Randall

I do it on my TT Shad baits. Short shank number 4s are no problem. If you go with a 2 just use the front hook. Upsizing the hooks keeps the bait down better and there is not a big difference in action.

I have been on some good fish for a few weeks at Varner. The water is starting to warm up and is in the fifties all over the lake. The numbers of fish caught wasn't way up there when the water was colder a couple of weeks ago but most of what I have been catching have been quality fish in the three to six pound range. The best five have been around 15 to 25 pounds most days. Just a lot of good quality fish being caught with no real giants to speak of. My biggest have been a couple of eight pounders. The past few days we have caught over twenty fish a day. There have also been a couple slow days. Last Friday was tough. We caught one good three or four pound fish and had just a few bites all day. But the fish are biting most days and late Feburary has always been one of the best times of the year to get numbers of quality fish. There are really two differnet bites going on right now for me. The active shallow fish can be tough to find but once you find them you can often get more than one fish from a small spot. On the flats and points we have been using jerkbaits and rattletrap type baits. If you catch one work the area again and you usually get a few more since the fish are bunched up this time of year. The fish aren't scattered out much and seem to be just using the sweet spots near deeper water to feed. At times a jerkbait with long pauses can also be used to catch inactive fish suspended in deeper water near the flats and points. My best bite right now for larger fish is in 10-20 foot range. These schools of fish are often huge with a lot of fish in them and you can see them bunched up on your depth finder. My best three baits for these fish have been a big deep diving crankbait, shakey head and a jig. Alot of times I am finding the active fish with the crankbait and then slowing down with the jig and worm to catch all I can out of the school. If you find a big active school you should be able to sit in one spot and load the boat with fish for the next couple of weeks. Last Sunday we caught twelve fish up to five pounds out of a good school in about an hour from one small spot. I am just glad to see some warm weather. Nice to be able to fish and feel my hands and toes all day. :)I didn't take many photos this past week but Clipper took this one. The photo here is Bass Resource member Clipper's son and a couple nice fish from our trip last Saturday.

Best bet for big bass in GA is lake Varner which is near Covington between Augusta and Atlanta. You have a very realistic shot at a eight to ten pound fish with a chance at one over ten pounds. My biggest bass was 15lbs 12oz and was caught in April on Lake Varner. I also caught my biggest five fish limit ever in April at Varner. It was 47.4 lbs for five fish. Fish will be spawning at that time and sight fishing and swimbaits are the best ways to catch the larger fish. Senkos and lightly weighted trickworms work well also. There is no campground but you can find one nearby. Only downside is the lake is electric only and you may want an extra trolling motor and a few extra batteries and leave the gas motor and tank at home. If you really want the kind of fishing you only read about in magazines this would be the place. There are also a few lakes that allow ten hp motors that have good fishing and campgrounds but don't come close to Varner for big fish near Atlanta. Stone Mtn Park just outside Atlanta allows 10hp on the lake inside the park. It has a good population of four and five pound fish and it took 18-22 pounds a day last year to win tournaments in April. Hard Labor Creek State Park is east of Atlanta and is usually a stained water shallow water cover type lake at that time of year. They allow a 10hp and I believe they have a campground. Another choice in the same area is Charlie Elliot. They have a bunch of small lakes and ponds in one place and you could fish some from a boat and some from shore. They have a campground but the lakes will be all electric.

You don't need the larger 6500. Go with the smaller reel for those baits. Unless you plan on throwing them on 25lb+ test the 5600 will hold plenty of line. That rod will work also.

Not saying that you didn't get bad service. But, I got a bad shad swimbait and a sales guy from TT heard from someone else that my bait was bad and he went out of his way to get my phone # and make sure my bait was replaced and that I was happy. I wasn't all that worried about it but I was impressed with the fact that he called me to replace the bait and find out what went wrong with it. Could be that he just thought I could hurt his sales because of my relationship with many of the tackle store owners around here but I was still impressed with the service. Just out of curiosity what was your problem with TT.

