Thank you WesternBass, and a big thanks to Kelly Ripa

[benarsenault]

I hope this post isn't too long winded, but I'm moving back East and wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you. Over the last few years I've been more of a spectator than contributor here, but my lack of posting activity is not an indication of how much I value WesternBass and the members of this community. I moved to LA from the East Coast in 2015 and was excited to fish the legendary waters I had read about since I began bass fishing more than 25 years ago. I pounded the bank at Castaic for a year without much luck and began to question my abilities as an angler. I thought I was a halfway decent fisherman when I lived on the East Coast, but I started to realize those fish are easier to fool than the Florida strain largemouth of Southern California. In 2016 I moved from LA to Ventura and started fishing Casitas. Through WesternBass I learned new strategies and my success slowly began to improve. And then I met an amazing human named Kelly Ripa after posting to ask if any Casitas locals would let me tag along. Rip let me occupy the back seat of his Champion over the last year, and I've never learned so much in such a short span. I will always remember the lessons Kelly taught me, and hope to someday take a page from his book and pass those lessons on to others. I feel lucky to have stumbled on WesternBass and that it helped me to connect with a great guy like Kelly. And just because I'm vacating the Golden State doesn't mean I won't continue to visit WesternBass and keep learning. Thank you all very much, and a big thanks to Kelly Ripa, my fishing mentor and good friend.

[WB Staff]

Thanks for supporting the site! Good luck on the move!

[WRB]

It's a common story we hear a lot when bass anglers from out of state come to SoCals trophy bass expecting to catch big bass only to get skunked. Finesse bass fishing was born here for a reason, FLMB strains are wary fish that can be difficult to catch using conventional presentations.
My hats off to Kelly for taking a fellow angler who he didn't know and teach him how to fish lake Casitas, not an easy task!
Good luck to the OP for his future fishing and feel welcome to visit whenever he chooses.
Tom

[Kelly Ripa]

Damn,how in the world I missed this post for 5 days I haven't a clue. It was with a sad heart that I urged Ben back to his home state. I'm glad he listened to me and took the job offered him out of state. His futures so bright now he has to wear shades. He ran a post on this site in the later part of spring last year looking for a back seat on Casitas. No problem as I often have nobody in the boat but myself. He was a good student from the get go. I had to laugh on our first trip as I was just going down the bank tearing up the fish and yacking away when Ben looked at me and said...So, Is this what you do? Take people out and beat the hell out of them? I laughed and stopped being a vacuum cleaner and showed him that the nonchalant casts and my apparent lack of focus was based on the knowledge that I knew when I would get bit and where and those casts I was making were landing exactly where they needed to be. They were not haphazard as the obvious spot at Casitas is never where you will catch fish as all of our fishing pressure has the fish basically on the secondary or tertiary spots. Extremely well thought out tackle and prep work made him a better than good non boater. While I tried to make his lessons free he was way quicker with getting money out of his wallet and into my hand and would argue with me that if I didn't take the money he would just stick it in my glove box if I didn't take it from his hand. We worked on his hook set with various baits and got some braid and fluorocarbon on the right set ups and then I just stood back and watched him go. The questions about why I do what I do when I do it weren't out of place for someone new to west coast fishing. I have the same scale as MLF and we kept tabs on how we did aginst those in the local tournaments. He did have a silly looking worm he was catching fish on that honestly looked more like something for crappie than largemouth. I have 5 bags of them in my arsenal now as for the most part they out fished my #1 and #2 choices for Casitas so you never know if you stand to learn something yourself when you start into these uncharted waters. The State of California failed miserably at keeping he and his wife both well educated with a lot to offer in the our state based on the economics essentially. Why stay here and and dig a hole when he could not only do well and start his family back east but afford the toys that make life worth living. He will come to our site and keep an eye on us nutcases for years to come....I look forward to fishing in his home waters in his back seat in the not to distant future.
So I bid a fond farewell to Ben and look forward to hearing from him again some day.

Rip

So now I've got an open back seat again...I just can't fish until the doctors pull the 4 pins outta the finger I broke in 6 places...3 more weeks tops