OCdockskipper

Correct, only crawdads, bluegill and the young of the other species. That makes sense considering the time of the year and water temps. The bluegill are still in their winter patterns (in 6-12 feet of water), so if there are no crawdads to eat up shallow because they have gone back into their burrows, there is no reason for the female bass to hang shallow. That explanation also matches the success I have with different baits during different times of the year. Prespawn, when I find bass under docks, I do best with a wacky rigged stickbait. When falling or twitched, that bait does resemble a fleeing crawdad. Postspawn, when there are fry about and when the bluegill are up shallow, I do better skipping docks with a weightless texas rigged sluggo or fluke. That slow glide to the bottom more resembles a small baitfish.

I had an experience yesterday that I don't understand why it occurred and was looking for some input. Quick background on the area and lake I fish. The basic weather pattern here is often calm mornings with some cloud cover that burns off fairly quickly, with an onshore breeze that picks up in the late am and runs through the afternoon. In the spring the winds can pick up a bit more than normal, but it still follows that basic pattern. Except for the winter, the fish typically react by being active in open areas near cover early and then as the sun rises higher in the sky, retreating to either under docks or deeper portions of the lake. So yesterday was a day that followed that weather pattern, albeit the am cloud cover was scattered and the winds that picked up later were stronger (10-20 mph). Surface temps on the water were 62 degrees to start the day, air temps started around 55 degrees and topped out in the low 70's. There were a good number of male bass making beds, most were not locked on to them and there weren't any beds with multiple fish on them signifying actual spawning. The first 30 minutes when I went out was a little slow, a couple of bites but not much apparent life shallow. As I cycled through things, I figured out there were alot of fish, mainly females, under the docks and they would take a weightless wacky senko skipped far back underneath (2-3 feet of water). From 6:30 am - 9:30 am, I caught 17 bass at a very steady pace. I was surprised that had gone under the docks so early, but figured this pattern would last the entire day. Then at 9:30 until 11:00 am, the dock bite shut off completely. At first I thought it may have been the location I had moved to, but it was like that at the next one as well. I was still occasionally spooking a male bass or two making nests, so I knew there were fish in the area, they had just vacated the docks. I had an errand to run, so I pulled back to the dock, left and returned a couple of hours later. By then, the wind was moving pretty good by now and after some experimentation, I found a steady bite again with egg laden female fish. However, instead of under docks, they were out away from the cover, in 4 - 8 feet of water, in the shade of the pontoon boats docked at many of the homes. No bites on the sunny side of the boats, only on the shaded side and out away from the boat itself. Over the next two hours, I boated 2 dozen bass, now using a 5" lizard on a shakey head. I'm pretty convinced these fish were the same ones who first thing in the morning were under the docks and that when the dock bite died, I was running my boat over the top of them. What confused me is that both in the morning and the afternoon, the fish were in the exact opposite locations of where they typically would be found. The weather conditions weren't so different as to force the change. The only thing I could come up with is the spawn may have been the motivation for the difference, that the females are acting based on once-a-year reproductive urges as opposed to rest-of-the-year feeding urges. Any ideas and any other experiences similar to this?

From an employer perspective, I would agree with those who have said take a PTO day, but give some notice. There is nothing worse for a small company than having to scramble to cover for someone who calls in sick 10 minutes before they are suppose to be there. With some notice, the day can be planned around a particular person not being there. And if you believe that it doesn't make a big difference whether you give notice or not, you may want to give some thought as to your value to the company. If things hum along when you aren't there, then you aren't really needed, something that the owner will figure out quick enough.

I agree it was a blown call, not only the decision to not count the fish, but the size & scope of the punishment.

I like mono for many of my baitcasting applications, but am not locked into it. However, for spinning applications, there is no comparison between braid or superlines and mono as far as ease of use, casting distance, etc. For my spinning gear, I use Nanofil & FC leaders because I fish clear waters. It does take more time to prep the night before having to tie leader knots, but my experience is it results in more bites (on my lake). I don't mind the extra time leaders cause me to have to fight & unhook fish.?

Depends on the size of the boat. A bass boat is really just a mobile casting deck and tackle box, so I load it to the hilt. Nature abhors a vacuum.

I will take the opposite stance from most of you, DST serves a purpose and benefits society. Where you are in a time zone will vary the specifics, but the issue with Standard time is you have the sun rising so early during the summer. In So Cal, if we kept standard time year round we would have first light at 4:30 am and sunset at 7:30 pm. DST moves an hour of sunlight to a time it is more useful for most people. Now my state is dumb enough to have voted to stay on DST year round (pending federal approval). That means come December, we will have 8:00 am sunrises. That creates an even bigger mess on our roads as well as safety issues for kids going to school. DST is nothing more than a simple way to manipulate the extra daylight we get in the summer months. I would prefer it to begin later (April) and end earlier (October). Nonetheless, I like the purpose it serves.

