AlabamaSpothunter

I really dig your fishing style.....very pure, and very spartan. Have no clue how old you are, but if you're doing that type of fishing you are in most excellent shape. Totally get the tackle deal, as I love bank fishing and guerilla fishing as much as fishing on a decked out Bass wagon. Your pics are evidence of the fish you can catch if you are willing to put in the hard work to get into backwoods places. Measuring vs. weighing must be geographical thing or something. Here in the South, very few people measure Bass, just weigh them. Then I joined this forum that seems heavily populated by members from above the mason dixon line, and started seeing lots of Bass being measured. Maybe a carry over from other northern fish species that are prized on length more than weight. Dang what a beautiful fish, and I'd wade on a blowup tube to catch a fish like that LOL. I too can't do the kayak thing after using small boats with trolling motors my whole life......mad respect for those who fish that spartan. The wind kills me in a 14ft jon boat with TM, it would be essentially impossible to fish my lake many days in a kayak with no TM

Those are easily two of my favorites, but have tried stuff in Black Grape.....it's like a perfect combo of the two minus the usual flakes in Junebug offerings

I took a 15 year hiatus from harcore Bass fishing, and now that I've started back....it's staggering the amount of fisherman vs a decade and a half ago. I thought we reached peak Bass back then, I had no idea this sport would practically double in that span. The amounts of baits, high end rod and reel makers, whole aisles full of $50 dollar line, I mean nobody wants to talk about fishing pressure because we all add to that fact. I have no doubt in some places the Alabama Bass is outcompeting native species, but this problem especially on major impounded reservoirs is significantly deeper than just blaming it on the Alabama Bass. The podcast posted does quite a good job explaining some of these other things.

I've always felt the key to Roboworm's unmatched success is their action, and patented salt release system. They also make a million different color options so it's overwhelming to some degree. Costco did a study on whether consumers were more or less likely to buy a product when it was offered in 2-3 varieties verses a few dozen varities. What they found was the consumer gets overwhelmed with too many choices, and ultimately doesn't purchase the product, whereas when only presented with 2-3 options they were much more apt to purchase the product.

Is there really a wrong color in a roboworm......Aaron's magic is great. They used to have a FX series, best looking soft plastics I've ever seen.

Fantastic fish! Those are all the size that make your heart race, third one down is especially nice. You need to get a scale, and I need to upgrade mine to a clamp one. Thankfully I don't fish areas with uber vegetation that would make a frog a good choice. I throw them on the rare occasion, almost never catch a fish on them. Went out another night in the rain two nights ago thinking the Covid wasn't that bad, but I guess I overdid or something. Hopefully I'll be back to fishing in a few days. Quite surprised I haven't caught a Spot over 3-4lbs yet, but this one is a start at 2.4lbs. Fought like wall hanger though haha

Thrown a chatterbait at least 50% of the time. I'm sure I'd have a whole lot more trophy Bass on my list. Wish I wouldn't have taken 15 years off as well.

Wish my dad could have been into fishing, his father was a massive angler like myself. I had to take advantage of neigbhor who mentored me. When it works out that both father and son like the same thing, magical memories, and lifelong friendship beyond the father/son relationship can happed Got pretty close my man, and chasing trophy Bass for a lifetime isn't that bad of a gig lol. I'm sure you have the best "fisherman" stories about times/places you just might have had the one that bested ole' Dottie One thing I didn't realize was how many of those SoCal Bass were taken off live baits, specifically crawfish. Nothing wrong with that, but I always heard it was big swimbaits in rainbow trout colors

Dynamite post, and excellent explanation. Thanks!

I was born in the 80s, my entire life Lake Lanier has been known as one of the world's greatest Spotted Bass fisheries, long before the Alabama Bass was recognized. Never once have I heard of that lake being referred to as a LGM lake. It's not a great lake for LGM based on depth, topography, water clarity, and lack of abundant structure. It would be like calling Smith Lake in Alabama a once thriving LGM lake. It's deep, clear, cold, lacks structure....always has, always will. Without the Alabama Bass, major tournament circuits would never fish it. Lanier is the same way. That link above from the Auburn professor explains quite nicely why your friend talks about the lake the way he does when it was first impounded. There is an actual phenomenon that occurs in newly flooded impoundments......and for about 10 years, LGMs thrive, and continue to grow in size and numbers, however after that first decade, silt and decay of the original flooded structure has occurred, the lake is not getting all those decomposing nutrients, the lake clears up, the lake loses the decayed structure......bam, you now longer have a great LGM lake because the actual lake itself doesn't lend itself to being a good one....has nothing to do with the fish themselves. At the same time, you have a species of Bass that thrives in those conditions, and now the lake has trophy class fishing again....albeit not what apparently some Bass purists want.

Last time I was buying big money reels like Daiwa and Shimano, they were all made in Japan IIrc, I know my Daiwas are, as they have it lasered on the bottom of the reel seat. My real question I have now, are the JDM models better than US made versions, or is it more of an exclusivity/collectable/non performance based characteristic? I find it odd these companies would make two different versions of many times the same reel for different countries, yet both are trying to achieve the exact same thing. Are Americans cheaper than Japanese anglers? I guess I should start a thread instead of hijacking one, but it's quite confusing.

Amen brother, I think I said earlier in this thread that anybody who thinks they are trash should come to where they are native, and you can catch 5-7lb trophies.....aka Lay Lake, and Smith Lake are perhaps the two best. Once I caught my first 6lb Alabama Bass I knew they were the fish I'd always have at the top of my list.

