paul.

hey guys. long time no see. things have been kinda busy here. sorry i haven't had much time for posting. i have been stopping in though and i have been really impressed big time by all the nice catches y'all are putting up. hope all of y'all are having a great spring and smackin' those bass around. i decided that this was going to be the year i was going to return to "big water" bassin' and so with some help from my good buddy Steve, i got a "new to me" boat a few weeks ago. it must still have some of that "Big O Mojo" all over it, cause i've been doing pretty good at kentucky lake. of course those good ol' ragetail baits ALWAYS pack plenty of mojo, and that's what i've been gettin' 'em with. both of these nice ones here got "enraged" and caught a mouthful of steel, express delivery, courtesy of 50 lb. braid. the first one came on a jig and rage craw fishing out of the back of my friend's boat last week. the second fell to the new "falcon craw" colored rage craw yesterday on my first trip out in my new rig. i'm tellin' y'all that color is GREAT. better start fishing it before your friends do. of course both fish were quickly released after smiling for the camera. here's a couple of nice ragetail bass along with a pic of my boat. hope y'all are catchin' some too.

set up to bed? if they were staying in the same area circling around like that and not moving at all, particularly if it was 2 fish, it sounds like they were already ON A BED or at least very, VERY close. hate to break this to ya, but if that's the case, saturday might be too late, at least for a shot at the female. by then these 2 will have done their business and the female (usually the larger of the 2 fish) might have moved on. the male will stick around longer as he has guard duty. but the window of opportunity on a female can be very small sometimes. if this is a good bedding area though, the female probably hasn't gone far. you might even find her on another nest with a different male in the same general area.

that's awesome kent. happy for ya bud. hope you get plenty more and i'm sure you will. i believe the fish had to be huge. your story alone weighs 3.2 pounds. ;D congrats bro.

that's a big ol' hawg. congrats. i know you were stoked.

keep an eye on the area where you saw the fish. they might be scoping out a bedding area. some good lure choices mentioned already. if the fish are just cruising, the trick worm is about as good as it gets. a small t-rigged plastic with a light weight like a baby rage craw should work well too on cruising fish provided you don't cast on top of them and spook 'em. a small live minnow or crawdad might do well too. once they get in spawn mode, your choices open up considerably.

is that a carp or a buffalo? looks more like a buffalo to me, but i sure ain't no expert on those species. either way, nice fish and glad you got a good fight out of it. as far as the measurements go, this is kinda doing it backward. but for an 11 pound fish, at least based on bass measurements, you are probably looking at 25-26" long. using the formula L X L X G / 1200 to arrive at the weight, you are probably looking at a girth of anywhere from 21 - 23". so the measurements are probably pretty close to a 25" length and a 22" girth. hope that helps.

us bass fisherman can be quite an odd bunch sometimes. complain when the fishing is too hard, and then turn around and complain when it's too easy. seems what we really wanna do is catch a bunch of big fish on highly pressured water or under tough conditions before we think we've done anything significant to actually be proud of. for the life of me, with the exception of tournament anglers who HAVE to do this if they are gonna be successful, i can't see why we put so much pressure on ourselves. isn't this supposed to be fun? :-?

try something new. something you haven't done before or wanna get better at. if you don't catch any fish, you're no worse off than you were. if you do, your confidence in a seldom-used technique just grew by leaps and bounds as it pulled you out of a slump. either way, you are learning, improving, and making yourself a more versatile angler. this too shall pass............................. ;D

whatever you wanna call it, i call it a huge bass. hat's off to ya. great job. 8-)

great job man! that's flat out whackin' 'em right there. congrats.

bb, you have a good point buddy. this fish was actually caught off a bed for the before picture. but it was late in the spawn and she'd already been to bed a couple of times that year. being that she appeared to be one of the biggest bass in that particular water, i had observed her from the time she first "moved up" a month or so earlier. i even caught her the first time she went to bed, and she was only a shade over 8 then in prime condition. at least it was what was "prime condition" for her back then. i could tell by looking at her (and the other fish too), that they could carry substantially more weight than what they were packing. it was obvious that some drastic measures had to be taken if those fish were ever gonna grow. hopefully, now i'm on the right track. i have some realistic hopes that she will get to 11 or better before the spawn this year. even looking as good as she did for today's pic, she was still soft-bellied, so i think she could easily carry another pound. but yes, you are right, and very observant. the before pic probably represents pretty close to "worse case scenario" for her. but on the flip side, i don't think the after pic is even close to "best case scenario"

you are so right matt! the spawn is the one chance you have to identify the male bass. i like to keep a few big males in to hopefully enhance the genetic pool. but the dink males have to go. and i only care about a few fish spawning. the more i can interrupt, the less small fish i'll have to worry about practicing "selective harvest" on later. as a manager, it is so important to be able to accurately diagnose which fish have the most trophy potential. and believe it or not the best way to do this in my book is to be able to to see the big picture. you have to look beyond the obvious. in considering which fish need to stay and which fish need to go, i rarely consider the actual size of the fish, unless of course it's one that's already grown to be large. but rather what i consider is the apparent overall health of the fish in question and it's apparent growth rate - i.e. how fast it seems to be growing. it is hard to get rid of 3, 4, and even 5 pound fish. but if those fish cannot show me consistent growth over an adequate trial period, they have to go. in short, i'll keep what appears to be a young, super healthy, fast growing 2 pounder over an average looking 4 pounder. in order to get very big, fish have to be able to make the most of every growing season available to them. and they do most of their growing by far when they are younger. to illustrate, we'll use the fish above. yes, she's a beauty. yes, i've been able to reverse her fortune dramatically with some decent management. but the truth is, judging from her "before" picture, her best growth years were at least partially, if not mostly wasted. had she been able to live up to her potential, i have no doubt that she would be a teener right now. i have some fish coming up behind her that if everything goes according to plan, might weigh at least a pound more than she does now when they are a year younger. we'll keep our fingers crossed. i'm still very new to this and very green at this management stuff. who knows what i'll learn in another year? :-?

