OCdockskipper

It rose at 1:15 & was near overhead as I came off the water. Other than that, I believe it was rooting me on!!

With a high pressure system parked over the West, our temperatures spiked following the 4th of July. It hit 113 here on Friday and will be in the triple digits again today, with lows never dropping below 75 in the middle of the night. So I flipped my sleep schedule around late Thursday and scheduled to go out from midnight to 8 am this morning. The trip went well, the weather was perfect for shorts and a T shirt with no concern of sunburn or exposure. My familiarity with both the lake & my gear made casting in the dark not as bad as I had been concerned about. Lure wise, the bass had no interest in a topwater, which is not unusual for this lake. Instead, the bait of choice was a Rapala Scatter Rap shallow, which stayed high in the water column around the docks & weedlines and had a little erratic action without any thing to run the bait into. Jigs & worms didn't produce much, except at one dock that had a minnow light submerged in the water. I caught a few bass that were hiding on the outside edge of the shadows and would dart into the light to feed, including the largest for the night, a 4 lb 2 oz one on a Ned rig. One thing I found is that fishing before dawn sure prepares you for when the sun gets ready to rise. Not only do you have a good idea what to do instead of having to spend time trying figure them out, now being able to see where you are casting seems like cheating. Of the 41 bass I caught, 26 were in the 5.5 hours of darkness before dawn while the remaining 15 were in the 2.5 hours following it. I believe the difference probably had to do with execution on my part, making more precise casts to fish I might have missed in the darkness. The only negative is that I left them biting. On the positive side, I had the boat back in, cleaned & all my tackle put away as the temps hit 90 degrees. Took a nap to get my sleep schedule back to normal and popped in to give this report. I like having this as an option to avoid getting hammered by summertime heat.

These are the words of either J Francho's dad or a future stalker...?

Earlier this year, Dick's was one of the main sponsors of the Bassmaster Classic. If at all possible, I try to patronize those retailers and manufacturers who financially support professional bass fishing, I think it makes sense logically to do so. Then, in February, DSG chose to stop selling AR-15's in a response to the school shooting in Florida. That put me in a quandary because I also make it a habit to not patronize companies who blame legal gun owners for the actions of mass murderers. Now not supporting a American-Made lure manufacturer for reasons other than sales puts another notch in the "don't buy from DSG" belt for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say DSG doesn't have the right to choose whomever they want to do business with. Nor would I ever encourage others to boycott a store for the reasons I choose to not do business with them, I believe group economic protests like that amount to extortion. That said, I personally have no interest in doing business with them and will look at the monies they pay to sponsor any B.A.S.S. events as found money.

By chance, has the pond dried up? If so, then I think I know the reason for your struggles...

I thought you were going to reveal that he was the nut who climbed up on the Statue of Liberty this past 4th of July...

Yes, but expectations can be tricky. If you expect more than you should, you will feel like you are missing out when in reality, you may be getting what is available. If you expect less, you may settle for what you are getting and miss out on a different, better bite. When I used to bowl competitively, I learned that at a certain skill level, the lane conditions were 90% responsible for your scoring, your decisions and execution were responsible for the rest. It is the same way with fishing. The conditions, both seasonally and current as well as the body of water, will create whatever scenario is available for that day. Be realistic and optimistic at the same time, but learn what should increase catch rates and what will decrease them to manage your expectations properly.

Since I fish the same lake every week, I know it pretty well and what tends to work seasonally. I have 8 rods on board, all rigged the night before. A couple are year round confidence baits for this lake (a Ned rig & a dock skipping bait), 4 or 5 are ones rigged based on the time of year and weather report for the next day and 1 or 2 are something I want to try (either new or something I haven't used much or been successful with in the past). Maybe 1 trip out of 5 I will need to re-rig one or two of the rods with something I didn't choose the night before.

That's important when you are trying to land that big one. Like yesterday, I hooked this bass, fought him for over 6 hours. All of a sudden, he jumps clean over the boat. Broke my rod & I had to tie the line off on the mumble, mumble, mumble. Left me out there with nothing but a paddle.

I was Fritz's boat official on Day One at BassFest in May on Lake Travis. He spent the entire day doing those 2 techniques, he had a creature bait he was dragging around on a Carolina rig in 25 to 35 feet of water and occasionally would throw a big Berkley Warpig at those same fish. No fishing marinas or areas that had shade, no topwater at any time, no jerkbait, just those two things in that type of depth. Difference was he finished out of the cut by a decent margin at Travis and he is contending for a title here. In choosing my team this week, I thought this lake may end up fishing similar to Havasu did in 2015 as far as smallmouth goes. I was kind of right, but goofed up in the angler choices. I chose Aaron Martens, which was dumb because AMart won on Havasu fishing the reeds for largemouth, which didn't apply here. I chose JVD who had big days 2 & 3 on Havasu, but it appears he must have just stumbled upon a spot on Havasu based on his horrible performance here. I had my wife choose John Murray, but Havasu was local knowledge for him, not smallmouth prowess. I ignored Casey Ashley, Justin Lucas & Dean Rojas, all who had top 12's at Havasu and are doing well here. Why? I dunno, I'm an idiot. I did take Ehler (13th at Havasu) and had my wife take Pirch (2nd at Havasu) & Evers (3rd at Havasu with big bag), all of whom are vying for a top 12 this week. I don't think it was logical to predict Daniels or Fritz to perform the way they have, so that doesn't bother me. I think I had the right strategy but I just executed poorly with some bad decisions I do not give enough credit to Ashley, Bertrand or Roy, they are great anglers who often fly under the radar.

How in the world does Jonathan VanDam spend 3 days practicing on a smallmouth lake and then come to the scales with 3 keepers weighing under 4 lbs total?

