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I'm glad they found him. My condolences and prayers go out to the friends and family. While I've posted the news article on the site as a matter of protocol, I will not announce it nor broadcast it on our social channels. I don't feel this is the type of thing for soliciting a click in order to drive up our traffic numbers. This is also why I have instructed everyone on the BR staff to refrain from sensationalizing the story, and/or contribute to the spread of rumors during the search for Nik. While there are other bass fishing sites that seek to exploit this story in the name of a dollar, I hold myself and the staff accountable to higher standards. The focus must be on Nik's grieving family, and the bass fishing community, as this affects us all. Some things are far more important in life, and don't deserve to be brought down by gossip tabloids. Again, our thoughts and prayers go out to Nik's family and friends.

Epic day today out at the hidden spot here in arizona. Biggest bag of my life 30lb 10oz. My previous PB bag was also out here. 27.5lbs. Finally beat that. Epic day. 11 bass caught. Strike king 6xd in chilli craw and an unknown brand my buddy had in tilapia were the tickets today. The picture with my buddy holding the small bass and the big one was one of our serious culls lol. We ended up culling a 5lbr out too later.

It's fun getting to repost this every year the first week or two of January.

This is Mojave, our White German Shepherd. We rescued her 3 years ago. She's not too fond of the boat, but she goes hiking behind the house with me every time I go. She also protects our house from dangerous intruders But is more often than not found somewhere not far from our daughter

La Cygne was good again Monday/Tuesday. Had a short trip Monday that only produced 2 fish, but there were 5.92 and 3.88 pounds. Tuesday was a better numbers day, with several in the 3lb range, and one over 5.

Only 2 fish Monday, but they were both nice ones. First one just barely missed 6 pounds at 5.92lbs, on a Savage Gear Shine Glide 185, love that bait. Tuesday I took a member of the Kansas State University fishing team with me. We had a steady day, catching fish or two every half hour for most of the day. Most every fish we caught was in the 3lb range but Zach's first fish of the day was 5.08lbs. It's been a good year already.

In clear water, Red fades (to black) from the visible spectrum of light most quickly of all colors as you go from shallow to deep. However, in muddy and brown-stained water, red can actually penetrate farther than other colors like greens and blues. This tends to make red a good color for visibility in the lower stretches of river systems, and in tannic waters that have a rich, brown-ish stain. Culprit worms in "red shad" laminate (black on top, red underneath) are classic bass-catchers; no reason why red jigs shouldn't be effective too, especially where you have red crayfish in your area.

Heck, some days I have to catch 40 to break 30 pounds

Received my HPH glide gizzards last wk. 3 of the 8" and 2 of the 6". Pic looks like **** cuz it has to be shrunk. I don't understand is everyone having to shrink their pics cuz it doesn't look like it?

i do this in the winter and early spring i will drive around on a weekend checking out spots it gets me out of the house, i try and find the access

I May be alone on this but I don't think this is really the time or the place to have that discussion.

Haha no not really. They get to surface and barely splash.

Haha thanks man. I love this place insane baitfish numbers and every fish pretty much is 5lbs or bigger. Got a couple videos I'll put something together. My buddy's that he got from the back were not on film unfortunately cuz my old navigation port mount broke and my aquastick hasn't came in yet. Tilapia and shad are the main forage. Millions of tilapia in here from 4" to 4lbs. That's the big bass stuff right there. From what I read if there is good tilapia base in a lake then the bass usually grow big and here it's rare to find a fish under 5lbs.

I was really rooting for a meteor strike. But UGA losing in excruciating fashion was a good consolation prize. They call it "Clean, old-fashioned hate" for a reason!

My new Tatula SV with RCS carbon handle and SLP knobs. I think the lime green looks pretty slick with the purple highlights on the reel. Now for tuning and new bearings, think I might try ZPIs this time

I am back at school and caught my first ice bass today after class. My friends and I caught over 50 fish, mainly bluegill but a few bass and crappie as well. Looks like the weather this week is going to make the ice unsafe so this might be the only ice trip for a while!

