Doug Hannon - The Bass Professor - Understanding Bass (1985)

[Music] no game fish is more widely sought by fishermen than the largemouth bass as a bass fisherman you know that big bass are hard to catch but soon you'll be learning more about big bass and how to catch them than most anglers learn in a lifetime [Music] your guide will be doug hannon no one is more qualified to help you learn to catch big bass than the man who has personally caught over 400 bass exceeding 10 pounds apiece hold on drag here she comes around the side this is some bass oh i'd like to see a job no wonder so many of these get away i think i saw her there oh what a pretty unbelievable power these things just rolling the drag i think we're gonna make it on this i always think that boy got away [Music] come on my gosh that'll make you fall all over yourself the bass of a lifetime it's good for you [Music] okay go back and do that to me again it's nice to know you'll be here next time [Music] if you can stand excitement like this come with me on this scientific anglers bass fishing program you're going to find it's completely unique because it deals with the bass as a living thing in his world let me make you my promise on this if you'll study these tapes and the accompanying material you'll not only catch more and bigger bass but you'll gain a greater appreciation for a great sport fish and a great sport doug hannon probably knows as much about the largemouth bass as anyone his own story is as remarkable as some of the facts that he has learned about big bass born in canada hannah was orphaned at an early age growing up with an unusual sense of self-reliance he made some prudent investments so by the time he graduated from tulane university doug was free to do what he wanted with his life and what he wanted to do was to learn everything he could about the largemouth bass [Music] annan moved to florida where he could study bass and fisher them year round it was there that he met renowned author and naturalist john hamlet hamlet gave new direction and meaning to hannan's quest for knowledge about the bass through hamlet hannan learned that the bass must be considered as part of the natural world not in a vacuum if we are to really learn about it this insight forged doug hannah into a naturalist as opposed to an ectheologist or fish specialist he began studying not merely the best but the way that the bass fits into the entire natural world the more hannan learned about the bass as a species the more he realized that big bass the most successful members of that species stick to the rules of vast behavior in a more rigid and predictable manner than lesser fish an avid bass angler hannah began applying knowledge gain from thousands of hours of field research to his fishing armed with a handful of lures a beat-up old aluminum boat and an ever expanding pool of knowledge about the bass in his world hannan soon rocked the bass fishing world with catches of giant bass today his record of 400 bass exceeding 10 pounds apiece places him at bass fishing's highest plateau still he remains sensitive to his need for seclusion or it is only when he is one on one with the bass that he can continue to study and learn about it today diving and underwater photography take up a greater share of his time as haddon strives to document the life of the bass from the fish's point of view as his knowledge of the bass grows so does his respect for the species annan is a renowned conservationist and catch and release advocate and has learned much by tagging and releasing giant bass his single mounted trophy an awesome 17 pounder is a symbol of his respect for the giants of the species we at scientific anglers are certain that having doug hannan as your personal guide and instructor will help you to gain new insights into big bass we ask that you help preserve this important natural resource by releasing some of the big bass you'll catch as a result of successfully completing this course [Music] as doug hannon will tell you any study of big bass fishing must begin with an understanding of the bass as a living thing in this section of the tape we will focus on important physical characteristics of the bass including its body shape bins mouth and coloration next we will examine the senses of the bass and you'll learn which senses are most important to the fish finally we'll shed new light on the learning capabilities of the bass and how its brain functions in its natural role as a predator i know you've all caught a lot of bass but have you ever taken a really close look at one for the details the details that make a bass what he is it's not an accident or a freak of nature that a bass looks the way it does it must be streamlined that's because water weighs 800 times as much as air and the bass has to pass through it in pursuit of his prey he's a heavy bodied fish as compared to say a northern pike which is a straight line for suit type fish compare the shape of the bass to the bluegill and the northern pike the bass is not as long and slender as the pike nor is it as round as the bluegill [Music] the bass represents a compromise between the straight line speed of the pike and the maneuverability of the panfish it's a fairly long fish and can swim up to 18 miles an hour in short bursts [Music] yet its wide butterfly-like pectoral fins give it outstanding maneuverability so that it can easily feed on darting prey including bluegills a big bass is extremely thick and wide across the back which tells us that it's a very powerful fish a bluegill lacks this thick body shape it doesn't need great power to overcome tiny minnows or insects in confined areas the tail of a fish tells us a great deal about its speed and maneuverability also compare the rounded tail of the slow-moving bottom feeding mudfish to the pronounced v-tail of the blue marlin a fish capable of tremendous speed in the open water a fossil like this shows that the fins of the fish haven't changed in millions of years this particular piece came from the green river in wyoming in the eocene period over 50 million years ago thus when we talk about the fins of the fish we can look at a very very proven system a very