by Bruce Middleton, November 27, 2007

A look at some of the emails I answered this year…


Over the course of this last year I have gotten quite a few emails from readers asking me different questions. My email address is at the bottom of each story and I put it there so if any of you need a little extra information, maybe I can help you out. Well one day I got an email from a reader who had just read my story on ‘Deep Structure’ and he said that he had a cheap depth finder and about all it was good for was seeing how deep the water was. It never showed a blip for fish that he ever saw and basically he just didn’t know what the display was showing him.

So I wrote back to this individual and gave him as much advice as I could about depth finders. Now some time has passed and I have always thought that there was more I could have written him in order to help him out. So part this topic will be about depth finders and how to use them correctly and not just about the different types like the one story I wrote before. Also too I will be talking about the screen display type of depth finders and not strip chart recorders of flasher types.

Now for starters, even the most inexpensive model of depth finder will show you the bottom of the lake, any weeds that grow there, the height of those weeds, how much water there is between the tops of the weeds and the lake surface and if any fish are present or not. Yes, fish! What really makes the most difference between a good depth finder and a bad depth finder is not the cost, it’s where the transducer is placed. Sounds funny but it is very true. If you have the transducer in the wrong place it can pick up turbulence from the boat running through the water and that gives you bad readings, no readings or very weak readings.

On a lot of smaller boats, the owners put the transducers on the lip of the back of the boat transom and put silicone around it to hold it in place. This is doing it every way I know how to do it wrong. Firstly, the very best place to put a depth finder transducer is on the bottom of your electric trolling motor. You affix it with epoxy and insure that it is pointed straight down or just a little bit towards the front of the boat (or just a bit ahead of the boat if you have a big bass boat) when the motor is all the way down in the water. Never use silicone as it can interrupt the signal and introduce noise by covering up the transducer with a thin film as well as having less holding strength. Silicone also vibrates in the water which will give you bad readings too.

Being below the surface the transducer can operate with great efficiency, but on the lip of the transom, the transducer is being pushed and pulled in and out of the water as you move around in the boat. And as you travel it sits right on or near the surface where it can be subjected to the cavitation effect of the water moving under the boat and then swirling around in bubbly whirlpools. Aluminum boats also have rivets on the bottom of the boat that cause currents and eddies, again affecting the transducers ability to function correctly.

Now you do have to be careful to turn off the depth finder before pulling the trolling motor out of the water as this can overheat the unit and wear it out over time. A friend of mine has his transducer mounted on a wooden board (not much bigger than a square stick) that he clamps to the side of the boat very near the transom when he goes out fishing. He has a place marked out as to where the transducer board goes and the board is marked as to how deep it goes down into the water. I asked him why there once and he told me that the rivets on his aluminum boat bottom set up enough turbulence that his depth finder didn’t work right. So he mounts it now between rivet lines and down in deep water where the water flows smoothly under the boat. I tried to get him to mount it under the trolling motor but he said his system worked just find and if he ever got a new boat he could take his depth finder with him.

Now every good bass fisherman knows that finding the depth that the bass are holding in is critical to catching them all over the lake. Knowing this and how deep the water is, determines what lures you can use to catch these bass. But even if you are just fishing docks, a depth finder comes in very handily indeed. It can tell you what the bottom looks like and if there are any places that have structure of cover near the docks that the bass might be in or might move to if scared from out from under the dock. These are places that need to be fished.

It is important to watch your depth finder for fish blips, bass cover and structure just as much as you watch your line for any indication of a strike. It gets you used to interpreting what is on the screen. One thing you will notice for example is that if a bass is not moving and you go over him he will appear as a big blip on the screen but if the same fish is moving through the cone of sound the transducer puts out he will appear as a small blip. So you can see that the size of blips is not always a true representation of what is exactly below you.

Remember too that when you first hook a bass to look at the depth finder. You need to know how deep the water is that you are in, in what direction you cast (i.e. did you cast towards shore or straight ahead) so you can get a feel for how deep the bass was. This is the first step in establishing a pattern. You have a lure running at a curtain depth, you are in a curtain depth of water and your best guess is the bass came out of a curtain depth of water. This is how you start a pattern, now all you have to do is to keep fishing at these depths, and then if needed, you refine the color, action or size of the lure until you have the perfect lure for that day, for those circumstances, on that lake.

Just catching a bass and tossing it back or tossing it the live well and not understanding the depth or that this is the start of a pattern is a sure way of having a very mixed up day on the lake where you have a tough time trying to learn what you did right and what you did wrong.

