by Bruce Middleton, September 28, 2010

Attention to the details can pay off big time in the game of fishing…

Strict attention to such details like ultra sharp hooks, the correct way to rig a bait, the right way to hang a trailer hook, tie a good knot or adjusting a crank bait eye so it runs true will make the difference between catching a few bass and catching more and bigger bass. If you were to look at any professional bass fisherman’s boat and tackle, you would find pretty much the same thing. A large stable, fast moving boat with lots of trolling power, five or six rods pre-rigged rods up front, ready to go and all the electronics the boat could support. The rods, reels, lines and baits would all be top of the line models and all new. The line on each rod would have been changed the night before and all the hooks sharpened to an ultra fine point. Each bait and lure would have checked for wear, shirts replaced if damaged and shiny metal blades dipped in metal cleaner if there was the slightest amount of dullness about them. Every plastic bait would have been inspected for damage and every lure checked for paint scratches. Different sinkers will be looked at and matched to different worms so they have the same color. Swivels are checked for ease of movement and any that are corroded are fixed or discarded. Even the eyes of every worm hook would have been heated so a pair of pliers could crimp them even farther closed so that there is no way for the line to slide out of the eye loop or even rub against the knot creating a bur. All the extra lures and baits would be organized and in containers so no lure can get tangled up with any other. They would also be arranged so it would be very easy to find the right container that held any lure or bait he might want. Literally every single piece of fishing equipment would have been gone over, checked, sharpened, repaired, modified or fixed before it was taken out on the water. This is sweating the small stuff.

Nothing is left to chance. No detail is overlooked or left undone. This is how they make a living and you can bet, when a $100,000 paycheck is on the line, or more, they leave no stone unturned when it comes to sweating the details. Now you may not be fishing for that kind of money but you should have the same kind of mind-set when it comes to your tools for fishing. From the boat all the way down to the last sinker in the bottom of the tackle box. This kind of ethic will pay off in more and bigger bass over the years. It will also give you something to do on those cold rainy days when you can’t go fishing and it’s something that has to be done to protect your fishing gear investment. You have spent a lot of money acquiring the most sophisticated gear you have and you need to take care of it in order for it to last.

I believe the one tool that will help you the most in sweating the details is knowledge. You have to know how your spinning reel works and how to be able to do light maintenance on it like keeping it lubricated and the same for your bait casting reels. You have to know how to sharpen a hook correctly and in as short a time as possible. You have to know about your outboard engine and the oil mixture if it uses it and be able to do everyday maintenance on it. Knowing how to lube the zerks with grease around the main motor, how to glue down loose carpet on the boat correctly and a myriad of other tasks. Knowledge of your equipment is vital.

If you have a big bass boat this is not so much a problem but if you have a small boat like I do you have to keep the clutter down to a minimum just so you can move around in the boat safely. Take some time before you go out again and get rid of or store the stuff you don’t need for that trip. If you’re going out by yourself, take out the extra life jackets and so on. Reduce the clutter and you will have a safer and easier time of moving about in the boat once out on the water. Noise coming from the boat is the enemy and it must be eliminated wherever it can. Use a plastic bucket to keep small items at hand but at the same time easy to get to and easy to move about. In my one gallon bucket I keep my grab weight fish scales, finger nail clippers, scent and the bag of plastics I’m using at that time (if I’m using plastics) and a bar of soap and a towel to wash my hands with. It also makes less noise when I drop them in the bucket verse the bottom of the boat. They are all in one place and I don’t have to look all over the boat to find them. Additionally I keep the pail on a piece of carpet to further dampen any noise. The carpet is only 8 by 8 inches square but that is big enough.

Clean the bottom of the boat of any misc. fishing gear that is just lying there or in the bottom of the tackle box. Make sure the tackle box is clean and everything is neat and orderly. No mess at the bottom, no layer of fish scent film floating around. All the lures are untangled and every plastic is stowed in resealable bag.

