Do you guys have any tips to turn some of those big followers into hook ups? I had a huge dissapointment yesterday when I had at least a double digit fish follow my bait, mere inches from biting it. All of a sudden he just turned and left.

Thought I'd ask....

Thanks,
Eric
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Go big or go home!

switch to a smaller or biger bait, add sent, and/or change retreave.

when that happens to me I change bait size first. I always start the day with a bigger bait and move to smaller if i get followers. If down sizing my bait doesnt work i go with the castaic plat. when i reel it in i will jerk the bait into a 180* turn.. that some times will get that reaction bite

just my .02

z

Whether followers bite or not seems to have a lot to do with how smart / conditioned the fish are. Over the years I've noticed that at certain lakes, followers simply never bite, ever. At other lakes (almost always at lakes where the fish are 'stupid' to swimbaits) you will get followers that actually commit to the bait. Basically, I wouldn't feel discouraged if you are getting followers that don't bite, it's quite normal.

For me, when I do start getting followed a lot, that's my queue to make longer casts and position the boat way out of the strike zone. I may try ripping the bait or killing the bait to get a fish to eat it but for me, varying the retrieve to get a strike almost never works.

At most of the lakes I fish in Nor-Cal, the bass will not follow the bait out in to deep, open water because that isn't the zone where they want to eat. I also think that generally lower water temps in Nor-Cal affect how willing the bass are to chase trout. In So-Cal, when I've fished at lakes like Casitas and San Vicente, the fish will follow in to very deep water way off shore. I don't know why that is exactly, but I think they are just willing to expend more energy because they generally metabolize faster down south.

Anyway, think about it logically, a bass doesn't want to try to catch a fish in open water, they want to pin it up against something. A dumb analogy would be if you were trying to catch chickens in a pen 100 yards wide. Would you chase the chickens out in the middle and try to grab them? No... you'd chase them up in to the corner and grab them. Bass that do follow a bait out in to open water may simply be hoping that the 'fish' they are chasing decides to change direction and go somewhere more convenient to be eaten :) They may also be following just out of instinct or curiosity. It's hard to say.

In any case, I try to avoid fishing in ways that will cause me to get a lot of followers. That almost always means longer casts, keeping the boat further from the prime areas, or positioning the boat close to shore to where the fish will be forced to commit at the last second or run in to the shore. The more you fish that way, the more you will just fish that way to begin with, and the less followers you will get. I prefer to get as few followers as possible.

I have the same problem at some of the lakes I fish down in So-Cal. The water is gin clear and the fish are very conditioned to every bait you can imagine. They like to follow ond bump baits with their back to see if they are "real". I try to pause and then rip the bait hard as if the bait is trying to flee. Sometimes you get the bite and other times the fish simply continues to follow the bait.

I agree with Rob and how the fish try to corner their meals. Bass are ambush feeders and normally try to spend the least amount of energy as possible. Boat posistioning and long casts are a must to get the bites you want. Keep the bait in the strike zone as long as you can. Then do what I do...go fish at night }(

There's no followers at night :)

roflmao at the chicken pen example.

http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/bigreenjobass/

Followers..

You can't do much about followers. I just rip it just on the off chance that one will react. I just keep casting. And try to put the bait in the strike zone.

http://www.calfishing.com/gallery/v/members/bigreenjobass/

I still have followers at night when I can see them. They just try to come up on their side in shallow water to eat the bait and miss...

Thanks for the tips guys.

I was fishing at Lake Poway, in San Diego, and followers have become all too familiar for me. Lake Poway is a clear water lake, 60 acres in size and yep you guessed it, heavily pressured. Im bound to shore so I have the opposite effect; big bass coming from deeper water into shallow water. I have these bass wired and know where the big ones are, but struggle getting bites.

My thought was, the bass are following the bait and then they start to come too shallow to bite. The water is ULTRA clear and the bass just get a little nervous in that shallow of water and spook. Or it could be the 2 bulky treble hooks on the bait... I have tried fishing from a boat and have the same problems you guys talked about, fish that follow too deep and head back shallow. See my frusteration? ;(

Ah well, hopefully my persistence will pay off. Thanks again for the ideas.
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Go big or go home!

add scent! when i run out of water ill rip/ kill the bait, mix it up. dont psych yourself out worrying about the hook size..the fish will eat. keep casting and casting and casting and casting and casting and casting and casting

Kill the bait

Keep casting

Scent Scent Scent

Follow up with a Kill bait ( Jig, Huddle ) These baits you can dead stick. The ultimate dead stick that I can think of is Mike Longs Big fish. Dead in the water for over 1.5 hours then Twitch BWAM fish on.

If the fish is saying in the same area dead sticking is deadly. Cast out with a jig have a cup of coffe twitch have another cup. I have done this with one cast 20 min. It nearly killed me but it paid off with a 10 lb fish. I don't have that many 10 lbs to my name but most of them have come off dead sticking.

my 2 c






:-)

Not sure if it would work or not but have you guys tried doing a figure 8 at boatside? About 40% of the muskies in my boat over the years have come on the 8 and it also works on the occasional bass that follows.