At the Classic at Lake Conroe, he caught a big fish early on Day 3 and repeated to the camera about a dozen times "Its a 10 lber dude, this is a 10 lb fish". Turns out, not only did it not beat Ehlers 9lb something for Big Bass of the tournament, it wasn't even the big fish of the day (Ott Defoe had a 9-3 the same day). Put a camera on Ike and he suddenly has no idea of size. On the last MLF broadcast, he was screaming about a fish being a big one and it weighed 1-4. I find myself rooting against him for antics like that.

While I like the idea of getting away from a dinkfest, I think they swung the pendulum too far the other way in this tournament. It looks like Eufaula at this particular time of the year is stingy in giving up 2 lb fish. The weight for a scorable bass here should have been lower to raise the number of fish catches. Part of what BPT is trying to do is increase excitement in having more fish catches and having more of those catches affect the scoreboard. This tournament did the opposite, where there were less people who caught limits than didn't. And for viewing from TV or streaming, there really is no difference watching someone catch a 1 lb bass vs a 2 lb bass. If you want a big fish tournament, go full on and make the minimum size 4 lbs and hold it on a body of water that can keep that exciting. By bumping up the size limit on a lake that can't produce that many of that size during that time of year just defeats the purpose of their whole concept ("every fish counts").

I was fortunate to get 4 of my 5 picks into the top 20, with my number 5 (Brandon Cobb) doing well enough today to turn a bomb into just a missed cut. Congratulations to the bassresource leader, WMurtha with 1249 points. I am in 2nd, 34 points behind, however, due to the way the scoring works and our choices, I actually have a good chance to catch him. We have 2 of the same picks (Walters & Gross), so their performance tomorrow is moot. WMurtha has Mueller, who is in 1st and can only lose points by not winning the tournament (or gain 5 points by winning it). My other two choices are in 18th & 20th respectively (Latuso & Prince) so for all intents & purposes, they have no where to go but up, gaining points. Some of the guys in the middle (9th to 18th) are reeling, having slid into the cut by having a big first day and just getting by today, so having an angler move up 10 plus places would not be unexpected. Tomorrow should be fun...

Well, the positive news is after two days, I am tied for the lead in points in Fantasy Fishing...with 29,999 other people.

If you had told me at the start of the week that I would be tied for the lead in Fantasy Fishing come the end of today, I would have been quite excited. Now, not so much...

Time on the water with a Ned Rig tied on.

I got an email back from the software developer, they corrected it. it was an issue with GMT time being converted to ET. I always go back & forth about changing the winning bag weight because all it takes is one guy to find a few big ones to keep the winning weight high even if the averages go down. Chris Lane did that back in 2014. The weights for 2nd thru 12th were where you would expect for a tournament where a cold front kicks through (65 - 75 lbs), but Lane found some big fish and ended up over 90 lbs.

When I was filling out my buckets yesterday, I noticed something that I hope is just a typo. On the first page after you sign in, just under your name in the upper left hand corner it states that the rosters lock at 6am ET on Feb 6th. However, once you move on to the page where you make your choices, just below where it says Period 1 and lists the tournament, it says rosters lock at 11:00 am ET on the 6th. The small "time remaining" clock to the right of that has a countdown that matches the 6 am time, not the 11 am. While it would not guarantee you to be a winner, it would be a distinct advantage to set your Roster hours into the first day. I sent BASS a note about it so they could correct it before the tournament starts.

Big bluegill (typically on topwater or ned rigs), carp (almost always snagged in the head with a crankbait) and catfish. Like others said, the first few seconds after a catfish strike, your brain is going "Be a bass, be a bass, be a bass!!". Loads of 10 - 20 lb channel catfish in my lake, this 14lb not only hit my crankbait, but had another crankbait (left side) and a jig (right side, lower) hanging off him. Apparently he was a lure collector...

Is this directed at me? If so, you are seriously misreading what I am writing. I'm just having a conversation and giving my opinion/perspective on it. I thought that is what forums were for. Not invested in it other than being a bass fisherman. If MLF becomes top dog or goes belly up, it won't affect my life.

35 feet, although I do have 3 steps to navigate...

I never said or intimated that. I was just showing how the definition of poaching in business is different than the way most of us on this forum have heard it used regarding wildlife. Poaching in business isn't necessarily a negative, it depends on how and why it is done. When I started my company 23 years ago, I hired two experienced individuals, each from a different competitors, that I contacted & made offers to. The remaining hires all answered want ads, they contacted us and ranged from experienced to green. So by definition, I poached 2 employees while the rest of the employees reached out to us. I'll let you be the judge of whether that was unethical or not. Contrast that with starting a business and trying to fill 90% of the roster from a single competitor, who you also happen to be working for at the same time you are starting your business. That isn't poaching done to help start your business, that is poaching done in an attempt to quash the competitor by taking their personnel. Thing is, not only is that highly unethical, it rarely works in the long run because you have tried to build a business via shortcut. You basically have signaled to each & every employee that if they want to start a company, all they need to do is leave and hire away 90% of your staff. Setting that precedent typically comes back to bite you. In most peoples hearts, they don't want to work for someone they don't respect. You may do it for a period of time because the money makes you rationalize putting up with it, but if the owner of a company is a snake, you are always wondering if he is going to bite you next.

