Mattlures

Wood baits are generaly light comparred to soft plastic baits. I bet you could get by with a hevy action flipping stick. I wonder if a feathered treble for a tail would look good or hamper the action? You could also connect a lexan type tail with eye screws so it moves. Castaic also did a wood bait and just glued a soft plastic tail to the back of the bait. It would be similar to yours. I assume it woulndt be durrable though.

DANG!!! Impresive!!

Hey Big M that swimbait came out real nice. I have to disagree with you and the others though. I think its kinda small I bet it gets bit, especialy on a hot night. What are going to do for a tail?

jhoffman tell her I said thank you! unfortunatly I dont think my pictures do the fish justice, especialy the first one. It was a big fish it was aprox 26 1/2in The second fish looks big but in the picture it looks kinda short because I am bending it. It was also soo thick and fat that it looks a little short but it was not. I estimated its length to be about 27 1/2-28 inches. I marked my rod and checked when I got home. I now keep a tape measure with me. The big one is my new PB. 17.2

I am having my best year ever. Here are my two biggest so far

Brian and the rest of the forum plese forgive me if this sounds like spam. I am honestly only trying to help. My gils have accounted for more 10+ lb fish then all my other baits combined but my baby bass is by far the easiest bait to use and gets a ton of bites. I would recomend the bass especialy for post spawn when the big bass are feedinging on 2-4in baby bass. Use this bait to gain confidence and from there you can expand your swimbait asenal. There are a lot of good brands on the market but now since "swimbaits" have become soo popular, there is a ton of junk. It is always better to buy a couple good quality PROVEN swimbaits then a buch of cheaper ones. As far as the paddle tail baits go, I would stick to the smaller sized ones and use them for their strenghts. They are great weedless baits. Also just because they are called swimbaits doesnt mean they are made for targeting big bass. This used to be the case but not anymore. Those paddle tails work but they are not big bass baits.I know it can be frustrating but dont give up!

I would start eating the smaller bass when you ctch them. Even the 3lbers. Your pond is out of ballance. Another suggestion would be to add aditional forage. Shad, Crawfish, Tilapia,Shinners, Minnows. Most of those wont compete with the bluegill. Tilapia will but they are better eating so that should make you happy. You still have to kill some smaller bass though.

I personaly dont like any of the soft toad baits I have used. I havent tried the Rage frog, but..............................The Rage tail shad is awsome. I get better hook ups then the toads I have tried and I like how it thows water like a buzzbait.

Thanks Big O!! I like your Rage tail baits to. Seriously the shad is my new buzzbait. rocknfish9001You should never break off on a hook set. I am guessing you using way to light of line. Also most real swimbait rods are very stiff with a little softer tip so that shouldnt happen. I suggest you use heavier line and definatly retie. As for swimbaits, well I am obviously bias so I would suggest buying quality proven baits. You will shorten your learning curve and you will actualy save money in the long run. Its better to but 2-3 $20-$50 baits then it is to buy a boat full of junk baits that you wont use once you realize how much better the quality baits are.

Bruce did not sell Basstrix. Money minnows sold to Yum or Zoom or something like that. Arent they about the same? Ha Ha.

I was a member a few years ago and although I dont remember the exact weights for line class records theyw ere all huge. 16lbs + on like 4LB test. There were some state, line, and jr records that were weak especial with other fish but just line class records on bass would be extremly dificult to break

Big fish for sure and the net man needs to get beat but not a WR. Not even 20lbs. looks around 15-18

Jed caught it once. Mac caught it once and Mike Long caught it once

That poor little lake gets beat to death. It would be nice to see it get some rest. HMMMM I wonder if any of her spawn might have a black birthmark under her mouth. HMMMMMMMM I wonder if they might get real big too. HMMMMMM what do you guys think

Thanks RW This site is great. the members actualy police each other. I had one guy make a big deal on a different site. Not this one. Thanks to Glenn and you guys for running this site soo well! I also have disagree with you about being the man. I apreciate the compliment but there aremany who are better then me.

Thanks guys, Trust me you dont want haters. it still sucks to have sombody call you a liar even if 20 posts congatulate you. I am getting used to it but it still sucks. Randall its good to see a post from you. Been pretty quiet latley.

