Larry Larsen - Follow the Forage for Better Bass Angling

Follow The Forage For

Volume 1 - Bass/Prey Relationship

A Guide to Understanding Feeding Activity
and Improving Your Catch!

by Larry Larsen

Published by
LARSENS OUTDOOR PUBLISHING
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rlpgtrade.com

Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

Distributed by National Book Network

Copyright 1984 by Larry Larsen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

Library of Congress 88-92905 Volume 1

ISBN: 978-0-936513-03-4 (paper : alk.paper)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To my parents, Floyd and Edna Larsen, for sharing with me their love of fishing and the outdoors. Their encouragement and support through the years is deeply appreciated.

The author wishes to acknowledge the kind assistance of Lynn and Doug Hannon for their help in reviewing the manuscript, and of Dan and Betty Thurmond for their help in developing underwater photographs for this book. Thanks go to Cliff Shelby for his imaginative illustrations and valuable assistance in cover layout.

I appreciate the cooperation of fishing partners, guides, and professionals over the years which have enhanced my knowledge of the bass. Special thanks to the late Guy Settlemeyer for being the best fishing buddy a man could hope for. Lastly, my appreciation goes to the many magazine editors that I have dealt with over the past 12 years, who have helped me in the writing craft.

Most books written on catching bass deal with selecting proper tackle, finding structure, and then, trying to catch bass regardless of whether or not they are feeding. Submerged structure is important, as is good quality equipment to handle the fish an angler catches. But, the most important key to catching several good bass is finding them in a feeding mood.

This book is written on the basic assumption that bass do feed to survive and grow, and that it is easier to catch a feeding fish than one that is not. I feel that knowing where the bass forage exists will give me a chance at finding more bass.

I have tried to explain where the predominant forage of the black bass can be found, why it is there, and how the angler can be successful in catching a few bass from that area. In this book, I have considered most of the major foods of the freshwater bass. The diet of a bass depends largely on his environment. He is adaptable to that particular habitat where he lives.

Bass will eat about anything, and knowing the whereabouts of the major bass forage in specific waters is the beginning of successful angling. This book should be a learning experience for the amateur and the professional. Hopefully, it will create in the angler, an awareness of forage and of the response of their predator, the bass.

A stomach content analysis may reveal the forage and the angler knows where he caught the bass. This book attempts to pattern the feeding activity and improve the catch.

1 Introduction
Foraging Factors And Influences

2 Bass Feeding Behavior
From The Bed To The Glance That Kills

3 Physical Bass Senses
Adaptable To All Conditions

4 Foraging Preferences
Interaction Beyond Thin Is In

5 The Manageable Shad
Schooling Bass Love Threadfin

6 Native Shiners
Spawning Lunkers Hate Them

7 The Underrated Crawfish
A Dietary Staple Of Many Bass Species

8 Sport Fish and Other Fingerlings
Panfish, Bullhead, Tilapia, Mullet And Baby Bass As The Food

In 30 years of fishing, Larry Larsen has literally covered the global range of bass in their pursuit. He has caught limits of bass, ranging from Lake Lida in Minnesota near the Canadian border, southward 3,500 miles to Lake Yojoa, Honduras in Central America. His relentless pursuit has extended across the hemisphere as far east as Cubas Treasure Lake, and westward 6,000 miles to the plantation lakes in the Hawaiian Islands.

Larry Larsens angling adventures and research on the black bass have been extensive throughout the southern and midwestern states. He has served as a guide on several waters in Florida and in Texas and currently lives on Lake John in Lakeland. He fishes almost daily and has caught and released well over 100 bass exceeding 5 pounds, primarily on artificial lures. His personal best largemouth weighed over 12 pounds and the top lunker hauled over his boats gunnel hit the scales at 15 pounds, 3 ounces. In 1982, Larry Larsen established an official line-class world record, certified by the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, for the Suwannee bass.

Writing about bass fishing for some 17 years, Larry Larsen has studied all aspects of the fish and the ways to catch them. The author is the Florida editor for Outdoor Life and bass fishing editor for Petersens Fishing and North American Fisherman. He is a frequent contributor to Sports Afield, Field & Stream, Bassin, Florida Sportsman and numerous other national and regional outdoor publications, and has more than 900 published articles to his credit.

Larry Larsens photography has appeared on the cover of many national publications. He has been honored with several awards over the years for his outdoor writing and photography and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and the Florida Outdoor Writers Association. He is a graduate of Wichita State University and has attained a Masters Degree from Colorado State University.

Very few other professionals in this country have written more on the bass. His writings detail highly productive fish catching methods and special techniques. He believes in explaining to readers the latest and very best tactics to find and catch bass anywhere. The basis of bass foraging and fishing success is presented in this book, as an extention of that philosophy.

The principles explained in this book will help the novice or weekend expert catch more and larger bass from reservoirs, lakes, rivers, or small ponds. The book details a complete system to go about catching Americas most popular game fish.

CATCHING HUGE BASS is not luck and neither is catching big stringers of fish. Of the four largest bass ever caught in this world, three were captured on live bait. The current 21 pound, 3- ounce California state record succumbed to the presentation of a crayfish while the previous mark of 20 pounds, 15 ounces was caught on a live nightcrawler. Floridas state record largemouth of 19 pounds was taken on a live eel.