The other day I was thinking about a question... The question is, what are ALL of the food options for a big bass. Considering lakes around here, I came up with this list, in no particular order. I probably missed something, so point it out if you think of something else.

crawdads
trout
shad
bluegill, green sunfish and redears
crappie (black and white)
common goldfish
carp
suckerfish (various species)
small catfish
small bass (largemouth, spotted, smallmouth)
minnows (various species)
small birds
snakes
salamanders and newts
frogs and tadpoles
mice and rats

What I think is interesting is that some of these forage items have very few lures designed around them.

There are only a handful of real bluegill imitators, and even fewer that are good for anything besides bed fishing. Its hard to make bluegill lures swim and hook and land fish, but there's certainly a lot of potential here.

Crappie are common in many lakes and I have no doubt that bass eat many many crappie from fry size on up to 8 or 9" long and yet there are virtually no crappie imitating lures aside from the castaic crappie which is very small and not very castable/fishable. Certainly there is no realistic crappie lure longer than 5".

The golfish, carp and suckerfish I usually see are not small ones, but every fish had to be 1 to 12" long at some point in its life. Maybe I don't see the small ones because they are getting eaten? Fish like this are probably harder for bass to catch than trout, but you can bet they get eaten with regularity. Some of the swimbaits now come in goldfish, carp and suckerfish patterns but they're all baits that are shaped like trout. These type of fish usually have big pectoral fins, long tails and distinctly shaped heads/mouths. Not much in the lure department here.

Small catfish definitely get eaten by bass. I've heard two first hand accounts of it happening. But the only catfish lure I can think of is a Japanese topwater called a Namazu, which is small and only vaguely catfish like. No one makes a swimbait to look or move like a catfish. I bet it would work.

Baby bass are pretty well represented in the smaller sizes. There are lots of good baby bass pattern crankbaits. But in the 7 to 12" range, there isn't much. The Castaic Baby Bass was one of the few lures designed to look exactly like a bass, and that bait catches fish. Most of the other baits that are available are trout shaped and painted like a bass.

Bird lures are out there, but hard to come by. Some day someone will make a bird lure where the feet really churn around like a bird trying to kick through the water. Its a hard lure to make, but if someone did it right, it'd probably work well in shallow summertime conditions.

I guess my point is, what a huge range of opportunities are out there for lure design! In each of the categories above, I really believe that if someone comes out with a bait that looks real, fishes well, and moves right through the water, the baits will catch fish because fish are already eating all of these things and no one is presenting baits that look the same as what they are eating. Thoughts, comments, opinions?

there are some small plastics that immitate mad toms (river catfish) and they work well. I used to fish them primarily on small jig heads in the rivers I used to fish for smallies, but last year I started dropshotting them on a short leader (6 to 8 inches)out on the Delta and catching fish. I wish somone would make them larger than the 3 and 5 inch models they come in, I know they would work.

http://www.madtoms.com/baits.htm

Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have-yous

Those baits are cool for the fact they are shaped right. Cabelas has some sculpins like that too. The dilemma on a bait like that is how to fish it? Fish will certainly eat lures that look like real food items, but it sure helps a lot of the the lure moves like the real thing too. I'm not saying it to diss that bait, I'm just saying someone could make something a lot better I bet.

Rob,

I have been making this zipper sculpin/mudsucker bait for a while I am not sure if the fish see it as a mudsucker or what but it does work well on the delta!

In Japan they also have Lunkers Club Lures they make several catfish baits and bass aswell. Some Japanese comapnies also make cool baby bird impressions sort of a high tec. jitterbugs & Crazy Crawlers.

I think the reason alot of new baits are not being made is that current styles have been used in the USA for so long it is hard for a company trying to introduce a new bait (Bird, Catfish, Snake) that would be sucessful because it would have to be very nice and costly and more than likley they would not sell enough because they were to expensive since they were nice, regardless of fish catching ablities. This is why I belive they have such a wide range of lures in japan since they are relitivily new to bass fishing not as many traditional baits have been set over there? Not sure if this is at all correct just my thoughts.

Taylor


http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/3360.jpg

Hey let that Bass go I wanna catch her some day
http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/tmcustoms/

Attachment #1, (.jpg file)

I've seen bass try and take dragon flies and other assorted insects.

Oh no, you're gonna get CJ started on the dragon fly lure again ;)

I've seen that once, at Lake Powell. 10" bass jumping and trying catch the dragon flies. I think those fish are pretty malnourished at Powell lol :)

I've caught literally dozens of bass up to 3lbs with dragon flys sticking out of their throat. But again, a hard bait to mimick properly. It's a bait that needs movement and noise(like their wings) but needs to hold it's position on the water.

Worms
Eels
Crabs

Believe me when I say I was just about to introduce a new line of baits.
Just in fear of having too much demand in crossing my existing bait. 4EYE
A WHOLE LOT OF WORK!

It would be nice to work with someone in fine tuning my ideas.

I’ll be ready here come soon!

JC

http://www.bassanglerprofiles.com/joeycastro.htm

I went over to the Dan Blanton board to read about that 17.75 delta monster caught on a fly, and in the story the guy says that big fish had a catfish tail coming out of its throat!

http://www.danblanton.com/Messages/42457.html

Can't get any more clear than that!

Tim - the zippers with the sculpin type heads are cool, no doubt they get bit. But what I've always disliked about lizards and baits like that are the tendency for the lures to roll on their sides or sit funny on the bottom. They look great in your hand but when you put a hook in one and t-rig it and drag it along the bottom, what really usually happens is that the bait rolls on its side, or upside down or just does whatever based on how it landed on the cast. Again, I'm not saying that is bad, obviously fish are going to eat stuff like that anyway, but I believe that weighted and/or foam/air inserted lures will be the wave of the future, because if you weight one part of a lure and put foam or air pockets in the other part, it gives it consistent underwater action.

I have not chopped a huddleston deluxe in half but I believe they have lead on the bottom and foam on top. Great concept! Makes the lure stay always upright. The ROF5 huddleston is truly genius the way it falls and stays level at the same time. Check out the River2Sea yabbie crawdad lure, it has air pockets in the claws to keep it upright. Killer bait right there. I know this stuff isn't a new idea, I'm sure someone has done it 100 years ago but just within the past few years are we starting to see people making baits that not only look real, but also move and swim real. Props to castaic for their line of realistic baits. The castaic softbait trout swims awesome and looks a lot like a trout. But some of their other baits had only the realism part and didn't have consistent swimming actions.

I throw a post out like this sometimes as a discussion point but also in hopes that people reading it will be inspired to make some really awesome baits. It's hard for a garage guy to make baits with internal weighting, air pockets and foam, but that is where the future is IMO and I hope when the bait mfgr's pick up on this, that they make some baits to represent some of the less popular forage like crappie, bluegill, catfish, etc.

I wonder if the fact that that pig at the delta was eating cats had anything to do with it's color. The only time I've caught bass that color was at Oso resevoir last year- the lake was closed and our club was invited to go out and fish to get as many bass as we could for Rick Mendoza at Laguna Niguel lake, so we were just catching a ton of the Oso runts and putting them in a pen for Rick. Some of the fish were that yellow color, and we were tripping on it, until we started finding baby cats in a lot of their throats- they were eating small cats or bullhead (they were pretty yellow and looked like bullhead) and the bass were heavily yellow colored. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the photo of that Delta fish, so maybe it's the cats?