OCdockskipper

I was out all day, so I avoided looking at Basstrak or catching bits of the weigh-in on my phone. Having the leader and a couple of guys in the top 20 yesterday gave me some hope, all I needed was my bottom two to slide into the cut. So I start at the top of the leaderboard & see that Mullins has passed my man for the lead. No problem, go through the top 10, none of my guys there (uh oh), top 20, still none (oh crud), ding, one at 23 & one at 26. Okay, now all I need to see is Gussy & my other two guys inside the cut... Thbpbpthbpthbpbpthbp...well, that sucked.

Here are my unasked-for suggestions to the current BPT tour: 1) Fish 3 different lakes each tournament (or sections of a lake). Day 1 & 2 on Lake A, Day 3 on Lake B and Day 4 on Lake C. This way there is no incentive to "save fish" for a latter part of the tournament; 2) Reward finishing higher during prelims, whether it be cash or advantages in later rounds; 3) Set up the tour to hit certain lakes & certain areas every year at the same time. Golf, Tennis and other individual sports do this. It will cut down on the need for prefishing, there will be a familiarity to each event.

The time of your life that you are currently in is the most difficult. The fact that you are newly married with young kids should change your priorities, that is what makes you a good person. The good news is that your life will continue to change as your kids get older and the availability of free time will increase. Enjoy your wife & kids at the stage they are at, it won't last forever. At age 25, I had been married two years and we just had twin boys. I vividly recall going to my mom's, unloading kids, car seats, diaper bags, etc. and thinking to myself "I am going to be doing this for the rest of my life". Fast forward 30 years and it is so much different. The first 20 years of marriage & kids meant fishing was a couple times a year thing. However, for the past decade, fishing once or twice a week has again become part of my life. My boys never showed much interest in it, but my daughter did and still joins me occasionally. Best yet, there is a grandson on the way come May and I figure I will have him in my boat before he takes his first step ? If you have a current situation that limits your fishing, don't blow it up in order to get out & fish more. Continue to do the right things and the rewards will come in spades in the future.

I had forgotten about that, you are right. I understand having a temper, I have an Irish one with some German intensity added in for good measure. However, I realized years ago that you always look like jerk when you blow your lid, you look childish when you then break things and you look like a coward when you take it out on a defenseless animal.

While I agree with you that what gets rewarded gets done, I don't believe you should let each individual angler off the hook for their actions. As an extreme example, Mike Iaconelli has been shown literally throwing a small bass as far as he could in a fit of anger. I don't believe any other angler has ever been seen doing something like that. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Aaron Martens seems to take a bit extra time to take care of each fish that he lands. Both of these anglers were under the same rules in the Elite series, but they made personal choices on how to handle the creatures they caught. C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying "Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching". That falls on each of us, on each angler, no matter the rules in place.

Yes, I use them for skipping docks (although I use a local manufacturers knockoff version for the smaller size). I find that weightless sluggos skip better & flatter than flukes, and stay on the hook better during all that abuse.

That falls on each individual angler. If they knew they were going to cull, some had no respect for the fish. I have seen pro anglers literally rip the lips off a bass rather than take a minute to carefully unhook them. I have seen anglers not even attempt to remove a deep hooked small bass, it was faster to just cut the line and grab a different rod. Some anglers treated the five they brought in with care to avoid a penalty, but not any of the other fish they caught. These same anglers who had been Elites now are part of BPT.

All the boys take a look at the new girl in town when she first shows up...? The past two weeks really showed the difference in the two tours. Both were down in Florida, but due to the format differences, one produced great numbers of bass while the other produced more lunkers. In the long run, I believe that difference will make the Elites stay the number one tour because it showcases skills that most of us don't have. I would take a guess that most of the people on this board have never weighed in a 30 lb bag of 5 fish, but nearly all of us have had days where we found a school or two of bass and caught 60 - 80 lbs total for the day. If it is something I can do, I'd rather go do it than watch it. I can't find who said it, but a member on this board wrote that the whole BPT situation is as if MLB players did a reality show where they played softball (MLF) and then when that was done, decided to play softball for the rest of their careers instead of baseball. I can't think of a more apt description.

