boone,

My ole may always said, "Boy, to catch fish, you got to be smarter than the dirt that is on the hook."

He also said, "To catch a big bass, you got to do a lot of up front suffering."

I still don't know what he meant with the first statement but I know I have suffered a whole lot. In fact right now I have a bad case of "bass caster's elbo" and will have to go back to the doctor for a third steroid shot. The tendon from the middle finger to the elbo has been taking a beating since I retired. Can a fisherman suffer any more than that?

Fish have to eat, rumur has it every 3 days, best before and just after a cold front, right after a rain, never when the wind is from the east, etc. etc. It is just a matter of knowing what they are currently eating.

The advice I am about to give is considered below the standards of a respectable bass fishermen but a fisherman has got to do what he has got to do or go home skunked. I would have never considered this in my prime bass fishing days but now that I have the elbo handicap, I am thinking I will try a few of them.

If your bass are lure savvy, try the pond's natural bait. A lot of pond boss postings state their catch and release bass and fish food fed bass will only strike on the natural food in the pond.

If they are being fed fish food, try soaking a perferated plastic worm in a mush made of fish food.

Try four to five inch Blue gill or very large shiners or even an earth worm. My old man was a fish catching hillbilly and had a trick where he would use two hooks in one very large shiner or perch and would partially gut the bait with a knife. Pretty cold treatment even if you are doing it on a fish... Try large earth worms. Be prepared for perch stealing your bait and ber prepared to catch some nice cats.

Early this year, I was fishing for bream and caught a 17 inch LMB on a small piece of worm on a #6 hook. It was some great fun on a 12 foot fiberglass pole.

Now for the true bass master's secret....
Fish at night. Hook a plastic worm Texas style (weedless hook up). I have caught a huge number of very nice bass in the Cooper-Santee at night. I like to use a floating purple plastic 6 inch worm with a weight about a foot in front of the worm. If you have to, use a syringe to pump air into a plastic worm to get it to float.

When fishing at night, you have to let the bass run with the worm a bit before setting the hook. If the bass are hitting but you are missing, cut off some of the worm or try letting the bass take the worm, and after they drop it, pull it in very slowly. I think this works with nesting bass. Night fishing is a lot of fun but cleaning fish at 3 am is no fun.

Our private ponds all have shallow entry areas where we can catch a lot of bass in mid-March through April as the fish feed heavily to get ready for nesting. Perhaps you can find the shallow part of your pond. In March, I caught nine female bass over 2.5 lbs. in the shallow part of one pond. The largest was 19 inches, 4 lb. 2 oz. All but one was caught on a blue diving lure. I always have better luck when I match the color of the lure to the sky.

Good luck.

Dennis