Randall

Nice fish and that catfish had to be fun. Looks like a great place to fish with all those docks.

A couple weeks ago I had told my daughter we would go to a kids fishing event one of my buddys does every year called the Mini Me Classic. It's a great event where parents take their young kids out to fish in a fun tournament. Well, the day comes and my wife has to work at the last minute so there is no way we can get there since I have small pickup truck to pull the boat and four kids. So we decided to have our own tournament here at home for the most fish caught between my daughter and myself. We didn't get out till late in the day and the fish were in a tougher post spawn bite. It's usually easy to catch a bunch of small ones here since it's a small private lake with stunted fish and the fish always bite something but you don't see many big ones. It was tied up with two fish each when we decided the next fish would win it. Then, I set the hook on a big one with six pound line. My daughter got the camera and turned it toward me and got the fish on video about the time it made it's first jump. Here is the video and a couple photos.

Hammond's is the place worth hitting with a big selection. Biggest shop here by far with some different stuff you don't see in many shops. If you are on I-75 there is a place called the Dugout not too far off of it near Kennesaw.

As of right now I probably will not bring the boat. I have had several generous offers offering me a ride and a seat to fish out of so I will probably take them up on it.

I have had good results with the ZeRust boxes.

Got my calendar set and i don't have anything going on that week. Not sure how many days I will be there or when yet but it looks like I might be there the whole week.

I tried the rig for the first time this week for deep water (20-35 feet) since when I picked it up the head was much heavier than the others out there I could find. I was wrapping the line on it and figured out the head was heavier than the baits I was using and it was falling head first to the bottom and catching the line on almost every cast. To keep it from happening I had to start reeling very slow as soon as it hit the water instead of just letting it fall.to keep the head from going nose down. If I tried to cast it into the wind it turned as well. The baits would catch the wind and blow back over the head. I was fishing with 20-25mph gusts. I switched to the yumbrella rig and added weight with heavier jigheads and it fixed the problem. No problem at all casting into the wind or tangles with line as the bait fell to the bottom.

On most of the lakes I fish big bass are heaviest during the late fall. They expend less energy in the cooler water (50-55) and have the advantage of more available forage in preferable sizes to feed on. Eggs have much less to do with it than water temp and how easy it is for the fish to feed and get fat.

I fish a lake that has had a poor crawfish population for years. Past few years the crawfish population has rebounded. They bite a jig and crawfish imitations much better now then in the past. But I also think a jig could represent a bluegill or something else if fished with a swimming motion. If you know the lake or pond has few crawfish those type baits wouldn't be my first choice but I would mix them in and try to learn what the fish will hit when the fish are active. If you are catching them good on a worm then mix in the jig etc. to see what happens. Best time to try things you have little confidence in is when the fish are biting and easy to catch vs. trying to find the right bait when they aren't eating.

I don't wear glasses and have better then 20/20 vision the last time I checked. I wear a pair of the fitovers in low light conditions. They make a pair of fitovers that has a very light tint polarized lens. I think it is called a daylight lens or something like that. In low light conditions I still get protection from a hook in the eye and can see down in the water since they reduce glare without making it look so dark. I have won tournaments with them being able to sight fish way before anyone else on the lake could see fish or been able to sight fish on cloudy days when nobody else can with normal polarized glasses. They don't do much for my image but they help me catch fish.

i don't live far from you and there is only one lake I fish In this whole Atlanta area where I put my jig away most days once the fish start to spawn. On the rest of them I may get more bites on worms but the jig still produces fish. Right now It works both shallow and deep. Once I get into Late March on into April I stay shallow in less than 10 feet of water more often and fish jigs more around heavy cover along the shoreline.