Now there are a lot of different types of depth finders out there. If you have one with a gain control, turn the knob up just high enough that you can see thermoclines in deep water. A thermocline is a layer of cold water that the bass never go below. This will appear as a just about straight line somewhere between the surface and the bottom. This is as sensitive as you need the unit to be. If you can’t find a thermocline or if you don’t have a gain control, don’t worry about it.

Another thing that helps a lot of fishermen when they look at a depth finder display of the bottom is to look at the shoreline and then try to imagine it under the boat. The display is showing you all the lumps, bumps and weeds that grow there. If you can do this it makes looking at the display make more sense and you start to get the feel for what you bought the depth finder for in the first place.

Once you can see what the transducer is sending back to the display unit you can then start to toss out marker buoys where there are things like rock piles, changes in structure elevation or log piles. These will all need to be fished and a marker is uses to retain your frame of reference. You still use the depth finder though. It is used to define the limits or size of any of these bass habitats and they are used to see if any fish blips show up.

Now a lot of fish blips may not be bass, they may be Trout if they are up near the surface or they may be baitfishes. This is just as important to know as where the bass are. This is because where ever the baitfish are the bass are very close to them. It is important to know the activity of all the different types of fish in a lake so as to make an informed guess as to where the bass are and how to fish for them. If the baitfish are in a tight ball it means that bass are probably feeding on them and you need to get a lure into the water in a hurry. You can start fishing at this depth if you think the blips are baitfish. Fishing just below and around the outside of the school is a sure way of finding any bass in the area. Remember to toss a buoy into the water to mark the location so you can move off and circle the baitfish and fan cast from all directions. Also to, instead of a ball the baitfish they may be just swimming in a school just off the bottom. This looks like the bottom has two depths separated by a small distance and the top line is dashed or has high and low points in it. You need to understand what this looks like too. The baitfish will display open areas in is but the bottom will be a solid line.

Finally if you ever go out and buy a new depth finder, buy the most expensive one you can afford. Extras like one with built-in GPS or a color monitor can be a leg up on less expensive units. You get what you pay for in the world of electronics and even though the prices are falling almost daily, you still need every goodie you can get in one of these units. It never hurts to have the best equipment you can afford whether that is a reel or a depth finder.

MY POLARIZED GLASSES DON’T WORK ON ALL LAKES EQUALLY

A reader wrote me and said he had a good pair of polarized glasses that were 99% efficient but that he saw differently in the water of several of his favorite lakes. By differently he meant that he had a harder time distinguishing fish from the bottom in different types of water.

Polarized glasses work on the principle of eliminating scattered light rays and only letting light from one direction go through them. This has the effect of eliminating glare and as every fisherman knows, it lets you see down into the water instead of just seeing the surface.

So I wrote him back and said that he had a curtain color of polarized glasses. Since they come in just about every color in the rainbow, you can choose which color you like to see with best. The only problem with this is that different water absorbs different wavelengths of light. So say you have blue colored glasses but to see perfectly clearly in this particular lake water a brown color is needed or a yellow colored pair of glasses.

Lakes around here vary in clarity from gin clear to very dirty and each type of water is best viewed through a curtain color in the spectrum of colors. Now the difference is really slight but it can make a difference to some degree until you get used to it. It can also make a difference in how far away you can see into the water and how far away. But again the differences are minor. These differences really show up when you are sight fishing spawning bass.

The only real thing to remember when buying polarized sunglass is make sure that they are at least 98% effective. 95% is inferior and doesn’t do you much good at all. Again spend the money and get a good pair that will last you a lifetime and not a pair that will maybe last a summer.

WHAT ARE THE BEST LURES TO BUY WHEN YOU FIRST START BASS FISHING

Now to be honest I have gotten this type of question a lot over the last couple of years. They are mostly from beginners who are just starting out or fathers who are starting a hobby to do together with their son(s) or daughter(s). Occasionally it’s from an out of stater whose lures don’t work up here. Read Washington bass verse Georgia bass.

My generic advice is to tell them is that all lures and baits have an equal chance of catching a bass as any other lure has. And this is true. A spinner bait has just as good a chance to catch a bass as a top water lure on a particular lake at the same time under the same conditions. But then nobody wants generic answers they all want a list of magic lures that never fail to catch bass no matter the weather, time of year or the lake they are on. Well we all know that, that just isn’t possible but I can give them a list of 10 lures that I use a lot of the time to catch bass on and send it to them and hope they can use them to catch a few bass. I also tell them to never use the word ABRACADABRRA! I don’t believe in magic lures, favorites yes but never magic. Remember that the list of lures below is just a list of lures. There is nothing special about them except that they are the lures I use most when out fishing. Every fisherman has his own list of ten lures or should have. Just remember that you can change this list to suit yourself and the way you bass fish.