proven system of propulsion the tail of the bass again represents a compromise not round yet not markedly v-shaped either [Music] the colorations and markings of a bath tell us that it's an object-oriented fish and it lives a stationary rather than a nomadic lifestyle the bass has a pale green cast to its sides which blends in perfectly with the weed beds that it haunts and yet the spots blend in with the shadows of the high lit shallow water environment where it hunts yet the bass may look like this too pale with few prominent marks or spots that's because the bass has the remarkable ability to change its coloration to suit surroundings where there are few weeds or little brushy cover the bass will often change to a more open water camouflage pattern most fish are colored silver green blue or white because most fish live in open water as opposed to cover such fish are typically nomadic or roaming species which may cover a tremendous area in search of food the fact that the bass is able to camouflage itself thereby equip itself to either a stationary existence in or near cover or a more nomadic existence utilizing open water is a strong testimony to the marvelous way that this fish can adapt perhaps no single physical characteristic of the bass is more prominent than its mouth we call it largemouth big mouth bucket mouth even jaws the size and shape of the bass's mouth tells us a great deal about this fish because its mouth is so big and round the bass can take in a tremendously wide variety of prey including smaller minnows and bait fish larger fish such as golden shiners bluegill and carp reptiles and amphibians that inhabit its world including water snakes frogs and small mammals and even other bats this ability to feed on just about anything that enters its world is a tremendous asset to the bass and helps account for its widespread range the mouth of the bass can be likened to a slurp gun as the bass flares its gills there's a tremendous intake of water sand and silt weeds even sticks and stones may be sucked in along with the prey a 10-pound bass sucks in as much as a quart of water every time it opens its mouth to feed compare the way a bass beats to the feeding behavior of the gar this fish uses long sharp teeth to grasp its prey firmly in scissor-like jaws it must zero in on his prey exactly or it'll go hungry the bass on the other hand can feed in a more generalized manner and needn't even grasp its prey to overtake it it literally controls the water in front of its mouth the way a bass fights tells us a lot about the way he lives like most stationary fish he hangs close into cover and hunts with an explosive burst of energy to run down his prey nothing it takes a long time nothing that takes a lot of endurance salmon and trout on the other hand often spend their whole lives or a great deal of them fighting current and swimming the secret to the salmon's endurance is in his red muscle which has a rich supply of blood and therefore a lot of oxygen to rejuvenate that muscle and give that fish the endurance of a marathon runner compare that to the white muscle of a bass which has a great deal of power for the short term like the explosive flush of a cubia quail another bird with white breasts and therefore the bass has this short powerful fight that doesn't last as long but we can't take anything away from him for the power and the effort that he puts forth for the sport fishermen white muscled fish are typically stationary feeders as opposed to nomadic species that inhabit open water unlike red-muscled fish such as the trout the bass is incapable of extended runs in a prolonged fight when hooked but slugs it out violently for a relatively short period of time let's review what we've learned about the bass by studying his physical characteristics he's an ambush fish capable of catching prey in heavy cover or outmaneuvering it in open water engulfing it simply by opening his bucket mouth the bass is also a generalist thriving in a variety of environments he's capable of eating anything that enters his world as a result he's america's favorite game fish thriving in water from maine to california or from washington to florida past fishermen always wonder how well can a bass see what do they really hear is their sense of smell as good as they say it is let's forget about the myths that cloud these issues and look at the facts the bass has excellent eyesight and can track down his prey easily in pitch dark or in bright sunlight because the bass often lurks in cover in shadowy places many fishermen believe that it's hiding to protect its sensitive eyes from the direct rays of the sun some back up this notion by pointing out that the bass has no eyelids and therefore cannot shut its eyes to block out the sun's discomforting rays the truth is eyelids serve no real purpose in flocking the sun's rays their function is to keep the eyes moist a fish doesn't have eyelids because he doesn't need any when you live in the water your eyes stay moist without them simply put bass are not afraid of direct sunlight on the contrary the bass is a sun fish and often basks especially when not in a feeding mood it uses light and shadow as does any predator for hiding and ambush a cautious approach is needed especially in the middle of the day or in clear water remember if you can see fish most fish can probably see you they can see your cast and your lure even before it hits the water devastate colors absolutely studies even indicate that they see reds and oranges even better than humans do but the important thing is what does color vision represent in the natural world the fact is to see color we have to lose a lot of our sensitivity to light nocturnal creatures like the owls and predators that depend on seeing at night do not have any color vision because it would cost them too much in their light sensitivity range that's why when we go outside at night we don't see colors it's the first thing that drops out of our visual spectrum so the fact that bass actually see colors says something about the way they feed this is very important to us it tells us that they're a daylight feeder that they need color vision otherwise they wouldn't