Bigmouth Forever (1996)

[Music] in the beginning was the bass not quite the beginning of creation but sometime after the light shone into darkness and long before primitive man made his way onto this continent where bass fed and bred but had never yet seen a lure implanted with a hook shaped from bone let alone steal big mouth was predator not prey the bass's first meal might have been a bluegill the bluegill was equipped with spiny fins so it was hard to swallow but the bass didn't care he fed and survived a favored tribe of fish and one day when he felt the spiny fin he would find too late it was a bony hook big mouth went on with his hungry life but now he too had become the quarry [Music] so so [Music] so um so so so in a time when bass are no longer needed for food we fish for them anyway the ancient tie between man and bass is not quickly or easily undone perhaps through the predatory fish we hope to discover something about our own inherited nature and so we return to the river on this southern river one man has spent 1500 days in the past 25 years hoping to answer a few of the riddles of big mouth's life with its clarity its wildness in a crowded century the river is the ideal spot to study the bass and his habits his ways of self-protection his minor flaws that can be used sometimes to hook and catch him it could be a jungle stream before the last ice age beneath its waters rest the bones of prehistoric mammoths the birds along its wooded banks long-legged tent-winged feeders on fish seem to have survived far past the epic they were made for throwbacks they live beside the bass and compete with him for the same stalks of forage [Music] glenn is a fisherman an investigative angler he's also a filmmaker he began his outdoor quest as a guide on the great lakes and shot the first movie on the phenomenal new salmon angling there in the 1960s his later work includes four national television series on fishing and wildlife conservation but to people who fish for bass he's best known as that waterlogged guy who filmed big mouth the documentary on the life history of the largemouth bass [Music] the river is magical above water mystical below sunlit galleries of foliage draw you onward though at first they seem strangely empty of other life the water looks almost too clean for a country boy like big mouth most bass waters are a bit messier than this with the water so transparent the creatures of the river have learned to hide themselves better than most these lush beds of eel grass conceal whole cities of insects and crustaceans and fish [Music] the river is clear because it carries no runoff from pavement or plowed fields no spilling or slopping from america's perpetual toga party instead the water billows up from spring holes in the riverbed millions of gallons per day after falling as rain hundreds of miles to the north and filtering through the limestone bedrock it springs up here at a constant 72 degrees to bathe the bass [Music] for glenn the river is an unsurpassed place to encounter the bass and to make a new film video adding to the discoveries in his previous work it's located only a few miles from the river where the first big mouth was filmed in both rivers with their spring-fed currents the bass and other fish live in a house with glass walls most important the bass in this river is the same bass that lives in other waters across the country in reservoirs and natural lakes in farm ponds and ranch tanks he picks the same kinds of cover to hide in the same kinds of porridge to feed on he's a tour guide to the haunts and habits of his ancient kind wherever they're found when glenn made big mouth two decades ago he didn't do it alone the project required the help on camera and off of a highly skilled angler to cast and retrieve lures to hook and catch bass that angler lived nearby and knew the waters and was a long time friend he was and still is the nation's best-known writer on bass a man familiar to half a million readers as uncle homer for this new project on a different river that he also knows he agreed to help again the first big mouth film as these classic scenes suggest introduced bass anglers to the creature they fished for tracing the cycle of seasons documenting the career of a largemouth almost every frame revealed events that had never been filmed before [Music] the main character in that movie was the bass homer for his part was a shadowy presence seen from the viewpoint of the fish and so in a sense he was a stand-in for every angler he was a human predator who always let his catch go back to the water unharmed [Music] the supporting past included a host of swimming flying squirming wildlife whose lives intersected for better or worse with the life of the bass [Music] anglers learned many new truths from the film anglers including uncle homer of all the things i learned during the filming of big mouth the one that haunts me the most was when i was using a deep diving crankbait and on two occasions a whopper bass struck the lure and i never felt the hit [Music] since that time and over the years we've discovered that the largemouth bass often grabs and ejects the lure and this is a common occurrence with all bass [Music] [Music] cool [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] so what do you do about this kind of situation well i'll tell you what i started doing after i saw the bass grabbing and blowing out the lure some 20 plus years ago now whenever i feel the slightest tick or bump i set the hook and you'd be surprised how many more bands i've caught since then [Music] [Music] [Music] so learning from experience how to fish more effectively is the whole point of this new video it aims to provide an experience you couldn't