Most largemouth bass have learned that if they try to gulp a spoonful of cinnamon, it will dry up in their mouth & they won't be able to swallow it. Cinnamon brown Senko's bring back those painful memories...

There should be an event in the Elite series where all of the anglers come back to the dock at the end of the day and tell Trip Weldon what they estimate the 5 biggest fish they caught that day weighed.

Carp Catfish Green Sunfish Bluegill Turtle Comorant Lawn Chair

I spent a lot of time looking at the E bucket, thinking Lefebre was due to break out of his funk, that Hunter Shryrock may be getting used to the Elites as they head to the northern waters that he is accustomed to. Instead, I chose Jason Williamson because he had 3 cashes in the first 5 events. I think it is safe to say Jason will have now have 3 cashes in the first 6 events.

The expectation would be that they would venture away from cover & be higher in the water column. With warm, summertime water upping the bass's metabolism, my first choice is moving top water baits (walking & buzzbait as opposed to poppers). They will let you know if that is the ticket pretty quick. Sometimes, the bass don't do what they are supposed to. Last Sunday, we had weather similiar to what you described, but I ended up finding the fish hunkered down under docks as if it were a clear, sunny day. Every lake has its own personality, it takes some time & effort to figure each one out.

If the joke is that the PBA is not professional or that bowling is not a sport, I wouldn't disagree with you. The PBA has lost its way since its heyday in the '50's thru '80's and I consider bowling a game, not a sport. However, there are many professional contests that zero out previous scores during a match. In tennis, it doesn't matter if you win 0 games or 5 games, when the set is over the scores are zeroed out for the next set. A person could theoretically win 27 games to his opponents 18 and still lose the match (6-0, 6-0, 5-6, 5-6, 5-6). In match play in golf, your score per hole does not carry over. I believe that track & swimming events use the initial times as seeding, but no advantage is given to a person who runs a cumulative faster time in all races. The early races are a way to get whittle down the field & get you to the finals. To use your Tim Horton example, he never would have gotten out of the preliminaries. Soccer never zeros its scores, but that is because nobody ever scores, so they don't have to... In any case, what does it matter what other sports do? I don't believe any other sports are conducted on a playing field where the general public is legally allowed to approach a competitor and do exactly what the competitors are doing just yards away from them. Not too many sports allow the competitors to relieve themselves on the playing field without some kind of penalty, but peeing off the back of the boat is standard in a bass tournament. Bass Fishing, like many sports, is pretty unique so having some contests with unique scoring enhances it in my opinion.

Heddon Tiny Torpedo Fleck Spinnerbait Zoom Ringworm (nearly identical to the Rebel Ringworms)

When I got my Pond Prowler a few years back, it had a pretty good maiden voyage. I found a school immediately and caught 9 keepers in the first 45 minutes. As that bite slowed, I moved 20 yards and made a cast to the corner of an isolated dock. Got a tap, set the hook but instead of a keeper, it was a 8lb, 0 oz largemouth. Heck of a first hour on a new boat!!

Depends on the time of year, the weather and the fish's mood, but once you balance the year out, it most likely works out to 70% spinning, 30% baitcasting. Most of the fish i catch are with a Ned rig or an unweighted plastic skipped under docks, both of which I use spinning for. It used to be 70/30 in favor of casting until I began using a braided line for spinning. That solved all of the twist issues for me and the increased casting distance made spinning become more & more attractive. About the same time I learned about the Ned rig from Team9Nine and Bluebasser86, so I find myself throwing that in place of a T-rig plastic worm or jig on a baitcaster.

Actually, professional bowling does that. In a step ladder finals, the scores during qualifying are dropped (players are seeded, but don't have an advantage as far as score goes). For each game of the stepladder on the televised finals, both players start from zero and any scores bowled earlier in the day are ignored. A bowler can run away from the field and be leading by hundreds of pins, but in the final heads up match, if he loses by 1 pin, he loses. MLF drops the scores each round. Weights from the elimination round are discarded in the sudden death round & weights from the sudden death round are dropped for the finals. In fact, there is no reward or penalty for your performance in those 2 rounds as long as you advance. The goal is to survive, survive and then win at the end. Therefore, the idea of keeping that concept going in the finals in a concentrated manner would be intriguing. Start with 8, drop the bottom 2 after the 1st period & reset the weights to zero. At the end of the 2nd period, drop 3 and again reset the weights so that you have 3 anglers fighting for the championship in one single period. It would eliminate someone from winning because they had a 30 minute flurry in the morning and would make people decide whether to sit on a honey hole or save it for a later round. I like Hoosierbass07's ideas, they make the final round match the rest of the tournament

I'd say that is an excellent strategy. If you find the fish are on the bottom and won't come up to get a bait, you might want to bump up to a 1/10 oz head to get the bait down there a bit quicker. I would venture to say you will catch more fish on the drop than the dropshot folks, so if the fish happen to be looking up that day, you will have a decided advantage.

Went fishing all day, then my kids came over for dinner. One of the gifts they gave me was 10 bowling pins, we set up an impromptu lane on a concrete path next to our driveway and used a basketball to roll a few games. Much tougher to do when you can't put your fingers in the ball & the ball bounces off the pins instead of going through them...

Condolences to their families as well as to your department.

The thing I have noticed about Jacob is how much he seems to enjoy teaching others what he did to succeed. Part of that may be healthy ego, the want to show how you figured out a puzzle but it also shows true confidence in his abilities as well as empathy to help others do what you were able to do. The nature of these tournaments often means one needs to be guarded with information, but Jacob is out there with it. I think that shows a trust in his decision making ability, that he is sure with all of the same information available, he will come to the right conclusion faster & more times than anyone else.