Remember that poaching is nothing more than a company making an offer to an employee/independent contractor of a competitor. BPT invited anglers, they did not wait to see what anglers knocked on their door, hence their proactive stance was by definition poaching Team9Nine can correct me if I am wrong, but from what I have read, Duckett was the driving force in creating BPT. He & Klein created MLF together, but Duckett took the lead (at least in the public eye, maybe not behind the scenes) when they added BPT. You are correct that probably 20 or so anglers like KVD & Ehrler were privy to what Duckett was doing earlier than most everyone else. The remaining anglers, guys that had never been invited to fish MLF events before, were the targets that were poached by BPT. Some of those anglers like KVD may have created peer pressure by talking up what BPT was going to offer, but they couldn't have done that if Duckett hadn't given the green light for them to do it. I can't fault anglers being evangelical about their new tour, there is nothing wrong with that. Duckett however had a choice of how to build out his BPT roster and he chose to poach.

It is & it isn't, depends on the situation. If MLF Bowling Center is in need of a head pinsetter mechanic and they make an offer to the current one at BASS Lanes down the street in an attempt to hire him, then that is generally accepted as typical business. The head pinsetter mechanic has skills that are in demand and he can get paid more because of that. However, if MLF Bowling Center is getting ready to open their doors and they extend offers to every mechanic, desk person and custodian that works over at BASS Lanes, then that is not typical. In that situation, MLF Bowl is looking to drive BASS Lanes out of business, not by offering a better product, but by hiring away all of the "talent" at the same time. That is a bit of a scumbag move; 100% legal but not the most ethical way to run a company. Ironically, many companies who try to start up or expand in this manner often fail shortly thereafter because they tried to shortcut the normal growth process. The real negative when they go belly up is that they leave the employees who switched over in a lurch through no real fault of their own. As I mentioned to JFrancho, the business meaning of "poached" is different than the hunting/fishing use of the word and for those of us here on this forum, it can be difficult to shake the negative connotation. Not unlike the term "recruit", which has different meanings depending on the environment it is used (i.e., recruiting a blue chip athlete for your college is very different than recruiting a jihadist for your cause).

It is different if an employee/customer initiates the process. There is nothing unethical about changing jobs or vendors because it benefits you. From the ownership perspective, if a company chooses to attempt to recruit existing talent associated with a competitor (as opposed to developing their own talent), that is defined as poaching.

On Monday when I was out, the wind kicked up and blew a leaf onto my casting deck. I know that story sucks compared to all y'alls, but with our lack of weather, that is about as dangerous as it gets around here. Wait, here is one that could have been dangerous. Back in June of 1992, a pair of acquaintances of mine were fishing Big Bear Lake in Southern California (WRB used to fish this lake in his youth, but I digress). They were on a boat, in an area where the depthfinder (the old flasher style) read 55 feet. All of a sudden they heard all of the pine trees on the shore rustling, with dust kicking off of them. It took a few moments to realize that what they were seeing was an earthquake, for they weren't really moving, but stuff on the shore was. It was a fairly big quake (6.5), caused quite a bit of damage. After it settled down, they were kind of stunned, looking around when they noticed a lake ranger headed full speed up the lake, away from the dam. They thought that was odd and one of them glanced at the depth finder, which now read 40 ft. They continued to watch the depthfinder as it changed, 35 ft, 30 ft. "The dam collapsed, the lake is draining!!" one of them yelled as the depth continued to lessen. Panicked, they didn't start the engine and instead just grabbed the sides of the boat for support as the depth reached 20 ft., 15 ft. They braced for impact with the lake bottom when suddenly, instead of finding themselves beached, they saw the entire lake start bubbling. What had happened was the earthquake had shaken years of sediment and gasses loose from the bottom of the lake. As they rose from the bottom, the depthfinder misinterpreted them as the lake bottom. Once the two realized what had happened, they both bust a gut laughing at their reaction. Of course, they quickly went back to the Marina just in case the dam was going to collapse (it didn't).

Lake Forest II runs east to west (a little bit of a N/S angle to it) and is fairly narrow, so one side of the lake is basically north facing while the other side is south facing. Not much difference between the top end and the bottom end as far as depth, it was pretty much bulldozed fairly uniformed. The coves on the south side tend to be more protected, the onshore winds have to go over the houses along the shore before dropping back down to water level. By the time they reach the north side of the lake, they are low and blowing into the coves on that side, making those areas less protected.

I'll respond as straight to the point as you did, you seem like the type of person that likes to get to the point and avoid soft selling stuff. The problem with the assessment you made is it ignores the actual criticisms people have had towards BPT and substitutes instead a character flaw. Change for the sake of change is no virtue, so when someone gives a valid & reasoned criticism of a change, it is a bit arrogant to dismiss it as "well, they don't like change". It's not change they don't like, it is the specific thing that was changed or how it was done. Give the other anglers on this forum a little credit for not being curmudgeons, we would all welcome you in our boats ?