DON'T STRESS, FINESSE FISHING STYLE THAT USES SONAR TAKES GUESSWORK OFF THE LAKE.

Byline: Bill Becher Special to the Daily News

CASTAIC LAKE - Sissy fishing.

That's what traditional tobacco-spitt'n Southern bass anglers call ``finesse fishing.''

If you'd call a well-fed bear of a man in a red-and-white Ranger bass-boat jacket a sissy, that's what you'd call Don Iovino. Most people wouldn't.

Iovino, 66, of Burbank, has been at the forefront of finesse fishing - the methods that West Coast anglers have evolved to catch finicky bass on heavily pounded local reservoirs such as Castaic Lake, 40 miles north of Los Angeles.

Instead of pitching big crank or spinner baits near the surface, Iovino uses sophisticated sonar units to find fish and then catch them with soft plastic baits on light fluorocarbon line. Innovative rigging and presentation techniques such as doodling, split shotting and drop shotting are some of the finesse techniques Iovino teaches.

Finesse works. On a recent day at Castaic Lake, Iovino proved this by catching a half-dozen fish while the bass kept their mouths firmly shut for other anglers fishing on the lake.

Iovino likes to teach, and that's one of his jobs now. He travels around the country giving seminars for sonar manufacturer Lowrance.

Some new sonar equipment has high resolution color displays and can integrate GPS positioning with map-on-a-chip capability so you can see where you are in addition to where the fish are.

At Castaic, Lovino pointed out the thermocline visible on his sonar at about 15 feet deep and the pattern made by the grassy bottom. The little banana shapes on the display are bass suspended above the grassy bottom, which provides cover for baitfish.

Studying the lake with sonar is one of the keys to Iovino's technique. You have to spend time watching the sonar to learn the lake environment and correlate structure with what the fish are doing. Iovino has done his homework at Castaic. He points to some tall trees by the side of the lake.

``I started fishing Castaic when they planted these trees,'' Iovino said. ``That's how I can tell how old I am.''

Iovino moved to Burbank when he was 6 and started fishing in the ocean at Santa Monica pier. He was a supervisor at an aerospace company in 1975 when he decided to go in another direction. He quit his job and started guiding bass anglers full time and fishing in tournaments.

Iovino said doodling was the original finesse fishing method. Doodling means shaking the rod tip as you bounce a plastic bait behind a sliding bullet sinker. This technique makes the worm dance and jiggle, attracting fish.

Split shotting evolved as a finesse method in the 1980s as a way to separate the bait from the weight, to give it a more natural appearance. Just pinch a split shot a foot or two ahead of the hook and you're in business.

Drop shotting reverses the rig, with the weight at the end of line, then the hook and bait above it. The advantage is the bait can be swum a fixed distance above the bottom. If you use one of the new ``sacrificial'' knotless sinkers and it hangs up, you lose just the weight, not the entire rig.

Whether it's in a tournament or just an evening of fishing, once you've figured out where the fish are you need to present the bass with something they haven't seen a million times before.

Iovino does that with an improvement on the split shot method that's like a modified Carolina rig.

Iovino threads a sliding 5/16-ounce brass weight onto his line. Holes in brass sinkers don't close up like lead, which is one of the reasons Iovino prefers them.

He's using 10-pound Berkley Improved Vanish fluorocarbon line.

This space-age material is expensive but is less visible to fish as its refractive index is closer to that of water than regular monofilament.

The key to using flouro, according to Iovino, is to wet knots with lots of factory-approved spit before you cinch them down. Otherwise the line can chafe and break when a lunker pulls hard.

Next he slides on an 8mm fire-polished faceted glass bead. The bead will keep the sinker 3 feet above the hook, allowing the bait a more natural movement, and provided some noise to attract the bass's attention.

Iovino pegs the bead and weight to keep it from sliding with rubber nails made by TopBrass, who also makes the bead and sinker.

The rubber pegging system cushions the line better than a toothpick and makes it easy to adjust the distance between weight and hook.

An Owner 1/0 J hook tied with a Palomar knot holds a Yamamoto Kreature bait. This new soft plastic bait looks like a mutant crawfish with dangling arms and a rubber skirt that undulates in the water. Apparently bass like them because Iovino is soon attached to a 3 1/2-pound fish. Takahiro Omori also used the Kreature to help him win the 2004 Bass Masters Classic.

Iovino uses his sonar to locate another fish that might like a bite of the Kreature.

He's looking for points with grassy bottom, which is where the fish are holding this time of year. Since the built in time lag of a sonar display means you're essentially looking at the past and what's behind you, Iovino suggests imagining the display as your left hand window if you were driving a car.

The right side of the display shows the latest information under your boat, the information to the left is farther back in time (and distance behind you).

Of course the journey is part of the fun of bass fishing.

Two hundred horses spin the prop on Iovino's outboard blasting the Ranger boat that sports a candy apple red metal-flake paint job to the next fishing spot.

But he's limited to a maximum speed of 35 mph on Castaic.

Recreational access to Castaic was nearly shut down last year in a game of bureaucratic budgetary chicken between the state of California, which owns the lake, and the L.A. County authorities that operate it. Starting in July it costs $11 per vehicle plus $11 to launch a boat, $13 on weekends.

Bass anglers are reluctantly paying the higher fees - there are big bass in Castaic. Iovino's personal best was an 18.5-pound monster caught on eight-pound line using finesse techniques.

And that's no sissy fish.

TACKLE BOX

--Don Iovino's Web site has information about his custom tackle, fishing videos and books at www.iovino.com.

--Peg-it rubber nail system, Pro-Jo brass sinkers, fire-polished glass beads and other terminal tackle can be found at topbrasstackle.com.

--The Kreature and other plastic baits and tackle can be found at www.yamamoto.baits.com.

--Call Castaic Lake at [phone] for information or visit the official Web site at www.castaiclake.com for camping, fee, tournament information and fishing report.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Burbank's Don Iovino, 66, teaches seminars on using sonar, such as the one pictured, to help anglers.

(3 -- color) Using sophisticated sonar helps anglers learn the lake environment and what the fish are doing beneath the surface.

(4 -- color) no caption (Fish)

Bell Becher/Special to the Daily News

Box:

TACKLE BOX (see text)