Mattlures

That would be a very large male but not unheard of. The weight of the fish sounds right based on the description and your taxidermist made a reasonable determination.

I used a hornady GSX (I think thats the one) 165 grn shootin a 300 mag. I thing 2 shots didnt open up enough and then the 3 rd shot blew up. I dont know for sure, I just know I dont like copper

I went hog hunting over the week end. We hunted 2 different ranches in Pasa Robles. I shot 2 good boar with one going on my wall and my buddy got a good boar and a sow. Its amazing how big and open the country is up there. It felt like I was in Wyoming, not Cali. The big boy took 3 shots to bring down. The last shot he was probably only 20 yards from me as he was coming to pay me back. But he finaly fell over. Copper bullets suck and these pigs are tough.

I took my wife and daughter out last night to get in on the good bat ray fishing. Right off she gets hooked up but her line is looped around mine and I get a monster run. Never slowed the fish down. It ripped off about 200-300 yards of 100lb test and the hook came out. This would have been the one Oh well. Then we caught 2 horn sharks. I weighed and measured the big one. then we caught some rays then I helped my daughter pull one in. \ It was awsome. We left at 11 cause the girls were tired. We could have caght a bunch but ended up with 4 rays and 2 H sharks. The biggest ray went 50lbs, the shark was 13.2

Awsome fish Randall you are a machine!

That wounded threadfin is very very nice

These bat rays will jump sometimes while we are fighting them. Its dark so we usualy dont see it all the way but you hear them.

all were released.

I have gone out twice latley for a total of 20 rays. We weighed the big ones. The biggest so far are 90lbs 80lbs 75lbs and 62lbs These things are fun, when they run you cant stop them. You just have to wait and try to gain back line when they turn.

Thank you Sir

I had an employee burn herself by sticking a spoon down into the cup and the plastic on top was solid while the plastic below was molten. When the spoon popped through, some hot plastic squirted out onto her hand. Another common way to burn your self is by stirring to hard. Its easy to splash a little on your hand if your not looking at what your stirring.

here is one of mine

I have a picture like that in my shop for a reminder to all who work there. i have never burnt myself when I was new or careful. Its when your super confident and have done it a million times that you loos your fear of molten plastic. I have had 2 good burns like yours. It hurts sooo bad and it takes a long time to heal. The scars will be noticable for a couple years until they fade away.

People talk about silhouette against they sky but that would apply when the fish is looking up at a bait. What about when its looking down? In theory that should make it harder to see a dark bait such as plastics. Years ago I snuck into a gold pond at night and collected golf balls. You could see the white balls on the bottom of the pond without a dive light. If they were black you wouldnt see them. So in theory a white bottom bait wout be better then a black bottom bait. However after many many night trips with a lot of experimentation, I have found that color means just about nothing at night. I did use glow and my hot bite died instantly and resumed as soon as I went back to a regular color a 1/2 hour later. Now if I ses a funky color of a bait I like in the bargin bin I will buy it for my night baits. Plastics(usualy a texas rigged worm) is my 3rd choice behind a buzzer and swimbait. If I cant get bit on one of those 3 then I will resort to a crawler. If I still cant get bit then there are no fish in that lake.

+1 what Catt said. They can sence you bait through feel, noise, smell,taiste, and they can see the bait some at night to. Their sight is ther major sence in the daylight but at night its not as important. You will hear a bunch of guys telling you to use black but color doesnt matter. The good thing about night fishing is that just as the prey fish cant detect the bass as good, the bass cant detect us as good. All our faults are minimized. A plastic at night would have probably zero negative cues.

It could afect it. I would get everything straight.

Letting them hang is the best way to store them. Also do not bend them trying to tune them. The hook is hardened steel and it will break if it bends to far. The insert wont bend either. I am guessing the reason your bait wont run right is becuase its crooked. Boil for 30 seconds or untill its straight then just let it hang by the hook eye. It need to cool down straight in order to stay straight. Again if it aint working just send me an email to my site and I will take care of it Thanks Matt

If you like that style then I suggest you get the Rago. Those are the baits that Byron and Skeet used to win those tournaments on. If you shop around you can probably find a cheaper price or you can wait for one of the big sales.

If the bait is straight it should swim straight. After you boil it stright you need to let it cool dowd stright. If its still not right then send me an email to my site and I will exchange it for you no problem.

If there chasing gills I would throw my little U2 at them. I do have a trick for you though. If you can see a bass and doesnt see you, you can usualy get a curiosity bite out of a night cralwer. I call it this because a lot times the bass will suck it in and spit out after a second. You have to be quick but they almost always suck it in. You gotta use light line and a small hook.

I dont think people realize how huge a 16lb bass realy is. Probably because there are a lot of pictures out there where fish are smaller then claimed. That fish is HUGE!! Any teen bass is Huge! Thats a cool pose. I might have to try that the next time I am lucky enough to get a big one.

I have not fished this new hard bellied version but I have used the original. For me it was an ok buzzbait replacelment when it was too weedy to throw a buzzer. I say OK because I wouldnt use it over a buzzer when its not weedy. But it shines in the weeds. It does its thing on a straight retrieve. The action is like the hand sign "hang loose" wobbling across the top. I dont love the bait but I do like it.

It looks to close to call. Good fish! congrats

FC those are big PB's. I wish I rememberd what mine were exactly. I think my PB gill is right around 2lbs and I think my PB red ear was about 2.5lbs. A 3lber is a giant! congrats on those. If you have a little money saved up you should get some reproductions for them. Those ARE trophy fish.

Worms in general are not big baits. A 1 pound bass has no problem eating a 12 in worm. We as fisherman think of them as big because they are long but most big worms arent that big. As for small worms catching big bass, yes they do but when you are using small worms like 6in you are prety much targeting small fish. When I worm fish I generaly use an 8 in hand pour durring the day and a bigger 10-12 in at night. I catch both small and big bass.