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I had about an hour study break today to get on the lake. On the 5th time I thought I was snagged in the brushpile I was fishing, I wasn’t! It was a 5.62 lb brush bison!

Today’s rainy day catch. Have a few more working on sizing pics

A bunch of small fish today walking the shoreline for a couple hours. Most of them on a topwater (gunfish 115).

3 Years into my bass fishing and I'm convinced the best rod and reel is the one in your hand at the moment. When I first got into this I made a post or two that in hind sight were a combo of blind enthusiasm and a bit of being overwhelmed at the options and number of manuf. in this sport. These probably made the experienced folks here take a deep breath and sigh and think geez use the search button guy. ha A few years later, some sweet second hand purchases, more ass chewing from the wife about purchases then I care to count, a couple broken rods, 7 and 9 year olds who go through tackle and gear like a candy bar and now I'm feeling like offering a simple piece of advice to others who might be new to this. Worry less about the gear and more about casting skills. Because my sons are young but can throw a baitcaster very well they have a few 30'ish dollar BPS rods with KastKing assassin reels. Wrinkle your nose but I can promise this much. With these cheapo combo's I'll out fish a guy with top shelf gear who hasn't taken the time to practice casting until accuracy is achieved along with the ability to skip baits into small spots. Another thing I keep running across is a lot of times you are never in a perfect position to do a easy front hand cast so being able to fish backhand, out of position and such has been a huge help. I swear I catch more fish when the boat gets pushed out of position by wind or current and I see something I want to target and instead of taking the time to preposition the boat I just fire a cast with confidence that I'll hit it. My primary fishing grounds is a river with strong current so this out of position stuff might not apply to some folks however I'm confident that casting skills would apply exactly the same on lakes. One more thought for the new folks that I just recently figured out. Find a person who is super experienced, buy them gas and food and spend all day on the back of their boat. It was mind blowing watching a local bass club ass kicker grind for 6 hours straight. I swear he got 3 casts to every one of mine and could hit a gap between tree branches the size of a freaking baseball from 35 feet away, almost every time all day long. Stop obsessing on which $100 dollar rod is the most sensitive and get out there and practice casting with the same intensity, your fishing experience will be far more rewarding! Just my opinion based on personal experience thus far.