Wow you did an awesome job on that. It's my neighbors boat, so I figured I better get a dedicated boat to trick out. That thing would be so perfect though in my lake. Replace the OB with a 55lb thrust, and that would slay them in my lake

No OB, this is just a jon boat setup, and ultimately, I hope to buy an old bass boat, or decked jon boat with stern trolling motor mount as this is a V hulled high side jon boat, and I can't imagine a worse boat to fish out of. Great info though, and I'll draw back on it when I get the dedicated fishin boat.

Wow, amazing fish. Fish of a lifetime for many smallmouth anglers I'd imagine.

I'm a poor fisherman, but I keep going. There is something to be said for tenacity, stubbornness, and the fact you still love to go fishing after a lifetime of not being great at it. I fished with a Bassmaster Classic runner up for a day when I was in High School. Had the same realization as a kid who would have played with Mike Jordan....yeah I love doing this, but I'm never going to be on that level.

57 fish.......looks like your thumbs and hand will be sandpaper for a week lol. What a morning. I can't remember ever catching over 50 fish where the majority would even go over a lb. I miss a lot of fish too on non soft plastic stuff, I need to get proper rod setups with better actions. I use GLX mag bass MH fast rods as do it alls, but they'll pull a moving bait from a fish quite easily.

Right on, now I finally got it figured out. Thanks!

Wow I'm so far out of the loop, took me forever to understand what the heck JDM was.....now that I know the term, where are you guys finding the Japanese made Daiwa models. My old TD, and Steez reels were all made in Japan, but bought locally brick and mortor. Remind me never to take a decade + off from a hobby, dang

Awesome, gonna google it right now. Why do you guys like costing me so much money Oh yeah, I'll buy a few of these for sure. These things seem relatively weedless without the guard, but I love the added peace of mind because I'm really slow rolling these things into cover. Places where everything gets hung including jigs and T-Rigged plastics. Think this pattern should work great

Well Loomis got their hooks into me early, but I think the reason why I stay with them is because my local shop, and big time reseller for Loomis has a no questions asked policy with a broken Loomis. Back in the day I snapped the tips on two of them, went in there and told the guy, and then he pointed to the rack and said find two new ones. Did this on one other occasion as well. Last time I was huge into this sport, you only had Loomis at the mountain top, then you had All Stars, and at that time St. Croix was ascending the mountain but were already top tier. Glass rods were just getting big. It's really shocking to see how much the industry has grown in just the 15 yr break I took. To be honest, we've reached serious levels of overkill when you browse to the aisles at Bass Pro, or other major tackle supplier. I mean just so much stuff to catch anglers.

I'm a recent addict of these baits, they are absolutely dynamite. I do find myself losing smaller fish, and while that's not a huge issue, I like to catch every fish that bites my bait. I can't help but think my rod has a lot to do with this. Using a very stiff GLX Mag Bass MH Fast. The GLX is fantastic on the big fish I'm catching with these......had no clue how well this bait works on big fish at night. I keyed on your reply because one thing I do know is that I love to fish these low and slow, and also think 15lb FC is the way to go for my needs. What make/model rod did you go with, and outside of the NRX offering, does Loomis make a comparable offering? Thinking 600 bones on a chatterbait rod is a bit high lol.

Buy a pack of Roboworms 6" straight tail worms, perhaps one with a colored tip. Buy a pack of Spot Sticker, or Shakey Head hooks. Combine the two, cast as closely to weeds, stumps, any kind of structure you think is out there, and just reel very slowly. You'll feel that bump bump.....set the hook, and bam fish on. Nothing is going to work across all the vast spectrums of different Bass locales like a Roboworm. It catches little fish, big fish, fish in dirty water, fish in clear water, shallow fish, deep fish.....it's as close to a magic bullet for a Bass as I've found.

Will do, I'm an Auburn grad too

Gorgeous Spot she caught, and the whole lot is full of great fish, congrats! She has the right shirt on as well....If I'm spending big money on a rod, it's going to G.Loomis. What a heck of a night I just back home from. 13 fish released, lost a few near the boat, and my Lord did I get eaten up by peckerhead bites. These fish were everywhere, but seemingly in the beginning of the night they did not want to eat on anything but shad offshore. It was maddening listening to huge thumps all around, and not having anything to offer. All fish were caught on my old reliable.....8" Mag Lizard setup as I described in a previous report, and perhaps my new confidence bait at least in terms of quality to big fish, the ZMAN chatterbait in Breaking Bream with the Zoom twin tail trailer. Generates a ton of strikes from all size Bass, but it seems only Bass of a certain size really get stuck with it. I hate myself a little for just now deciding to learn how to chatterbait fish. The more I fish it, the more I realize I need a special rod just for these baits. One thing I'm noticing is that thinner or more sparse skirts do better for me than full or thick skirts. The 3/8th models seem like the sweet spot as well for me. I can't get the same action on the 1/2oz models I've thrown. Found a great place where an above lake's spillpipe was flowing into the large lake, one of those places and times where you just know you are going to catch a fish.....well that happen, and 6 more right after happened, all from the same 10ft stretch spanning the area where the fast flowing runoff was flowing into the lake. Mix bagged basically 50/50 b/t Spots and LGMs. Got a really healthy, quality pig slow rolling that chatterbait on a dock off the main body of the lake. Thought it was dang catfish at first. I had trouble making myself quit as the fish were still biting, but I was fishing in rather poor conditions. It lightly rained on me for 75% of the night, it was pitch black with almost complete cloud cover, couldn't see a moon. One very notable thing about tonight was I've never seen so many threadfins roaming all over the lake....offshore, inshore, by docks, just everywhere. One of those nights where it's just flat out fishy, you feel like you are going to get bit every cast. The lake was fully alive, Herons and Owls, then I saw a few muskrats or otters, never can tell what they are. Bats diving down all over after mosquitos, Beavers slapping the water like jerks, then saw a baby Opossum scrounging for bugs on the bank. It's literally just you and nature.....something I rarely get during the day fishing.