Soft plastic swimbaits could mean a lot of things and could be anything from a light paddle tail type bait to a heavy trout type bait. Be more specific in which baits you will or might be using and it will be easier to give you some help.

I logged in no problem.

Here are a few common arguements that people always have to bedfishing and my view on them as it relates to my personal fishing. 1. It harms the future populations. While it may limit future populations if the fish doesn't spawn I see this as a good thing. Where I fish in the South we have a problem with too many small fish so it would help by keeping the population of smaller fish down. It's not much different than taking out the small fish before they are there. In GA they actually are starting to stock some trophy lakes with all females and no males so they don't spawn often and it's working. Our best big fish lakes are the ones that are heavily sight fished and our lakes haven't been destroyed by sight fishing. If I lived in Canada I probably wouldn't sight fish but I don't. 2. It's taking unfair advantage of fish at a time when it's vunarable. I do the same thing to fish feeding heavily before a storm in summer. The fact that I know exactly where a fish feeds on structure lets me set up on a spot just like I do a bed. Trust me. The fish feeding before the storm is way easier to catch than the one on a bed. One fish is protecting an area and one is hungry. I take full advantage of both. 3. You are just aggravating a fish until it bites and thats not sportsman like. I do the same thing to inactive fish that aren't feeding in deep water. I set up on a spot and cast repeatedly at the same spot fishing very slowly until I finally aggravate the fish to strike. 4. Big females are under stress during the spawn. I always find this one funny since fish are also under a ton of stress during the heat of summer. If you use this one then you should skip summer fishing also and just fish in the fall when fish are fat healthy and the water is cool. You should also never catch fish in deep water in winter since it will stress the fish to have to fizz it. Untill someone comes up with a GOOD reason to change my mind that actually has some proof of it being wrong or more hamful than other times of the year I will keep on catching them.

Here is a little info that will get you started. http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/ambush_bass.html

There are better baits out there for the money. Paint will chip off quick. I don't know if the guy still makes them but there was a company called Muskysnacks that made musky baits that were something like the Flat Jack with the same profile but better made. I traded for a used one and it was much better than the Flat Jack. If you just want a topwater type bait get one of fourbizz's 2x4s. I don't have one but have heard nothing but good things about them.

Didn't the company that makes Spot Remover have an issue with the guys at spotsticker way back when all this shakey head craze started and involve lawyers and such? Why would they go to all that trouble if the bait is not a shakey head like the spotsticker in the first place? ;D I do see your point though and agree since it stinks as a shakey head. My simple solution to the problem is to get another good standup shakey head if it must stand up without a screwlock or peg to put the worm at a bad angle and get in the way and start catching fish. If you get in my boat with a spot remover the first thing I am going to tell you is you are going to miss fish and offer you another brand. Also I have tried the over the head hookset at Ryan's advice just to try it when someone had some Spot Removers in my boat and it still misses fish although it does work better.

Yep the small basstrix paddletail works great on it. Thats the first way I fished both baits and it's worked great ever since.

I agreee with Matt in the fact that five inches and up is best for larger fish. I use the smaller shad baits to target fish from one to maybe five pounds at the most. I may catch a larger fish on them here and there but mostly it will be smaller fish. If I only want to catch six pound fish and up I am going to be using a larger bait. I do think you can get too big even for bigger fish sometimes but that bait will be a lot bigger than that little shad bait. I have also caught some fish under twelve inches including a crappie and big bluegill on that shad bait so it will catch the little ones.

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1195964724/0#0 Here are two ways I rig mine.

I have used all of Matt's Baits. They are all good so you can't really go wrong. I have caught a few eight to ten pound bass on Matt's Woody. ;D

Mattlures hard bluegills would be my choice for a bluegill imitation. www.Mattlures.com If you want a sinker you will need to hurry since he has been sold out of the sinkers for a while and has just put some more on his site. I can't really suggest a small shad shape bait less than six inches. I wasn't all that impressed with any of them more than the other. Triton Mike makes a great bait in his smaller 6 inch Bull Shad bait http://www.tritonmike.com/bullshad.html. If you want a smaller hard bait get a sebile magic swimmer. It's not exactly a shad shape but it works great and I have had no issues with it. You can just google sebile and plenty of sites will come up.