have developed it over millions of years my records actually show that most big bass are caught between the highlight hours of 10 in the morning to three in the afternoon many bass anglers fail to score during the daylight hours because they don't realize that the flaws and the lures and technique they are using are far more obvious to the bass in direct sunlight as a rule always switch to a more realistic lure in the middle of the day a bait such as a plastic worm or a paula and make careful presentations as close as possible to cover a bass will be able to get a much better look at your bait in direct sunlight therefore it had better look right also switch to a smaller lure than you might choose in a low light situation the flaws won't be as obvious to the fish live bait fishermen always do best in the middle of the day rather than when the light is low that's because the bass will be less likely to reject living prey but it has a good chance of perusing under high levels of light so keep on fishing during those so-called tough daylight hours but use lures and technique that will stand up to the scrutiny of a big bass it's very difficult for us to appreciate the differences between the medium of air and the medium of water since we don't live under water one of those occurs in with the characteristics of sound sound travels a hundred thousand times better underwater giving some whales the ability to communicate at distances of over 6 000 miles this is also contrasted by the fact that sound is very non-directional underwater that is it's very difficult for a bass to find and locate the source of the noise underwater the sounds seem to come from everywhere stick your head beneath the surface shut your eyes and try to determine where your friend is standing when he bangs two rocks together the bass is a denizen of this aquatic world and as such has remarkable hearing ability it can detect small minnows and crustaceans in deep cover by sound alone as long as it's close to the source however it has a hard time determining the origin of a distant sound just as the diver had difficulty telling where the rocks were being banged together this causes hannah to question the true value of so-called noise-making lures for big bass underwater observations have shown him that bass may react to such lures by rushing forward out of curiosity they hear something but have little idea where it's coming from they might grab the lure based on the visual cues it presents but their lack of directional hearing would make them unlikely to smash it just because it made a noise so you see it's not reasonable for us to think that we can call bass to a specific sound the same way a hunter can call ducks a duck hunter relies on the duck's strong ability to pinpoint the direction of his call thanks to the sound transference qualities of air if the duck were unable to tell where the sound was coming from there'd be little use in calling it the best type of sound producing lures are those that crawl slowly across the bottom and randomly generate noise when they make contact with objects a bass can sense a sound and have plenty of time to seek out its source as it's bumping slowly across the bottom these slow-moving lures are very effective at night the air is very important to the hearing of a bass and has probably been de-emphasized too much in favor of the lateral line what the ear really hears is a wide spectrum of sound with a lot of information value in it whereas a lateral line might hear sound that reaches us only in the form of an energy wave like the distant rumble of thunder the lateral line is probably more important in schooling fish than it is to the bass these jacks spend much of their lives in a school to keep from running into each other they require some sort of organizational and directional aid a lateral line serves this purpose it tells them information they need to know along their entire body such as direction of the current whether or not a predator is approaching and so on the lateral line allows fish to position themselves in a dense grouping without bumping into one another it allows each fish to sense the water pressure off another's body so that the entire school can respond as a unit bass do not relate to one another as do schooling fish except as fry while numbers of bass may sometimes congregate to take advantage of unusual feeding opportunities they do so as separate individuals not members of a school to summarize hearing is very important to the world of the bass but we should probably focus our attention more on the ears than on the lateral line the lateral line is probably more important to school fish like shad than it is to bass and most of the sounds made by the bass's prey are probably in the auditory hearing range rather than that of the lateral line hannan is often asked if bass can hear the sounds emitted by a depth finder the answer is yes especially for some units the high frequency sonars that most bass fishermen use run at two hundred thousand cycles per second and are above the hearing range and are less audible than the low frequency fifty thousand cycle per second deep water units he uses a depth binder to locate structures but once over a brush pile or ledge he marks the location and turns it off as a precaution [Music] some fish notably the trout and salmon have an incredibly well-developed sense of smell and can detect odors and as slighter concentrations as one part per billion that's only one drop in a large swimming pool yet do they really feed by smell many fishermen have observed that if they don't match their fly exactly to the hatch even though it looks very close the trout will not feed on it to further illustrate how highly developed the sense of smell is in trout and salmon they return to their breeding grounds to spawn by actually following the smell of the water and the bottom this phenomenon known as following the detritic code has been well documented in these fish but what about the sense of smell and bass lately we've been inundated by new data experiments and products revolving around the bass and its use of smell the bass definitely has a nose but we'd be making a mistake