The Duke

Andy Buss - pleasure to be a part of your community! Like you all, I'm a ***atic, and smallmouth are my favorite and I tournament fish a bunch. My experiences have taken me to many states, FLW Costa Opens, and BASS Opens. I've been blessed to have a bunch of opportunities and am committed to sharing them with others. It is my hope to share and learn in this community. Thank you for allowing me to join!

Thank you for your thorough reply. Great advice. I'll take it, apply it, and learn from it!

On a resume, do you include current pro staffs and sponsorships? I've been told that the more pro staffs you're on the more desirable you look. Also, this past week I spoke with a company and one of the first questions they asked was "how many other sponsorships/pro staffs are you a part of?" So, if you do include them on the resume, what information do you include? Company name obviously, but what else?

This time of year, yeah, probably pretty deep. Pick up a blade bait and don't put it down until spring when the water hits 50 degrees.

Is there a way to just download a Microsoft Word or Adobe document onto this link? I've written a resume I would like to get some comments on, but copying & pasting just isn't going to give the effect I want.

Catching lots of fish now. Small, dark lakes have fish shallow, while the deep, clear lakes have fish stacked up at staging spots - only a matter of time until they come up too!

I blame the state. They determine what legitimate creel limits are and if the state is concerned that an X amount of fish killed throughout the year, month, event, whatever, they need to lower the limit on that lake. Isn't it their job to figure that out and enforce it? What the state of Texas is telling me, is that they aren't concerned before or after this event. They have creel limits and anglers can keep their catch of X amount of fish to eat or whatever; rather that is a tournament or weekend warriors using live bait. I am not suggesting for a second that BASS and tournament officials and anglers shouldn't have done more, but remember that the state agencies set creel limits to preserve current populations. Texas knew BASS was coming to Falcon Lake last year; apparently, they weren't concerned. You can't tell me the state biologists didn't know BASS was coming and what kind of impact a tournament that size could have.

Anyone from Indiana catching the fish?

Which tournament are you participating? Seems like a long drive from PA??

Fished from 11:30-4:00 and ended up with 11 between my partner & I. Our first few spots were dead. This included a flat w/ rocks and a few humps. We hit depths between 6-24' It wasn't until we hit a flat between 8-12 FOW we began catching them on silver buddy & grubs. Those 11 fish included 2 walleye; 18" & 22" I was almost as excited about those than the bass. 3 fish were short largemouth, while the rest were smallies. 4 of the smallie were between 14-16" What impressed/surprised me most about the fish we caught were their bulging stomachs. They were definitely eating. Many of the fish had the baits deep in their mouth, but others were barely hooked. I examined the throats of the fish we caught and saw nothing, but the walleye that were cleaned later revealed a few small (2-3") perch in the stomachs There was a stout wind coming out of the southeast and the water temp. was 38 early but ended up between 40.0-40.5 degrees. We were in an area that had warmer water and the fish were definitely relating to the sporadic weed beds. In fact, when were got hung up in weeds, we expected a bite. I felt if we would have stayed out we would have continued to have gotten biten. It was nice to catch more than a single fish in an outing and I feel with the weather coming, its only going to get better! The season has officially begun!

Fished this stretch between 8:30-3:00 and to say the least, it wasn't a good bite. First spot produced 8-10 strikes on Wiggle Warts, but they were not hooking up. They slapped them, sometimes hard, and that was it. I wish someone could explain to me what is happening in this situation. I've experienced this several times before, but typically can figure something out. I tried jerkbaits, other crankbaits, and plastics but those didn't even get sniffed. Does anyone have an explanation for this? I'm certain they're smallies. Finally about 1:00 I caught a 2# smallie on a tube off some rocks on a break. It was nice to get him; actually warmed me up a bit. But that was the last bite of the day. Water temp was 39 when I showed up and 41 when I left. I had ice in my guides until nearly noon. The current is quite swift. However, what surprised me, was the clarity. Clarity was about 4 feet. I expected muddy conditions. Saw several large shad up shallow and even snagged a carp. I tried shallow and deep and hit a dozen spots.

I was told by a buddy today that the water is 11' above summer pool and the water is chocolate milk. Maybe I won't make the drive...

I'm heading down here Thursday to get away from our ice-infested bodies of water. Does anyone have information on the current conditions here? I'm not looking for spot, baits, or anything like that. I'm just hoping to find out the current water temperature. But I'll take anything else you can give ;D

Gee, you're not asking for much are you?

Does anyone have any experience or advice for this lake they'd be willing to share? I live in N. Indiana and I'm going to make the 2.5 hour drive to fish here this upcoming Saturday. We still have a lot of ice here and don't anticipate open ice for another 2 weeks. I have to go fishing! I doubt I'll be back there this year again and never plan on fishing tournaments there.