I was one of those. Clunn is a bit of a curmudgeon, which is his prerogative at the age of 72 and his choice to avoid a weigh in when he hasn't done well is a bit selfish (although some say he does it in order to not take the spotlight away from those who have fished well). All that said, he still has a skill level that is unequaled by most. He has done a great job of discarding what he grew up doing (catching 10 - 15 two pounders per day) to what is now required (catching 5 three to four pounders per day). Compare that to others from his era (Fritts, Klein, etc) and the accomplishment is noteworthy. Speaking of Klien, I was an official at TexasFest last year and at the end of the officials meeting, the Elite anglers started showing up for their meeting. Clunn had something to ask Trip Weldon and after he did, he walked past a few of us officials. One man in his mid 50's, who I found out later was a huge fan of Clunn's, was a bit starstruck at seeing him in person. He held out his hand and said "Hello Mr. Klein, hope you do well tomorrow". Without missing a beat, Clunn shook his hand and said "Thank You, but I am Rick Clunn, not Gary Klein". The poor official looked white as a ghost when he realized his verbal slip.

The reports of the death of the Elite series at the hands of BPT have been greatly exaggerated... It may have been a perfect storm of the right fishery at the right time, but I haven't seen that many 30 lb bags since Falcon Lake back in 2013. The weights were higher than any other Elite series at St. Johns and there were a bunch of fish that went over 8 lbs. Would have the old Elites, the current BPT guys, done any better? They gave up their chance to say they could when they all left. If I could write a script for the next 13 months, I would have Jordan Lee win the 2019 Classic in Tennessee for a three-peat & an invite to the next Classic. Clunn would go on to have a good enough year to qualify for the 2020 Classic (I think it would be stretching it to give him a shot at the AOY). This being the 50th Classic, returns to the site of the 1st one, Lake Mead. Lee has a great tournament and leads into the final day, but Clunn stuns everyone by having a bigger day 3 and winning his 5th Classic. The expectation of three guys with 4 Classic titles (Clunn, KVD & Lee) is shattered, now Clunn has 5 Classics and those guys with multiple titles no longer have a way to qualify for another. Unless of course, they leave the BPT and re-qualify for the Elite series... If the 50th Classic is at Mead and Clunn does indeed qualify, don't forget he won a pair of US Open's there. It can be a tough fishery and many of the pros from East of the Rockies have never fished it.

Well, the "enhancements" have held up for 2 years, reminded us of what she looked like back in the 70's. I thought you were going to mention that at the same time the wife moved back, a divorcee from San Diego also moved in, renting a room. That one keeps giving us the eye, but we know she is a true heartbreaker.

If your wife left you for 25 years & then came back, it would not be unusual for you to be cautiously optimistic about her return. No matter how quickly she started wearing her Super Bowl lingerie, it would take some time for you to once again commit.

I have the TM in front, along with my seat. I mounted my Bigfoot directly to the sub floor I had carpeted & installed (use Marine grade plywood, it is more expensive, but worth it). I put it at a distance from the seat where I don't have to stretch my leg to reach it, but it is out of the way when I stand up.

If I was interested in a young one, I would... DISCLAIMER - Just in case there is a soul in the world who didn't understand the above post, it is a joke.

My sentiments exactly. I have caught fish off beds and released them, the males swim back to the bed, the females swim back to adjoining cover. However, I would not call catching bass off of beds unethical, even if you keep them. Using such descriptions as reasons for banning something is a slippery slope, for many outside of our fishing world consider just the act of catching a fish unethical.

I knew the Saturday cut was 35, but was just assuming Sunday was 12 (since the opens go top 12 on the last day as well). Statistically, it makes more sense to go from 35 to 10, so you may be correct.

After Day 2, the cut is the top 35 and then the top 12 advance to the final day. Our fantasy scores will be higher overall because you will never have a bomb end up in 100 something place. Worst now is 75th, which is worth 125 points. Last year, you have someone in the hundreds, he would get between 57 - 75 points depending on his exact place. The high scores will not be alot higher (per event), but the low scores will be much higher.

A couple of observations following the Day 1 weigh-in: Following the stereotype, there were more big bass weighed in on Day 1 of of the Elite tournament than the first two days of the BPT. I understand they were fishing different bodies of water, but I believe the formats have more to do with that. You can't sit on a bed fish, even if it is over 10 lbs, in the BPT format, you will get crushed by multiple smaller fish catches; John Crews caught 5 (& only 5) bass today for a total of 24 lbs, 13 oz to sit in 2nd place. That would have placed him in 9th place of group A, 10th place in group B of the BPT. Again, I understand different bodies of water, but it is another illustration of the style of fishing each format dictates; The 2016 Elite tournament on the St. Johns had 110 anglers, 14 of which had 20 lb bags the first day (12.7%). This year, out of 75 anglers, 10 had 20 lb bags the first day (13.3%). A slight uptick due to less angler pressure?; The cut weight for day 1 in 2016 was 15 lbs, 7 oz while this year it was 13 lbs, 7 oz. While it is only one day of data, I think this is where the experience difference between the two fields will show. The winning weights and top 10 may end up being similar in weights, but the 2016 roster could grind out higher weights better than the current roster when they weren't on the winning fish. For the viewing audience, this doesn't really matter, because most of their focus is on the top 10 (or 12).