now that we've suddenly discovered that bass have noses to jump to the conclusion that they use it heavily for feeding [Music] while the bass has a good sense of smell it is not nearly as acute as many of the cold water species like the salmon trout and walleye this has been extensively documented in many field and laboratory tests we also hear that a bass's sense of smell gets better with age this might associate the use of lure sense strongly with big bass but in nature things that improve with age usually don't have anything to do with behavior that is critical throughout the life of the creature young animals need to feed just as much as mature animals to the bass the sense of smell matures because it's primarily used in activities associated with mature fish possibly breeding and determining territory but not necessarily feeding the nature of our sport leads many fishermen to develop an emotional attachment to certain techniques and methods lure scents are no exception here but we must remember that even fish with a very good sense of smell like trout salmon feed primarily by sight so it is with the bass this leads me to believe that we might place too much emphasis on the use of lure sense in our bass fishing for example place a wild shiner in a pond the bass will hunt it down and devour it in seconds if you put a freshly killed shiner in the bass leave it alone obviously the bass chasing the live shiner had little time to sniff it if they wanted they could spend all day sniffing this one to summarize on the senses of bass sight is by far the most important for their feeding under most circumstances bass have excellent color vision and can perceive even subtle variations in you and color hearing is also important but not so much as sight this makes me tend to avoid the artificial noise chamber type lures and the fast retrieving lures such as the fast crank baits in favor of lures that make only spontaneous and natural noises from contact with the bottom and other underwater objects the importance of the lateral line is greatly overstated in bass and other fish that don't school this organ is only used to pick up extremely low sound frequencies sounds at a frequency level below those of most prey schooling fish use the lateral line to determine subtle variations in water pressure enabling them to avoid running into one another and to move quickly as a unit finally the sense of smell is much less developed than bass and it is in many game fish and i would say is much more closely associated with some sort of mature activity like breeding or territoriality rather than feeding [Music] as a bass fisherman you've probably returned home on at least one occasion after being totally skunked perhaps you commented the big ones outsmarted me today but just how smart is a big bass is it capable of learning and remembering what does its brain and nervous system tell us about the bass what do big bass have in common with other predators [Music] one of the biggest mistakes we make in our bass fishing is to think of bass in human terms we tend to think of them as having moods like aggressiveness submissiveness likes and dislikes and all these are inappropriate the bass does not have the same level or type of intelligence as a human but his intelligence serves him very well in his world in this footage by john salisbury a wild bass from a florida lake was taught to receive food and perform stunts the key point here is that a bass is not a thinker he does not ponder and experience and decide if it's good or bad he learns strictly from the experience itself the physical act so if he strikes a lure and is not rewarded for it he tends to put that in his brain in a place that says that's not a reward it's very difficult to make that bass go back into an unpleasant area of his brain and pick something out and unlearn it to the big bass fisherman this point is crucial the big bass is a survivor he's been around a long time he's had time to learn that in his world there's no reward in eating everything that comes along no matter how unnatural it looks the key is a bass can't learn every lure in your tackle box or what it looks like bass learns the principle not to resort to his curiosity to strike everything that's unnatural that's why i prefer natural lures those with the size action and color that closely resembles a bass's natural prey in remote waters like these that are seldom fished it's easy to fool a bass with just about any lure you throw at him unfortunately remote waters are becoming a thing of the past and today's bass fisherman often faces a crowd on the lake this exposes more and more bass to more and more lures and increases the chances for their learning to reject them recent studies in san diego on the movements of big fish dramatically show the effects of fishing pressure on these large bass in one study big bass were equipped with radio transmitters and their movements tracked over the course of one year for six months the lake was open to boating but close to fishing the big bass stayed shallow even with heavy boating traffic [Music] then after six months the lake was open to fishing within two days of exposure to fisherman's lures the bass left the shallows for deeper open water it seems incredible to think that the bass would grow to accept zig zagging water skiers as part of its world but this study proves it happened perhaps it has to do with the territoriality of the fish because the passing boats are so much bigger than the bass they accept them fisherman's lures on the other hand are probably perceived as invaders they get right down into the territory of the bass and once the bass has an unpleasant experience with him he leaves bass is a survivor and he's the most adaptable of america's game fish thriving in the greatest variety of environments under the greatest array of conditions as such he's more adaptable than a trout adaptability could be compared in the animal world to intelligence in our world in that it helps you react to your environment many predators share the amazing ability to be at rest without actually being asleep they can therefore react instantly without having to awaken they lack the