Bass fishing from the bank

Question
I am fishing a small city lake near my home (10 acres im guessing ) and cant seem to catch any bass. I am somewhat new and have little tackle or extra cash so what to buy and how to use it would help alot. I have found references of big fish being caught in the past from this lake and feel certain there are some nice fish there but cant figure them out. Have caught a few small sandies and a couple largemouth in the old lake and have seen a guy catch small cats of some sort just about every morning. It is a boomerang shaped lake with no cover ( except for a small amount of rip rap at one end wich basically everyone I see there fishes that area. The bottom is sandy everywhere else and seems to drop deep but I am not sure exactly how deep and the water is clear. Any advice for me for this lake or any others I may find around the okc area. Would really love to figure this lake out though.; I just feel it has some big fish and have seen some impressive boils on the surface and lots of bait fish activity,especially early and late in the day. Am I just out of luck bass fishing this time of the year? PLEASE HELP! Thanks

Answer
Patrick, I must make a couple of assumptions to give you the best answer. One is that OKC means Oklahoma City and that you want to know about artificial bait fishing rather than live bait.
Let us begin by talking about fishing tackle for bass.  Yes it can become very expensive but you can begin to catch good size bass without expensive tackle.  My suggestion is for you to start with an open face spinning reel and a 7 foot rod.  Do not pay more than twenty dollars for the reel or more than $15 for the rod.  If you already have a rod and can cast it a reasonable distance go ahead and use it but if you cannot cast with ease out to 50-60 feet without getting backlashes or birds nests then save up your money and buy the outfit I mentioned above.  My first reel cost $9 and my first rod cost $5 but that was a long time ago.  For about twice what I paid sixty five years ago you can get a pretty good outfit. DO NOT BUY ONE OF THOSE PACKAGED FISHING KITS.  Mostly they are cheap and not good.  You can buy An abu Cardinal reel for about $20
and a good usable seven foot spinning rod for about $15  I know I repeat myself but too many beginning fishermen make the mistake of buying a really cheap outfit.  Then have to go spend more on a decent one.  I have one rod that cost me over $25 and my spinning reel cost $20.  Now I do have a couple of casting outfits that run about $100 but none more than that.

If the reel has line on it take about half of it off and save it for future use then buy a medium priced line such as Trilene XL mono or
Stren or other good brand. Six pound test should be about right in a lake with little to hang up on.  Around the rip rap rocks you might need 8 pound test.  Buy the 300 yard spool rather than the small one because the small one already has some memory built in while the big one has much less curl.  Never completely fill your reel spool with this more expensive line.  If the reel has no line on it buy a small spool of cheap line and half fill your spool. Then tie off that backing with several half hitches around the spool.  Next feed the line through the eyes of the rod starting at the tip. Open the bail of the reel. Next tie a knot in your good line and then tie an overhand knot around the line making a slip knot loop.  Put the loop on the back end of the spool and pull it tight.  Make sure your bail is open before you do this or you will have to take the line off and start over.  Now lay the line holding spool on the floor and holding the line between thumb and finger keeping just before it goes on the reel.  Start cranking the line onto the reel with the rod tip just a little above horizontal.  After about 15 cranks keep the line tight in your thumb and fingers drop the tip of the rod about half way to the floor.  If the line between the rod tip and the spool on the floor twists turn the floor spool over and do the same thing again.  If the line twists worse than before turn the floor spool over again and continue putting the line on your reel.  If it does not twist keep on reeling but ALWAYS KEEP TENSION WITH THUMB AND FINGERS.  In fact anytime you are reeling in after a cast keep some tension on the line.  A lure working correctly will usually do this as will a fish.  If you hook a big fish NEVER NEVER continue to reel while the fish is taking out line.  Regain line using your rod by pumping in and then dropping the rod reel quickly to take up any slack then pump again.

Next lets talk lures.  I started fishing for bass years ago in a small pond less than an acre and about six feet deep in the middle.  The pond had been made by digging clay out for making brick for the coal mine across the road.  The mine had been closed about the time I was born after 28 miners had died in an explosion.  Somehow fish got put in the pond.  I discovered bass one day while fishing for crappie with live minnows.  After that I quit the crappie and used my one lure for bass.  If I remember correctly it was a Hawaiian Wiggler.  The next season I bought three lures at a close out sale. I wish I still had them, I caught a lot of fish with them before I lost them.  Now, of course, I have a tackle bag with several hundred lures but I catch most of my fish on about a dozen. So just buy one now and then as you can afford them.

