AlabamaSpothunter

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.

First order from TackleWarehouse last night, and it shows that being a site sponsor of a forum certainly increases sales.....having just gotten back into fishing, I had no clue who the go to place was for tackle. Already impressed, free shipping on orders over 50 is big in my book, and it shipped out today. Seem like they have great prices. They have just about everything I've looked up over the last month....but they finally had something I couldn't buy local....those magic shad. I sure hope I find a good vibrating head that matches the two I lost that were bought when Aaron Martens was still alive and making them. They had like a dozen models, and all but a very few had very poor reviews. I wanted one with a better keeper, but these at least had good reviews. Those 7" Robos are going to be killer at night, I was stoked to see the black grape offering. That Z_man chatterbait has been killing it for me at night, so I figured I'd get a back up. I used refrain, as I need several new rod and reel setups. Do they have a code for forum members? Product Name Ship Price Total Lake Fork Live Magic Shad Swimbait 3.5" Albino 3 6.79 20.37 Lake Fork Live Magic Shad Swimbait 3.5" Magic Shad 1 6.79 6.79 Jenko Tennessee Tremor Jig Head Long Bill 1/4oz 1 6.99 6.99 Robo Straight Tail 7" After Dark 1 4.79 4.79 Robo Straight Tail 7" Black Grape 1 4.79 4.79 Z-Man Project Z Weedless Chatter Breaking Bream 3/8 1 7.98 7.98

I'll give it watch now, thanks. True running baits, high quality hardware like rings and hooks, and in terms of pulling fish the wobble or vibration seems to be the biggest thing b/t which ones catch a ton of fish for me, and which ones don't. The bill also makes a huge difference, but b/t depth, wobble differences, color patterns, and then various bill shapes and sizes......CBs can be overwhelming in some regard. Nice concise video, good job. Two more things I've found make a world of difference, having a proper rod that has enough give in the tip specially to allow fish to bury trebles and keep myself from ripping baits upon strikes Secondly, and something rarely talked about......Suspending vs Floating CBs. There are times when a suspended CB or Jerkbait will produce the most violent strikes imageable. There is something about that bait stopping and just perfectly staying still for the briefest of seconds. To me CBs represent a big fish bait by in large. The vast majority of fish I catch off of them are very quality fish. 3lb and up fish usually, and within the last few weeks they've caught me several 5lb fish, and one 6lb fish.

Do you or does anyone else know if F1s are sterile like almost every other early generation hybrid male. For example in Bengal cats, F1s are 99% of the time sterile. Then what happens when a northern or FLGM fertilizes a F1 female's eggs.....there is likely a good chance many of those males will be sterile. I need to research these F1s more I guess

1000%. If you follow the Mountain Lion sighting in some of these eastern states where their DNRs refuse to acknowledge an easily variable account of a Lion sighting, and then look into what the DNR has to gain by refusing such clear evidence, you realize how corrupt these state government organizations are....big shocker. These DNRs won't admit a single Lion sighting because then they are generally required to use resources to protect, establish, and sustain a population. It's all about the money, it really is. Ultimately like the fish biologist on my local lake says, the angler is the one with his hand on the pulse of the fishery, not a scientist, not a bureaucrat, but those actually fishing. Nobody cares more about these fish than us, certainly not a state government agency.

EXACTLY, Bass anglers & state DNRs have been playing "God" for decades and decades. WRB posts about his state's history of stocking various nonnative species, and then the various stages of results illuminate this quite clearly. In regard to the F1 Bass, the hybrid vigor does in fact make the grow faster, and much more aggressive, but to my knowledge I've never heard anywhere that they can outweigh a pure Florida LGM. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can weigh in on that aspect. WRB posts have been extremely interesting since I joined because he seems to have witnessed the birth, the boom, and now for lack of better words, the bust of these fisheries that many of us grew up dreaming of fishing one day. Nothing about those world records or mega Bass that were being caught is "natural", but I have no problem with it, and only wished I could have been there to fish it. I'm a big believer in Natural Selection, and many other views attributed to Darwin. I'm into Bengal cats, and genetics in general, very fascinating stuff. What took an untold number of years of the Black Bass species to form 9 subspecies based on evolution(location), true natural selection(reproduction), and survival of the fittest (the wild card of evolution, a smarter Bass might live on to reproduce regardless of the fact the most aggressive or largest Bass reproduce the vast majority of the time)......was undone decades and decades ago by mankind's heavy manipulation of selective breeding, hybridizing, and transplanting these Black Bass sub species. To all of a sudden at this point in the game make the Alabama Bass the boogeyman is again quite hard for me to grasp after mankind's hand has been on the scale for decades and decades. I've never been ticked off at unhooking a Bass, and I've caught 5 of 9 of the sub species. Not a single one is a trash fish, all should be respected and prized imho.