SWVABass

Speed craw Yamamoto craw tube

As a bank guy you will snag a lot with them if your fishing it at a right angle to the bank. Try finding areas where your cast runs parallel to the bank and work the depth zones from shallow to deep. Also don’t burn your crank if making bottom contact. Slow it down and if you do snag it give it slack and sometimes they back themselves out. Also try a square bill, they deflect really well and that’s usually when it will get smoked. for those that don’t back out, hold your rod like a bow, pull your line and let it snap out that usually works really well for me, and again when it breaks free be prepared for it to get slammed, something about it making a mess then darting off causes bass to eat it. Smallmouth hammer it

Pretty awesome!!!! Congrats on a memorable day!

Crazy question…. Was wondering if anyone on here is signed up FB and friends with some of the MLF pages? I don’t do FB, but need help contacting an individual on there to try and link for a BFL at the end of this month. If your willing to help let me know, really appreciate it. thanks, colten

@Seafury Come down to SWVA. The Clinch and Holston rivers offer great smallmouth fishing. I’ve yet to hit the clinch but have done the N Fork of Holston. I caught some but saw some really nice fish couldn’t get them to commit to a jerk bait though. Small towns, quiet riverside with gobbling turkeys. Pretty relaxing environment. But it’s a haul from your side of the state.

Congrats on a once in a lifetime fish. For all the debate on keepers and catch and release guys, to each their own. If you keep fish awesome all I hope for is folks follow established laws and show respect to the quarry. Tight lines amigos!!!!

Also right out of the Bristol area is S Holston. Seems like fishing wise it’s passed on for lakes further down the river. I’ve fished it a handful of time from my yak. I’ve caught largemouth, smallmouth and walleye. Virginia Game and Fish stock walleye and they will spawn up the Holston either middle fork or south fork in the spring. Also it has lake trout but I’ve never chased them so can’t give you to much help there. Also in Bristol is a small lake called steel creek. Only electric or paddle drive vessels allowed. I caught some nice fish when I first moved here in that place.

I had one angler blank day one, crews isn’t exactly a shining star this week. I rolled again with Christie, J Pow and Hackney. Hack attack is having a rough go this time around too. Hoping Ike can have a big day three. Seems like the MLF guys that came back aren’t as quick to pick up their old ways????

I believe MLF has a Facebook page, which I don’t do, but could see it when I ran a google search. Lots of folks on there looking for BFL links. im in the same boat as you though trying to find a boater for a BFL the end of this month. I needed the same thing before the Cherokee tournament and reached out to the tourney director, luckily he had a boater needing a co and linked us up. Not having the same luck this time though…. Makes it hard to fish when they add extras on like this, but I get it though no sense in having 300 co’s show up if there is only 100 boaters.

Large mammals like deer and elk come down to field care of the meat. Keep any hair and non tissue out/off of your meat and it won’t have a strong flavor. I’ve had rutted up elk and antelope before that tasted amazing. Never been a fan of catfish at all. Perch, white bass and crappie are all delicious. I prefer saltwater fish hands down though. show respect to your quarry and you will have amazing meals every time. Also love home grown grass fed beef over the steroid and antibiotic pumped up so called beef you can buy at the big box grocery stores. Most of America doesn’t know what home grown taste like anymore.

Good luck man, hopefully you can pick up a boater.

I would say I kind of run through this process after a day of fishing… what went right, as in my plan for the day. May be I only got on and off the water safely but I did that right. what didn’t go to plan, maybe I planned on fishing chunk rock transitions with a crank but failed to catch them what can I do better next time, could be how I broke down the water that day to something as simple as not trying to fish a major holiday weekend. going through this time and time again allows me to review my day in a methodical process, analyze what I did, build on my strengths and recognize my weaknesses. Hopefully to improve my fishing but to never second guess why I did what I did.

I’ve caught them on flukes and seknos too, dragging them across the top of a mat to drop in a hole, all of a sudden they wood come out of the woodwork to try to chase it down. At work we would actually catch and kill them as they were killing a native species of frog that was endangered. They can wreck an ecosystem they were never a part of once introduced

Looking for a boater link. I have already entered and sitting there waiting for a boater as of now. I live 15 mins from the lake so be assured I will be there to fish. If you need a link let me know and I’ll give you my info. thanks!

I’ve had luck with jerkbaits, cranks, and t rigged plastics. Fishing the holston river and lake. Mid April was when the bite got good for me last year. Hopefully like @Bird said the strong cold fronts slow down and temps rise and stability becomes the norm.

Well yesterday I said I should be fishing, so I did but I incorporated the whole family. Kids have been wanting to try their hand at brook and rainbow trout. Ended up only seeing a copperhead. Kids found rocks to bring home and the wife collected plants to put in the ground today. So got to go fishing just not for green or brown fish but beat a day doing yard work….. now it’s time to pay the piper…

Member of BASS and MLFLW. Both have their place in the world. I prefer to watch Live because that’s still the format I fish when in a boat. Fishing from my kayak it’s all about numbers and trying to find quality at the same time. I like watching the event unfold around the cut line cause those guys fish their butts off trying to advance. Don’t forget there is a third trail out there now NPFL that seems to be doing ok. I haven’t seen any of the coverage but they are back for a second year it sounds like. And agree BASS needs to move the nation towards a BFL format. Out west I had an easy time finding a club and fishing the qualifiers. Moved to the SE and it’s like a secret society to find a club that is not a team format. Not as welcoming as I expected it to be.

Yea they moved it to May. So will have to wait. Was surprised with some of the weights on Sunday following the front. Looks like the fishing is getting better daily too.

Depending on conditions there are a couple things I would try. Drop shot jerk bait t rig craw spinnerbait square bill pop r wake bait would all depend on water temp, wind, time of year. Right now I’d probably start with the jerk bait then the t rig the drop shot.

Not sure but they may have cancelled today. I know the BFL that was scheduled for today on Cherokee got moved to May. Was looking forward to actually fishing a tournament again but will have to wait till late April on south holston. Bristol temps kept dropping all day down to 24 by 5pm gusty winds too, had about 3” of white stuff this morning. Post front will be miserable for these guys.

You should be able to buy bait locally in CA. I know from a boat trip in high school customs will be looking for stuff like that. someone recommender strike king cranks, I’ve caught walleye on the 1.5 square bills and the 1.5 flat side. Look into scrounger jig heads, have caught a lot with those with a Gulp shad rigged up. Also get the wire leaders cause the pike are no joke up north.

What your seeing is probably your overall standing including the prior to tournaments. Go to look at the top of the page, leaderboards then you can filter by tournament.

Your lucky though those ones out by the coast get much bigger, got smoked in some yak tournaments last year by folks in the VA beach area…. But I’ve been fortunate to always have water close by that had both and wouldn’t trade it!!

@Mike L yea back a boat and trailer pretty easy task for me. I’ve seen the latter where lights have been left on, though a small club tourney. I think they have about 200 entered so far. I always hold the keys in my pocket till I’m sitting down in the boat to hand them over, don’t wanna scuba dive at 6:30 in March . my biggest concern was just how they planned to give contact info for the pairings. I haven’t fished a tourney since the pandemic so I haven’t seen how it works, just wanted an idea of what to expect. Appreciate the info, now time to get familiar with MFL’s rules. I’ve always fished BASS and their rules so want to make sure I know it inside out.

So got signed up late so behind the power curve. DTL looks like this… cherry Card Lehew queen blaylock cobb new welcher well see how this floats out, hopefully the weather stabilizes next week just got a ton of rain back here..