AlabamaSpothunter

Absolutely, thought the exact same thing.......this dude has the nerve to call out Mckinney when he did one of the most childish and dirty things I've seen in recent history at Santee. He's one of the very few anglers on the Series that I don't like.

Bucket A was a solid pick.....however I'm going to bomb this week because the other four buckets are horrific. The harder I try, the worse I get 🤣

Night fishing is the cheat code as Catt and Pat pointed out. My favorite T-Rig/Free-Rig rod is 25 years old, and the fluorocarbon I use on that reel is worth more than the rod lol. Sensitive rods are nice, but they simply aren't needed for bite detection.

Males are small fish generally speaking.

Sounds like your catching males who are guarding fry. If the females aren't totally done with spawning, they'll pull off the banks but not that far. The real problem is they spend that time recovering, and don't want to chase a bait more than a few feet. Catching females immediately after they spawn is never an easy thing at least for me. This assuming your fish are/have spawned being in CA.

I can't remember an angler wowing me as much as Mckinney over the last two years. Him and Fujita seem like aliens. Catching them on a spook with a scope. He's proven FFS is the ultimate tool in teaching you how to work a bait to get bit. Watched him do it all last year in the Opens which I think might be even tougher. Admittedly I pawned off his greatness to FFS, but that's only one aspect of his savant like abilities. A 19 yr prodigy and a 77 yr legend competing against each other.......what a unique sport.

Fantasy fishing adds another level of enjoyment to these events, it forces you to research more about the lake and the anglers. Sitting here nervous about Cliff Prince, wishing I went with my gut and picked Kenta. Mckinney keeps blowing my mind, how this literal kid does it is beyond me. I remember what I was doing at 19 lol.

What's a catchall lure Katie, and I only saw one pic you posted with an absolute freakzilla in it 😁 I honestly try to emulate you Katie in terms of being supportive of our fellow members and anglers in general, I'm far from your level but I appreciate that! I hate to hear about your phone, but it made the catch and story more compelling. That's a very special fish, and equally special day. Money can't buy that, or I'd be living in a cardboard box by the river. I honestly couldn't put a dollar figure on catching fish like that. On your own, in a canoe, in Maine, less than two years of hardcore green fish chasing, on and on and on......I call you the unicorn for a reason. Lastly on the fish's weight/ultimate size, the girth/belly/eggs on her tell the story for me. Since I've been a member here, only a handful of fish were posted with similar visually off the chart girths. Never caught a fish built like that didn't go over 7lbs. The real guessing game in my eyes is where does she fall b/t 7 and 8lbs. I feel she just as easily could be a 7lb 14oz fish as a 7lb 6oz fish. You have to highly discount the Relative Weight chart when you catch a lottery PEAK pre spawn female. There are no metrics short of a weight that capture such rare outlier fish during pre spawn. Bottom line, that fish 100% is an outlier, lottery, .01% fish....I don't need a scale to tell me that. ETA: For those that don't know, this time last year Katie committed to slimming down all the lakes she was fishing the previous year, and focused on fewer ones where she caught the larger Bass. She had to make the choice b/t quality or quantity. That lead to a ridiculously good year for her in terms of 5+ fish. So now when she says she caught this fish in one of those lakes she chose to focus on last year and learn with lots of 4-5lb fish in it.......well, it's just flat out awesome to see that level of diligence, effort, and angler growth rewarded. @PhishLI I know my brother wholeheartedly agrees with that last part.