Clean hands are ultra important when it comes to fishing no matter what species your after. Bass have a very heightened sense of smell and they use it to hunt prey with. Handling the gas tank and hose or oil bottle can contaminate your hands and without knowing it you can then contaminate everything you touch from then on. Even gassing up the truck on the way to the lake can contaminate your hands. And if you apply sunscreen this is a very huge contaminate. Always carry a bar of non-perfumed, plain white soap like Ivory with you in the boat to wash your hands off with lake water before fishing, even if you haven’t touched the gas can or sunscreen. Never use a soap that has added perfumes, added skin softeners and the like. These may make your hands smell good to you but not so with the bass. They don’t like the smell and will avoid anything that smells like it. Better safe than sorry. Then as an added insurance policy, you can smear a little bass scent on your hands or a few drops of vanilla or anise oil. If your tackle and rods and reels are contaminated you are going to have a bad day out on the lake and have no way of knowing why. But if you start the day with clean hands and clean gear, you will be able to eliminate that factor out of the equation. You have to remember that a bass has a nose and a huge olfactory organ for its size. As the bass grows that organ can double or triple in size. This is how important smell is to a bass. He can detect strange odors and be attracted or repelled by them. Work on the attracted part and eliminate the repelled part. Some studies have shown that different people catch more bass than others. This is due to personal odor caused by perspiration. The only thing you can do to improve your rate of catching if this is true for you, wash your hands more often. This is the only recommendation that I can think of. Personal odor is unique to every one and there isn’t much you can do about it. And as a smoker I also have to wash my hands after having a smoke just to make sure the bass can’t smell this huge bad odor. And speaking of smoking, don’t toss those butts in the lake. Keep a jar with a screw lid to put them in or a tin can. Those butts look ugly as hell floating in the water.

If you have gouges or cracks in the cork on your rods use wood filler to plug the cracks or to fill in pieces that have been torn out. Sand it smooth after drying and there you go a perfectly smooth and repaired cork handle.

Many types of bass toxins and bacteria may be left over in your live well at the end of each fishing trip. For this reason it is advised to bleach and scrub out the live well each year or after each tournament. This will guarantee that you are not harming the bass you put in the live well and that you are not spreading infected water.

Change your line every year is a must for every sport bass fisherman. If you fish in a tournament every now and then, change tour line the night before each tournament day on each reel you plan on using. Loosing a big bass because the line gave out is no excuse, not in a tournament. Think about the type of line your going to use too. While mono is a great all-around, inexpensive line, does it meet your needs in a competitive setting? What other alternatives would suit your needs better?

Fluorocarbon line is invisibles as soon as it enters the water. It has great tensile strength, extra small diameter and doesn’t give off that “violin string” effect when rubbed over a limb or rock. This makes it worth buying for that one reason alone. Its only failing is that it doesn’t tie the best knot and you have to use more complicated knots than just a simple clinch knot. And speaking of knots, you have to know how to tie many different kinds of knots to meet the needs of the lure or bait you want to use.

Ultra sharp hooks are a must-have. A diamond stone does a good fast job of it for most fishermen but if your going to start on a full tackle box or two and sharpen everything all in one big sharpening section, would an electric one make more sense? They cost $10 and are well worth the cost. How do you really get a good point with a diamond stone and how do tell for sure when your done? Most people use the old tried and true fingernail test, where you put the tip of the hook on your finger nail and pull. If the tip digs in, the hook is sharp. Well this is fine for a few dozen hooks but for a hundred hooks you’ll soon run out of fingernail material. Another way is to use a microscope and look at the point. This is the best way as you can compare a sharp one to a dull one and see the difference right away.

Dip-It™ is a metal brightening chemical sold under many brand names and is found in just about any grocery story or drugs store in America. Copper, silver, nickel and just about any other base metal will shine like new when you clean it with this product. Spinner and buzz bait blades are just dipped for a few seconds into this liquid and then rinsed off well in water. Any bare metal surface dipped will shine like new. And it’s a really inexpensive chemical to buy that will last you for years and years.

