Copyright© 2001, '02, '03 Bigfishtackle.com, LLC Get Fishing Funnies sent to your email click here FARM 13 / STICK MARSH FISHING REPORTS BOOKMARK THIS PAGE and come back often to see the latest detailed Stick Marsh fishing reports available. 26 January 2007 Wow, we just finished up a fine session with Doug Stange and the IN-FISHERMAN TV crew on the Stick Marsh/Farm 13 impoundment. Doug, a true “fisherman’s fisherman”, caught a number of those big bass, and it made for some great video. You can expect to see it in March of this year. We will advise you of the date and network of the airing. It shows the Stick Marsh/ Farm 13 impoundment at its best. You don’t want to miss this one!! We started out on Monday, 22 January, with a few shiners and a LOT of artificials. The bass absolutely refused to chase the trolled shiners, a real oddity in that they were so wild about blowing them up for the Circle Bar racing crew the week before. So, we anchored on a few select spots and let the shiners swim. This produced bass to maybe 4 pounds, but nothing really to write home about. Finally, we moved onto Jim’s ‘ SUPER SECRET HAWG HOLE’ (which everyone sees us fishing, by the way, so there’s not much ‘secret’ about it; in fact, another guide was anchored there when we first started trolling our shiners). It started very slow and got even slower as time progressed. But, it only takes ‘one bite to get the big bass’. After two small fish, that ‘one bite’ came and Doug latched onto one of those big old gals! She obliged by showing off for cameraman Dave Penning’s camera, with some hard runs and a lot of flying water. Soon, she came over the submerged net and was hauled aboard for a few more camera angles and poses. As Doug carefully release the big gal, she decided to even things up a little. She lay still for a moment, so Doug gave her a little push to get her swimming. Suddenly, the bass came alive, dropped her head for the depths, and gave Doug a face full of water with a flip of her broad tail. From there, we decided to work artificials, specifically the ‘Rattlin’ Rap’ (a free-running, vibrating crank plug by Rapala). Doug chose a Red Crawdad color, while I went with the Silver Gold version. I had two bass in excess of 10-pounds blow off that Silver Gold lure during last year’s filming, and I was looking to get even!! Both color finishes were shiny and reflective, chosen specifically to show up better in the clean, but dark, water. We worked across an area of possibly 300 yards of water, getting an occasional fish here and there. Finally, we found a spot that appeared to hold a concentration of bass, in that we had five go on the plugs in rapid succession. Nearly all these bass were in the 3 to 3.5 lb. range, solid and heavy-bodied. This gave us hope there might be some larger bass mixed in. Sure enough, there were large bass in that location and Doug got one that was nearly a duplicate of the big sow he had caught earlier on the shiner. With two big bass on film, we decided to spend the final hour of the day trying to get a few of the giant crappie. We did not originally plan to chase the panfish on the first day, so we had no minnows aboard. But, having done well on the bass, we took the PERFECT Crappie Jig to a good spot for an occasional 2-pound slab. Fortunately, the crappie were schooled on one prime spot. Unfortunately, they were all too small to be what we would call ‘giant crappie’. We tossed the PERFECT jig at them for awhile, getting a few good ‘keepers’ and a lot of smaller fish. But, the true big crappie just were not there. Our second day of filming was intended to try and get a real trophy bass, so we started with some of the leftover shiners. Again, the bass were very reluctant to chase the shiners. Doug did land one big bass on a trolled shiner. But, for the most part, the bass just seemed uninterested in them. We finally caught a few by anchoring and letting the shiners do all the work. But, most of the time, you could just about imagine the shiners doing the back-stoke and just lounging without a care in the World. So, we went back to the artificials. Having marked the first day’s concentration of bass on our Lowrance GPS, we decided to start elsewhere in hopes of locating another school, or perhaps an area with giant bass dispersed in it. We also decided to try a few different lures, knowing we could always go back to the Rattlin’ Raps, if necessary. I went with a big Texas-rigged plastic worm, while Doug experimented with a big, six-inch swim bait. (NOTE: A word about ‘swim baits’ is in order here, as the majority of bass anglers have not been exposed to this relative new fishing concept yet. Swim baits generally evolved from a start in the trophy bass lakes of southern California. In the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, there are a number of small, very deep lakes created as water reservoirs for the huge metropolitan areas. Controlled fishing is allowed on most and nearly all of the reservoirs are heavily stocked with rainbow trout. A