paul.

great fish daniel. way to go man. if you don't mind could you tell the baits? they really look cool. congrats buddy.

real nice. congrats on that win and the nice fish.

that bites. hate you lost that fish man. my experience is that any spiderwire product is just flat out inferior. maybe some other folks have had good experiences with it, but not me. anyway, the drag issue seems to have been the primary problem. my suggestion would be to never, never, never tighten the drag on a short line. drag settings that are adequate with plenty of line out (because of line stretch) will cause a break off on a short line. the limited amount of line just can't stretch enough. you can pretty much bet with a big fish, you are usually gonna get one final surge when they see you, the boat, or the bank. so if anything, you need to loosen your drag as a big fish comes near. you'll get her next time man. it's better to have fought a monster and lost than not to have fought one at all. good luck in your next battle.

dave, your old man is takin' ya to the woodshed here lately. you simply cannot allow this to continue. ;D ;D ;D nice pix and post. way to go dave and dad.

way to go dave and dad. good times. then put down that trick stick every once in a while and try a swimbait. don't make me resort to the peer pressure tactic - "c'mon, everyone else is doing it". j/k dave, any bass is a good bass and there's no such thing as a bad fishing trip.

another testimonial for the swimbaits. great trip doug. rock on bro.

those are some good 'uns.

that's a lunker anywhere, but a GIANT up north!!! congrats man.

very, very nice. that woulda even been cool with a little one. but a lunker to boot? sweet!!!

shhhhhh. :-X

and another hard-pulling catfish. the end to another fantastic trip with my sweet daughter.

a nice catfish for emily:

the time-honored tradition of catching your own bait:

lil' emily wanted to go get after 'em tonight. a couple of things have changed since our last trip. now she calls herself the fishing princess, and that's o.k. with me . after last trip, she wanted to have something to make sure she continued to have good luck. so together we made what is now known as the "fishing princess necklace" out of some beads and a #4 willowleaf spinnerbait blade. this stunning piece of fine jewelry wields awesome fishing mojo powers, and she made sure she had it on before we left the house. here she shows off her "fishing princess necklace" before we leave home:

thanks so much for y'all's kind words as always. and thanks you matt for being willing to share your expertise. you know i'll be hittin' ya up for some advice.

evan, i don't think there's any way a fish with those measurements is 7-anything. my best guess would be 6.5-6.75. either way though, that's a very nice fish. good job.

that sounds real cool. glad y'all had fun.

amen brother russ! testify! i believe, i believe! this is a great post. i hopped on the bandwagon myself a few days ago. now i could kick myself for being so stubborn and not using swimbaits the past few years. i bought what i'm calling "THE BAIT" back about a week or so ago. it hurt unbelievably bad to plunk down that kinda money for a bait. and in the back of my mind, i felt like i was probably wasting my time and money. but i was determined to give it a try. i went all of june without catching a lunker and i was desperate to break the streak, even if it meant resorting to a "radical" technique like learning and throwing a bait that is totally new to me. truthfully, i did not go hardcore like russ and get big baits right off the bat (and i still haven't). like it is to a lot of other anglers, it is important to me to catch some fish, even small ones, on a bait for me to have confidence in it and continue to throw it. so i got a regular size swimbait, figuring at least i would catch a few regular size bass. to say i have been amazed with the results is an understatement. it only took a few days for me to break the lunker drought and get a big fish. now i am convinced the "big baits" will produce and will have no problem purchasing them. russ covered so many key points above, there really isn't anything i can add in terms of what i have learned so far about using these baits except 2 things. 1 - be prepared for a lot of "follows" without a bite. this is frustrating but i honestly think even inactive fish are so intrigued by the action of these baits at times that they follow them just out of curiosity. trust me, if a fish wants the bait, it'll let you know it real quick. swimbait hits are really cool. they don't strike the bait, they try to EAT IT. 2- resist the urge to overwork these baits. most of us are used to trying to "do something" with our baits to make them look injured or wounded. even though i'm sure this tactic will work with swimbaits, to me it doesn't seem to be the best one. i had to learn to resist the urge to "overwork" the bait. like russ said, just crank it in slowly, pause every once in a while, and let the bait work its magic. again, great post russ. thanks a bunch. please let us swimbait novices know as you continue to learn so we can learn too.

man those are some good 'uns for sure. rock on!

thanks y'all. dave i think that pvc thingy is a "holder" to put fish food pellets in so it all stays in there and don't float ashore. that's my guess anyway and i could be wrong. i've never seen it used for anything so who knows. :-? it couldn't hold fish, cause there's nothing below the pvc to keep fish contained in. this is a different lake than the ones i catch bass in.

here's one of the 4 nice cats she helped dad catch last night. she also caught many feisty little bluegills and warmouths. we had a great time.

spent about 2 hours of quality time with my youngest last night catchin' bream and cats. well, o.k., she did most of the catchin' but that's how it's supposed to be, right? here's a couple of pix of our adventure. first, little emily puts the heat to a nice catfish with all the energy her 49 pounds can muster (except for whatever energy it takes to smile for the camera). ;D

GIANT!!! that's just great man. way to go.

real cool man. glad y'all had a good time.

y'all please forgive me if i don't tell the exact bait this time, at least not for a while. it is just such a great bait and no one around here is using it as far as i know. i'd kinda like to keep it that way as long as i can. you can tell by the way fish commit to and hit this bait they are totally fooled by it. they want to EAT IT, not just strike it. i always wondered why cali bassers spent so much money on swimbaits when there were perfectly good "tried and true" baits around for much cheaper. now i think i'm starting to figure it out.