The tooth patch is not a 100% reliable way to tell them apart. The fish you caught may have been LM if they looked like LM.

I have never broken a Rapala bill that I can remember but then again I don't crank rocks often and fish mostly wood and grass with them. I don't make my cranks dig hard into the bottom either which could also cause the lips to break easily in rock. But I also agree with Rapala in the fact that the thin bill is what makes that bait work. I will take a broken bill or two just to get the action and depth out of the bait. Before the DT series I had to grind and sand all my bills down on other brands and with the DT's I don't have to anymore.

I took the owner out so he could do some filming on lake Varner. No doubt the lures will catch fish and we caught one or two small ones. But under the circumstances when I was catching around twenty five to thirty pounds a day for five fish the Wingman failed to produce anything more than some just barely keepers. I tried to catch a big one on the Wingman but it just didn't work since the bait wasn't the type of bait they wanted that day. Part of the deal we had was for me not to bring my baits but at the end of the day I found a used torn up part of a trickworm in the boat and caught a five pounder in two casts just to show that I had them on big fish the whole time but they just didn't want the Wingman. It's just another bait or tool but not better than anything else out there. If you need a bait with that profile that has a swimming action then it would be a great bait.

I can't tell how clear the water is really. I am talking about seeing the bottom at around twenty feet down where I have seen fish marked like that. I am not sure what exactly causes it. Also the lakes I was taking about have Florida strain x northern in them. I can think of some real clear lakes that have just northern strain in them that I have never caught one with the markings like that that I can remember. Maybe that has something to do with it?

Largemouth. Probably from very cold and very clear water. I catch some big ones that have the markings showing more like that every year in the colder months when the water temps are cold. It's very normal and nothing out of the ordinary in clear cold lakes in winter. Also a big female fish caught just before she drops eggs on a bed in a clear lake will often have that color but change to a darker color after they drop eggs on a bed. I can often tell what stage of spawning a fish is in and how catchable it is by its color. Hormones release in the spawning female to make it darker as the eggs are dropped and it will lose many of the markings you see in the photo. Also fish that are actively feeding usually get darker in color and lose some markings. I have watched this happen in the tank at the Bass Pro Shop Tank at feeding time. I have never seen a fish this color in stained or muddy water. They are usually just pale or dark with fewer markings.

I was given a crankbait when a guy from Laser Lure did a short presentation at a seminar I did with Triton Mike. Very nice guy and very good at his presentation. He wasn't exactly what I expected to be selling a lure with a light on it. ;D He sold a ton of the baits from the store we were at to some pretty good fishermen. I am very skeptical of the bait and told him I was. He said to give it an honest chance and just fish with it but didn't try to sell me on the idea at all. Just gave me a bait to try. As soon as I find a good crankbait bite I will let you all know what I find. I have seen the fish in a tank follow and try to strike a laser pointer light so maybe there is something to it. I still doubt it though and will fish it side by side with another crankbait to see what happens.

What I was talking about doesn't have anything to do with water being clearer in cold water but the biology of the bass.

In addition bass can see much better in cold water than warm water. I can't remember the study I read about this or exactly why this is but am sure I read it and it was by a reputable source.

Paul there is a small lake about 200-250 acres near where I live that is the most visited State Park in GA. It gets over one million visitors a year and most of those all come in just a few months. It has shoreline access all the way around it and often has people lined up on the banks fishing. Now it may be that all the fish around the shoreline have just been caught but there is rarely the number of fish around the shore that I see on most lakes and the shallow fish suspend real shallow but way off shore. It's common to see fish just under the surface 75 yards offshore over twenty feet of water. I personally believe the pressure moves these fish way off the banks until the people are gone at night then the fish move right up to the shore and feed. I might be right or I may be wrong but I believe the hundreds of people there each day cause the shallow fish to move out.