For BPT, I won't watch the streaming of the preliminary rounds, unless I am doing something else and just have it on in the background. For me it is like golf or baseball, difficult to sit for such a long time & just watch. For the final round, I will turn it on to specifically watch it, but find myself drifting away to other things and just keeping an ear open as to what is going on. For BASS, what I like to do is avoid hearing updates and then watch the weigh-in. That keeps the suspense, especially with the anglers I have chosen for Fantasy Fishing. For MLF & BASS, I do watch & enjoy the edited shows for TV. Condenses a full days fishing for multiple anglers down to a watchable amount.

All the time. Mostly it involves future trips, which days would be best based on weather forecasts (from 4 different weather sites) and what I anticipate the fish to be doing. When driving, I will look at undeveloped areas, imagine them filled with water and try to figure out where & how to fish them at the current time of year. Recently, I keep running through my head the pro's & cons of as well as exactly how to add a front deck to my Pond Prowler. I don't even know if I really want a raised deck, but now that the idea is there, it is bouncing around like a pinball under the control of Tommy, the deaf, dumb & blind kid.

It was recently discovered that most largemouth bass are converting to the Muslim religion, so they stopped eating pork products. All you can catch with those pork trailers are Christian bass and some of the atheist bass.

I think there is a difference between more talented & better. One could argue the Rams were a more talented team, but the Patriots were better. Dan Marino was one of the most talented QBs in NFL history, but there are about a dozen others who were better.

I don't think so, because you can take Magic & Larry Bird, two successful fierce competitors with very different personalities and I find them both likable off the court. Kobe Bryant, also a very fierce competitor with success, not likable even though he played for the team I root for. Bill Russell, probably the most successful professional athlete, immensely likable to me off the court. When Russell was asked for an autograph, he would refuse but then say "if you want to sit down and chat for 5 minutes, I can do that". Those 4 are examples of athletic greatness, but four different personalities (outgoing, reserved, charismatic, etc). You can be a jerk and be a great, highly competitive athlete, but I don't believe you have to be the first to be the second. Some people, successful or not, are just not likable.

Congrats to the Patriots, they outplayed teams that were statistically better the last 3 games to win the Super Bowl. I would say this was probably their most impressive Super Bowl run & win. I would like to address the above comments about "haters" in a calm, rational & hopefully non-insulting manner. The typical narrative is that people dislike Tom Brady & the Patriots because they have had success. I believe this explanation is incorrect. I don't know if it will change any minds, but I do want to set the record straight for at least one person (me) who gets classified as such. I dislike Tom Brady because of his personality and the way he carries himself. At the same time, I credit him with being the most successful quarterback of his era. One can hold both opinions at the same time, one does negate the other. I like Bill Belichick, have no qualms about the way he deals with the press or carries himself and respect the way he runs his team and the success he has had. I dislike Robert Kraft, he embodies alot of traits I find distasteful. Doesn't mean he is a horrible person, or maybe doesn't have some good traits, I just don't like the the public image he has chosen and the way he comes across. So as a whole, I dislike the Patriots organization. Toss in the culture of the area they are from and their fans & they are a team I just don't like. BTW, I don't like the culture of Los Angeles either, so it isn't an East Coast/West Coast thing. Now none of this has anything to do with the Patriots success or failure, it has to do with individuals. I disliked Rex Ryan when he coached the Jets, who never made it to a Super Bowl. I liked Terry Bradshaw, even if one of his Super Bowl victories came against the Rams. It is an individual thing, and ones abilities or success's don't play into it. Ironically, after Brady's first 2 years in the league, I found him likable while Belichick seemed like an old curmudgeon. Over time, I saw Belichick's seemingly rough edges as nothing more than a leadership style that he needed for the area he was coaching. His consistency and interaction with others in his profession were admirable, I changed my opinion of him. In the meantime, Brady morphed from a humble, confident young man into what I can only describe as a Dbag. His actions & words changed as he had success (or maybe what he truly was all along came to the surface). So for me, I don't dislike Tom Brady because of his success, rather I dislike Tom Brady because of the person he has allowed himself to change into as he has had success. So thats why I dislike the Patriots and can at the same time congratulate them on their win.

Watching the post game show for the first time. I have heard some people complain about Dave Mercers style (I personally enjoy listening to him), but the MLF Statue in Skinny Jeans is annoying. His interviews are okay, but when he tries to do the Monster Truck Rally voice, he ends up just screaming at times he doesn't need to. I know he is trying to induce excitement, he just isn't good at it. I'm sure they will clean that up over the next few tournaments.