RSM789

Next up is attaching a pair of treble hooks to a Barbie doll & using her like a Zara Spook. If you fish her feet first, her hair will work like a rubber skirt to & fro.

I have a similar situation with a different device. Over the past few years, I have caught a lot of catfish that grabbed my lures while bass fishing, including five that topped 10 lbs. I got tired of wrestling them into the boat, once they get over 5 lbs their head isn't as easy to grip, their sandpaper teeth draw blood and they are pretty strong. I prefer not to carry/use a net, so I got myself a BPS gripmaster last fall to make landing these slimy beasts a bit easier. I keep it handy, with my pliers & line cutter just off to the side when out fishing on my boat. In the six months I have had it, only 2 catfish over 5 lbs have come to the boat...

A small waterfowl (duck, mudhen) scooting across the surface? A waterlogged sparrow trying to flap its way out of the water? A midget doing the backstroke?

I looked back over my logs for the past few years and saw that I have caught channel catfish on crank baits, jerk baits, jigs, worms and Senko's, but none on topwaters. Here were the 5 largest: 14 lbs. 5 oz, on a jerkbait (Rapala XRap); 12 lbs. 13 oz on a plastic worm (Berkley Turtle back); 12 lbs. 9 oz on a 3" craw (Berkley Chigger craw) on 4 lb test line; 12 lbs even on a plastic worm (Roboworm); 10 lbs 4 oz on an jerkbait (Rapala X-rap). The only two I have ever caught here over 15 lbs were on bait, crawdad & cut mackerel.

I had Instagram, but the doctor gave me a shot of penicillin & cleared it right up...

There is a market of unauthorized dealers in every industry that often uses sites like Amazon to sell products. The concern is that the products they sell are refurbished, stolen or knockoffs of what they advertise. Manufacturers hate losing control of their supply network, what ends up happening is lower perceived value for their brand & products. Their only recourse is to invalidate any warranty of a product of theirs sold by an unauthorized dealer. This strategy is effective on higher priced products with expectations of lasting for many years. Call the manufacturer, they will tell you whether the particular dealer on Amazon is authorized by them.

I had the commercial song for a local car dealer stuck in my head the other day in the water - "Oh you won't get a lemon, (I wouldn't have gotten a lemon?), at Toyota of Orange..." I kept pushing it out & it would find new ways to sneak back in...

My sister came oh-so-close to winning a million dollars. When we were younger, we were fishing & came to a bridge populated with swallows, who were zipping to & fro. She cast her buzzbait & in mid-air, it smacked a swallow. She ended up with a huge backlash as feathers slowly floated down around us. After she picked the backlash clean & was getting ready to cast again, I said "I'll give you a million bucks if you can do that again". Being a smart-aleck teenager, she fires a cast towards the top of the bridge instead towards the water. Didn't hit a bird, but smacked on the upper beam about a foot from one of their mud nests. I'm lucky, I'd still be paying off that bet...

Green Pumpkin with any kind of flake in clear water or high skies, black/red shad laminate in lower light conditions.

Or he fell asleep on the boat, missed the weigh-in and is still snoozing in the back of some cove...

Maybe the kid is colorblind...

Based on their history, I always considered Bobby Lane a better fisherman than Chris Lane, but it looks like that is no longer the case. Chris may be just as hot as Greg Hackney and doing it in just as a diverse way. Over the past 13 Elite events (dating back to the Lake St. Clair open in August of 2013), Chris Lane has won 3 of them. Had Mike Iaconelli been born in Idaho instead of New Jersey, it would have been 4 with the Delaware River. This run includes a couple events where his head must have been spinning because his boat & gear burned up just prior to an event. Considering how tough the Elite field is now with the influx of top FLW talent, this is an impressive run.

Channel catfish strikes, especially on slower moving baits, at the ones where it feels like they are going to rip the rod out of your hand. When a bass grabs a jig or plastic worm, he inhales it & in most cases knows he is done, so he will either sit there or slowly move off (except in the case of dinks or schooling fish). The "prey" is trapped inside the basses mouth, he has no place to go & the bass knows it. A channel catfish on the other hand is trying to kill & swallow the prey as fast as possible. They will violently grab the bait & it seems like they quickly swim off in one direction or another. Then they run a line of snot slime up your line that is near impossible to remove...

Ok, now that I have done that, how do I remove the hook from my mouth?

Update #2 While there were more fry visible all over the lake, I saw something today I had never seen before. Two weeks ago, there was a ball of about 1000 fry staying close to the dock, with papa bass swimming just out deeper than them, chasing off intruders. They were near the surface in about 3 feet of water. Today, that fry ball is no longer near the dock, but there is a much larger ball (I would guess over 10,000 fry) hanging out away from the dock, near the surface in about 8 feet of water. I am not exaggerating the amount of fry there were, the ball was as long as my 10 ft Pond Prowler as I drifted through them this afternoon. They were 20 feet away from the dock, but there is a sunken Christmas tree below them that may be the reason for them being that far from shore. I don't ever recall seeing fry that far from shore, but I also have never seen a grouping of them this large either. So will different groups of fry join up together for safety? I would think there is a good chance they had the same mom, so they might be half-brethren and are just having a family reunion before 90% of them become meals for other predators. BTW, the most effective lure today was a 3" tube, it produced the most bass and the average size was significantly bigger.

Oh, OK I get it. I thought A-Jay was just having vocabulary issues...

Yeah, like Bill Lowen did today, on a river of all places, for the first time in 10 years (according to him). After a nice limit yesterday, all he needed was 1 fish in order to make the cut...swing & a miss. 2 years ago on this fishery, he & Ish Monroe were the only 2 anglers to limit each of the 4 days. He stated he caught a few fish today, but none were keepers. He should have just used Mend-it & glue two dinks together. He was the only choice on my B.A.S.S. fantasy team that didn't make the cut & the only one I wasn't worried about. When Jordan Lee had a great comeback day to jump up over 60 spots & make the cut, I thought I was in good shape. Then as the number of anglers left to weigh in began to dwindle & no Bill Lowen to the scales, well you know what they say about counting chickens before they hatch...

Pyromaniac? A fire starter? I don't get it... Did you mean hypochondriac, a person who is overly anxious about their health or mental well being?

What part of the country do you live in? I ask because because the inexpensive rain gear I use here in Southern California would be completely useless somewhere where the have real rainstorms & the quality products needed for those areas would be overkill if you lived near me.

Global Warming

Why does a bass that is in deep, open water become lighter while a bass that spends his time under a dock get darker? In both cases, they are out of direct sunlight, no? I am guessing it has more to do with the fish blending in with his environment, making him more stealthy as a predator. I know Blutarsky, the bass in my koi pond changed color in short order and now is a perfect match to the color of the bottom of the pond.

This one stayed the exact same size & shape, although there were a few teeth marks on it. I am guessing those were from when the fish was holding the back of it & I yanked it from him, tearing it. I wonder if the slender profile of the Roboworm helped it slide right through his digestive system? Either that or the attractant I added to the worm made it more slippery...

No, I used some Mend-it and glued it to a worm that had its tail bit off. Caught 3 more bass on it until I lost it...unless it turns up again.

How about a pipeline from the Mississippi over the Rockies to the West Coast? When they get start to get the spring floods, just open the valves & send the excess water to us. Or we could rent about 10,000 barges and cart the excess snow from the Northeast over, although it may melt by the time it gets here...

Y'know, as I thought about this more, I believe that as the spot & smallmouth were in the middle of their duel, a 10 lb. largemouth would saunter over & most likely eat them both. Kind of like two strong, musclebound boxers getting sat on by an enormous sumo wrestler.