The Bass College

Fished Roosevelt this past weekend 11/18-20/2011…water temps 62-65, pressure up and stable with a slight drop on Sunday, water visibility around 18 inches in the river and up to three feet main lake. Fishing was tough and it seemed the bass and shad had not gotten to the backs of coves…a lot of time spent riding around looking for bait and schools…did find some fish against steep drops, using cranks and dropshot…did not get anything on topwaters, hard jerkbaits, chatterbaits, or spinnerbaits where I was. But any weekend on the water is a good one…

Nice Bob. Wish I was there.

It seems to me that the fall pattern (if it happened) was short. The typical fall seasonal pattern never happened (at least not anytime that I was able to be on the water)

Tom Agreed! This was not just true at Roosevelt, but at other places in the country as well. 

Here in Washington State and Idaho we had a great fall pattern on our lakes. We don't have shad, we have whitefish,  and a small salmon called kokanee that start heading up the creeks to spawn in the fall. We intercepted the bass around the steep rock ledges that had greencabbage near them in 20-15' of water. The bass will push the kokanee into these type of areas along with big northeren pike.  We fished a rainbow trout colored SPRO BBZ1 6-8" fast sink swimbait. One cast you may catch a 3-4lb largie and on the next you would have a 20lb pike on.. What a blast.

I only fish for bass, but that sounds pretty coool. I would enjoy that. 

Up here you may be wanting to fish for bass only, (which we can), but certian lakes we have you can catch a 6-8 LB northeren strain largie, and on the next cast have a 20-30 LB pike or a 50 LB tiger musky take your dropshot, crank or swimbait  and break you off.  Steve we have monsters in our lakes that will eat the average bass you have back east for a snack.. LOL. We have found 6-8 Lb whitefish in the mouths of these monsters.. LOL 

I have been fishing Pleasant and Roosevelt a lot with my kayak. I have found some bass in the back at Pleasant in Coles, and Humbug coves in about 4 foot of water. Basically at the very back where the water shallows out.

I have been throwing medium size swimbaits like a 6 inch Tripple Trout with some sucess at both Roosevelt and Pleasant. The biggest I have caught to date is just a little over 5 pounds. No huge by any standards but decent compared to what have seen from other anglers.

This has been an odd year seemed like the bait fish didn't move up until a few weeks ago. Keep waiting to see big boils but not much going on.

Hit Roosevelt today 12/2/2011 and, it was tough... I am not in Texas anymore...  A cold front came through the day before and it was still hitting us with rain, wind and clouds, I don't think the air temp got out of the 40's all day. Anyway, since I hadn't been on this lake in over a month and it was still warm back then. I decided to try several different things. First off, the water temps were 55-60. I hit the back end of Tonto Creek and tried the trees in the channel, no luck there. So I started working my way back to the salt end, I finally got into a really good pattern fishing submerged brush near steep banks in about 16 feet of water. (can't tell you where, cause I have a tournament there tomorrow) It was tough fishing and I am sure it will be even tougher tomorrow, but, that's fishing. I will post a better report tomorrow.

good luck tom!

Boat is going into the garage this weekend I hope. Water is at 43 and I am now concentrating on my baits and other interests. Reworking many approaches that will be implemented next year and sorting out lot s of old baits which will go to Tom to sedn out with his next package. Have not been on as parents not doing well and mom had fallen. I guess it is our turn now, as Steve only knows as he seems to be neck deep in this. Hang in there bud, spring is around the corner. Remember SML does not freeze!

Okeedokee

Here is what I found this past weekend at Roosevelt. The water temps are anywhere from 54-60ish, depending where you are on the lake, the salt river being the coldest and dirtiest water. What worked for me, was Carolina Rigging a baby brush hog in watermelon red. The key place for bites was secondary points as long as they had softball sized rocks and brush on them. They were nailing it but it had to be sitting still. I figured that out after one of my first casts to a point which happened to be into the wind. Well, throwing a carolina rig into the wind, may cause you to "measure your line" so, as I was "measuring my line" and removing my backlash, a fish literally nailed it. So from that point on, I would drag it a little, and let it sit. When it was sitting...BAM they hit. I just ran several points that had similar conditions and was able to pick up one or two on each point. It was a textbook example of running a pattern. 

O yeah the measuring your line trick.. Seemed to be the ticket for you Tom. Always a great day on the water when you figure the pattern out. Great job.

Thanks Tom. You are right, a textbook example of running a pattern.

Wow, finally got back on the lake, work has kept me insanely busy. I went to Roosevelt to prefish for the tournament on the 25th. My uncle was in town and hadnt fished out here in over 20 years so he decided he wanted to see how my days on the water go, since hes never done the tournament scene. When I told him I was picking him up at 5am, I thought he was gonna be done right then! The days didnt start too bad as we had a good keeper in first few minuted on a 6XD off of a confidence spot that breaks from 6ft-25ft. We moved around quite a bit and got bit everywhere we went from 2ft-30ft. It didnt matter what end of the lake we went to even though the main lake is where I will concentrate on. The most consistant bite was C-Rig near brush biles and trees on steeper slopes, bait of choice was the Zoom Baby Brush Hog. Also the crankbait bite wasnt too bad, better fish came on the 6XD. Dropshot worked as well with Rooboworms. It definately wasnt lights out fishing but narrowed down the colors and baits Im going to try during the tournament. I will be moving around a lot this tournament so it should be interesting to see how things go.

Get me some pics and videos Chris. 

I will, Tom and I are going to have some fun during the spawn out here and will get pics and videos for the site

Very cool. Tell your dad to get on here miss hearing from him. 

Well the tournament was just as tough as pre-fish. Decided to change things up and look for the bigger more active fish. Started out the morning with a largemouth just under 4lbs which took 3rd big fish of the tournament. It came off a Strike King KVD 1.5 series crankbait. The rest of the fish came off a Strike King 6XD crankbait. We losty a good fish that would have put us in the top 3 but that happens when out there. It was a grind but kept open mind for the bite and kept switching it up.