Randall

No thanks. We don't have those around here but if I remember correctly their food poisioned or killed some people at one time. At that point I put a reminder back in my mind somewhere that if I ever saw one not to stop and eat.

I disagree. Flurocarbon is the best line for feel on long casts with a bow in the line. Braid is the worst for feel. Braid is only sensitive when it is pulled all the way tight with heavier weights. At all other times it is the least sensitive line with almost no feel at all. Fluro is dense and the bite transmits up the slack line much better. Mono and braid are less dense and have less sensitivity. But even with fluro you will not feel some fish on semi-slack line. First thing after the bait hits bottom don't think as the first movement of the rod and reel being one to move the bait but just tighten the line and feel for the fish. The bait will move anyway as you feel for the fish all the way back to the boat or shore.

We didn't have a working reliable scale with us that we thought was correct (old batteries in mine) and didn't want to stress the fish in this hot weather to find a better scale. Cheap scale said only 9lbs. Bass Resource weight calculator says over twelve pounds at 26.5 inches and 18 inch girth. I am going to say the fish probably weighed between these two weights somewhere. The head on the fish was huge though and I would like to catch this fish when its fat and full of eggs in winter or early spring.

Here are a few photos from my last few trips to Varner and one from a new lake I fished called Towaliga. My favorite time of year to fish is the first couple weeks of June. All the bass have recovered from the spawn and have bunched up on structure. The fish are predicatable. If you know what to look for you can go to a big fish spot and call your shot on a big fish at times. Pull up to the spot and just say the big fish will be right there. These photos are from the last five trips. And there were many more fish in the eight pound plus range that were lost. It's hard to land all the big ones on light line and spinning tackle but it's fun. We didn't just get the big fish either. Many of these trips ended in twenty to fifty fish being caught as well with a lot of three and four pound bass. Most all of them were caught on split shot rigs with eight pound line and a straight tail worm. I did get into a big bunch of big hybrids one day with swimbaits and had eight over six pounds. Last year this bite lasted until late July before it slowed down so I hope it works out that way this year. It's been fun and I can't wait to get back out there.

????? Does your "major in biology" qualify you to make such a statement? A degree in biology alone is really not that impressive to me. There are total idoits that get a degree. Just because you get some knowledge in school doesn't mean you can use that knowledge well to perform in the real world once you get out. I don't think it would qualify me for really anything other than to go apply for a job somewhere that just wanted that piece of paper. I chose not to go that route and do something that depended more on performance. I have learned much more about fish and their enviroment since leaving college as well as the fact that much of what was taught as fact was not true or just unproven theory. My job every day depends on the fact that I can help my clients catch fish under all conditions in all seasons in many different types of lakes. Rarely do I fail at this and I have been doing it for a while now. It's been my experience that most fisheries biologist just use what they have been taught and take it as fact whether it is right or wrong. Blueback herring would ruin all the Ga lakes they were in according to biologists in GA just a few years ago. They just based this on what they were taught and told. Now if you were to fish Lanier or Clarks Hill before the bluebacks and after you would realize how ignorant the biologist who made the statement was. Lanier became the best spotted bass lake in the US after the bluebacks were introduced. And Clarks Hill became a great LM bass lake. I could go on and on with example after example of unproven stuff that is taught and used by biologists that is just as wrong. From all my days on the water I see and learn way more than they could about catching fish and how fish live in their enviroment than most can at their job. I am not saying this is true about all biologist but it is true of many of them. Most, unless it is in a competitive enviroment, don't have to perform well to keep their job. So, they just keep doing things the same way whether it is right or wrong.

Exactly, Just my feelings on the subject. If anyone wants to go learn all thay can about the scientific side of things then thats fine with me. I am just relating my experience from both sides of things.