That’s just funny

What a week! You often hear tournament fishermen say "meant to be" or talk about when it is "your time". That all definitely applied to me during this year's championship. Tenkiller was fishing extremely tough, it has some incredible fish in it, but they are hard to catch this time of year. There is a TON of bait for them to eat, so they mainly just roam around, eating shad and suspending. This made for some very frustrating time on the water, but when you did connect with the right fish, things got very intense, very quickly! Practice started on a bad note, I made it halfway to Oklahoma without a key to the boat. Luckily, my dad already had the aluminum boat at his house, 30 minutes from Lake Tenkiller. By complete chance, the rock quarry company he works for in Virginia moved him out there to work for 3 months this summer. My dad was at our home in Virginia when I left, and wasn't flying back to Oklahoma until the evening of our first day of practice. He was able to bring the key for the Stratos, but we had to fish in the 17' tracker until then. To put it simply, we had to use the aluminum boat on day one of practice, but would have the big boat for days 2 and 3. We decided to run wayyyyy up in the river since we had the ability to take a boat where it maybe shouldn't be, because aluminum is a lot more forgiving than fiberglass. All we found up there was one laydown with a small group (5/6) bass living on it. We pretty much wrote that off as not being worth our time, being so far out of the way and because we were sure some of the other anglers would catch those fish during practice. Day two of practice was tough again, we spent our morning running and gunning points with a walking bait, but only found short fish. We spent the rest of our day graphing offshore structure. We fished both brushpiles and rockpiles, but all we found were short fish, aside from one keeper in 20FOW on a brush pile. Keepers at this event were 16", which made things even tougher. Day three of practice was also spent offshore fruitlessly searching for good fish with electronics. During the last two hours of practice, I decided to take the big boat up the river and idle in the channel between trees, so I would have a GPS track to follow during the tournament. We looked at the same tree we found on day one, and still saw a handful of nice fish, and because of how fruitless our practice was, we decided that we would definitely visit it on the first day of the event. Day one started off running a lot of water with a buzzbait, because that was how we caught one of two keepers in practice. Even though we covered hundreds of yards of bank, the one keeper I caught came 6' away from where I caught the other one in practice! After that, we ran up the river to "The Tree". I fished it from a distance with a wacky rig and shakey head, very thoroughly. Not a single bite so I decided to troll by and see if I saw any. I saw a 3+lb bass with one eye cruise alongside the tree, and drop out of sight. At this point we decided to back off and kill time for about 15 minutes. We then came back, positioning the boat a little differently this time. When the fish wolfpack on wood in the rivers I kayak fish, your only shot is a topwater from a long ways away, and you only get one shot, one good cast. I picked up my trusty super spook junior that has almost no paint left on it, and fired a long cast over the roots of the tree. I had walked the bait over the tree and was now 10-15' away from it, losing hope, when a shadow rose up from the depths. She followed it for 5 or 6 feet and then sucked it right under! And whaddaya know, it was ol' one eye! That was our last keeper bite of the day. We spent the last 4 hours of the day sitting on a deep spot, watching 3-4lb smallies gorge on shad, not able to get any to bite. On day two, we did not have high hopes. We started off running buzzbait water, and caught a couple shorts. I did finally bring in a keeper and we were stoked to not blank. After that, we ran up river to the tree. I caught another small keeper on a spook, making the same cast as the day before. We did see a very nice fish follow the hooked one to the boat, but we could not get it to eat. We then ran back down the lake to a deep spot, where we planned to sit for the remainder of the day again. I chose to throw a Berkley Dredger 25.5, the fish didn't eat a jig or worm the day before, so I figured my best shot would be getting them to react. About 10 minutes in, I bounced the bait off a brush pile and loaded up on a good one! It ended up being a 3.5lb largemouth, number 3 in the box for the day. That fish also had followers, both of them in the 3-4lb range, encouraging to see! I didn't get any more fish to eat the crankbait, but while I was working on that, I spotted a fish on the surface about 80 yards away. I could tell it was a big smallie and knew it wouldn't be up for long. But then I noticed it was chasing a pretty large fish, so I threw the trolling motor on high and picked up a walking bait. I saw fish do this to a trout at South Holston Lake last year and they stayed up for a very long time and I was able to catch one, so I was very excited about this fish once I saw what was going on. Once I was finally in range, I put my bait as close as I could to the big smallmouth. The fish swam away from the bluegill it was beating up, and got underneath my bait. It followed the bait for nearly 20 yards until it was getting close to the boat, and I began to worry. My partner and I both crouched, and it got so close that I didn't have any more line, so I just stopped the bait, and expected the fish to sink back into the depths. But then, WOOSH!!! Two seconds of fumbling and the fish was in the net, one of the coolest catches of my life! We headed to weigh in with 4 bass that ended up weighing 11lbs, 5oz. This moved us into the top 12 cut, and we headed into the final day in 9th place. During weigh-in, once we realized we made the cut, we quickly got a waypoint from our other team at the event. (We are allowed to share information with other competitors before the scales close, I checked with officials before doing so just to make sure). He had found some schooling fish, and had seen many big ones, including the 4-8 he weighed in that day. The spot was where a floating dock sat over a creek channel in 65FOW, and the bass would pin shad against the docks and boats. We started there on the final day, because we needed to make a big move in order to make the top 4 for the classic bracket. We pretty much went in blind to those fish, so when we got there, I spent some time observing and deciding how to approach it. My choice was to skip a swimbait in between the boats and docks, hoping to trigger some larger bites. A 6" magdraft was the weapon of choice. My third skip of the morning produced an 18" smallmouth, and I thought it was about to get wild. I did get two more good bites after that, but they didn't stay pegged. I caught a few short fish as well. I had pinpointed where the majority of the fish were sitting, and I was able to skip a 3" EZ Shiner in there and caught a 16.5" spot, which went in the box with his brown cousin. After that, we couldn't get them going again, and abandoned ship around 11:30am. We ran all the way back up the lake from the dam, to our deep spot. It was within an hour of the time I caught the deep crank fish the day before, so I lined up and started banging the bait through the brushpile just like I did previously. I connected with another solid largemouth, and it ended up being about 3lbs. We then chose to go fish the magic tree again while giving the deep spot time to rest. The sun was high now, so I knew the spook would probably not do the job up there, and I opted for the magdraft. I fired out "The Cast" and let the current sweep the bait right past the sweet spot on the tree, where the current has washed out the bottom underneath the root wad. And just like something from my dreams, a giant comes up from the depths and crushes the swimbait! I honestly thought it wasn't a bass because it was so big. After a brief battle, we netted the fish, and I guarantee everyone within a 2 mile radius heard me when that happened. We knew we had a good chance at making the bracket with that one, but knew one more keeper would put the nail in the coffin. And just like we needed, my partner stuck a 2.5/2.75lb largemouth on his first cast with a big worm once we got back to our deep spot. Our 15lb, 4oz limit jumped us from 9th to 3rd place, securing our spot inside the top 4. The next step is the Classic Bracket, where 8 of us will head to @Bluebasser86's neck of the woods, where one of our lives will be changed forever!