suprachiasmatic nuclei or sleep clock in their brains which humans have when the alarm clock goes off do you leap forth from the bed instantly alert and ready to face the challenge of the new day no that's because your brain has this sleep clock the bath does not this amazing physiological characteristic tells us a lot about the bass as a predator he has the ability to be at rest and yet not be asleep this lets him take advantage of feeding opportunities 24 hours a day while other predators who go through a long period of sleep must miss many opportunities to feed this round-the-clock ability of the bass to feed refutes the notion that there is any one particular time of day when it's best to fish like early in the morning or late in the afternoon this also tells us that to catch more big bass we should fish more often when these big fish are feeding which will probably be at a different time today than it will tomorrow the bass is a generalist he's also very adaptable that's why it's tough to get into any situation and say this is what a bass will do we need to learn more about the physical characteristics of a fish and that'll take us a giant step in becoming better bass fishermen to understand the bass one must also understand the nature of its environment too many fishermen fail to consider the bass as part of an echo system instead they think of the bass as a solitary target for conquest or possibly a stuffed inanimate trophy [Music] in this section of the tape doug hannon will help you understand the bass as a cold-blooded creature how a bass's activity is directly related to the temperature of the water and environmental factors that bass as a species prefer the body temperature of reptiles and amphibians is the same as out of their surroundings when a rattlesnake is cold he becomes very inactive even tarpon as his body temperature heats up during the midday he becomes very active even aggressive the bass is the same way except that his body temperature is the same as the water around him to live a long healthy life requires that a bass live in a relatively moderate environment not too hot and not too cold [Music] a high performance outboard motor such as this one has a recommended operating range of about fifty five hundred to six thousand rpms running the engine for an extended period of time below this range will foul the plugs and cause excessive engine deposits and shorten the life of the motor exceeding this range for long periods will damage the crankshaft and powerhead and perhaps cause the engine to throw a rod while a bass is not an outboard motor you could relate its metabolic needs to rpms of the outboard a bass in a cold environment will not be operating at peak efficiency likewise a bass in an extremely hot tropical environment will be turning too many rpms from a metabolic standpoint its metabolism will be constantly working overtime due to the high temperature of the water therefore it probably will not live a long life like an over revved outboard it will literally burn itself out the ideal water temperature for the largemouth bass is 78 to 82 degrees fahrenheit it is in this range that the bodily functions and metabolism of the bass are operating at their maximum potential the ideal would be a moderately warm ecosystem it is in this environment that the bass will exist most efficiently live the longest and grow the biggest a water temperature meter is an instrument that every fisherman interested in catching big bass should learn how to use this information correlates directly with the activity level of a bass but it also tells you many other things about the fish as well such as whether they might be deep or shallow or what their feeding patterns are likely to be although as we have seen bass will feed in a wide range of water temperatures their feeding activity is greatly reduced in cold water because the metabolism of the bass slows down so drastically in cold water it needs less food a big bass might beat only once in 10 days in 40 degree water and take only a small portion at that the reason why it eats less and less often becomes more obvious when we discover how long digestion takes in cold water the crayfish that takes several days to digest in 50 degree water takes half a day or less in 80 degree water this phenomenon directly affects the amount of weight a bass might gain in relation to the food it eats mammals are warm blooded and must eat and eat regularly in order to maintain a constant body temperature cold-blooded creatures on the other hand do not have to expend energy in order to maintain their body temperature it is simply the temperature of their environment this cow might have to eat hundreds of pounds to gain a pound a bass on the other hand can convert food to body weight at a ratio of 10 percent in other words it's capable of gaining one pound for every 10 pounds of forage consumed this knowledge of food intake as relates to water temperature should have a tremendous bearing on the kinds of lures you fish at different times of the year since most of the smaller prey in the world of the bass is silver or brownish colored like minnows or crayfish we should fish jigging spoons and bottom crawling jigs in the winter likewise in the summer we might throw larger more massive lures that resemble food that the bass may be more likely to strike when water conditions and temperatures are more favorable water in the 78 to 82 degree range is highly attractive to a wide variety of forage for this reason the bass is adapted to be most efficient within this recommended operating range so it might take advantage of the widest possible array of feeding opportunities the bass can withstand water temperatures in the low 90s without distress once the water reaches about 94 degrees however it must seek cooler water warm water cannot hold as much oxygen as cold water as a result the bass will breathe hard burn up more oxygen than it can take in and eventually suffocate conversely a drop of 20 degrees in the water temperature will increase the oxygen holding ability of the water by as much as 300 percent we've been told over the years that 68 to 72 degrees is the preferred temperature for