Knowledge Constipation and Detail Head. I heard a motvational type speaker use these two terms years ago and he called them the worst two failure diseases. This applys to all things we do in life and not just fishing. Being a biology major in college and trying to learn all I could about bass biology since then I have a lot of knowledge about bass and their ecosystems. There is nothing wrong with that and I have used that knowledge along with a lot of trail and error while fishing to come up with a simple system that I use to catch fish to catch fish. The thing is that my system is simple and none of the complicated details of bass biology are running through my head while I am fishing. It all comes down to forage and bass location and how they relate to each other at different times of the year. If you try to make it more complicated than that then your head will be so full of crap that you will not be able to get any information out to use and your confidence suffers as you fail. You will be confused and thats called knowledge constipation. You can also be so consumed with unimportant details that you will be confused and not be able to do the simple things right and that is called detail head. Both things will lead to failure. My other problem with the scientific approach to bass fishing is that much of the science you hear from biologist is just wrong. If you listen to all of it you will fill your head full of lies that will hurt your fishing rather than help it. Fishing as I know it is nothing more than a belief system that we use to try to catch fish. The more simple you can make your belief system the better. There is nothing wrong with taking new knowledge to refine your fishing belief system to make it better as long as it stays simple. There is something wrong with making your system so complicated with biology it confuses you to the point you can't catch a fish.

Only true to a point. If its an easy meal and worth the effort abig bass will eat it. Sometimes big baits can be harder to capture and swallow and big bass will not touch them because they have learned to be efficient. I personally catch more big bass on 5 to 8 inch baits than I do on nine inch plus baits. But, I will at times throw a bigger bait when I believe bass to be feeding on larger forage.

Best time of the day to throw topwater is midday. ;D "Topwater only works in the am" is a myth. Its only true for those who don't know how to adjust the the conditions and keep on catching them on top. In the extreme heat of summer (over 100) with a 95 degree water temp I went out fishing with Mike D of Lunkerville and caught shallow topwater fish at high noon. It was hot and the fishing was slow but the fish still hit on top. You can see it in the "Georgia on My Mind " show at www.lunkerville.com. Clear baits, fast retrieves, and fishing close to cover are all tricks I use to get strikes on top in the middle of the day. I even have a top secret buzzbait I make for the middle of the day. It will not roll over at blazing fast speeds and it has a clear skirt. The best topwater bite on deep spotted bass and smallmouth lakes here in GA is almost always at mid day on bright sunny days with just a little wind. I often fish shallow weedy lakes in July and August and tell the people I am fishing with just to bring topwaters and that there is no need to start before 11am. The big ones don't bite early. The best topwater bite I see all year for big fish is in July and August in less than five feet of water in the middle of the day. Now with all that being said early in the am or at night aren't bad either.

Fiberglass or aluminum boat? If you epoxy the transducer inside an aluminum boat with that model or probably any model it will not work well. Had a buddy try it after I told him not to and he had problems much like you are having. Its always best to mount the transducer outside the hull.

The pattern I fished with spawning fish will just about be over by this weekend. Most of the fish should be post spawn in that area. I would try plastics and topwater.

Not True.

None of the knock offs swim like the original straight out of the package and most of the weighted hooks being sold out there don't help the action any. But, after using Basstrix for a few years and suddenly not being able to get them anymore I have learned to modify the Shadalicious and Bass Magic to swim as good as if not better than the original and you get way more sizes to chose from. The Berkley one is the closest without modification and the Mattlures minnow swims great but is a different bait all together. I will post a modified bait with photos of how to do it sometime in the next couple of weeks since it seems like it's what everyone is looking for and I have had a few people ask me what I am doing different to make mine work.

Varner still isn't bad and is still one of the best in the US for big fish but it's just different than past years. The lake just keeps changing year to year and the grass carp even in the very limited numbers is making the lake fish much tougher for most since the bass are deeper. The hybrids just keep the lake and LM bass from their full potential since they compete with the LM for the deep water areas I will say if they continue to stock more grass carp until all the grass is gone and continue to stock more hybrids it will be over as far as producing 10 lb fish. Burley the Dinkmaster would still be happy there though since nothing would change for him.

Here is his eight pounder.

