Afishionado

I always wear a buff, long pants, and long sleeves.. Florida is the skin cancer capital of the US .. My dad and my uncles get skin cancers cut off them twice a year every year so it runs in the family.. The buff is great especially for covering your ears and nose.. 85% of skin cancer occurs from the neck up so the buff really helps with that..

killer job fellas way to take home the hardware!

Nice fish in tough conditions man.. come on down to florida, it was 95 degrees today

Me and my buddy Eric decided on a quick afternoon sesh today.. My usual spot got shot out when they sprayed the vegetation so after a morning of scouting on google earth, I found what looked to be a decent spot well off the beaten path.. It was a 3 mile paddle in.. Glad we went though.. We kept bent rods the whole way up the canal on rage toads and pop frogz, mostly dinks, but there were several 2-3lbers in the mix and we even got a decent double up.. We paddled as far as we could get and beached the yaks and it was another mile walk or so to the piece of real estate I was scoping out on the satelitte imagery this morning.. We didn't set the world on fire but I did manage my biggest bass to date.. No scale or tape, I was guessing maybe 8lbs or so.. Eric landed a decent one but he had one as big or bigger than mine shake off on the rage toad.. We didn't kill em but it was still a blast and I finally managed to stick a decent one..

Well the fishing today was great, but the catching sure sucked.. Haven't had the yak out for quite awhile and finally found some time today.. Was hoping to slay the green things but I get to the spot only to find they sprayed every piece of vegetation out there.. Bleh.. Not sure if the bite sucked because of the spraying or it was just an off day.. Got a few on the whip so that made me feel a bit better.. The few fish that were around responded well to several forms of topwater..

I bet them things would be fun on 4/5wt fly gear

Great fish in tough conditions yall

Tight work man!

Had a couple hours to kill so my buddy Eric and I hopped in the yaks in search of Stick Marsh lunkers.. Bite was extremely lackluster.. All the floating veg I was fishing yesterday got blown out.. Found ONE small hyacinth clump floating and this dude was under it.. Eric ended up with a nice one on the outflow on a rapala plug..

Yeah that place is full of lizards and I haven't seen a small one yet lol.. Not so bad in open water though.. Tight canals are a different story.. Couple weeks ago I had one come off the bank and just about end up in my lap.. My only concern would be crossing the levee but I'll probably just drag over at that shelter shack because it looks fairly wide open.. Thanks for the insight!

Yessir... Not too bad in there but I don't think I'm gonna get my 10 pounder back in there.. I can handle paddling the distance down to 13 but the only problem is I can't launch the yak till safe light and by the time I paddle 4.5 miles one way that magical morning bite will be over..

Had a couple hours to kill this morning so I decided to go try to raise some of my new green friends in the Stick Marsh.. Caught 20-25 but most were dinks.. Only 3 were worth busting out the camera for.. Horny Toads in Junebug rigged weightless and a spinnerbait with the skirt removed and a 4" Pearl White MrWiffelure put on in it's place kept me bent all morning.. Man I just can't seem to break this 4-5lb mark... UGH! Still a blast though, even the small ones hit like a ton of bricks..

Right in front of the frog is a lead weight and it goes under just fine.. but when it's under it just spins in circles.. I think I'm going to make the assumption that this is a piece of crap lure because I have several other buzzbaits that swim effortlessly.. this thing does nothing..

Yup prop spins free as can be.. Retrieving it with a high rod tip as well like you would with a standard buzzbait and nada... Any other buzzbait I can get to run just fine, this one is just a hunk though.. Like you said, possibly may be defective..

Has anyone used this lure? I can't get it to do anything.. The blade won't spin and it just helicopters underwater.. Anyone else have this issue? Thanks..

I use the uni to uni on everything.. If you're working with lighter braid make sure to double it up when you tie the knot so you have more meat in the knot.. Otherwise the thin diameter braid can cut thru the fluro easily..

Awesome, definitely understand that! I'll go skirt on for now, and if I don't like the retrieve or the profile I'll try it skirtless.. thanks yall!

When you put a soft plastic bait on a buzz or spinnerbait, do you have to remove the skirt? Just wonderng if it's strictly a personal preference thing or does it actually affect performance? It seems like the skirt and the soft plastic is just too bulky. Thanks for any insight yall!

Haven't hit the freshwater in a couple weeks, been playing in the salt.. But I started to miss my new little green friends and decided to do some on foot pond hopping and leave the kayak up on the truck for a change.. Got a few, nothing to write home about except this dude was pretty decent.. No scale so not sure of the weight, I was guessing maybe 4-5lb.. It actually pulled some drag though so hey I'll take it haha.. He hit an 8" MrWiffelure Plubber Worm in junebug rigged weightless and burned across the top casting parallel to shorelines.. Still have yet to get a lunker.. Just gonna keep putting in my time and hopefully one day it'll happen..

I was hoping I wasn't the only one who had problems with the horny toad running upside down haha.. rigged them all perfectly straight and centered.. I went out and bought a few packs of rage toads yesterday, which look a hell of a lot beefier, durable, and look like they move more water.. we'll give er a whirl tomorrow and see how they do.. gonna also keep the horny toads in my box for the days when more action from the rage toads may possibly offend the fish..

The okeechobee situation is terrible and is really hammering both coasts down south.. I am in brevard on the space coast well out of range of okechobee contaminants.. our problem is nonpoint source pollution.. stormater runoff, fertilizer/septic leach, ect.. nonpoint pollution that comes in from a multitude of areas is substantially harder to pinpoint and control than point source which would be for example a big industry polluter... scary part is our water is not even hot yet.. come july and august its gonna be downright ugly over here when water temps skyrocket and create an even more viable environment for the algae to thrive in.. when it finally does clear up there won't be a stitch of grass left which will have a ripple effect that will be felt decades down the road.. the banana river is dead.. they just don't know it yet.. which is sad because I have been pulling trophy fish from those waters for 20 of my 30 years..

Definitely not me thats one hell of a haul haha! I fish solo usually out of a lime camo old town predator .. To be honest I have been there twice and have only fished that canal on the north end.. also spent some time in that NW stump field with no results whatsoever.. pretty much stuck in the north canal and will never see farm 13 unless I feel like putting in about 16 miles paddling in a day ... I don't got that in me unless money is on the line haha

I like the horny toad.. they're on that thing like a bum on a ham sammich.. Hard plug style I would have to say badonk-a-donk but for me that's in the salt.. do walk the dog topwaters work on bass or do you need a chugger?

I've gotten quite a few fish off the rage craw burning it over top of topped out eel grass.. I use it on a weighted swimbait hook.. It's versatile in the sense that I can let it fall in the big open pockets but when I'm up on top of the grass it has a nice sputtering action to it.. Pretty sure the bass don't get a good look at it to identify it's a crawdad and just hit it as a reaction strike before it gets away..

good god that's a pig.. at least 10lb I would say.. congrats man that thing could eat my personal best lmao