They spaced it out to give the National Champions time to be the champs, because in years past, all of the attention shifts to the bracket winner and everyone forgets about who won the event. Excellent decision on their part, whoever takes it home worked their butt off to accomplish it, and deserves recognition!

Uhhh, only every single trip out! Pitched unweighted in the holes and punched weighted in the thicker parts. Huge producer either way.

A truckload of expensive Ranger bass boats being delivered somewhere. The engine in the pic on the top was a 250, and both rigs up there were tandem axle. Lower back was single axle glass,. and lower front one was an aluminum model.

If you'd like an estimate you can send it in. Likely just needs cleaning. If not, I'll repair or return. I also buy reels for parts.

They would not leave the spinner bait alone today. Caught fat little dinks up to much better ones.

We have been dragging Keitech swimbaits along the bottom here is PA and have been doing well. This is the only time of year we do this and it is very effective. We landed 57 smallmouth up to 20 inches with this technique yesterday so I thought I'd share it in case anyone wanted to try it. We just cast it out and slowly drag the bait until we feel weight and set the hook. Tight lines!

A buddy of mine who I used to fish with all the time moved out of state a few years ago, but is in town for a week or so, so we hit the lake. Due to a massive weather system moving over the northeast, the radar was looking iffy so we decided to stick to a lake close to home. Sure glad we did, because the fishing was ON. We caught lots of fish, and the average size was very impressive anchored by the 20”+ smallmouth that my buddy caught. Here’s one of the chunks I landed, pitching a Texas Rig to some Lily pads:

Lilly pads are in relatively shallow water. You don't need weight. Texas rig a Senko on a 4.0 EWG Wide Gap hook and learn to bring it through and over the pads. I fish a Senko in all types of heavy cover and there is a knack to gently pulling, putting pressure on and then letting it go slack to get a Senko to work it's way through heavy grass and/or pads. Wood is a totally different technique.

In a nutshell, the WP 75 size works great, for the most part! First of all, the 1st thing I hooked with the WP 75 was a pine tree, that I forgot was behind me. I had to stand on a bench to get my new lure un-treed. Got my lure back, made 3 casts and on the 3rd cast, started reeling and part way retrieving it...a huge blowup! I knew right away it was a big bass, but didn't see it. It pulled drag, I thought I didn't set my drag but I did. So glad for stout size 4 treble hooks that come stock on the WP 75. Those 2 trebles kept the bass pinned in till I was able to land it, even after a few jumps out of the water. No bent thin wire stock hooks! That's one thing I like about this new WP size. It's shorter, stubbier in length and it's almost guaranteed both treble hooks will be on the fish. That's what I saw when I landed the bass, both hooks were in its mouth and on the side of its mouth. No worries of just one treble on the fish and hoping it does not come off when the bass jumps out of the water or pulls harder. I can tell you that the WP 75 is just shy of 5/8 oz and casts far on baitcast gear. No problems making long casts, it casts better than the WP 90 at 1/2 oz. I did notice that if you reel fast, the 75 will start to barrel roll. This happened a few times. A medium retrieve works good, no rolling. I also noticed that at times if reeled fast, it will swim on its side. Even though it has a deeper belly than the other sized WP, this happens and not too happy about that. I will be adding a black barrel swivel and black split ring to my WP 75, so it won't twist my line. I hope doing this, the action of the lure is still the same. Also I hope it will not add too much weight on the front end that it will submarine. The WP 90 at times will submarine when you start reeling. I did not notice the 75 going underwater when I started to retrieve. The sound the tail makes, sounds similar to the bigger WP's but in a compact size, not as loud as a 130 size. I think the sound is close to the 110 size. I'm glad the sound stayed the same and not any different sounding. It's a good looking lure, the treble hooks mean business and has it has very good body detail compared to the other sized WP's. I don't know if the fish cares for those cosmetics on the lure, maybe color helps in certain situations. Attention to detail in cosmetics, is more for the fisherman. IMO, the WP 75 needs a few refinements so it won't swim on its side or barrel roll on faster retrieves. No aforementioned problems when reeled slow to medium, runs straight. Not sure what R2S can do to improve those problems or what other DIY ways besides adding a barrel swivel. Hope that helps you to decide if you want to pick up the Whooper Plopper 75. I'm a Whopper Plopper fan, I own a few 130's, 110's, 90's and now one 75 size in bone color. I may get a couple more of the 75 in loon and another color. I also own the big and smaller BPS Double Down, dual prop ones. BTW, the new Ozark Trail analog scale weighed the bass accurately. I did forget to measure the bass with its built in tape measure. I wanted to get the bass back in the water ASAP so not to stress the bass too much. I did put the bass in the water a few times before I took other pics and passers by wanting to look and take their own pics. The big bass swam off with no harm. Not bad for a SoCal park lake bass, being that big and hitting a topwater at 6pm. Thanks for reading my review.