As a general rule most movement will be horizonal not up or down. It all has to do with the swimbladder and how it is connected to the equilibrium of the fish and what a fish has to go through to change the swimbladder. I have watched LM bass follow baits on my depthfinder from 15 feet down around 5 -8 feet before turning off and coming back up but that is a temporary move to feed. I have seen largemouth in very clear water make an approx 8-10 foot rise to the surface to follow a swimbait but go straight back down within seconds. Deeper fish from my observation have a greater ability to move up and down as opposed to shallow fish and I suspect that is from water pressure being more consistant at deeper depths. I have watched Largemouth from both overhead walkways over ponds and lake and from underwater in extremely clear lakes for many days and they just don't move up or down that often or much. Most all of the movement is horizonal. Fish suspend over deeper water and move shallow at that depth when they become active to feed. Some that don't suspend hold to heavy cover and are just inactive. I have talked to Raplh Manns, who many consider to be one of the best biologists when it comes to bass, on the subject and he has noted the same thing as a diver observing bass as have others. Nobody that I know of has taken the time to do a true scientific study and have it published and reviewed by peers so there is no 100% sure on this in the scientific community. As far as fishermen many believe that the fish move up and down because they catch fish in the middle of the day deep and in the afternoon shallow. Many bait fish like threadfin shad don't have the same limitations that a bass does. Threadfin have no swimbladder so they make fast movements up and down throughout the day. They form tight bait balls under bright conditions and scatter more in low light conditions as a general rule. The bait movement, not the movement of the bass, causes the good shallow bite in the am and afternoon and the better deepwater conditions through out the day. I was never taught to bass fish by anyone other then what I saw on TV way back 20-30 years ago which wasn't much back then to lean from. So I came up with my own system and beliefs from overservation and what I learned on the water catching fish. I figured out the horizonal movement of bass in clear water lakes and have used it for probably around 20 years to catch fish. Many of my biggest fish have been caught suspended over deeper water midday after locating the bass shallow earlier in the day or week. I have also reversed it and found the fish with my depthfinder suspended over deep water and caught them when they moved into shallower water later at the same depth they were suspended at. So my whole system of fishing that I use is based on horizonal movements of fish and my belief that LM don't usually make large daily movements up or down.

That Ike Spike head is no longer made. TruTungsten who made it went under. It was real common to see the hook in that jighead break as well. I don't care for most heads that stand up myself . Just give me a regular round head with a normal jighook and a good keeper on the shank behind the head and I am happy.

There are a few of those here in GA. The PFA is producing big fish but is was stocked with low numbers as well so it can be tough fishing. It was stocked with either males or just a regualr stocking a year or two back so now there will be reproduction but the females are already big giving the lake a kind of predetermined balance of larger fish so it doesn't become over populated early on. There is one that is private on the coast on St. Simons island that is from what I heard much like a Kingfisher Society type place. Average fish there is around 5-6lbs now and going up. I first heard about it from guys who were talking about filming TV shows there so I would bet thats where Hank Parkers show was at although I didn't see it. I know of another private lake that did it as well with good results that is not open to the pubilc. I may be wrong but I think Alabama has one or two lakes like this as well with big fish. Edit: The one on St Simons is in a place called Frederica Township.

I fish the two extremes. I go as light as possible to leave the bait in front of the fish longer on the fall and go as heavy as possible to trigger strikes from the faster fall. I almost never fish in the middle unless the fish are just eating it so good you can do no wrong and feel like the fish just have to have it in near for them to eat it.

Nice Fish!

My favorite cheap jerkbaits are the Bass Pro Shop XPS. They usually float just a little in cool water so I can upsize the hooks and/ or rings and still get a good suspending bait.

I just gave away all my Mann's rigs to a kid down the street after seeing the comments from Tammy Poss the past few days on You Tube. Ordered 15 very light weight UMBRELLA RIGS from someone else. If they were looking to give me a reason to buy a knockoff or light weight umbrella rig they just did. I waited for the original but will not fish it now after seeing how they are acting toward people making videos of homemade rigs.

Most years the spawn will begin around mid March at West Point. This year I would look for it to start just a little earlier since warmer than usual winter weather wil lead to faster egg development. Still it souldn't hit a peak until around the end of March and early April or later when the water temps get into the mid sixties in the mornings. It could still be delayed as well if we have colder then normal weather for the next month or so.

Best use for the float is when you need to be way back from a bed and the wind is blowing. Usually those twwo don't happen at the same time so it's gets very little use from me.Let the float drift the bait to the bed using the rod, wind and boat angle to adjust where the float is going. Once the float is there the wind allows multiple drifts through the bed without casting It's not as effective as it sounds though since the hookset is tougher and slower the farther you are away from the fish. Fireline braid and a leader simaler to a float and fly setup works best. .