bass but as we've seen 76 to 82 is closer to the truth when the water temperature warms the bass move up onto the shallow weedy flats during cold weather when bass metabolism is at a low point it will position itself to conserve its metabolic energy that's the time to seek bass on steeper ledges and bluffs in summer when the water is warm bass will seek the broadest expanse of shallow water they can find large flats are the prime places for big bass at this time thus far our discussion has centered around the largemouth bass as a species doug hannon believes there's a reason for first examining the species before an understanding of big bass can be attempted the bass as a species has certain behaviors that have proven successful for millions of years so successful in fact that the largemouth bass is our most widespread game fish therefore it would stand to reason that the biggest bass the most successful individual members of that species get big by following not breaking the rules of vast behavior this is an important concept to remember in your quest for big bass let's take a look at what the bass as a species requires the rule book by which he lives if you will we're going to find that the big bass follow this rule book the closest let's take a look at the structures or places that a bass needs you notice we didn't say like fast does not like or dislike anything per se and one of the mistakes that people make is to think of bass in terms of our own human emotions this is only going to compromise our ability to deal with him strictly as a fish bass as a species relate strongly to shallow water the reason for this is that in shallow water solar energy can get the food chain moving more quickly and in a more productive manner thus in shallow water a bass will generally find its greatest feeding opportunities bass are object-oriented fish that is they spend a great deal of their time on or around both natural and man-made objects such as weed beds stumps docks and bridges this is due to their predatory nature by associating with objects the bass has an ambush point a place to lay low and attack prey in addition it's important to understand why bass associate with objects crayfish minnows and other forage are attracted to wood rock or other forms of cover to prey on tiny organisms therefore the bass relates to objects in order to find prey because bass relate to objects to feed on other creatures it's important that we seek to locate the biggest objects in our quest for big bass not big in sheer size necessarily but big in surface area a brush pile may encompass several hundred square feet in surface area providing a literal pasture of algae and tiny organisms upon which small forage may feed larger forage is attracted to feed upon these creatures and in turn the bass is attracted because a big bass would seek to maximize its feeding opportunities with a minimum of movement and expenditure of energy it would pay to locate structures or objects which might encompass a large surface area to visualize this concept of surface area a sunken home appliance like this one on hanon's artificial reef provides many square feet of surface area on which microorganisms might grow and the chain of life begin by merely opening the door we double the surface area organisms are now free to grow inside and outside of the object attracting far greater numbers of forage to take advantage of the larger pasture of food if we stop to consider the total surface area of a green bush in high water it would stagger the imagination another very basic requirement of the bass as a species is plenty of oxygen they will relate strongly to those things that produce oxygen [Music] of course weeds require sunlight to produce oxygen and the highest degree of solar penetration occurs in shallow water weeds also tend to have a tremendous amount of surface area compared to other objects hadn't ranked shallow weeds is a prime place to catch big bass our understanding of the basic environmental needs of a bass can be very useful in evaluating and eliminating unproductive water the biggest mistake we can make is to look at the cover or the place we're fishing in terms of what looks good to us rather than what is good for the bass let's ask ourselves then three questions from the start is the water shallow are there plenty of objects for the bass to relate to and is there plenty of oxygen being produced the best possible place would be where all of these conditions exist in the smallest possible area a good example would be a shallow weed bed let's examine this concept of cover a bit more closely every bass fisherman seeks out obvious covers such as this fallen tree yet most misunderstand the reasons why bass relate to cover a big bass relates to cover not for security but for food in its world a big bass is an awesome predator capable of overcoming just about anything that gets in its way we've all heard the joke word is a 500 pound gorilla sleep anywhere he pleases so it is with the bass which is a major predator in its world as is a lion a tiger or an eagle it is a dominant predator in its own domain as a predator a bass will relate to the interface between two different environments that place where two different structures come together we refer to this as the edge and it is a key concept to understand in bass fishing the concept of edge and how both predator and prey relate to it is extremely important to us as fishermen the tiger stalks its prey where the grasslands meet the cane thickets and the bass gravitates to edges you may have been long familiar with in your bass fishing experiences drop offs weed lines stump rose and the greatest edge of the mall the shoreline by associating with edges all manner of wildlife is provided with greatly increased feeding opportunities the tiger may encounter food and cane thicket or in the grass likewise the bass may encounter its food in open water or in the weeds another interesting fact is that the harder it edges to cross the more it concentrates both predator and prey this leads us to three very obvious edges in a lake and they're the very most important ones those would be the shoreline the bottom and the