The rain came in today and got me a day off work. It also made for some killer fishing conditions. Went down to a local pond that I heard was just recently stocked and absolutely whacked them silly. Over 15 fish and the best 5 went for around 16lbs. Here’s the best of the day.

I’ve spent thousands of hours on Toledo and I can confidently say that the fish eat ALOT better when the wind is blowing. I’d take a 10-15 mph wind everyday if it were up to me. A Carolina rig with a 1oz weight, a 3/4 fb jig, and a big crank bait will catch them when the wind is howling. I’ve caught more and bigger fish on a big crank than anything else and if the wind isn’t blowing, you can forget it. They won’t bite it. The Ultrex is the real game changer. You can fish in the wind with no issues at all with spotlock.

I'd fish at night - especially no moon, mid-week night. Single bladed Spinner bait (Colorado or Oklahoma Blade) in the open water areas and in the not so open areas, I'd throw either a lightly weighted skirted Texas rigged plastic (Craw) or a lightly weighted 10 inch worm of your choice. Any & all bottom baits would be fished pretty slow. A-Jay

i’ll throw at and around every boat ramp i come across (public or private) any time of the day, night, or season for alot of the reasons already listed above. hard bottoms, wash outs, abrupt drops (off the ends and sides), rip rap and gravel ramp edges, all hold forage, as well as, ambush points. in late winter and early spring, sunny bank ramps retain heat and tend to hold big bass.

Small game license and a pellet rifle. Be careful, though and check with town rules.

One of the biggest smallmouth I ever caught was off the bottom of a boat ramp. Ramps have wash out holes from boats powering onto the trailer, which often leaves a clean bottom and a high spot at some point behind the ramp that is a good ambush point for fish. It also collects debris that small baitfish and craws will hid in and feed on. I've found that right after a boat powers on and blows up a silt cloud that makes it tough for those baitfish to see, I can often catch an active fish trying to take advantage of the situation. The loading docks are almost always good too. Obviously, stay out of the way of boats loading and unloading, but if there's a break in activity, ramps are a huge confidence area for me.

I have two, and really like them. Never had to do anything with them, except take them out of the box and fish 'em! Here's a review I did:

Common courtesy. Those using the ramp to launch or load and those docking their craft should be given the opportunity to do so without having go navigate around you. They don't need 50yrds. to do so, but if you witness someone that's having difficulty, give them all the room they need. If there is a lot of traffic, I'd move up shore. There's a lot of structure there. Use a jig or worm that is easy to count down and find areas like those underwater points or the saddles in between them. You can fish them whatever way you feel comfortable. If there are weeds, fish the edges and tops closest to deep water.

Monster thunderhead that was building up to the east of our house. It built up enough we could see lightning in the clouds when it got dark.

We are using 4" inch Keitech easy shiners on a jig head. We have a better hook up rate with these. We lose some baits due to snags but these work better then the belly hooks. In rivers we drag them off ledges into holes up to 9 feet or casting up to the bank and let them slide into the current. On lakes we drag them over humps that rise up to 12 feet or so and usually get hit on the down side of the hump. The river water temp is 52 and slightly stained. The lakes are a little higher at 57 and clear. Dragging over rocks and sometimes just letting it sit. This is a pattern a friend showed me that works this time of year just before the cold water hits. Hope this helps put you on some fish. I will be dragging again tomorrow.