Hard at work protecting the homestead???

We have 2 Bassets, very large bassets... Tripp: the younger and larger is 5-6 Cowboy: the older, whinier, slightly more active is 8-9 They like to be involved in activities like opening Christmas gifts: Other than that they like to try to sneak human food (showing me how he's not at all interested in the reese's cup behind my coffee cup)

Yo-Zuri is hybrid not FC line, largest dia line per lb test on the market. Whoops forgot to get off the soap box. Tom

The group has been created and a new thread for 2018 has been made. Join in, everyone!

I've been a two hand caster forever. Spawned from years Surf Casting. Heaving 9, 10, 11 & 12 foot surf rods and a 3 ounce bucktail into a 25 mph wind all night - is work. If you've not done it - give it a try, let me know how it goes . . . Few years of that, handling even the stoutest bass gear feels like a toy. Still, I love to chunk & wind and being efficient is the name of the game - learning to cast from either side helps as well. This is what it looks like for me. ~ Here I'm throwing a 3/4 oz spinnerbait with a 7'4" composite stick - that loads nicely I might add. A-Jay

Denny's

I like to just nose hook a Zoom Fluke (any size) with a 1/0 inline circle hook. Has worked for me for many years. I believe nose hooking it is more effective than texposing an off-set worm hook. But that's just me.

I took a dirty jigs tour level pitching jig and put a phenix blade on it. The total cost is about $7.00. I’m excited to see how it works!

At least you team didn't have a parade for going 0-16

I can't even think of 11 different types of worms? I pretty much stick to straight tail or swimming tail worms and a handful of colors.

A red and black jig is really good early in the year in stained to dirty water for me, before the spawn. I've also done well on a homemade red/orange/black with a red blade, bladed jig too.

Crazy fat fish. Do they fight very well? Most of them look so fat that they seem like they'd have a difficult time even swimming.

It looks like those bass feed on footballs!! Great bag, congrats!! I broke 30 lbs last week to, but I had to catch 23 bass to do it...

I was by myself when I caught my PB, so the pictures I got of it really doesn't do it justice. I caught this one 2 weeks later on the same lake, it weighed in at an even 8lbs (4 oz less than the PB) but I had someone with me to get a better picture.

Didn't get a pic of my actual pb (5.5#), which was a couple years ago, but this one I think is my second biggest, from September (5.25#, 21"):

Walmart has Tatula 100HS for $104.95. Only 5 left! https://www.walmart.com/ip/Daiwa-TATULA100HS-Tatula-Baitcasting-Reel/34873401#read-more

I was doing good until that Daiwa Type LT frog rod dropped to $89.99. Sigh.

The reel I was replacing had half a spool of 30#braid on it with half a spool of mono backing beneath it. I reeled just that braid up on the new reel and it filled it. Boom! New braid (the new end).

I feel like color makes a difference for me. Especially when I fish plastics. I fish lots of really clear waters in Wi, and it seems like I do best on certain colors at certain times of year. Mind you, they're only small differences. ▪Early spring- green pumpkin with some chartreuse ▪Prespawn- pbj ▪Spawn- green pumpkin orange or gold. ▪Then throughout the rest of the year green pumpkin blue or pbj are good bets. Now that doesn't mean other colors don't work, but those catch constantly. Plus, I have loads of confidence in them. I've also seen tons of small crayfish in the river and they're literally green pumpkin blue... so that sort of makes sense why that's my best color!