get on your own an intimate underwater look at big mouth and his habits as they relate specifically to fishing both of the men you've met working above the water's surface and below will deepen your view of bass and put more of them on the end of your line and from the end of your line safely back to the water [Music] [Music] first of all this film study finds what a scientific radio tagging project also has found the little known fact that bass like people divide into two different groups based on their like or dislike of company one group is the school bass the kind you see here most anglers are unaware of these school bass and seldom if ever make contact with them they range more widely than other bass instead of hanging out near a particular piece of cover in any large river or lake school bass spend most of their time in open water largely separate from the loaners that live in cover they're a lightly tap resource one that far more anglers could enjoy a school may contain dozens of bass they're longer fish sleeker and more cylindrical than the sedentary bass that hang near cover they never wait for their prey to come swimming or crawling to them instead they go out and chase it school bass are pursuit feeders they can herd a school of shad or emerald shiners like cattle [Music] so the fact that bass can live in such different ways as loners in covert or as part of a wide-ranging school demonstrates their great adaptability as a species the angler who wants to catch bass at different times and in different places must be adaptable too [Music] school bass and all bass to a point follow the forage bait fish move around in a body of water staging in different places and the bass will move with them wherever you find a concentration of bass you can bet there's a concentration of bait fish nearby and vice versa finding the bass is a matter of finding out their habits or better finding out the habits of the [Music] forage [Music] so [Music] [Applause] pick a lure to match the shape of the forage slender like a shiner oval like a shad and the gap is bridged between man and bass [Music] at times school baths are found close to shore in lakes they move into coves to feed and in spring they invade the shallows to spawn but inshore cover is really the turf of less gregarious bass individuals or small groups that would rather just be left alone [Music] with this kind of bass the key to success is to read the cover to find their hideouts from signs on the surface brushy cover with mats of weed collected around it translates to a comfortable den underneath a resting place not only for bass but for grown-up bluegills [Music] a fallen limb affords another good hideout though the bass in this layer may not have their minds on feeding they can often be coaxed into hitting by a soft presentation so close they don't have to swim for it overhanging branches give shade a requirement for any good rest area unlike humans bass cannot adjust their eyes to different levels of light [Music] a sunken log or a jumble of several may appear to hold only bluegills and other forage but bass are lurking there too better concealed logs are especially strong magnets for bass if located near a drop-off or close to weeds or other covered usually cover types in combination hold more fish than any type of cover by itself safe and lazy big mouth holds up in the shade under the wood pile weeds are the best places to look for big mouth from the top a weed bed like this may appear too dense to hold good bass but what seemed a solid mass of weeds may actually be streamers or columns visible here in the background bass take advantage of these streamers to break the current to shade themselves from the sun's direct rays and to hide from any forage that might drift along [Music] weed coverage of 30 to 40 percent of a body of water is ideal in most cases for bass they station themselves in beds of cara water milfoil or hydrilla like hawks perched on sunken branches for big mouth one of the best weeds of all is maiden cane beds of maiden cane usually are dense enough to provide shade and seclusion but still open enough for bass to navigate easily they rest and hide in maiden kane they spawn along the edges of it or in the openings and they also find minnows and young sunfish in it to feed on [Music] lily pads make good ambush cover for bass the pockets in a bed of pads are classic spots to present a spinner bait boat docks are favorite spots to fish for bats but not all are created equal some hold bass while others like this one do not any dock provides shade but that alone may not be enough to attract bass a poor dock has no other structure or cover nearby and not much forage also an unproductive dock has no cross braces only the bare structure of posts [Music] above the water line a hot dock may be indistinguishable from any other the proof is in the fishing but even if the fish are there they may not be easy to fool the bass that hold under a good dot like this one are probably not in the habit of feeding there the dock is bass habitat a secure place to rest but the forage habitat is somewhere a short distance away where the bass go to feed [Music] glenn's camera shows the depth of shade cast by a dock with the camera set for the bass out in sunlight the area under the dock looks black [Music] weed beds nearby make a dock a far more attractive resting place for big mouth the same is true of a nearby drop-off which is much better than a level or gradually sloping bottom good cover and structure close to the dock give the bass a convenient spot to go for forage if big mouth has to travel a long distance from a dock to feed chances are he'll find a better place to serve as his base a dock like this