I have been real busy lately and have been fishing from daylight to dark most days . I haven't had much time to post here and I usually get pretty tired after fishing almost everyday for long days during March and April. I know everybody wants to be a guide because its a dream job and I shouldn't complain. ::)Well a couple weeks ago I had one of those things happen that make all the long days seem worth it. Here is the story. I got a call from Ben Smith who is a frustrated beginner at bass fishing and has only been fishing for a few months. Well, we went out fishing and I showed him how to catch a couple small fish off beds to get him warmed up for a bigger one. After just a few minutes I find a big one on a bed about nine pounds. Ben says his biggest bass ever is about three pounds. After I finally get the fish figured out I tell Ben what to do to catch it. He makes just a few more casts and hooks into the fish and starts fighting it. Now at this point most people make mistakes and lose their mind which in turn causes them to lose the fish. But, Ben listens to what I am saying as he fights the fish perfectly and he gets the fish to the net finally. We weigh it and it weighs nine pounds. So, now Ben has a choice to go catch some smaller fish or go look until we find another big one. While still shaking form catching the big fish he decides to go get another big one and leave the little ones alone. I have now created a monster who is addicted to Trophy size fish. The little ones don't matter as much anymore. ;D After about an hour of looking he gets a shot another big one and loses the fish on the way to the boat. Now the trip is over so he ends up booking four Tuesdays in a row with me. To make a long story short in four weeks we only fish for five or six big fish. He loses another fish over ten pounds on another trip. We fished for a teen fish but never got it to bite > :'(but he got an eight and nine pound fish when his previous best was a three pounder. We spent two of the four days looking and hardly made a cast since we didn't find any big ones. The cool part is after catching that one big fish he is a changed person with a new outlook on bass fishing. It's funny what one big fish will do to a person. Last I heard from Ben he was looking to get some Mattlure's bluegills. Here is Ben's nine pounder.

I have just been real busy. Just now getting some time to post again.

I have been fishing a bunch of lakes over the past few weeks looking for the best bite and finding spots for trips later this spring/summer. The best lake right now by far as far as producing both size and numbers is the lake at Stone Mountain Park. I have fished it a few times over the past few weeks and it has produced 20-30 fish a trip and best five limits between 13-25 pounds. The lake has been good all spring and has had some big tournament weights. The lake is full of shad and grass and there is just a bunch of three to five pound fish being caught. I have also seen two fat bass over ten pounds caught out of the lake this spring by bank fishermen so they are some big ones in there. My biggest so far out of Stone Mountain this year is the seven pounder in the photo caught on a Tru-Tungsten swimbait last week. It was part of a five fish limit weighing over twenty pounds. I have also had two best five limits of all four to six pound fish on swimbaits that went around 25 lbs. I have been getting most of my fish on topwaters, swimbaits, and plastics. There are a few big fish still on beds as well but those should be finishing up in the next week or so and the late spring/early summer fish should continue to bite well thru mid June. Fishing at Varner right now is very location specific. If you are in the right place you can catch fish and load the boat if you are not in exactly the right places at the right times you will swear there are no fish in the lake. LOL. The grass carp are having an effect on the lake by taking out much of the shallow grass (pond weed) that many of the post spawn bass and fry have used for years as cover. At the same time many areas of the lake are really lacking in shad. I am guessing this was caused by a combination of a winter shad kill when the lake was down last winter and the fact that there are a bunch of hybrids that have grown to three pounds plus that were stocked by the DNR a few years ago that are really eating on whats left of the shad right now. I have even seen hybrids real shallow in parts of the lake with very little shad eating on small bass, bream, and crappie on beds all spring. Without getting into what I think of the grass carp and hybrids being in Georgia's best public big bass lake I will say if you like to fish shallow you will most likely have to change the way you fish on Varner this time of year. I am not saying the fishing is bad right now but it is different from years past. The fish have already started showing up in deeper water early this year. I had two buddy's that weighed in over 22lbs last Saturday on Varner in a tournament that caught them off channel ledges and offshore structure and I have been catching the bigger fish offshore in the same area on plastics for about two weeks already. This is the way I like to fish anyway and how I catch most of my bigger fish so until the hydrilla gets up later this summer there should be even more fish bunched up on offshore structure making the next couple months great for fishing deeper water. Also, on the plus side of the shallow grass being gone there is a real specific bite in shallow water. With the shallow grass gone the shellcrackers and bluegill have no place to hide as they move shallow to spawn. Some bass are taking advantage of this midday when they can see and stalk the bedding panfish. I have seen packs of ten to twenty big bass moving into areas where these fish are bedding and feeding on them. It's a very tough bite to get with all the real shellcrackers there but these fish will hit a swimbait like a Mattlures bluegill fished through and around the beds if it's done perfectly without spooking the bass. The last lake I have fished that is fishing well right now is JW Smith. It has a bunch of late spawners on the deeper end of the lake right now and it has a pretty good postspawn bite in the shallow end of the lake. I won the JBA tournament without a partner last weekend and took advantage of fish bedding on offshore structure like long points, underwater pond dam, and humps near deep water and weighed in over eighteen pounds of fish with a big fish that also won the big fish pot that weighed over six pounds. All my fish were caught sight fishing with jigs except for one swimbait fish (Mattlures Woody)and a couple of smaller fish caught on worms early.

