Saturday, February 11, 2023
Yuma Bass Man - The Very Beginning (They Didn’t Have Any)
If you have followed this website from the very beginning you might remember it started as a blog type site. It was similar to the current form, but less structured. If you really recall a few of the articles were about balloon rigging live minnows.
Nothing is ever 100%, but its a lot of fun and allows you to fish some spots that are pretty difficult with any other presentation. I can catch my own live bait from time to time, but there are some restrictions on transport, and even if there are some grey areas legally (like driving down the canal bank where you caught them), In the last couple years somebody started selling live bait again in Yuma, and I was excited. I can buy live bait from a licensed dealer and transport it without issue to any waters legal to use it (all of Yuma County). Not so with bait you catch yourself.
Last year they partnered up with a local tackle store and put in bait tanks there so it would be easier than however it was before. (I didn’t know how to buy bait from them before.)
This year on my birthday it was my plan to dig out my bait barrel and go BUY some minnows. I’ve got a 50 gallon plastic barrel with holes drilled all around it about a foot from the top. If I dump 5 gallons of fresh water in it at every stop or every 30 minutes or so I can keep a hardy breed of minnows alive all day long. I’ve done it before (long time ago) and it even works on hot summer days. With more fragile minnows like thread fin shad it still works okay as long as I don’t get greedy and keep more than 20 or so at a time in the barrel.
My son and I headed out to breakfast and then the tackle store so we could go balloon rigs some minnows.
They didn’t have any.
The bait tanks where there and circulating, but there was nothing in them. “They could get some,” but that was no help for us. That was the only day the two of us were fishing together any time soon. I asked my son if we could try again on Father’s day and he said, “maybe.”
We still went out and caught a few fish on artificials. It was a good day.