The ten lures are 1- a plastic frog with real looking legs. I don’t care for the tassel type legs. You fish this bait by pulling (actually a short snap of the rod tip) it along an inch or two at a time with pauses in between in and around lily pads, cow lilies (the small spear leaf looking lily pad) and weed beds. This makes the legs look real and adds that extra bit of realism that has contributed to my success with this bait.

2- A Rapala original floating Minnow, size F-11 and color silver. This lure just about everyone owns and it is fished by casting it out, letting it set until the splash rings have dissipates then swimming it back to the boat. It dives to about five feet. You can add pauses but it isn’t necessary.

3- A Bomber Long ‘A’ suspending crank bait in Tennessee Shad that dives to 12-15 feet. This lures is used to dive down to cover the front of weed beds and structure that is out in deep water. It is fished either with a straight retrieve or with a start and stop retrieve.

4- A Senko four-inch black or cotton candy colored worm. These worms are shaped like small cigars and have a wavy action as they fall. They are good around docks, in weed beds and any place that has structure or cover where a weedless worm can be used. They can be rigged Texas, Carolina, wacky, weightless or a myriad of other ways to suit the need of that particular day.

5- A spinner bait with one large Indiana silver blade and a small gold blade. The skirt should be shad colored or black/gray/white. The skirt should be long enough to hide a trailer hook and a white plastic eel or twin tailed grub can be used with it as a trailer too.

6- A Zara Spook™ or Spittin King™ top water lure. The color of any top water lure should be shad colored or the color of a generic fish. It should be about 4 to 5 inches long and have a feathered back hook. This back feather hides the hook and also makes the rear of the lure look like a real tail both when moving and at rest.

7- A 3/8’s ounce jig in the colors black and blue with a rattle. You use a trailer worm colored black and blue with a ‘U’ tail cut down to about 4 inches or a blue pork craw by Uncle Josh. Black and blue are the two best contrasting colors underwater I believe and bass see them very readily. You fish a jig by casting it to the back of a dock and letting it set for a minute or so. If nothing happens then recast it to the middle of the dock and then to the front of the dock waiting a minute or more after each cast. Now some angles cast it to the back of the dock and jig it (hop it to the front of the dock) but if you do this too fast which most do, you scare off the bass instead of giving them time to get over the initial shock of the splash next to them. After they get over the shock they will swim over and investigate what landed in their home and strike it if it is food. But if you are a jigger by all means don’t stop because of me but I will advice you to wait a minute before moving it and then continue moving it very slowly, say 2 to 3 inches at a time for best results.

8- A lipless crank bait in the color chrome/black. The body of the crank bait is crawfish red or chrome and the top or backbone is black (blue is ok too). These lipless wonders are real fish getters. All you have to do is fan cast them out and reel them back in. They are generally heavy for their size so they sink rapidly and therefore can be used at just about any depth. You can also rip them across the tops of weed beds and if you catch the weeds you just give the rod tip a quick snap to jerk the hooks free of any debris and continue on. They can also be fished in deep water by casting them out and waiting until they land on the bottom. You then give the lure a quick couple of jerks and reel in a bit of line and let it sink back down again (flutter). This is a very good tactic where there are no weeds.

9- A Bumble Bug from Rebel lures. Now you can pick out the Hornet, Grasshopper, ant or one of the other insect lures available. These little wonders have only one thing wrong with them, you must change out the rear hook to a number 4 treble. This in no way effects the action of this lure but a bigger hook allows you to hang on to a bass without tearing the hooks out of his mouth. You fish this lure by casting it out but before all the ripples disappear you reel in about a yard of line. The Bumble Bug will dive under the water about 6 inches and then pop right back up to the surface again. Before these new rings in the water disappear repeat. You can fish this lure anywhere!

10- A Burkley Gulp Minnow. This plastic bait is a real go to top water soft jerk bait. It is cast out and twitched over the tops of weed beds and lily pads. But it is more versatile than to just be used as a soft jerk bait, which it is very, very good at. It can be used Texas and Carolina rigged to cover the bottom. It looks like a crippled baitfish anywhere in the water column it is fished.

Never let anything limit your ability to use any lure or bait at any level in the water column. You can stuff earplugs into tube bodies to make them float or you can drill a hole(s) in a crank bait and put lead in the hole(s) to change how deep they dive. Be inventive and always fish with flair. Never ever get stuck in a rut and always stay positive because a negative attitude does run right down the rod, the line and ends up on the lure you’re using. And no bass will bite a negative lure or bait

Well there you have it. I hope this helps some of you be at least a little wiser. If not write me and I’ll try and figure out what the problem is. Enjoy!



Bruce Middleton

bpmiddleton@peoplepc.com