surface these three areas are the concentrators of the greatest amount of life in any body of water including bass they're also the easiest to locate and also usually the first places to fish other edges may be more familiar to most bass fishermen most of us have caught bass along weed lines drop-offs ledges and creek channels or around man-made objects such as bridges dams and ditches but we'd be mistaken to think that an edge has to be obvious to the human eye to be attractive to the bass [Music] thermal edges that is the interface between two different temperatures is also a very important edge the thermocline is a very productive and obvious example of this underwater springs also create a thermal edge at many times of the year because their constant water temperature may be hotter or colder than that of the main body of the lake light and shadow produce an edge that is very attractive to all predators including bass the edge where current meets slack water is attractive to bass living in a river bass will station themselves at this edge to take advantage of prey that is swept past in the current bass also gravitate to chemical edges places where the chemistry of the water may differ one such chemical edge may be the so-called ph edge where the ph is markedly different of course chemical edges also occur when polluted water meets clean water even other bass might be used as an edge particularly when no other edges are nearby when bass are forced to seek open water due to environmental conditions or intense fishing pressure they will suspend in groups and use one another as an edge summing up the edge is an extremely important concept in nature and vital to our fishing success for bass we've all fished edges for years weed lines shorelines stump rows but let's not forget the chemical edges like ph changes an incoming creek or even light and shadow bass seek to maximize their feed intake and as a result they gravitate toward these edges which are simply an interface between two different environments when i started fishing i kept my focus primarily on the fish but i soon learned that a broader perspective and a good understanding of all of nature both terrestrial and aquatic was essential for my development as a complete bass fisherman [Music] the ancients regarded the sun as the source of life and in strictly biological terms this is true the sun fuels the great machine of life nowhere is this more evident than in the lake where the sun causes photosynthesis to take place producing oxygen which all living things require the plants also provide a food base for forage which in turn is converted into nutrient by larger predators such as the bass the bass is an integral part of this chain of life which is set into motion by the energy of the sun it is important for us to understand how the vast relates to the sun in his life cycle throughout his existence the bass progresses up the food chain as a tiny fry it eats microscopic food the need for food at this stage of development is crucial for it is now that the competition is most intense as a tiny fry perhaps only one in one million bass will survive and grow to maturity while these tiny bass are a long way from being trophy class fish most of the things that will determine how big they will become are now taking place for example the most aggressive fish get the most to eat and those that make a broad use of their forage base are the best survivors bass have actually been known to eat other bass that hatch from the same clutch of eggs because growth rates vary so much as the bass increases in size it begins to feed on larger prey progressively moving up the food chain [Music] the influence of the sun is most dramatically felt at spawning time the bath spawns in an area of the lake that may be regarded as a nursery for life in general a place where many living things spawn it is important for the male and female bass to recognize each other for breeding purposes the male turns a pale gold color while the female is distinguished by her model color the bass spawns in water from six inches to 12 feet depending on water clarity because it requires the energy of the sun to incubate its eggs a warm egg hatches sooner and the sooner it hatches the less time it has to lie on the bottom unable to escape predators once they hatch the fry have the tremendous advantage of being able to swim around to avoid predators because the eggs will hatch soonest where the solar machine is in highest gear bass will lay their eggs in a place where solar penetration is at a maximum not only does this mean in shallow water it also means in calm water where wave action won't break up the rays of the sun the northwest corner of a lake is equivalent to the south side of a hill that is it's protected from the cold northwest winds it's therefore the first area of the lake to warm up in the area of maximum spawning activity in the spring i call this hannan's northwest factor and it is crucial in our understanding of how the bass relate to the sun in this aerial photograph of a small lake the northwest sector appears darkest due to the increased weed and nutrient growth because the bottom is darkest the northwest corner of the lake will absorb more solar energy and warm up quicker because passing storms and their accompanying cold fronts blow over the northwest sector of the lake with less severity the water is generally calmer there meaning increased solar penetration all of these factors help increase the general level of life in the northwest sector of the lake it is here that the biggest bass will spawn and it is the first place you should fish in the early spring in a natural lake such as this small lake in the ocala national forest in florida the prime feeding zone is along the shoreline in these lakes the biggest bass will gravitate to the major source of food which will be in shallow water especially the shallow water along the shoreline these natural lakes are typified by lush weed growth around the shoreline which produces bass surface areas which serve as pastures producing moss plankton and other microscopic organisms to get big a bass must take full advantage of all feeding opportunities