Recently moved to a more rural suburban development and am shocked how many bunnies there are running around right now. They outnumber the squirrels and are much less timid, I can walk right up to within a few yards of them and they don't flinch. They've even attracted predators like a coyote I saw in my backyard a few weeks ago. Wondering how I could legally hunt them this fall in my little patch of woods despite being relatively close (~100 yds) to dwellings. What my neighborhood looks like lately:

I will clean up lead weights with a steel punch/pin, but moslty just for my piece of mind.

To quote a country song "I've never seen a hurst with a trailer hitch". Seriously though from watching @A-Jay's reviews it looks like one sweet ride! I know a guy who lives a couple hours north of me and hopefully when the ferns start to die off in the fall I can find that boat and stick my thumb out and see if his offer still stands. ?

I find Falcon Cara’s to be light weight and sensitive for the money.

One that comes to mind right away is the Daiwa Zillion. Can be had for under $200. Heck the new Powell endurance is way lighter and more balanced for half the price.

Many camps on Toledo Bend have private ramps that are lighted at night.

@TOXIC totally agree ? Most anglers try forcing it through vegetation which is all wrong, you gotta finesse it through!

Should be fine. To be totally safe, become vegan and starve. I use a lot of lead and brass. Some tungsten in smaller sizes.

Growing up if Momma cooked it you ate it... there was no discussion! What she cooked was to please Dad not us kids! Now days kids nine hundred & forty two thousand choices!

My best night spot after everyone clears out is a ramp. Almost guaranteed to catch fish.

I'd trust the Pros tenfold more than these clowns on Youtube who are sadly emerging as the new market share grabbers hawking average gear for inflated prices. I'll not expand on this for respect for forum rules.

ESPNU will be airing the show, I'm not sure on the exact dates. It will be a VERY interesting event to watch, the leaders caught fish on flutter spoons and jigging spoons with their boat pulled INTO the boat slip they were fishing!!

I’ve owned one for 2 years as well. I told Ajay that I wonder why more boat manufacturers don’t make a Deep-V Hull with a bass platform.

I agree. Not “bad” rods but not worth retail. I don’t really get the hype that they are balanced either.

@Bassguytom ~ FYI It works quite well in summer as well. A-Jay

Fish farts..... I always figured gases being released from the lake bed or a spring.

Toledo Bend, simple just fish in Catts boat and use what he uses! Tom

I don't change much other than how I position the boat. Wind is a way of life in the Midwest. It bothers us way more than it does the fish.

Was able to get access to a new place to walk the bank at, so checked it out this weekend in-between passing rain showers. Got two short sessions in totaling just over 3.5 hours and managed to land over 60 bass. Caught everything on finesse worms and a spinning rod. I always enjoy fishing a new place for the first time, as each little lake is different, and it's always fun trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, both the fishing and the biology. This one was shallower than most, had an inside and outside weedline, and a bunch of cookie cutter bass between 1.5 and 2 pounds, likely all from the same year class suggesting a possible kill event several years back. Did get a few small guys so some natural reproduction, but not many. Only a couple hookups with bigger fish this go round, so more to explore there. Also has a few stray carp in it which is interesting. Likely dropped in via an emptied bait bucket. Doesn't appear like they are doing any damage at this point.

Took a solo trip to a new lake this morning, lots of smaller ones and managed to get a few decent size bass in super shallow water on a frog and pitching to pads/eelgrass. Lost a nice pike about 36” right at the boat, she just opened her yap and spit the spinnerbait out, then sat there like she was mocking me ?. Heres the best bass I got.

So I put the boat in in off of center street in Saginaw on the Tittabawassee River. The Day started off fast but, I missed 3 smallies right off the bat and the one was a nice one. Than it slowed way down but, I was able to pick up this 17 inch smallie on a pb&j jig with a green pumpkin paca chunk. I didn’t pour this jig but, rather I bought a bunch of unpainted arkie and football head jigs from a guy on the forum. I did powder coat it, add weed guard, and put the skirt on.

Positive they're bass? Bass don't often just jump without reason to do so. More often than not around here, jumping fish means carp, which can be hard to tell the difference in low light conditions.

Comes in couple of different sizes. Cheap investment. Plano Line box. You fill right from the box.

There has never been a requirement to kill them, only a request that any caught are killed. A quick removal of the gills with a pair of pliers will do the trick. They are great eating, take them home and have a fish fry. Btw, the blue catfish are under the same request to kill but no where near the discussion.

Try this method with the rubber tubing. I've had 1 Senko last like 10 trips.