In a lake like you describe I believe I would begin by determining the depth of water at strategic places.  One way of doing this takes a bit of time and work but will pay off later.  Instead of a lure on your rod slip on a long narrow slip bobber about six to eight inches long. Next tie on a fairly heavy sinker about 3/4 ounce that will cause your bobber to stand up or even go under if the sinker is not on bottom.  Now use a tiny bobber stop that you can buy at most tackle shops.  Set it for the depth that you believe the water to be at a long cast distance.  If the water isn't that deep your bobber will lie flat on its side.  If the water is deeper the bobber will stand up or sink.  If the latter happens set the bobber stop a little deeper.  Keep this up until your bobber just barely tips up but does not sink.  This tells you how deep the water is at that spot.  Try several spots to see if the depth changes.  Then try the same procedure a little closer to your standing spot.  Work a fan shape from your left to your right at various distances.  Carry a notebook and make a map of the depths from that spot.  After a while you will have mapped spots all around the lake at casting distance from your stand.  Don't try to do the whole lake at one time.  This will get to be too much work.  Do one spot then try fishing somewhere else for a time then come back and fish the spot you mapped using various lures I will mention later.

Now what lures should you start out with.  This, of course, will vary from place to place and fisherman to fisherman but most will use a few types of lures.  My first lure was somewhat of a spinnerbait.  It had a spinning wing in front of a lead body. When reeled through the water the offset wing made the whole thing wobble. it sunk like a rock and I finally hung it up and had to break it off. I don't think they make that one anymore.  If I could find one I would buy it for sure. There are some around but they are grabbed up by collectors on e-bay for much more than I would be willing to pay.  There are many good spinnerbaits on the market. One or two are good enough to start with.  They run from less than $1 to $15 or more.  I seldom pay more than $3-$5 each.  But I have found that the really cheap ones are not good at all as they rust and break easily. One dark and one light color, one Colorado blade with Colorado second blade.  One willow leaf/willow leaf.  Make the second one light (white,Yellow,silver,etc# the other dark #Black,Blue,dark green,brown,etc.) Match the color of the skirt with the color or contrast it.

A crankbait that floats but dives when retrieved. A deep diver can be used even in shallow water as it dips into the bottom and kicks up little bits of sand or silt.  There are thousands of colors from some looking exactly like the bait fish it represents to some with wild colors.  I have found that unless the water is extremely clear color does not mean as much as depth and wobble but If I were just starting I would want one with some green, orange, yellow and brown or mostly silver. Then there are the lipless  ones like Rattletrap or Rattling Rapala or Cordel's Spot. These are great at certain times and I would guess in your lake they would work well and they cast like a bullet.  You can reel them in as fast as you can turn the crank or let them jump a few inches then fall jump again and fall.
You can't fish them wrong and they catch fish. They will hang up in rocks though.

Jerk baits.  These are related to crankbaits in that they float until they are pulled down but mostly they only dip a few inches and then pop back to the surface when you let up on them.  They come in many colors but I have found silver or greenish yellow to be good where I fish.  Some of these go deeper and when given slack line they do not sink nor do they float up.  These are called "suspend" lures.

Topwater baits.  These baits are my favorite to fish.  They float but when they are given a twitch with the rod they do a number of things.  Some pop, some sploosh, some spit water, some have spinners on one or both ends.  Some are made to be reeled steadily such as the Jitterbug (one of my favorites) which walk along on top of the water with a plop, plop, plop...Bit fish love them.  Another called the Zara Spook has no action of its own.  By twitching the rod and then giving slack twitching and giving slack, twitching and giving slack this lure sort of walks along back and forth from side to side.  It is a killer of big bass at certain times.  There is one that  may be classed as both a spinnerbait and a topwater bait, it is called a buzz bait.  It has a big two,three or four bladed or offset spinner that makes a buzzzzz as it is reeled along top of the water.  Bass really smash this thing at certain times.  I have caught some really nice ones with it.