Nice fish Matt!!!! Don't feel bad. Randall has a few haters out there too. ;D Every time you stick your head up above the crowd expect someone in the crowd to try to cut it off. ;)Nice to see you got some time to catch some big ones.

You can't worry about price too much when buying swimbaits since a giant fish is priceless. Best swimbaits that are reasonably priced though are the Mattlures baits at mattlures.com. My advice is if you want a big fish bait go with quality made baits with a good reputation since there are a lot of baits that are not well made.

I started fishing swimbaits years ago and have probably fished them as long as many of the California guys have. Problem is for years I only fished them during the spawn and prespawn due to my lack of knowledge and limited thinking. I thought here on the east cost they were limited to working during those times. I hate to think how many more big fish I could have caught with them if I had been using them year round. :'( Now I use them year round and have found different ways to fish them under different conditions. Now my favorite time to fish them may be during the summer when fish are in deeper water. As far as tournament fishing my partner and myself won a few tournaments last year on all swimbait fish. We had a guy tell us that we could only do that on a lake with lots of big fish and that he wanted a chance to win his money back on another lake where the fish wouldn't bite swimbaits. We let him pick the lake and went the next week to that lake and nearly doubled the second place weight with once again all swimbait fish. I am not saying this to brag but to tell you that you can win tournaments with swimbait fish no matter what the lake is as long as there is a swimbait bite at that time and its the best choice of lure to fish. It may be a swimbait but it may also be a tiny finesse worm also. Those paddle tail baits are not really trophy hunting swimbaits anyway and usually get no bigger fish than a jig, spinnerbait or crankbait will. They are way overrated for catching big fish.

Great fish Matt. If you are ever anywhere near Atlanta and want to give Varner a try let me know.

My big bait swimbait rod is a light and tough for 6 to 10 inch baits. Some don't like it and think its way to much rod for swimbaits and is better used for saltwater fishing. : Its an extra heavy action rod with a very fast tip. Its a broomstick when compared to many other swimbait rods but will flex a little on big fish. I personally love it because its a very tough durable rod and I can ski a fish over ten pounds across the surface and never give it a chance. I have lifted a nine pounder right into the boat with it and never really worried about breaking the rod. I don't like parabolic type rods for big baits and big fish or any rod that give the fish an inch after its hooked so it fits my style of fishing. I did find the rod tip heavy so I balanced it with a weight system from BPS as I do all my rods . I do find it to be way too much rod for most lighter swimbaits like Mattlures and maybe even the six inch Hudd as well but its great for heavier baits three ounces and up. For the lighter smaller baits like you are using the Okuma would be a better choice. I would like to see the rod Diawa has for 8 inch and up baits gone and replaced with a better rod for smaller baits since I can use the rod I have for most of the biggest baits out there.

Here is a photo of me holding Dan's big fish and my big fish from today.

Today I took Lightninrod out to Varner looking to catch him a big one. He said from the start he just wanted to fish for big ones and nothing else so that's what we did. We started out looking for bedding fish but couldn't find anything eight pounds or over although we passed plenty of four and five pounders and a six pounder or two. Since it didn't look like we were going to find a big fish on the bed we started fishing stageing areas outside of spawning areas where I knew the big fish were. We got one small fish :(and after a couple hours of sitting on one small spot trying to force feed a big one with a jighead and worm Dan was starting to wonder just how long I was going to keep us there without another bite. ;D But I knew the fish were there and one of us was going to get a big bite sooner or later. Well finally one bit and I didn't get a good hookset and the fish came off quick. I cast back to the same spot again and set the hook on a big fish. Dan did a great job of netting the fish and we brought it in. We didn't weigh it but it looked over eight pounds. We stayed a while longer and finally moved on to a few other spots that were like this one. Like the first spot we sat in one spot and made repeated casts to the same small spot with worms on jigheads. Dan's was a wacky jighead and mine was a shakey head. After a couple more small fish here and there Dan finally hooked into a good one. Its the fish in the photo and I can't remember exactly what it weighed but it was between five and six pounds. I Didn't get Dan a ten plus pounder like he wanted but still not a bad day with two good ones and three small ones in a half day of fishing.