honestly, Berkley Trilene braid is overlooked but it is a phenomenal braid

PP moss green matches my avocados a little better than the Spiderwire

Lake trout love the color white. They are also sensitive to color changes as sunny or cloudy conditions change. When sunny they prefer silver backed spoons. When cloudy they like copper & brass. For jigging white tubes work well. Also jigging spoons, regular jigs with plastic trailers like reapers, sluggos, & grub tails. Trolling opens the door to all kind of baits. First off think spoons & flashers. Crank baits, jerk baits & most other plugs work well too. They love kwik fish & flatfish baits. Lake trout are speed sensitive. They will follow a trolled bait long distances but will strike best when you speed up or work the bait erratically. They also will ram a bait with their heads to stun it & then turn and eat it. Lots of guys miss hooking them by swinging on the stun hit but not lowering their rod tip or feeding a little slack back before swinging on the second strike when the trout actually eats the bait. No bait is too big for a mature lake trout. A twenty pound trout will hit a 18" bait. Musky baits work well for trout. Big believers, large spinner baits, grandmas, jakes etc. all work well. Lake trout prefer 48-52 degree water temps. You can find them shallow in the early spring & shallow again in the late fall when they migrate in shallow to spawn. In the summer they will be found deep depending on available water depths & bait. I have caught them as deep as 120 feet. My PB trout was caught trolling a 12" Luhr Jensen dodger with a 3/0 treble attached at the back with a "4 saltwater plastic squid threaded on the treble.

What's there to have fun about? Between those two, PowerPro. There's many other brands as well. Most 4 carrier braids are over designed, and you'll be using a breaking strength that far exceeds what you need. So, really any "50 lb. braid" will do, because you're only likely to 20% of the line's capabilities.

Tim, It is easier and quicker to tie with copper wire. PM me your e-mail and I will send you a jig tying tutorial.

Not the "latest catch" but thought I would post since I thought I lost the pic. Heck of a fiasco On this day. Up for 27 hrs straight, forgot the net, sheared a pin in the trolling motor, dropped pliers in 20ft of water so couldn't replace the pin. Was throwing a kvd sexy frog On my 6'6 Shakespeare medium heavy with 15Lb mono. Forgot my braid setup. I believe this is my 4th biggest bass. And I have caught it once more 2 years later after it was spawned out and not nearly as big. We tagged this fish after I caught it the first time.

I've been on the BR forum for about a year now, and one thing I see over and over is the similarity in attitude toward fishing equipment and golf equipment. Each year club and ball manufacturers market the new lines as being exponentially superior to last year's versions, yet strangely enough, the the actual real world data shows that the changes in performance, if any, are minuscule. Most players can't perceive any change at all, but they won't admit that they bought the hype. They have to believe that the new gear has made them better, even though their scoring doesn't reflect that belief. I finally quit buying the orange juice about a decade ago. I'm not good enough to make the same blanket statement about fishing rods, but it's hard to see how they can make any truly dramatic improvement, aside from bringing the price of the good stuff down to the point where I can justify trying it.

This is Carly. 11 year old Bishon.

This is Bailey. He was almost 15 when he reached that point of tipping the quality of life balance too far on the wrong side. He was a shelter rescue, a White German shepherd/golden retriever mix, and the sweetest disposition of any dog I ever lived with. He loved snow... could curl up in a snowbank just as happy as could be. Here I was taking a break from shoveling (2 feet on the ground and still snowing) for some playtime:

Too windy for me today so I stayed in and did some maintenance on the ol girl.

International: 9-13 Domestic: 6-3

I was reading the latest issue of bassmaster, in one of the articles they were talking about a guy with tendonitis or fishing elbow and the guy was talking about how he adjusted his casting which puts less strain on his arms. mainly casting with 2 hands and when overhead casting he uses his non casting hand to grab the bottom of the rod and use it like a lever pulling it backwards. Then I just happen to be watching Timmy Hortons show and got to see him doing exactly this. Does anyone do this? or am I the only one not lol? my overhand cast ends with more of a snapping action and if im heaving all day it can get pretty sore. I think I will be changing how I cast from now on, seems I learn something new all the time. Never knew I had an issue with casting