one with weeds and a drop off may attract and hold bass by the dozen the fish are well fed and heavy indicating not only an abundance of forage items close by but also a variety bass need a mixed diet to grow big seldom will they make ten pounds or even five on a single kind of forage these gambosias are most nourishing when combined with bluegills other bait fish crawfish and occasional supplements ranging from frogs to salamanders [Music] big mouth is attracted to the sounds made by bait fish and other forage for example the noise is produced by fat head minnows when spawning [Music] in many waters both lakes and rivers crawfish are abundant and make up a significant part of the bass's diet though craws are most often thought of in connection with small mouth bass big mouth eats his share of them too he begins to do so when only a few inches long [Music] a crawfish gulking along the bottom produces noise a kind of traveling music that can be picked up by a bass on the prowl for food a crawfish doing its own feeding may reveal its presence as it gnashes away at a helpless minnow these same sounds that a bass can follow to their source can also be detected by an underwater microphone for the bass angler one of the best crawfish imitations ever devised is the two bluer as rigged by one of the top tournament pros a fisherman named shaw he rigs a tiny sinker inside the lure instead of using a slip sinker or a jig head rigged this way the tube lure fishes more realistically in the water with less catching in weeds or sticks even more important it skips better across the surface of the water on the cast and the skip cast is nearly synonymous with shaw the hook is his own design made to hold firmly in place in the lure the rig works well in many situations and is perfect for the finesse sight fishing technique that shaw has developed and likes to use here on the river and in other waters sufficiently clear a pair of polarized sunglasses is vital to this sight fishing system they cut through glare on the water so shaw can read the secret code of cover and fish i love bass fishing of course i i love all kinds of fishing but bass seem to be really unique most other species you can catch you know just about any time but uh bass if you're not doing it right you you just don't get bit and that's what makes it such a challenge and that's why i love pursuing them pretty much more than any other species [Music] skip castings started what happened as we we were fishing docks on the saint johns river and we were trying to present little worms under them and that's how we learned to skip you know just take spinning rods and slide the baits back in there and then when i started spending a lot of time sight fishing you'd make some cash where you'd splash it and you'd realize the fish would move out of the way and every now and then you'd have a tree limb laying there and you'd skip it up under a tree just like we would a normal dock and often i realized that they would key in on that skip and they'd actually follow it sometimes they'd take it right off the surface on the skip and then i realized i said well this is yummy dummy why didn't i think of this earlier that it's just like a natural bait fish or something being scared away from the fish so it actually is more of a triggering mechanism and it's also just a great way to present a bait i get excited every time i get a bite i was extremely excited just being able to come back to this river it's a it's a very special river it's there's very few places in the world that have this clear water where you can really relate to the fish and be in there and be able to sight fish but with sight fishing you're seeing the fish before you ever make the cast and you visually see them you make the cast to him and and you have this little window of opportunity there to present the bait before he knows you're there and that's that's how you catch him as you see him first present a cast real quick make the exact precise cast where it'll it'll you know entice him in there it's actually hunting and fishing combined there's a lot of hunting visually hunting and tracking and stalking a bass and then making making the cast for big mouth as a species the crucial period of the year and of life comes sometime in spring as the moon approaches full the lunar phase determines the timing of the spawn especially in the south a week before the full moon females heavy with eggs gather near a sunken branch log or other obstruction to re-enact an old ritual the eye presumably is what sets it all off moonlight enters the eye triggering the brain which signals the glands to set hormones flowing [Music] one by one the female bass begin to rub their undersides on the branch no one can say for sure why they do it but likely it serves to loosen the masses of eggs compacted in their swollen bellies five days before the full moon four three the strange right goes on at two days the bass quit feeding male and female alike [Music] the days just before feeding ends are prime for fishing in the south where spawning occurs on full moons over three or four months in spring there's no closed season it was just before a full moon 15 years ago when homer hooked the biggest bass of his life [Music] when i set the hook on that bass and i felt the weight of the bass held on tightly trying to get him to come my way away from that cover it pulled the bow of the boat around they ran over this way and pulled the bar of the boat to the left i turned around back the other direction pulled the boat over this way to the right and headed right for that bunch of weeds out there all i could do was hold tight and try to get his head away from those weeds he wouldn't come he kept right