Nate

Go Illini!!!!!!

Bill Siemantel recommends the figure eight move at the boat. I have done this a total of one time with an Osprey with a 6-8 pound black bass follower. The bass snapped at the bait but did not take it. Got my heart thumping a bit. This is something I will work on. (Side note, a friend boated a 4lb. 4oz. black crappie at Lake Fork at night under the 515 Bridge. This may end up being certified as the State Record for black crappie. Hard for me to visualize a four pound crappie! Caught it on minnow after they had given up running around attempting to find black bass.)

Doug fm Dallas

EricM - You've got it tough man :) When I said there's some lakes where followers simply never bite, I was referring to the small lakes up here. The smaller the lakes, the faster the fish learn and get conditioned to each new bait. At a place like Poway where you have quite a bit of talent throwing big baits, those fish are just going to be smart and hard to catch, period. I fished Poway a few times and experienced exactly what you are describing. Tons of followers, no biters.

The one advantage you have from shore is that you can stand further back from the water's edge, and at least give yourself the opportunity to get those last minute bites before the fish turn off. If 9 out of 10 guys stand right at the water's edge casting, you might get that occasional bite by standing 30-50 feet back. Maybe you're already doing that and still not getting bit. Then you have to resort to all the sneaky moves like hook hiding, lighter line, modified baits, etc. There's no magic in this stuff.

Doug from Dallas - When you read Bill's book, it's important to put his advice in perspective. You probably haven't fished at Casitas, the Lagoon, and upper Castaic lake, but that is primarily where Bill fishes. At Casitas especially, fish will chase, and often times actually hit, right at the boat.

I've fished that lake about a dozen days in the past few years and totally seen it happen where fish will rush the bait and strike 5 feet from the side of the boat. The guys who fish there talk about it as if it's completely normal. Guys at Casitas talk about having fish jump up and grab baits that were dangling from rod tips over the side of the boat. Guys talk about getting hit at the boat, jerking the bait, and having the bait land on the other side of the boat - then getting hit over there by a different fish!

Maybe that kind of stuff will happen for you in Texas, I really have no idea, but to me it's a one-off deal that is specific to Casitas. It's not as if the fish at Casitas are stupid, they just have a collective lack of fear of boats to the point where many of them will use the boat to pin the 'trout'.

There are no lakes in Nor-Cal where I regularly get bit at the side of the boat, and I've never caught one on a figure 8. To paint the picture, at Don Pedro lake I've caught dozens and dozens of 5-13lb bass on swimbaits in 15-20 foot water clarity - and I saw maybe 2 or 3 of them eat it. Those fish that I saw eat it were small ones. The big ones never hit close to the boat. You're lucky to even meter the big fish at Pedro because they swim away from the boat as you go over. I know this because I've spent the time to cut sharp turns over key areas at high speed and I've seen the fish on the meter. If you come back and slowly move across the area on the trolling motor, you don't see them.

When you compare places like Casitas and Don Pedro, you can see how it's hard to offer catch-all advice (like use a figure 8 retrieve) for big fish. The only thing I know for sure that works is getting as far away from the fish as possible and doing it as quietly as possible. There's no scenario where this constitutes bad advice. From there your approach should be the result of trial and error at your particular lake. For each lake, you need to learn what works in each condition such as: wind, cloud, time of year, water temp, water clarity. Then you need to learn the combinations of conditions that cause good bites to happen, and within that you need to learn which spots bite on which conditions.

You can do all kinds of things to try to elicit a bite like jerking the bait, killing the bait, figure 8-ing or whatever but what really will get you bit is understanding the lake, knowing where to be at what time, with what bait. If you are trying to figure out how to get individual following bass to bite, I would politely suggest that you are focusing on the wrong things.

I completly agree with Rob. I have never got bit on a figure 8 and The only time I seen fish eat the bait was when they were small or I was shore fishing, back up on the bank in camos. I have also had very poor succes at turning followers into biters. I just make mental notes and hit the spots later and little more carefull. I hear people talk about the figure 8 or catching followers but I tend to think they are just passing info that they have heard.

www.mattlures.com

Thanks for all the tips guys. Guess I'll just have to take my time with this big guy and eventually get him. Whats nice is, he has a pattern. Every afternoon he cruises in 20 foot deep water, a few feet below the surface looking for something to eat. Went yesterday, and there he was! Followed again....

I do stay far from shore, as far as I can. If I can see the fish, they can see me and I want to avoid that. I think it helps.

Matt, I have made mental notes on a few of the bigger fish I have seen and every time I'm at the lake I'll hit those few areas and try and find him. As anybody who has fished Poway knows, there are some big fish there!

Rob, do you have any reccomendations on what lakes might be better in San Diego?

Thanks again,

Eric
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Go big or go home!