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Fished the same power plant lake as last week with Peter (Wachati), Friday. It was COLD all day, sun never came out like it was supposed to, and it never made it above 40 like it was supposed to (never felt like it made it above 30 honestly). We started out pretty fast with Peter catching a white bass on his first cast I think? Then he had a largemouth and I got a stout smallie on my homemade bladed jig. We both got a couple more with me getting a smallie and a largemouth on my Doc-Drew custom painted jerkbait. Since they were biting good I decided to toss the Deps 175 Slide Swimmer a little bit, I had a hard time putting it down after that. I missed 10-20 more fish that just rammed it without opening their mouths (smallmouth), or fish that just didn't stay stuck. I didn't take pictures of all of the fish I caught on it either. It was taking a very slow retrieve, two short, soft cranks of the reel handle, then they'd try to jerk the rod out of my hands Once I got them firing on the swimbaits they didn't touch much else.

On your 2015 Bassmaster Classic victory!

Rumor has it that Casey has picked up the NE Patriots as a sponsor!

You know you had a good day when you have to make a second post to finish putting up the pictures

The best way to cook a largemouth bass is to season it with salt and pepper, soak it with lemon for 15 to 20 min. Then place the fish on a cedar plank and cook it slowly on low heat, when the outside begins to brown, remove it from the oven , throw it away and eat the wood plank.

A lot of folks would love to make their own jigs but think it costs too much or requires special tools or techniques. Not true! Making your own stuff is incredibly easy and will SAVE you money. When you do the math, you can buy premium jigs for about $4.00 each, or make your own for about $2.00 each. So if you are a tinkerer and you like the satisfaction of creating your own stuff, here’s all you need. An old ball point pen. Remove the ink tube. Keep the tip and cut the barrel down to about 2 or 3”. A paper clip or a bobby pin. Your favorite jig heads. Skirt material bars and collars (you can find this stuff super cheap at multiple online tackle stores). Step 1 - Start by rolling a collar onto the barrel of the ink pen. You can roll several on there if you want to make several skirts at once. Remove the tip of the ink pen leaving just the collars on the barrel of the pen. Step 2 – hang your skirt material on your paper clip or bobby pin. It takes 2 bars of skirt material to make a full skirt. Use a little more for a thicker skirt. Use a little less for a thinner one. I won’t go into the subtleties of how to mix multiple colors evenly. That’s easy to figure out and part of the joy of discovering all the cool things you can do. Step 3 – use the bobby pin to pull the skirt material about halfway through the ink pen barrel. Roll a collar off the barrel of the ink pen onto the skirt and finish pulling it through. Step 4 – just cut the ends of the skirt material where it is joined together. You’ve just created your own jig skirt. Step 5 – put your skirts on your favorite jig heads, add your favorite trailers, and load the boat with all the big bass you fool using color creations they’ve never seen before. Here’s some pics to illustrate. We’ll make one of my faves – purple/blue and whiskey/green. It’s a great combo on any lake where bluegills or other sunfish are a primary food source. If you have a lot of readears, you can throw in a few red strands thrown in just for kicks. I call it thrilla in bluegilla.

I noticed I'm lacking bright colors in my lineup of bladed jigs, but not wanting to go with the same ho-hum chartreuse and white, I went a little different direction. The end result was this, meet Homer!

Winner, Winner chicken dinner.

I just had one of those magical days on the water. I hope this doesn't come across as bragging, it is actually nothing more than enthusiasm. After weeks of warm weather pushing our water temps into the upper 60's on my home lake, we had some cloud cover this morning in Southern California (with some rain to follow the next two days). Many male bass had already started moving shallow earlier this week, with the females staging just outside the coves & spawning flats. With the cloud cover, I started the day seeing if I could get any interest on a top-water bite, using a Rebel Pop-R. In the first 45 minutes, I caught 8 bass and had another half dozen swipe at it and miss. The action continued like this all morning & by 10:30 am, as the clouds started to break up a bit, I had caught 23 keepers on top (a one day top-water PB) with probably 15 additional strikes that didn't hook up. I was comfortable with that ratio, because the strikes were ranging from a few that choked the Pop-R to those that were annoyed with it and did a drive-by swipe. I was able to catch 4 of those misses with a followup plastic worm, but the Pop-R was definitely the fishes choice of the morning. Now I know many of you fish on lakes where this kind of top-water action is not unusual, but on my home lake, this was an anomaly. My lake has no shad and there is never a time when the bass are boiling, feeding on bait fish on the surface. It takes the right kind of circumstances to get any kind of sustained top-water action and today was one of those days. As the sun popped out, the action switched back to more conventional for this lake, T-rigged plastic worms being the ticket. Over the next 6 hours, I caught an additional 36 bass, most on a T-rigged Roboworm (29), with a few on a Senko (4) and a crankbait (3). Total for the day was 63 bass (another daily PB), with the largest going 5 lbs., 2 oz. on the Roboworm. My thumb is shredded & I am grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Take heart those of you in the North, your spring is coming soon.

Your guess is as good as mine of who is who

I like this one. A-Jay

12lb6oz - Senko 13lb3oz - Jig

I like seeing them have to slog it out under tough conditions. Reminds me of my home waters in the spring always a challenge.

If somebody isnt throwing a lipless crankbait this morning im going to slap myself

Rather than hang the kid, a good lesson might be for all of us to mail him a "sponsorship" check. Misspell his name, invert the dollar amount, and mail it to the wrong address.

I've caught fish out of a cup of Saline Solution with Keitechs.

"Anybody Ever Eaten Largemouth Bass Before?" Before What?