The one truly wonderful thing about replacing jig, spinner and buzz bait skirts is that you can change them with any color you want. The skirts themselves are exceedingly inexpensive and come in plastic or the thread silicone strands. They come in every color in the rainbow and in all sorts of sizes and lengths. If you have a buzz bait, say, and you don’t like the color, but the blades are great, it’s a simple matter to change out the skirt to a different color, paint the blades and have a completely new buzz bait for just a few pennies. Sharpen the hook and your ready to go. Replacing a damaged skirt is just as simple.

Replacing hooks on a lure is a snap and having a pair of split ring pliers makes the job even easier. Many great lures come with hooks that are too soft or too small and they bend too easily. Just buy top of the line hooks, slip the old hook out of the split ring and slip the new hook on. Check for sharpness and off you go. Out on the market now they also have break away split ring that under 35 pounds of steady pull the split ring will straighten out. This means that if you favorite lure gets hung up down deep and you can’t get to it to retrieve it, if you just put steady pressure on, of 35 pounds, the split ring will straighten out leaving the hook imbedded but releasing the lure. Nifty little trick! There are also split rings that are pear shaped that give you two different looks to a retrieve depending on which end you use, the wide or narrow end to tie to. And lastly is a good knowledge of hooks themselves.

Changing hook size on lures is often a good idea too. All too often the factory hooks on smaller lures are too small to adequately hold a large bass. By exchanging the factory hooks for ones, 2 to 4 sizes larger will not effect the lures action but will improve the lures ability to keep larger fish on with out tearing the hooks out. This is especially true for small lures you intend to use as down sized lures, the hooks are too small and you need to add larger hooks (say a #4) so you can keep a bass on. Changing the style of hooks can pay big dividends too. I replace my lipless crank bait lure hooks with Gambler hooks. They have a more pronounced bend inward than a normal hook and they don’t loose bass like a regular hook on a lipless crank bait can. So in order to stop loosing bass on these lipless cranks a quick change of hooks is the answer.

Changing the back hook on many stick and top water lures to a feathered hook is a great way to increase the number of bass you catch. The feather flairs out and looks like a real fishes tail both when it moves and at rest.

Bleeding hooks work and they work really well. You can change out the hooks on your lures at considerable cost to yourself or you can try this alternative. Go out and spend $2 on a bottle of the hottest red metal flake fingernail polish you can find and paint the hooks of the lure you want changed. The polish will last a surprisingly long time and you can touch-up any bare spots anytime. One bottle will do about 400 treble hooks. I know this tip works and Bassmaster’s magazine even published it in their tips sections. I won a free Ernie and Charlie hat for the suggestion. But other than that this tip really does work.

Anise oil, pronounced (an-niece), is a great fish attractant and is found is liquid form and in solid form like Megastrike™, a grease type attractant. But besides being a great smell and an attractant, the grease type works great as an emergency grease for squeaky hinges on live well lids and other lids in and around the boat. It’s non staining and the pleasant smell is less annoying than other types of grease and if you accidentally get it on yourself or you fishing gear, its an attractant and not a petroleum based product that drives the fish off.

When using a spinning reel it helps to do a lot of sidearm casting. It is a lot easier on you arm verses overhead casting and on a windy day you don’t have the problem of your line floating in the air after the lure hits the water. The sidearm cast is a low trajectory cast so the line and lure stay close to the water. It is also used a lot to get a lure under a dock, and other thing.

Attention to details also includes making the best map of every lake you fish. One of the most important things to watch for while fishing is the depth finder. If you see a ditch on the bottom be sure to mark it on the map. A ditch needs only to be a foot deeper than the rest of the bottom or more. But this ditch will stack bass in it especially in the pre-spawn spring and during cold fronts. These ditches are about as close to the “Holy Grail” of fishing spots, as you are likely to ever find. Now a lot of older soft-bottomed lakes around here have silted in these ditches but a few near the shore still exist. This is especially true of lakes that have a great fluxuation in the height of the water level. This cleans out the ditches and when the water is high they are packed with bass. So always keep one eye glued to the depth finder while fishing, as this is one detail to always be on the lookout for.

