AlabamaSpothunter

You guys called, the TM crapped out an hour into the session, and during the best A Rig bite I've been on thus far. Wonder if just letting it dry out might fix it. Either way, I'll be a dedicated Bass rig in due time, tired of this one. Had my first double on the A Rig......a 5lb class fish and a 1.5lb fish, caught a total of 4.5 before the motor quit. I managed to get some pretty crazy footage of the second smaller fish hitting an exposed bait mid fight with the 5lb class fish. Put a couple sections in Slow mo, including the surprise that I won't ruin.

What a toad Scott, even more awesome is fishing with your daughter.....what a lucky man you are! That fish is eating really good, love to see it. Hope those hands are feeling better, great to see you fishing again!

In my short time here I've had people on this forum tell me the Alabama Bass is invasive in the Coosa chain of lakes.....the literal place they are native too. They are the boogeyman to many on this forum, I get it.....you don't want them to mess with your SM fisheries. They belong where I live, it's not a one off thing, they are native to my backyard and the surrounding several hundred miles of rivers and lakes. VA state using a couple of lakes is no different than me sharing my experience or my "anecdotal data". Invasive to VA, isn't invasive to AL.

She ran good lol....maybe she craps out tom.

Alabama Bass will out compete everything but Largemouth. Will hybridize with many of the sub species including the SM. I introduced Alabama Bass to a LGM only 150+ acre lake 25years ago, the lake today produces more big LGM than before they were put in. This defies what much of the science suggests. Every lake is a story onto itself based on my own firsthand experience stocking a sub species. When I first put them in, the first couple of years we were catching 5lb+ very often, however 25 years later, my biggest has been 4lbs on the dot after extensive fishing.

While attending to my state of the art Bass rig earlier, I watched one of the coolest things I've seen on the lake.....heard a commotion behind me, look to see a big ole bluegill flat side on the surface, within nanoseconds I'm watching a nice 5lb class LGM finish the job off. First time I've ever witnessed a bluegill eaten, much less a hand sized one. Caught a quick fish in the rain making sure the TM still worked lol, and called it. This Spot was so pale, same with the other LGM that came from this dingy water the other day. Amazing how fast these fish can change their coloring. Slowly but surely viz in returning, and the Bass don't seem to have any trouble eating in it, perhaps this might even be advantageous to them.

Out of likes, but those are two toads, congrats!

I'm coming to this conclusion on hardbaits in general. Seems like it's just part of the cost of doing business. The only problem is the finish on the ones that work. Appreciate the added replies from others as well!

Haha, out of emotions ? Well Joe, nice to meet you, I'm Alex.

Thanks Keith, very kind. I like mine, but in time wouldn't mind putting some cork knobs on mine. Then again, I love the aesthetic of the all blacked out Zillion HDs.

Very kind and generous offer! The Braided Wonder might need backups, he's rolling deep in HDs ?

I'm in this market right now, I couldn't click the link fast enough......hard pass. Agree, a Jon boat would be much better for me than a 12k 13' boat.

8.5lb Bass say's "welcome to world of Megabass, now hand over your wallet" ? Or at least that's what happened to me as soon as I saw how well these baits catch fish. That makes sense, whereas I get a ton of my strikes on the pause, sometimes they hit the darn thing on the pause so hard it startles me. I fish the opposite of your conditions, so maybe longer pauses are needed in my waters to give fish time to locate it. I get maybe 2ft of viz on normal days.

Very cool, and thanks for sharing Eric! Holy cow that's some serious money. Those are some seriously cool plugs, what a gift. Thanks for the link to the thread! Awesome, appears to be the same model as mine. Bet it would still catch a fish ?

Tough call for me, from a strictly catching POV, I'm going with those ocean lakes with a known large amount of baitfish. On the other hand the 500acre lake might be just as loaded with good forage and the only thing more important than catching in my book, is not seeing other people......call me selfish, but I cannot plug into nature properly even while fishing with a friend. That's fun too, but again totally different than night fishing, dawn fishing, fishing a 500acre lake by yourself, etc.

Appreciate the replies! Been watching too much TacticalBassin lol, there does seem to be a correlation between my best suspending jerkbaits and success. I thought Chatterbaits were addictive, but the nuance and mastery of Jerkbaits has a grip of my soul or at least the Jerkbait Monkey does. These things produce spectacular results and excitement, very fun bait to fish. That would be killer, and I agree about the slow sink. I got a Stunna, but I fish a lake with heavy cover. Now that I've got solid sonar I work over the top of these areas lots. Long casts with fluoro and a slow sink would have me snagged lots The other way I'm catching lots of fish on these right now is when a lot of Bass are able to push up and trap a large group of Shad against a bank, corner, pinch point. I sit back a little bit and target the 5-10ft zone with the +1s trying to pick off the bigger fish that I think stay a bit deeper and just wait for slower moving or dying Shad to come to them, whereas above them a bunch of 1-2lb fish are launching themselves out of the water sometimes right against the bank.