on going so i reared back with everything that i had trying to turn that monster bass and pow my rod broke right in front of my face the line the rod broke right in front of my face and the vast was gone that's the memory that'll always be a keeper i'll always cherish it [Music] one day before the full moon the sometimes turbulent courtship begins [Music] from the inventory of available females a male attracts one to the nest he's fanned in the bottom with his tail the female allows herself to be maneuvered over the nest a shallow cup in the bottom the male not only builds the nest but also will guard the eggs and later the fry from predators often he will spawn with more than one female so the male is the more critical element and the sperm on the full moon in an act of quivering effort the eggs are laid and fertilized as many as 145 000 have been found in a single female and as few as two thousand [Music] after guarding the eggs the frazzled male bass then watches over the fry the complete process consuming several weeks until he leaves the fry on their own the new father will eat nothing it's vital that all male bass caught by anglers during the spawning season be released the same as females as carefully and quickly as possible [Music] when the fry become fingerlings they rely mostly on insects and tiny crustaceans for food [Music] later as yearlings the same bass have become very competitive feeders and have switched over to a diet of small fish such as shiners the sooner a young bass begins taking these forage fish the larger it's likely to become as an adult it will grow faster than others in its year class and outcompete them for the available forage [Music] it's also in these early stages that a bass sets its pattern for life either it becomes a school fish a pursuit feeder roaming open water or it becomes a loner an ambush feeder cloaked in cover neither type is necessarily more successful the smartest fish live the longest and develop an uncanny sensitivity to their environment they have enormous survival intelligence these are the big mouths that inhabit our dreams [Music] glenn has filmed literally thousands of bass and hundreds of bass lures but for him the most exciting shot is always the strike the lure darts or trembles limps or shimmies whirls or walks the dog then comes that long exquisite moment before a bass slides in and slurps it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sometimes though a cold front scuds in and you can't coax a hit and this is bass fishing too [Music] just ahead of the front it's a different story big mouth suits up for a feeding frenzy no bait fish is safe this is why fishing is so slow when the front actually arrives the bass are already glutted falling water temperatures may have some effect but usually the drop is slight the big cause is bellies filled in a rampage like this on the trailing edge of a front bass may not return to normal for a day or two yet they can still be caught if you fish a lure or bait very slowly and precisely where they've retreated into heavy cover in fact some of the largest fish of all have been taken this way it's bass angling's biggest challenge and biggest reward [Music] the river and its bass have been glenn's subject teacher confidant sometimes he comes here and leaves the camera behind his dog flipper gets to ride along and bird watch since now there is no seam to splash through and spoil the river lifts them up and along to glen it could be a painting of a river in paradise i come here often with my fishing buddy flipper it's mainly because of the bass but i often find myself lost in the beauty of this magnificent place this is truly the river of life the way all rivers should be the last example of the way rivers were not too long ago when i first came here years ago and saw that crystal clear water it was love at first sight and i've been here ever since largemouth bass and bass fishing has been my passion and my obsession for years i find myself constantly being drawn back to this place where there's always a chance to get a nibble by keeping records over the years i've been able to determine in advance the best times and places to catch big bass i love catching big bass [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] this is the best that life has to offer bass fishing is a sport where you find satisfaction great memories and wonderful friends to share it with please take care of it you know i've been blessed with a lifetime of challenges and pleasures fishing for bass and it's been wonderful i'm just as enthused about catching a fish now as i was when i was five or six or seven years old i love it it's a fascinating thing to catch a fish and i i still every single fish is different and every single fish intrigues me with fishing it doesn't matter if you're two years old or whether you're 92 then if you're male or female it's a fantastic way to have fun it's a great family sport you can take kids you can take everybody can enjoy the outdoors and go fishing and that's that's something real special [Music] [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Old School Bass Fishing Vids

Views: 13,850

Rating: 4.9912663 out of 5

Keywords: Shaw Grigsby, Homer Circle, Hank Parker, Rainbow River, Big Bass, Trophy Bass, Dug Hannon, The Bass Professor, Topwater, Crankbait, Spinnerbait, Plastic Worm, Roland Martin, Bill Dance, Kevin VanDam, Randy Blaukat, Larry Nixon, Rick Clunn, Denny Brauer, Scott Martin, Flipping, Pitching, Prespawn, Postspawn, Bassmaster, FLW, MLF, Major League Fishing, Carolina Rig, Texas Rig, Jig, Spawning Bass, Bed Fishing, Spawning, Spawn

Id: yd-C_JMJkuw

Length: 44min 49sec (2689 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021