Spoons, These are very old lures from several hundred years ago.  The first ones were made from certain shells of sea creatures but now they are mostly metal or plastic.  They come in sizes from the size of a thumbnail to several inches long.  They are often used for large fish other than bass.  Bass, however, will hit them.  There are three basic types.  One is somewhat oblong shaped larger on one end and they wobble when trolled or reeled but also flutter when cast and allowed to sink or in vertical fishing over the side of a boat.  A second kind is a considerably heavier more narrow which are often jigged in deep water.  A third kind is designed somewhere in between the other two.  They are cupped somewhat and much more narrow at the forward end, they have one hook attached to the inside of the spoon and with a wire weed guard.  One of the best as far as I am concerned is the Johnson Silver Minnow.  I love to cast this with a pork frog on the hook. (not plastic) into heavy cover such as lilly pads or other surface weeds.  Keeping the rod tip high to prevent the line from catching on the weeds and making this lure swim between or over the weeds.  A strike on this is almost heart attack giving but if you try to strike when you see or hear the splash you have likely missed the fish.  It is very difficult to do abut you must wait until you feel the rod load up before striking and then the battle begins.  The advantage is usually with the fish because she knows those weeds and will take you into trouble in a hurry if you don't turn her right away.  You need heavier line for this fishing.  I use casting rod and reel and at least 17 pound line here because a ten pound bass may be in those weeds.  So far nine pounds is my best but I have seen some over ten pounds here.

Now last but certainly not least are the soft plastic lures.  I remember back in the late 1950s we were fishing a little lake in Northern Minnesota.  We caught a few on poppers early in the morning but then no more bites.  That night I went out to the outdoor necessary house after dark.  I had a flashlight and saw something glitter in the grass when the light hit it.  After doing my necessary business I began searching the grass and found it full of big night crawlers.(you probably have them in OKC.  Anyway that morning after trying the usual poppers and catching a few bass  I tried putting on one of those big worms and immediately I was hooked onto a nice bass.  I was with two brother-in-laws and they started catching nice bass too.  The next couple of days were the best bass fishing I had ever had until a few years ago here on Seminole.  Anyway we ran out of worms and had had no rain to bring them back up we were not catching many bass.  One brother-in-law dug in his tackle box and came up with a plastic thing that looked almost like a night crawler except it was bright red.  It had three hooks molded in it and a tiny propeller on the nose.  HE started casting it out and began catching bass.  He had only one of those worms and eventually the fish chewed it up so bad it fell off the hooks.  My other brother-in-law were catching nothing.  This was my first sight of a plastic worm.  We went to a tackle store and they had a few like the one Paul had.  We each bought a couple and went back to the lake and began catching even bigger fish.  This was in 1959.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Now you walk into a tackle store and there are rows and rows of packs of worms from little 4 inches to big 18 inchers.  They come in so many colors that one becomes dizzy looking at them.  Also there are crawfish made of plastic, little fish of plastic, big plastic fish 8 inches long with tails that make them look exactly like they are swimming.  Frogs, grubs, you name it it is likely there in every color of the rainbow and more. I don't put jigs in a separate category because many jigs have plastic attachments.  Jigs originally were salt water baits but now are one of the favorite baits for bass.

I guess you could cast worms or other plastic creatures most anywhere in your lake and catch some fish.  I certainly would try them.  They are usually used near cover but I have caught bass far from any cover with soft plastics. I would rather fish with a topwater lure but if Mrs. Bass doesn't want them I will often try a worm or other creature.  Try working them with a weight or jig near the bottom or swimming them without weight above the bottom or even on the surface.

Normally bass are cover orientated but if they have no cover they must eat so they must learn ways of living without cover.  This makes it a bit more difficult for the fisherman but I truly believe that if there are bass in the lake you should be able to catch them using some of the ideas I have given you.  I certainly hope so.

Thanks for calling on me to answer your question.  I hope it will be of some use to you and help you catch some good fish.  Take a few to eat if you wish but eat all you take or turn them loose to grow into bigger bass to catch again.

Jack L. Gaither        (JackfromSeminole)
Lake Seminole, Georgia