Also a notebook for keeping track of all the conditions and the days you fish different lakes is a must. By keeping track of the weather, water and sky conditions along with the water color, where in the lake the bass was hooked, was it in the shade or in a shadow, how deep it was, structure and cover conditions and everything else you can think of must be kept track of whether you land the bass or not. This reference can then be studied to see what worked in what situation and time of year and time of day on any lake. This will allow you to see patterns you might have missed otherwise and it is the one thing that takes so little time to do. And with it you will build up your knowledge of bass fishing and what did and didn’t work for you. How much is this worth to you? A lot I bet. If you know that at a curtain time in a curtain place on a lake that a curtain lure has caught you a lot of bass in the past, what are you going to start to fish with first? You get the picture.

Other things you need to do to become a better bass fisherman are to learn and follow this list of helpful knowledge. Buy balanced tackle and learn how to use it. This means go out and obtain a rod and reel made for each other, also buy and use tackle that fits the rod and reel like using a medium heavy rod for flipping and pitching or a medium rod and spinning reel when down sizing. You also need to become accustomed to using different rods and reels for different types of fishing styles.

Practice casting with all the different types of rods and reels you own and use different lures to practice with. Remember that a spinner bait hangs down lower than most lures so it doesn’t roll as it is being cast out negating tangled line and lure. Get used to the different weights and kinds of lures with each rod and reel combo. Practice the underhand cast to skip lures under docks and other cover. Practice, practice, practice is the key to becoming a better bass fisherman.

Presentation is the most important key when it comes to getting a bass to strike our lure or bait. Strict attention to presentation is a must. It is also very relaxing not to think of work, troubles at home and other distractions.

By knowing the seasonal movements of the bass along with the sky and water conditions is key to catching bass in the first place. You have to fish where the bass are or else you are just flogging the water with a lure and that isn’t much fun. The sky can tell where the bass are. If it is a sunny day the bass tend to find shade and if the sky is cloudy the bass are more apt to be out looking for food. The water temperature indicates how deep the bass will most likely be. If the water is 40 to 50 degrees the bass will be in very deep water. If the water is 65 degrees in the spring the bass will be spawning and you need to fish very shallow. And if the water is 65 degrees in the fall you need to fish out in front of vegetation where the bass have schooled up waiting for oxygen to build up in what little green vegetation is left. And if the water is over 70 degrees the bass will be in their summer homes and spread out all over the lake although about 80% will be found in weeds and grass.

Find a mentor or mentors to teach you how to fish for bass and ask questions all the time so you understand everything time on the water is teaching you. Time on the water has no substitute. Also fish as often as you can as this also adds to your time on the water.

Learn how to fish all kinds of water. Learn how to fish crystal clear water, dinghy water and muddy water. Learn how to fish ponds, lakes reservoirs and lakes. Learn how to fish in a river and learn how to fish for both large and small mouth bass.

From the boat trailer, boat, main motor and to the last sinker in the tackle box you have to worry every little item until every thing is just right. If a battery is dead or a reel is squeaking and grinding, you need to fix it before you go out on the water. Some people call this preventative maintenance, come people call it sweating the details. What ever you call it it’s just plain common sense. If you take the time to take the very best care of your fishing equipment, that time will pay you back in carefree days of pure fishing pleasure. If you take care of your gear you will be ready to handle big fish when they slam your lures. There won’t be tears because the line broke or he spit the hook, just a lunker in the live well to show off. You paid a lot of money for your stuff; it makes sense to keep it top-notch condition. After all, it is an investment.

Enjoy!



Bruce Middleton
bpmiddleton@peoplepc.com