and will locate himself where the life in the lake is focused many reservoirs have such great level fluctuations that shoreline weeds are almost totally absent instead the nutrient base of the reservoir becomes plankton which floats with the wind and currents and is fed upon by free swimming open water species such as threadfin shad when the shad are not actively feeding on the plankton masses or blooms they will drop down into any available cover to avoid predators as a result many large reservoirs are typified by offshore structures which hold bait and therefore bass when i moved to florida i conducted a survey of all those verifiable fish over 16 pounds i asked the fisherman several questions and amazingly i found that over 90 percent of these fish were caught in less than three feet of water this tells me that our big florida fish stay shallow where the food source is the greatest in california where we have an artificially stocked florida bass and an artificial deep water forage like rainbow trout i might expect a different set of statistics we've already seen that the bass is a sun fish and that sunlight doesn't hurt its eyes as we've been led to believe bass utilize dark places for the same reason a mugger uses a dark alley as ambush points not to shield their eyes from the sun remember the primary aspects of good bass habitat are the availability of sunlight which provides the energy to drive the chain of life and incubates the bass egg also we have edges and both man-made and natural structures and objects which concentrate food and increase forage opportunities oh god gamer down what a terrific job come on [Applause] boy how can there be too many fish like this in the world [Music] i'm often asked when i catch a big fish like this what are the factors that make a fish get big when others don't let's put her in my box for a few minutes and the live well here is chemically treated and give her a chance to recover and we'll prevent her from having any fungal infections after we release her that old cliche answer that the more they eat the bigger they get really doesn't give us the whole picture you see to get big a bass must have the genetic potential to get big in the rough world of a bass sheer size is a tremendous asset obviously if you were catching all the big bass you wanted there'd be no reason for you watching this tape but the facts are today a big bass is an exception a rarity that never fails to attract attention and excitement in the old days big bass were the norm not the exception unfortunately those days are gone forever but why what's happened to make big bass so hard to come by these days if you'll take a trip to the library and look at the old outdoor magazines from the 30s and 40s and 50s you'll be amazed at the number of pictures of big bass you see today a six pound bass causes the same pure as say a 10 pound bass did back then there are many reasons that people aren't catching as many big bass a day some are very obvious and others are not so obvious let's examine this first big bass are rarer today overfishing bed fishing and similar excesses on the part of bass fishermen have contributed to this we used to think that lakes could not be fished out but we now know this isn't the case not only are individual members of the species lost when a big bass is removed from the water but the gene pool for big bass is diminished too loss of habitat is a primary reason why big bass are rare today florida is a perfect example of this where big bass once roamed in remote waters industry and condominiums have moved in to dominate the territory a bass can't grow big if its living conditions aren't ideal the tradition of managing fish for quantity rather than quality is another reason why people are not catching as many big fish today fortunately a new awareness that big fish are where it's at for most people has resulted in positive changes among several of our fishery agencies many lakes and even some states now have 15 18 or even 21 inch size limits on bass slot limits were fish inside a certain size range must be returned to water increase the likelihood of healthy spawns and a big bass gene pool the days when big bass were viewed as abnormal by our fishery agencies are thankfully almost over source of fishing information may be a very important reason why you're not catching as many big fish as you could tournament fishing has been a major source of this information for years now but remember to be successful a tournament fisherman must not seek the big fish but must try to catch a large quantity of the smaller more easily caught fish therefore when we seek big fish we must be very careful to evaluate the focus of our information the most important thing i ever did as a fisherman was to take that first step to developing an understanding for the bass as a living thing in his world i no longer thought of him as a solitary object of conquest this put me on a new plateau it's a plateau where we all stand today and i can promise you it offers you a new level of appreciation for the sport and success that before you could only dream of in tape two we'll get down to the specifics of big bass fishing now that the groundwork has been laid it may help you at this point to replay tape one so that you're sure you understand the concepts presented when you're ready to move on to tape two doug will be ready with a kind of down-to-earth no-nonsense big bass information that'll help you attain your bass fishing goals [Music] now [Music] you

Channel: Old School Bass Fishing Vids

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Keywords: Quantum Fishing, Big Bass, Trophy Bass, Swimming Worm, Topwater, Rapala, Spinnerbait, Plastic Worm, Bill Dance, Roland Martin, Randy Blaukat, Larry Nixon, Rick Clunn, Denny Brauer, Scott Martin, Flipping, Pitching, Prespawn, Postspawn, Bassmaster, FLW, MLF, Major League Fishing, Floating Worm, Uncle Josh Pork, Pork Frog, Hook Sharpening, Fishing Line, John Boat, Stanley Jigs, Lonnie Stanley, Vibra Shaft Spinnerbait, Shiner Fishing, Rainbow River, Florida, Catch And Release

Id: 0_j6fw0Qghk

Length: 60min 3sec (3603 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021