number of years back, the California fisheries management people decided to obtain and stock the Florida strain of bass in the waters, hoping to provide a larger bass for the fisherman. It wasn’t long before it was noted that the Florida bass were growing at an unprecedented rate. 12-18 pound giants began to be caught regularly (as of today, there have now been numerous bass caught in the 20-22 pound classes). After some study on the phenomenal growth rates, it was concluded that the hatchery-raised rainbow trout were the cause. Hatchery trout are raised on a diet of very high protein food and are fed continually to make them reach release-size in a short period of time. It was not uncommon to find these trout with a quarter inch of fat under their skins. Being raised in a nice safe hatchery environment, it also appeared that the trout were not quick to recognize what a predator was and were easy prey for the ravenous bass. Once anglers found out that the trout would be great bait for catching giant bass, they were confronted with the problem that it was illegal to use the small game fish for bait. One way around it was to purchase small trout from a hatchery and be prepared to show the law enforcement folks the receipt. But, the small rainbows were extremely hard to keep alive and were expensive. So, someone came up with the idea to make a lure replica of a rainbow trout. Since the sole objective was to catch those giant double-digit monster bass, some of these lures are up to one foot long! They are usually soft-bodied plastic and have a flexible tail section of sorts, allowing them to give the impression of actually swimming. Fished slowly, many are uncanny in their realism. As a spin-off to this new lure and fishing technique, many manufacturers have begun to market swim baits, both hard-bodied and soft plastic versions. The sizes of the lures range from a couple of inches to around 10-inches, targeting the size bass available to the general population, in most cases. The discriminator separating swim baits from most other lure types is their realistic look, both in finish and action. With some of these lures, the angler imparts the action. With others, the lure design provides the action during the normal retrieve.) Stange’s chosen swim bait was a ‘Kickin’ Minnow’, manufactured by the Storm lure company. Since this was my first real exposure to these lures, I looked it over and asked questions about it. I even fished one for a short period. My first impression was to fish it slowly, in that the segmented soft plastic tail section of the lure undulated back-and-forth in an extremely realistic manner. However, because of all the submerged wood we were fishing over and fact that the lure is somewhat heavy, we were getting hung a lot. After he advised that I should speed up my retrieve to hold the lure up higher, we found that solved the majority of the snagging problem. By keeping the right amount of forward momentum on the lure, its near-vertical, plastic lip guarded the single treble hook on the lure as it impacted wood. Stange, in the meantime, proved the swim bait’s worth and ability by catching three bass on it. I went back to my big worm, with only three hits and no hookups. Pretty soon, we decided things were going too slow and it was time to change back to the high-production Rattlin’ Rap. We could fish that lure fast, cover a lot of water quickly and induce reaction strikes with the lure speed. Doug’s first cast with his Rattlin’ Rap produced what would be the largest bass of our multi-day excursion, a huge, fat female obviously near to spawning. It was an exciting moment or two, as the angler worked to control the giant bass, while keeping her from diving down into the thick, submerged timber remains. Dave was hopping around from side to side and got the entire sequence on camera. She had totally engulfed the lure, it appearing small within that huge mouth cavity. What a fish!! Continuing to fish, we caught more solid 3-4 pound bass until we finally wrapped up the day. With plenty of big bass action stored on tape, we opted to try for crappie on our third day. It was a bit windy, but the drift socks controlled the big 19-foot Lund boat well. We lined up to drift the live minnows in places that have been very productive in the past. But, after three long drifts, we only had a couple of ‘keepers’ and a lot of small crappie to show for it. Considering the great crappie action we have had all season, it was very disappointing, as well as a bit embarrassing. Moving near the east side on Farm 13, we set out on yet another drift. The winds had shifted a bit and we were drifting nearly parallel to the east shoreline. A couple of small crappie came and went and, then, we got one of those giant crappie on. But, all we got to do was see the big fish for a moment and then it was gone. Bottom line – our crappie fishing was a bust. The good news is that we will get another shot at it in late February, when the IN-FISHERMAN crew will join us again. jim Porter