Ok so I’m really struggling with Bass. I’ve been fishing for the last hour and only caught one smallmouth bass. I’m on lake boulder, (practicing for the online tournament). I started at the north spawn. I have tried using to boat sonar when I see fish I stop and turn round and fish off the boat 360 degrees and can’t catch a thing. I’ve tried spinning on top middle and bottom of the water and still nothing. I’ve tried constant on speed 1, 2, and 3 and stop and go. I’ve also tried not watching the sonar and targeting fish areas such a reefs and shade etc and still nothing. I’m at a loss. Here is my equipment. Rod 1 7ft Haichou spinning Haichou 1000s reel 10lb Guru Pulse Mono lone Rat-L-Trap-Chrome Blue Black 2.5inch Rod 2 Rod and reel same as above 10lb Bait shack Mono Mainline D Bomb - Desert Storm 4.5 inch Rod 3 Rod and reel same as above 10lb Bait shack Mono Mainline Ben Parker Magnum spoon - Shattered Glass Gold Any help you guys can give would be greatly appreciated. It’s a double edge sword this game, I am finding the carp very easy to catch and the bass/pike impossible to catch.
I'm using a top lure (one of the pencils I think) a middle lure (swimbait perch) and a bottom lure either a worm or one of the other plastic baits from missile. These seem to work reasonably for me in conjunction with the defo 7 lb line.
Well I have 9 fish caught now in this session, I changed my lures to the swimbait - perch and the diving crankbait - rainbow special. I kept the rat-L-trap. Out of the 9 4 have been largemouth bass with the largest 6lb 6oz. I’m guessing I won’t waste the 100 point to enter the tournament haha
You may want to add a top lure to that, possibly replacing the rat l trap as you frequently get to see whats around when you use a top lure. A bit like float fishing.
3 kinds of lure. Sinkers either diving lures or just plain heavy go deep with ease. Middle lures like your rat l trap tend to naturally sit about half way down. Top lures sit on the surface, they don't sink as such they skim across the surface and if anything is following it you will see it. Does that clarify it? Simon
Gold swimbait works best for me. I came 2nd last week with it and used nothing else. What I did notice is to only stop at places where the sonar showed big fish. Pretty much anything will work for the bass in this game , the thing is to find them. That is the hard part , especially on Lake Boulder. This week I'm not even gonna bother doing the bass tourney as I don't like Lake Boulder at all. You spend more time trying to find fish than actually doing fishing.
Thanks Simon, yes that helped. Mazal as I correct in thinking that with the sonar once you see fish you need to stop and turn the boat then fish off The front?
Well something I saw is that the sonar actually have a delay. So when you see them you are actually past them already. What I tend to do is slow down when I get to possible spots and as soon as I see fish I will stop and turn the boat away from shore drive it a bit away and turn it around so that I am facing the direction where it showed fish. Then I fish from the front of the boat a whole area from left to right. To the right should then be fish I would have passed already and to the left should be fish I didn't reach yet in the direction I was originally coming from. Hope that makes sense what I mean. It's the only method that works for me. I find the sonar in this game very frustrating as you have no idea where the fish are that it picks up. Left , right , front , back. So this method I do help me to cover the biggest area of where the sonar showed fish. The sonar in UFS for example is way better , a round sonar with pings that shows you in which direction the fish actually are. Hope that helps and makes sense I tried to explain how I do it.
Ok guys I’ll try that. Thanks for the tips. Bass has been a challenge for me so far, but it’s been good fun.
Lake Bolder - I find if you can get a shallow spot with a surface lure then catch rates increase. Anything in deep water, even if lots of fish are being shown on sonar I struggle to turn into lots of bites. I think partly as the deeper lures don't get down deep enough maybe. Agree with most comments about the sonar - I use it literally as "there are fish somewhere around here" rather than they are directly below me... Definitely needs re looking at on how it works within the game.
The best places to find bass is around cover. So look for lily pads and grass areas. Also look for water of 15 ft or less this means you’ll be mostly fishing close to the banks. As far as your lures, keep the spoon on rod 3 and changeout the other two for topwater. I use the gold frog from deluxe version and the black plague or nickel blue buzzbait on the other. One other thing to note: there is a bug where sometimes no fish will be found around the cover areas. If that happens in tourney, pause out and exit the game then restart. When this occurs the bass only show up in really deep water which is close to impossible to catch with the current lures/rod setups.
Lake boulder i do really well in lilly bay area of map i use 3.5inch red crawdad rat l trap, popper wailer, and swimbait gold, or crappie and tend to do very well on small mouth and large mouth with this setup reel speed is anywhere from 2 to 4 depending on lure like higher speed on poppers for reeling up slack faster before using right trigger to make it splash.. after each splash wait a 3 count before repeating till it gets in.
shallow water near rocks or pads, pencil bait or surface popper, drag set to 17, sunline 7 lb fluorocarbon.