the prime spots on the stern, and always gets the prime big baits if the boat has any. This way the " jackpot" usually stayed on the boat as part of the crew's tips. With a $5 jackpot and 40 weekend passengers in it, it could amount to $200 extra for the crew to split. Fair competition, no, but a way to get to go fishing a lot for a young man with a family, and not a lot of extra money.

Many years later, when I became a party boat skipper myself, I never had a deadhead on my boats. I always ran an honest jackpot. Anyway, since I was fishing for them, the skippers gave me lots of inside advice on how to catch the biggest fish.

Rule #1, BIG BAIT, BIG FISH! Rule #2, ( refer to rule #1 )

I won't give out any more inside information on how most jackpots are rigged, but be aware some ( not all ) are rigged to favor the deadheads. The first time a skipper pulled me aside, he handed me a 1 1/2 pound mackerel, got any forty pound test, he said with a sly grin. We were on the back side of Santa Cruz Island, fishing the outskirts of an immense kelp bed. Nothing's going to bite a bait this big, I thought to myself, as I cast the bait to the edge of the kelp forest and let the bait run back under the canopy of kelp.
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Big Baits pt 4

Big baits, Big fish!! This is especially true in the ocean. One of my favorite fish in So. California is the Calico bass, looks just like a freshwater bass, and eats all the same lures. I have caught them on crankbaits, plastic lures, worms, lizards, creature baits, and most all other soft plastic bass baits jigs, topwater lures, and the list goes on and on.

I grew up fishing for largemouth in Oklahoma, and Georgia, and then when I moved to Calif in the early 60's, I continued my love affair with them. I fished the pro bass circuit for 5 years in the early 80's, and ran a profitable bass guiding business for about 15 years. In the early 80's I got my USCG Captains License, and started doing more and more saltwater charters, that's when I discovered calicos would eat all the standard bass baits I had in my freshwater tackle boxes. Boy, I was in heaven! Unlike freshwater, you could easily catch 50 to 100 calicos in a day's fishing, most of which were released.

Even before catch and release was popular in the ocean, I insisted my clients release all bass over 5 lbs and most of my regulars had a 3 lb ceiling. There were lots of large calicos then, but it seemed such a shame to kill a large slow growing trophy, just to eat it. These were special fish that could be caught several times and give a special thrill to many people before someone harvested them. This was especially true in Santa Monica Bay, where the fishing pressure was intense. There were up to twenty party boats at times, ( 55 to 75 ft boats that carried 30 to 50 passengers ) and many small 16 to 30 ft private boats that plied the bays waters. In those days you could easily catch many calicos over 5 lbs in a days fishing. At some of the offshore islands with their vast kelp forests, the numbers of large bass was amazing, but I noticed the numbers of big bass was steadily going down in the bay.

More on BIG BASS tomorrow!!

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Tips: Big Fish, Big Baits

Now take the hook with the 1 inch pipecleaner wrapped around the top and take a large glob of Berkley Power Bait ( the size of 1/2 of your thumb ) and put it on over the pipecleaner now take a whole night crawler ( large worm ) and hook it lightly in the center, then sit it in the water in front of you to make sure it floats.

I usually start out near shore in about five feet of water.The pay to fish lakes near me let you use two rods, so I rig the other one with just a little smaller glob of power bait and put three or four red worms so it floats with a wiggling mass of worms on top. This I throw out a little farther. If the water is clear I use an 18 inch long leader, if the water is murky, I shorten the leader to about six inches, as the fish tend to be closer to the bottom in dirty water.

I usually fish with a friend so he starts out fishing for the keeper size trout, one to two pound average. He starts out with one rod close to shore and one rod cast out as far as he can cast. The one that's far out is moved in about one foot every 49.63 seconds, ( or something close to that ) you just need to keep it slowly coming in. If the fish are not biting close to shore, I take the closer large bait and cast it out about five feet past the other one. The trout cruise the shoreline early in the day so don't worry if you don't get bit right away.

Another excellent bait for large trout early in the morning, is three large nightcrawlers hooked in the middle with just the hook, ( no weight ), and cast out and left sitting on the bottom, leave the bail open on your spinning reel, so when a fish bites , you can let him swim off about 10 feet before you close the bail and set the hook. You don't have to set hard as you are using light line and you don't want to break off your trophy, that is why laser sharp hooks work so well, close the bail on your reel and when the fish starts to pull the rod tip down, lift the rod tip up and turn the reel handle quickly. The fish will hook himself as he turns to run when he feels the hook.

Play the fish gently, as you are using light line. I always bring a long handled landing net when I fish from shore. I use one thats about three feet across, as that size lets me land even very large fish with ease!
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Tips: Big Fish, Big Baits

Big fish need a big bait, the size of a fish's mouth determines how big of a meal he can eat. You can catch a big fish on a small bait, but most big fish are caught on larger offerings. You won't get as many bites on the big baits, but when you do it will be a whopper!

When I fish for trout in So. Cal's pay to fish trout lakes, I see most people using baits that are much too small for the giants that they stock in these lakes. They catch plenty of trout, but the people who consistently
catch the big fish are using big baits. Take for example, Berkley Power Bait, a multi-colored floating bait that the trout seem to love. Most fishermen use a little ball the size of the tip of your little finger, or they roll it into a worm-shaped tube the size of a pencil. I use a light-wire laser sharp hook, # 8, and wrap a inch of pipe cleaner around the hook near the eye of the hook, this holds the power bait on. A drop of superglue holds it to the hook.

I make up a couple dozen in several sizes in advance, so I don't waste fishing time while at the lake. When fishing for trout I spool my reels 95% of the time with Berkley Vanish Fluorocarbon, as it is virtually invisible. My main line is 8# test, if the water is clear I will use a 4# test leader, or 2# test if the fish seem spooky. The reason for the two separate line tests is with the larger main line, I can cast a heavier sinker without fear of snapping the line if I need to make an extra-long cast, and since there are lots of other fishermen around, if I get tangled in their lines, I have a much better chance of not breaking off.

Come back tomorrow to see how I rig my baits for big fish!
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