for those who don't remember, i've said for a long time that i'm the poster child for "if THAT guy can catch big fish, anybody can!" now you may also say of me, "if THAT guy can grow big fish, anybody can!" i'm gonna show y'all something. i finally got serious about bass management last year. that's when i caught a long, skinny bass that i now call "spottie" (because of a black spot on her bottom jaw eerily similar to the famous "dottie"). it bothered me that she and other fish in this particular lake were not living up to their full potential. i got permission from the landowner to try and "manage" his water for trophy fish. studying some info from bob lusk and other sources, and applying a little common sense, i went to work. i could tell you how difficult, expensive, and time consuming it has been. but that would be a flat out lie. anyone can do this. you don't have to be rich. you don't have to spend hours a week. you don't have to be a fisheries biologist. you don't even have to own a pond or lake. if anything, i will say that i am utterly shocked at how quickly success has come for me. look at spottie's "before" picture taken less than a year ago. at barely over 7.5 pounds, she was obviously malnourished and living a hard life. fast forward to today and prepare to be amazed by the power of small water bass management. i will confess that i did not weigh her. the spawn is nearing and i wanted to get her back in asap. but ladies and gentlemen, this fish weighs 10 pounds if it weighs an ounce, and honestly i think she weighs more considering how "thick" she was. she will get even bigger than this with warm weather coming up feeding for the spawn. and as proud as i am of spottie, i must confess that she is a regular old northern strain "mutt bass" without any type of fancy genetic pedigree. doing the math, that's a gain of about 2.5 pounds in less than a year. and this is tennessee, not south texas. and this is not the only sucess story by any means. i could show you others that pound for pound and according to their age have vastly "outgrown" this one. those would just make ya sick though. hopefully, this will inspire some of you who have been thinking about this management stuff to give it a try. thanks to gene and ryan for convincing me to post this. if not for the awesome stuff they've put up about richmond mill, y'all woulda probably never seen this. now i'm gonna go ahead and tell ya that i ain't givin' up any secrets. if i did, that would discourage you from reading and studying and finding your own path. and then you would only be able to do as good as i have. and i want you to be able to do better. good luck!

bingo! that's been our experience also. i keep my reel in free spool, but i keep the line tight by holding my thumb on the spool. when that bait starts going crazy, you better be ready 'cause you're about to get hit. you can feel the hit sometimes, but it's not a necessarily bone-jarring strike. when i get hit, since we're using such big baits, i just take my thumb off the spool and let 'em run with it a few seconds to make sure they have the hook. they will peel some serious line off the reel in no time flat. then i just engage the reel and hit 'em. now with artificials, it's a whole different ballgame. they will absolutely SMOKE an artificial - even something slow like a swimbait. if you are fishing something faster, you definitely better have a tight grip on the rod and that's no joke. i have my drag set properly, and still they will bend the hooks on some of the plugs i'm using just on a strike. it's that vicious.

excellent! congrats on such a great day and a REAL nice bass.

striped bass that is! i just can't get enough. slammed 'em again yesterday. first pic is a nice one i caught on a big swimbait. i think it was mad because it was born with a hump in it's tail and all the other fish made fun of it. ;D it sure fought like it had a grudge anyway. the next pic is my good buddy tony with another hard pullin' little chunk. in this shot you can get a good look at the size live baits we're using for these bad boys. just a couple of several stripers we got yesterday. what fun. i never want it to end. largemouth? huh? what's that? :-?

excellent! great job bud. hope there's many more like that for ya this year.

cool post. nice fish. rw and others are right. the trap was workin' for us on ky lake back when the temps were in the 30's so i'm sure it's workin' now too. the real hot bait for me and the guys i fish with has been the square bill shallow running crank. also been catchin' on finese jigs. i am done bass fishing on the river for the most part as long as i can catch stripers though. ;D on another note - real nice fish braden! congrats bud.

a real milestone and something you'll never forget. hope there's plenty more for ya. fantstic job man.

great outing man. that's a real nice one you got there. great you released 'em too.

way to kick things off. hope there's a bunch more like that for ya in 2010.

i don't know much about florida geography and what is where. but i do know this. if i was going to florida to fish for bass, george welcome is the guide i'd want. check out some of his posts here and you'll see why. not sure if he guides anywhere besides stick marsh/farm 13 though.

very nice catch burley. that one's fat and sassy for sure. for some reason, they seem to fight better when they're built like that. bet it was fun. no matter what it weighs it's a good 'un.

good job dad. we'll be seing pics of them holding fish soon i'm sure. either way, it's the fun and togetherness that counts.

finally a nice day when me and little em could get out together. good sunshine, good smiles, good times, and good fish. all came on ultralight spinning gear and 4 pound test. all fought and caught by one of the best little anglers you ever saw. it don't get any better than this boys and girls.