BBL Oct 22 & 23

[etaggart]

With Scott E's encouragement and excellent tips, I worked one more weekend for BBL Bass. Didn't get any LMBs, but did pick up a handfull of smallies. No monsters, but a couple of nice catches.

Saturday morning the westerly wind picked up strong at 9:30 - made finesse fishing really tough. After working the jetty during the calm first hour and a half for 6 small bass, I only picked up two more. Since the buoys were up, I worked some areas further into the lake with the fly. Had a few light crappie hits, landed one, no trout hits. Off the water about noon.

Sunday morning the normal easterly light wind pattern returned. Light wind about 9:30 but the fishing was still OK. The bass didn't start biting until a little later in the morning (as Scott predicted) but I landed a total of 7. Picked up some more choice sized ones (2lbs if I weighed 'em wet) under docs - nice getting some catching on the initial drop - those were the hungry buggers.

A big family fishing the point of the jetty were working for carp with those lunker-heavy carp balls. They picked up lots of fish, but one was a real horse - looked like a good 30". Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, in their group posed for about 100 pictures with that monster - pretty funny to watch, but they were having a blast.

Talked to a few others who skunked on trout - said they were working the observatory, marked lots of fish on the finder, but couldn't land any. Not sure how the rest of the lake was producing.

Thanks again to Scott E - Next year I gotta connect with him on the water to get more lessons from the master.

Cheers,

Eric

335313353233533335343353533536

[scott e]

Excellent! Glad you caught some nicer grade fish!!!

[Piss on Myspace]

great job on the BBL bass...those are some nice smallies

[scott e]

and by the way, those are LARGEMOUTH BASS not smallmouth...

[etaggart]

Ok - color me stupid (and I'm no ichthyologist), but I thought those were SMB. Now that I've exposed yet more of my ignorance ... I swear I thought I knew the difference, and I've caught some LMB in BBL in past years, but not this year. I thought the back of the mouth on an LMB goes back past the eye, and SMB are just before/under they eye. Hard to tell when I'm holding them by their lip. Any other identifying aspects of SMB vs LMB?

Thanks, all you fishing gods who know way more that I,

Eric

[scott e]

Here's a photo of a smallmouth from Big Bearhttp://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n483/otisbbl/bigbear1021/3plussmallie-2.jpg See the difference? More of a "perch" type body, brighter green, vertical bars instead of horizontal, and red eyes. Hope that helps ya!

[etaggart]

Thanks, Scott!!! I stand happily corrected - Just finished looking more closely through my bass pix from this year. Now I'm seeing the difference. Turns out I've had a nice little mix. Not sure whether a couple of the smaller one's I've picked up over past months were LMB or spotties - kind of small to tell, but that helped a lot.

Cheers,

Eric

[mister c]

33553That's too funny. :ROFL: When I was reading your post and looking at your pictures, I really thought you were kidding. lol! The more you fish and catch Smalls, Large & Spots, you will notice quite a bit difference in the three, especially the Smallmouth. They look nothing like a Large or a Spot. FYI Picture #1. Smallie. #2 Spot, notice the broken lines going down the Spots side. that's one of the main differences. The other one is, they are long and sleek. They fight a lot harder then LMBs also. #3. Largemouth. Hope this helps

Tight Lines.

Mister C



Ok - color me stupid (and I'm no ichthyologist), but I thought those were SMB. Now that I've exposed yet more of my ignorance ... I swear I thought I knew the difference, and I've caught some LMB in BBL in past years, but not this year. I thought the back of the mouth on an LMB goes back past the eye, and SMB are just before/under they eye. Hard to tell when I'm holding them by their lip. Any other identifying aspects of SMB vs LMB?

Thanks, all you fishing gods who know way more that I,

Eric

[pupfish]

Way to go Eric! It looks like your getting those BBL largemouths figured out. Oh, and Scott that's a Niiiiice BBL SMB!

[scott e]

and Eta G, no spots in Big Bear either. Just Lmb (northern strain) and Smb. Just helpin' a brother out!

[etaggart]

Ahh - interesting!!! Friend, Joe, thought he's caught spotties - I'll leave it up to him for pix - seems better at identifying fish than me. Clearly I'm a lazy-*** fisherman who can barely spot the difference between a bear and a fish.

[scott e]

spots have rough patch on their tongues. Also different coloration (as pointed out) and body/head ratio/shape.