No, lets not cut him any slack on spelling & grammar. Son - spell better. Know your homonyms, and other aspects of grammar. You're 14 years old, according to your posted info, so you ought to know better. I'm fairly certain this stuff was covered in 4th, 5th and 6th grade grammar. As you get older and communicate more electronically, poor spelling and grammar leave an impression that isn't easily corrected. This being said, I am aware that typing mistakes happen. Now that I'm finished being snarky, I wonder who that fishing guide cribbed that old saying from. In the spring of 1980, at one of the old Bass Fishing Institute seminars, I heard Billy Murray bust out with that saying and that wasn't the first time I'd heard it. I'm thinking the first time I heard it was an old Gadabout Gaddis show and he obviously heard it from someone else. Also, be mindful of the flip side of that saying, i.e. "If you have so much time that you can fish all you want and then some, you are either retired or unemployed." Speaking from experience, I've had extended periods of unemployment and fishing wasn't any fun then. One, I felt guilty spending what limited fiscal resources I had on fishing. Two, there wasn't any sense of "playing hooky", getting away from work, which I think many of us would agree is an important aspect of fishing. And that concludes this rant.

From the Chain? Should I call a Dr for you now?

The Ray Charles Open... http://instantrimshot.com/classic/?sound=rimshot oe

Or just throw it away.

Oooooh that female gill color is sick

I heard Mike McClelland talking about this reel at the weigh in today, so I went and checked it out. It's on sale for $149.99 right now. The reel is quite obviously made by Daiwa. The interesting part is that it's the exact same price as the Tatula 100, but has four more bearings. The Arachnid has 12 bearings (9BB+2CRBB+1RB), while the Tatula 100 has 8 (7SS + 1RB). What do you guys think about this? I'd say if you're looking at a Tatula, definitely get the Arachnid.

The Slammer I looked up was $78.99 ea. which resulted in my response ...I thought , wow - that's getting up there !

Thank you. A-Jay

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/150437-first-bassmaster-classic-pictures/ Some really neat pics

Finally pulled the trigger on buying a new custom cover for my new 'to me' boat!

LOL ~ Before they had scales, cameras & Bassmasters . . . . A-Jay

What Is even worse than the dog and pony show is that they post a 3:15 ET starting time and it starts about 4:30 ET.

Topic says casting reel, but I'm not sure if you are willing to spend $100 on the reel or if that $100 is suppose to be for both rod and reel. If it is just for the reel, then I am going to make a couple more suggestions. You've already gotten several good ones. The standard Tatula can be gotten in your price range. I have both the standard and Type R. Liking them a lot. My other suggestion is to look at the Pinnacle reels. I received my first Pinnacle reel last week. Obviously I haven't been out using it yet. Can barely stand the cold as I sit here typing in my basement. Reviews of their new reels have been positive. I bought a hand-tuned model. Not only is it a very nice looking reel (and very light), but it seems to be very smooth from the playing I have done with it.

I could not get close to most of the lakes I fish except by snow machine or dog sled. Access usually consists of a two-track that winds through the woods a good way . . . . A-Jay

I'm just teasing A-Jay. I simply couldn't resist. I do agree, it looks like he is moving that at a pretty good clip to get that action. I fish stained water 99% of the time so scrounges don't really play here, though chatterbaits do. I prefer to bulk them up so fish can find them. In south La, our "finesse" fishing is using a trick worm, lol.

With the right rod it can go down to 1/16th. Its probably the smallest reel on the market right now and super comfortable to palm. Pair it with a lightweight rod and you may not want to go back to a heavier set up lol.

Put in in your power wrapper, or drier, to make sure it's straight, and remains that way until the epoxy starts to set. You can imagine why I know this.

There are several presentations for this rig. I personally fish it like I would a Texas rig, like a jig, and I swim it also. All three have produced fish.

I take her for dinner then some shopping. That usually perks her up a bit. Brian.

Yep

I just hope Paul Elias wasn't using the new bait all day because he got skunked the first day.

Jack Daniels. Hootie

It could also be said, If you are too busy to fish....You probably have a job and a family!

Wondered what happened. Hope all is well

^^ Nice insightful post Paul ^^

Of all the things that are now common in modern bass fishing, pulling the 'sporting' card on dropping brushpiles is funny to me. It's been around as long as the sport has and has been a long accepted practice of enhancing a spot. I can honestly say this is first I've ever heard of bass fisherman believing it to be negative or unsporting practice...Everyone's got their own way of looking at things, though...It doesn't bother me any. If Ashley wins it will be because he turned in 3 impressive days of fishing in tough and changing conditions against the best fisherman in the world....Nothing more, nothing less.

I'll add that I learned to throw baitcast on Citica's. They were great, but since then I've loaded up on Lews reels, Tournament Pro's. I know for a fact, and of course this is hindsight, that my learning curve would have been easier with the Lews. Citica's are great reels, don't get me wrong, but for that price point, you can get lighter and smoother reels.

Not really. If I set foot in BPS I have a specific item in mind or I am researching something that I want to see and handle.

I can see it now. Two guys in the boat on a day when its 50* outside. The Yankee is dressed in shorts, t-shirt, and his favorite flip-flops. At the other end of the boat, the poor thin blooded Hillbilly wearing every stitch of clothing he owns! Please send pics!

I like that kind of thinking! I keep telling people, "In two months, we'll have forgotten all about this weather." I figure that has to be true, otherwise, there wouldn't be anyone still choosing to live in the Northeast. ;-) It is funny how quickly and completely you forget about winter up here. I've TRIED to recall that feeling of winter's cold on some hot, humid days in July and August, and I couldn't raise a single goose-bump! The forecast is for warmer temperatures this weekend - above freezing on Sunday! I'll be out on the lake, doing some ice fishing. Tight lines, Bob

^^ So um yeah dude...nobody above the mason dixon likes you