I love it, and this thread is a testament that it doesn't take $100k late model Bass rigs to catch fish Who's to say that isn't a Tennessee Power Pole ?

Fish are beautiful, boat anchor is epic ?

Man that's seriously impressive coming out of that water clarity. I'm pretty sure the fish hate this as much as we do. Nice, I never thought I'd be more jelly over someone's water clarity than fish, but here we are ? Congrats on the nice one, watermelon red flake is arguably the best plastic color invented imho. Top 3 at least.

So I've basically bought all the high end suspending Jerkbaits on the market. I've got the Duo Realis 100SP, a Lucky Craft Staysee 90SP, a Shimano World Minnow Flash Boost, a Jackall 110 sized suspending model, and a number of the MegaBass Vision baits. Got several hundred into these baits, well down the rabbit hole lol. Many of the baits have been highly successful. After buying 5 MegaBass Vision models over the last month to see the mountain top, only one of them suspends, and by that, I mean really slowly floats. It's not perfectly suspending like I know a bait can do. That said, I'm still catching the fire out of them on a few models, but my favorite one that has produced the best is also the one that suspends the best. This is in water temps ranging from the lake at 45-60d, and a tub of water with 50d water. Here is MegaBass's response to my question over having a bunch of these baits being "slow floaters": "The Vision Onetens will slow float, which will vary in speed due to many factors—water temp being just one, with water density, line type and strength being some others. It may take some experimentation, but changing the hooks or upsizing split rings could help, or trying something like suspend strips or dots is not uncommon. If the baits rise quickly it could be another issue. One note about changing the hooks: rather than going up a size, you may try using a regular wire hook of the same size (#6). Since our Katsuage are a more finesse hook, simply going with a more standard treble might help." At first I tried the hooks and rings but realized I'm adding another several dollars on a $25 bait and more importantly taking away from the original design/balance. I really like the stock hooks on both models even though I've lost a big fish and came close to losing a 7.2lb a week or two ago on one. I catch lots of these jerkbait fish that only swiped at the bait. I might lose more fish on these finesse hooks, but I'm sure I'm getting more hookups, not looking to mess with that at this time. I've adjusted my own technique/drag to account for this going forward. Today I bought Suspend Dots that I used on big Rattling Rouges growing up, but hate the idea of having to use suspend dots on high end JDM baits that say they suspend, but in reality very few actually do. The Jackall suspends perfectly, the Shimano suspends close to perfect, then a MegaBass 110jr +1. Haven't tried the LuckyCraft or Duo yet. The thing about the Vision I've noticed vs. the others is how it sits perfectly nose down. The Shimano perfectly sits horizontally, both baits have produced terrific results, yet have quite different actions when jerked. So my question is this, how important is perfect suspension of your jerkbait, and if you don't require a perfection suspension, what level of slow float are you willing to deal with? Any of you Vision 110 fans using Suspend Dots?

That's a good way to go blind ?

Dang that thing looks wicked cool. I might be able to fly under the radar with 7.5, but the max HP in the lake rules are 5HP. Those Torqeedos are pushing huge pontoons 10mphs easy, they sound sweet too. Future is coming fast, I'm sure in 5 years spending 2-3k for a 3-5HP quality TM will look stupid.

A number of people on my home lake have these sweet motors by Torqeedo, and I've seen Facebook ads for a company called Newport Vessel. Amazon has a China made one for like $800 that has more HP than both the previous models. Looking to get a tiller model. The Torqeedo model I like is $2900 which includes the battery, and the Newport Vessel comparable model is $1k + $1k for the lithium extended battery. Anybody have motors from either company, or from another that you can recommend. I'm not sure I can spend $3k for a TM. This will be used where a normal outboard would be on a traditional Bassboat. Thinking it will be a relatively lightweight 16-18" boat. Aluminum, not glass.

No it's not which isn't what I suspected. This isn't a huge lake, about 150-200acres.....but is relatively deep for it's size as well. Lots of places with 30+ ft of water. Over 3 days, I can't even see an improvement yet. Hopefully you don't run into this stuff. Second pic is from before on 1/2, first pic is from today 3 days after the rain. strong enough for me to still haul gear to a boat.....get on the water for the 30mins, and then drag it all home like a fool for 3 straight days.......Einstein had a quote about this, something, something definition of insanity ?

Naw, it came of the flashback mini, imagine the only way the fish found the bait was the vibration. That's the worst part, it killed the Jerkbait bite I had been on for a few weeks....#firstworldproblems ? You got it Katie, flashback mini. Maybe tomorrow I break out the Whopper Plopper ?