Bass Fishing Facts: An Anglers Guide to Bass Lifestyles and Behavior

Rating:
Summary: An informative, precise, quick read
Review: "Bass Fishing Facts" (an anglers guide to bass lifestyles and behaviors) is a quick and informative read. Larry Larsen gets right down to the basics with few frills. He discusses the various senses and physical attributes of the largemouth bass. How, why, and when a bass feeds, strikes, and reproduces are all carefully explained. Techniques to employ to catch a bass when he is most likely to strike are clearly illustrated and annotated for both lakes and streams. Bass habitats and staging areas are revealed so the angler can fish the most likely spots. Later chapters feature specific techniques and locations for areas of the South from Florida to Texas. This book is number six in a series of nine that Larry has written featuring bass and bass fishing.

Rating:
Summary: This Book Belongs in Davey Jones' Locker
Review: When this book started talking up Dr. Loren Hill's Color-C-Lector in Chapter 1, I knew I was in trouble. For you youngsters out there, the Color-C-Lector emerged in the 70s or 80s and was designed to tell the angler what color lure to use, based on water depth and turbidity. For the brief time it was in vogue, manufacturers made lures in C-Lector colors like bright blue and orange. I haven't seen any such colored lures in Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops catalogs for a long time now, and I think the only place you can find a Color-C-Lector today is at a garage sale. So much for Dr. Hill's invention.

Later in the book we get a rap on the importance of pH levels from Ken Cook. I respect Ken's credentials as a biologist and bass pro, but I'd say 99% of non-pro anglers should be concerned with other topics that will have much more impact on their fishing.

The only really valuable infomation is contained in Chapter 10, Lifestyles of the Uncommon Bass, Spotted, Redeye, Suwannee and Others. You don't read much about these subspecies of black bass, probably because their range is geographically restricted to the Southeast U.S. (except for the spotted bass which are more widespread). But even this chapter is brief.

There are many better bass books out there, so read this one after you've read all the others.