Published: November 25, 2007 10:44 am      

Hiring a fishing guide can make trip better

By Jerry Miller

Outdoor Columnist

In the past when we had new lakes, our lakes held a lot of cover, and fishing was relatively easy. Today bass fishing is getting tougher and tougher due, in a large part, to the absence of aquatic growth.

For the average fisherman the best solution is to hire a good fishing guide. I stress the word “good.” There are a lot of guides on some of our area lakes. Lake Fork has in excess of 60 or more guides. Many have quit simply because of tougher fishing conditions. Other guides are flourishing.

A week ago I teamed up with one of the best guides I know of on Lake Palestine and Lake Fork. His name is Ricky Vandergriff. Ricky has been guiding for over 30 years.

I met Vandergriff at The Villages on Lake Palestine and we spent the day fishing for black bass and sand bass.

We were fishing immediately after a cold front which is normally a slow time to fish. We adjusted and had a great day of fishing under the conditions.

He said, “I’ve been fishing 32 years as a guide and I’ve only had 10 trips where we didn’t catch any fish. Today I guide about 60 percent of my time on Lake Palestine and about 40 percent on Lake Fork. Ricky gets a lot of his trips from repeat business or off of his website at www.rickysguideservice.com

Mostly we targeted windy, rocky points, boat houses and pockets with lots of bait. We started the day off with spinners, crank baits and chatter baits. The bass were reluctant to strike these baits early on. Ricky kept fishing his chatter bait and caught a few bass. He recommended that I fish with a Baby Brush Hog and use a split shot if I wanted to get lots of strikes. I immediately changed to my favorite Nichols Salty Creature bait in watermelon and red. I immediately started catching bass. The bass ranged from one to three pounds. For about two hours I steadily caught bass on the creature bait. The bass were very shallow and bit this bait aggressively. There was a little scattered cover in this area, but not much.

About noon Vandergriff tied on a jig that he designed and began casting it up on to

Vandergriff said, “When I first started guiding I fished for everything. Then I started fishing only for bass. Now people want to keep and eat what they catch, so I guide for bass, crappie, catfish or even bream if necessary.

“Right now the crappie and catfishing is good. White bass fishing has been excellent. I’ve been catching a ton of sand bass and stripers on spoons. Stripers range from four to seven pounds.

“On the black bass, I’ve been catching them on crank baits, spinners, brush hogs and Shaky Head baits.” I asked Vandergriff about what the bass will be doing in the colder months to come. He said, “The fish will not change that much. They will still stay close to some sort of cover. They are going to stay shallow. The main difference is that one day they may bite a crank bait and the next day, a spinner bait or a chatter bait. They definitely will hit a jig. I always catch fish, especially in the winter, on a jig. Any time you can find rocks and brush you will find bass. I alternate between these baits. If the bass are really finicky, I will go to a 10-pound test line and use a drop shot rig to catch ‘em.”

We continued to catch bass throughout the day. About 2 p.m. Vandergriff was casting a 3/8 oz. chartreuse and white chatter bait on a rocky point where he caught two nice size bass back to back. One weighed 3 1?2 pounds. We continued to fish from point to point. Ricky landed three more bass on his chatter bait. As the day wore on, the bass became more aggressive, and fast moving baits were a lot more productive.

Vandergriff explained, “As the day got warmer, the barometric pressure changed, and the fish are now holding on to the moving baits. This morning they only hit at the bait.”

We alternated between fishing between black bass and sand bass. The cold front had the sand bass scattered that day, and we only caught a few. We caught black bass throughout the day. Right before we quit, Ricky caught a nice size Kentucky bass on his chatter bait. As Vandergriff said, “We left the fish biting.”

It was a great fall fishing trip. We didn’t catch any monsters, but we caught a lot of bass.

Vandergriff can be reached at (cell) 903-530-2201, or (home) 903-561-7299, or on the internet at www.rickysguideservice.com

Miller can be reached at: gonefishing813@peoplepc.com