Ok so I went back back to the lake to see if we could still get on them. This would be our 3rd trip there. Our first trip was incredible and I will post those pictures some time later. The 2nd trip was when we brought my friends boat with a huge live well made out of one of those giant coolers. We thought we could get on them and wanted a big group picture and our plan actually worked. That's when we caught the 4 fish in this pic for 40lbs Well I posted that 2nd report on some other sites and I had some guys doubting my picture because the background is whited out. So I went out again armed with my new camera hoping we could find the big fish again. I wanted to take some pics and video just to erase all doubts. It had been a while and the lake level had dropped so I wasnt super confident. We went on foot this time and it took a lot of walking and work until we started getting bit but it paid off. We caught 5 fish total for 40+ lbs. We deliberately made sure that the background was all sky so nobody could complain about the background. My friend was the hot stick today as he caught a 10, 8, 7, and a little 5lber. I only caught 1 today but it was a little bigger than his 10 so I cant complain. Here is the first pic, our big twins Here is me holding up the one I caught [img width=262 height=350]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/Mattlures/IMG_0023.jpg Here is my friend holding up the high 8 [img width=350 height=262]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/Mattlures/IMG_0036.jpg And here he is again holding up the 7 [img width=350 height=262]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/Mattlures/IMG_0033.jpg

Bass live thier whole lives next to thier prey. They are not always eating. They can be side by side and the bass doesnt even seem to notice the real gills. Its just the way it is. Something happens and its eating time. The prey species are also awar of this and they are no longer just swimming around the bass. Ever watch the nature shows with the lions and all the herd animals. If the lions are just hanging around the antilopes keep feeding. Yes they keep an eye on the lions but they dont take off untill the lions get up and start sneaking around. Then they take off. Bass and gills are the same way. They are forced to live next to ech other and the gills know when its time to hide. If they make a mystake then they get eaten. Here is an experiment for you. Next time you see bass and gills hanging around put on a piece of real worm and catch one of the gills and see what happens. There is a good chance the bass will "turn on" and crush your gill or at least become very interested in it. As hard as I try I simply can not make a swimbait swim EXACTLY like a real fish. The bass can detect this and it triggers them to attack. Fourbiz described it perfectly. Swim the gill past ambush points, usualy heavy cover and you can get hit HARD. I also like using bottom swimbaits like a worm or jig and just slowly work the bait uphill and over points just dragging it or making small hops. Those bites usualy arent so crushing. I also agree with the clear water thing. I have never realy understood that logic. For clear water the realism can be extremly important. So why would a realistc bait not work in dirty water? If anything a realistic bait becomes even more realistic in dirty water because the fish cant see the bait completly perfect. But what it does see looks completly real.

thetr20one the whole point of the trip was to get a big group Pic. I usualy get one or sometimes even 2 big fish in a day but never a bunch. Again I only caught the 2 biggest ones. the rest were caught buy my friend. But it sure make a coll picture! The backround is whited out to keep the location hidden.

Frog thank you and I apreciate the support but I respectfuly disagree. I have no problem using live bait. If it works and you catch the fish and its legal then by all means keep using it. I personaly dont use it very often because I tend to catch smaller fish with live bait. If it will get me a bigger bite you better believe I will use it. People also overestimate live bait. It aint a silver bullet. You still have to fish it and many times I think its harder to use. Sometimes its easy but not always. Hawg Caller has recently caught some verry nice fish using a legal method that worked. The fish were released so he can catch them when they are teens. I just mentioned my gills because if he ever chose to use one for bedding fish he would have intimate knowledge on how to present the bait. All he has to do is understand what the real gill was doing to provoce the strike. Congrats again on all your recent big bed fish. I for one know live bait is not a given and you most certainly earned those fish. Now go get a teener!!!!

Jay you gotta get glowing orange eyes!! That thing looks good.

Your on a roll!! Now all you have to do is catch them on artificial bluegill insted of real ones. Actualy if it legal and your not fishing tournaments and your getting results the I wouldnt change a thing. If I know live bait will get me bit over artaficials then I have NO problem using it. Out here swimbaits will out fish live bait almost always. If you ever do fish a tourny during the spawn you will have a very good idea on how to catch them just make the fake gill do what the real ones were doing when they got bit. You are actualy teaching your self without even trying to. Congrats on all your recent big fish!!! keep posting them pics

Thanks guys. We kept them in a makeshift livewell. A huge cooler with an aireator so we could take pics of a group shot. We had a better day a while back before this one and I only have single pics and I realy wanted a big "group" shot. I only caught the 2 biggest ones. My friend caught the 3 smaller ones. We fished HARD all day and caoght the 3 biggest ones in the last half hour.

Well I had 2 realy good trips this year and this was not the better one. Its been long enough now I supose I could show one little pic. Sorry for the whited out back ground but you guys no how it is. Dont show where, and show the pics 1-3 months later.

Glenn come by and say Hi, I SHOULD be debuting my new line of rods.