[Sublime-Steve]

spots have a smaller mouth and the eye lines up diff with the corner of the mouth

[jmytuna]

Ahh - interesting!!! Friend, Joe, thought he's caught spotties - I'll leave it up to him for pix - seems better at identifying fish than me. Clearly I'm a lazy-*** fisherman who can barely spot the difference between a bear and a fish.


Sometimes it is really hard to tell short of DNA testing Largemouth vs Northern strain vs spotted.
Have caught plenty of Northerns in one of their last pure holdouts in Barrett Lake.

http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/barrett_lake_5-29-2011_028_2.jpg

http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/photo_2_2.jpg

The bass I have been catching at Big bear have much smaller mouths and jaw angle definitely not past the eye.

http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/imgp0175.jpg
http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/img_2651.jpg
http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/img_1274_2.jpg
http://www.bdoutdoors.com/gallery/files/4/2/3/7/img_1269.jpg


Maybe some inbreeding with smallies, Northerns, and spots goin on up here.



..

[scott e]

The big bear bass are "cornfead". They weigh alot more on avg. than a florida strain or mix for their length. (The small head, small mouth, LARGE BODY syndrome). Lotsa sculpin, crawdads and occasional trout and panfish with no competition from stripers and not much from trout. It's consistently the best bass fishery (besides barret) for numbers of "legal" fish in so cal from april to november. I sh#t you not. A SOLID 3 lber on avg is only 17 or 18 or inches. An avg 15 inch fish is a solid 2 most times of the year.

I'm getting 40 to 50 bites in an afternoon at this time of year (and putting 30+ in the boat with 20 of em legal and an avg over the last 3 weeks of a 15 to 17 lb bag). Where else can you do that in 5 or 6 hrs EVERY day you go out (and trust me when I tell you I "F" around at least an hour or two seeing what else they'll eat or "new areas"? The answer is no where ( not counting pay or membership lakes like Barret or Vail). Sure DVL kicks out a 27 to 30 lb bag at a tourney now and again for 1 or 2 teams, and the same can be true at the "right time/right few days" a year at a couple other lakes, but dang, it's really a great bass fishery up here, especially if you are mobile in a bass boat.

Even better, is it's not a "fairy wand lake". I fish 15 lb MONO most of the time! Don't need fluoro, 5 lb, drop shot or any of that crap. Bulky is Better in Big Bear!!! About the only thing that doesn't get bit real well up here are BIG TX rigged worms. (they bite em, just won't EAT em!) Swimbaits, C-rigs, Jigs, Spinnerbaits, Flukes, Grubs, Tubes, Cranks, Jerkbaits, Buzzbaits, Frogs, Poppers, Walkers, they all work great at the right times. Like fishing docks, weeds, rock, flats, junk? We have it all. Don't like fishing deep? Quite a bit of the season, fish are in 2 to 8 feet, until the weeds grow thick, then they sit out on the outside edges in 11 to 18 (mid summer to early fall). I've never caught a bass here deeper than 23 feet and you could count those days on one hand.

Sick of lake lice, summer crowds, waiting in lines 2 hrs before gates open? Except on holiday weekends, launching at Big Bear is a cake walk and you can fish ALL NIGHT if you want. EASY but REASONABLE Quagga inspection. 95 bucks for a full season lake permit, FREE launching and if your boat is not completely "clean and dry" they high pressure/hot water your boat for free and you can launch!!! No B.S. you can't beat it.

Couple that with real good smallmouth fishing in may and june and 1st week or 2 of july(and with high water and a healthy lake environment this fishery will rival the Arrowhead fishery in a few years), throw in excellent topwater fishing early/late in the day from the end of may throughout the summer and into October (and all cloudy days when the water is 60+) and you really can't beat Big Bear.

My buddy and I won the Aaron's Big Bass tourney this last may and even after a 4 day cold front, fishing on the back side of it with bluebird skies, and an 8 degree water temp drop, still managed a 13.7 lb bag with 3 smallies in our limit and Big Fish honors w/ a 3.7 largemouth (I busted off a 5+ in a tree). It is THAT GOOD!

This coming year Aaron is working on putting on a series of about 5 tourneys (one a month from may-sept.) with a tournament of champions the first part of October. It's gonna be really cool, reasonable entry fees, great paybacks, and nice cash/prizes for the TOC top finishers, so some of you otta consider doing the series, or at least 1 or 2. You won't be disappointed! Scott