Go to the Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center east of Atlanta and stay in the campground. Fish will be shallow prespawn and spawning and you can walk around the lakes and ponds. It can still get cold and windy that time of year but many days are in the 80's at the end of March beginning of April. Good shot at a big fish over eight pounds on some of those lakes as well. My second choice would to be to stay near Lake Junaluska which is near Maggie Valley in Western NC. Lot's of campgrounds, motels and cabins here. You can shore fish this lake in some areas but some areas are off limits. It has good numbers of quality fish and a few big fish as well. It has a walking trail that goes around the lake which is surrounded by homes and church buildings. Good to call ahead and check lake levels and fishing rules here as both can change at the whim of the Methodist Church who owns and control access to the lake and fishing. Could also fish for smallmouth and trout in the area as well. Temps this time of year here run around ten degrees cooler than temps in Atlanta for both water and air temps You could possibly fish both of these in one trip but I would think you would do better staying at one and figuring out the pattern and staying with it.

Where I fish most of the larger males spawn first (I have no idea really as to why) but not the larger females.The females seem to have no pattern to them at all as to which are first and last. Females spawn more then once per season and on more then one bed so the theory of the big ones spawn first has no basis as far as I can see. What can happen is that as the water warms deeper the larger females will spawn deeper out of sight from most fishermen just can't see or find them while a few of the smaller bass continue to spawn a little shallower and are easy to see. I have had plenty of fishermen tell me there are nothing left but small fish on the beds spawning while I personally am still seeing plenty of big spawning fish deeper away from the banks. The fact that bass will spawn deeper on many lakes as the water warms more farther into spawning season makes it just appear that the big ones spawn first and that's where I think the rumor started.

Matt that one was 15lbs 12oz which is almost as big as the other one by weight. It was my longest bass ever at 31 1/2 inches long so it's my personal best by length. It is close to the weighed weight of my other fish but in reality my other fish which weighed 15lbs 14oz and was around 28 1/2 inches probably weighed around 17 lbs when we caught it. It spit up what I am guessing was a one pound gizzard and a bunch of other partialy digested stuff while we waited on a good scale. I call it 15lbs 14 oz because thats all I have proof and witnesses of but to me in my mind it's a seventeen pound fish or right at it. Funny thing is how the lake has changed since I caught the first big one and the difference in the shape of the fish. Hydrilla got into the lake and our fish are starting to get the shape to really have some good weight to them almost year round. I just need to catch another 31 inch fish with the shape of the other fish.

My year of fishing has come to a close. I didn't get out as much as years past but when I did I had some great fishing trips. Back in October my partner and myself won a tournament I had always wanted to win. We have several trails here in GA that fish smaller lakes less then 3500 acres and all those trails are invited to send the highest finishing teams to a small water State Championship called the JBAIT. I only fished a few tournaments this year and my partner did most of the work to qualify for the JBAIT. A the start of the tournament we had no fish after an hour of fishing and neither of use had fished the lake more then a few times. So I start talking about throwing swimbaits and just going for broke since we were on a herring lake and I had plenty of experience on herring type lakes throwing swimbaits and we couldn't do any worse then what we were. Well I pick up my swimbait rod and get a big fish to strike on my first cast with it on a point. I hand my partner Chris a swimbait rod and tell him if we get five bites like this one it will not even be close at the end of the day. Well, we got 20+ bites and weigh in around 21 lbs to a second place weight around 11lbs. So, I was really wanting to get back down there after the tournament because I didn't really know the lake at all but we still had a good day during the tournament just because the fish were on a swimbait bite and I picked up on it pretty quick being as thats what I fish most of the time. So I went back a few weeks later and had a best five over 28lbs and caught around 25 fish. So the next time I went a put a camera up in the boat but went after a cold front had passed just to try it under tough conditions. Still caught a lot of fish and had probably two limits over twenty pounds. This is on the video I am posting so you can see for yourself. Went back the next week after the water temp had dropped a bunch in a weeks time and the bite was tougher even though it was a warm day but they were still eating the swimbait. This is day two on the video. Went back a couple times after that and they were still hitting the swimbaits. Anyway here is the video of two of the days I was down there fishing. No real huge fish and it was really some tough fishing but alot of fun since you could see most of the strikes and had a lot of fish follow the bait a long way before they hit. http://youtu.be/z2TprsQXI28

Great fish Paul!