What's better than catching a DD? Celebrating another of Lynn's birthdays! 🥳

AN ABSOLUTE G-G-G-G-G-G-GIANT BASS.......BOOM SHAKALAKA So proud of you Katie, that's an exceptional fish/catch in every way, but seeing her belly, and overall health makes me smile ear to ear! Give me some more details, I want the juice......where did she come from, and what did you catch her on? Really hate to hear about the scale, I won't keep fishing if I don't have a camera or scale. High possibility that's your new PB......fish is a freak. From our PMs........wish I could say I'm surprised, but I already knew the future 😁 " It's hard to exceed your level of big girls last year, but I have zero doubt you'll do that." "You landed a ton, and you'll land even more this year......I promise that!!!" "You're a few months behind me because you're forced off the water, but your results this spring and summer will be ridiculous. You had a blockbuster year last one with regards to big fish, but you're going to catch even more this year!" "I seriously have zero doubts that this is going to be your best year thus far, said the same thing last winter about you catching the big girls, and sure enough you make me look like a prophet "

I feel like the Sniper FC is a little bit stronger and has a bit more abrasion resistance than Invizx. On the other hand, I feel like Invizx is slightly more manageable, and supple. Both seem to have about the same stretch, and sensitivity. For leader material, the Sniper FC would be my pick.

Great day! I saw you in a video on a new YT channel I found called ShoalBandit.....really digging his content, and found his stuff while researching the Cahaba, Tallapoosa, and Warrior Bass.

My first bucket 3 pick was Palmer.....mark my words that's going to haunt me 😁 Welcher is an amazing river angler, and he has to bust the slump at some point.

Pat nailed it for me already. I put way too much of a premium on fishing history and take far too long to abandon ship. I really hate junk fishing, when I'm dialed, I only use one setup, and tend to burn that pattern into the ground. Usually takes me a week or two of stubbornness to clear that history and start the process of dialing in another pattern. The most open-minded angler usually wins the day. Young folks don't know what they don't know, many times this leads to amazing outcomes. Trey Mckinney fishing inside the locks at the Harris Chain is a perfect example of this. All the old hammers on Live were very surprised and impressed by it.

Yeah that's unacceptable behavior when you're a pro being paid to represent sponsors, and the sport as a whole. I understand Bob Downey having to leave the Classic, and then having to leave this event with complications and then birth of a child, but I doubt Robertson has a similar excuse. I'd bet it was mechanical failure given how often he breaks his boat, but the pro staff at these events are incredible about getting anglers up and running again. Very curious.

So were you a marshal during this last event? I'd really love to do that some day, need to figure out how.

Robertson destroyed my event.......hope I learn why he zero'd on day 2. Again, NEVER picking him again lol.

@hokiehunter373 Really sorry to hear your family has had to endure such a painful time, your family will be in my prayers. Life can be so incredibly cruel and painful, but you guys will get through this tough period and be better humans because of it. Awesome fish, nothing better than catching toads on a buzzbait!

Near the end of true pre spawn (meaning no fish have spawned yet), the males will flood the shallows and create beds a number of days before the females are ready to start spawning, then they try to steer/court females onto their beds and will repeat this process as many times as he can throughout the spawning cycle. During this period the male is continually "fanning" the bed to oxygenate laid eggs and keep any debris from building up on the eggs and suffocating them. So, in short, the bed might be 3 weeks old, but it'll appear "shiny" or clean as long as he's courting or guarding/fanning laid eggs. I can't say yet based on 1st hand observations if the males will abandon the fry ball to repeat the cycle for a second or maybe even third spawning moon cycle. Or if he recycles the bed, builds a new, or calls it good after one round. But for a timeline perspective, the male is: day 1: building a nest day 4: courting females day 6-8: has a female locked onto the bed, and they're actively spawning day 22: laid eggs finally undergo "swim up" stage and form fry balls, male begins to hyper focus on the fry ball's defense and stops fanning/guarding the bed. day 29: male has been continually guarding the fry balls ***Females can make beds as well, but it's not commonplace. As for advice, If you can barely see those shiny spots, just make mental notes of it and stay a good bit back and then make your presentations. It's mind blowing, and equally frustrating how much harder the females are to catch once they discover you the first time. Way easier imho to catch big females in the "blind" casting to high percentage bedding areas. Throw a Pegged/T-Rigged creature bait, and/or skip that whacky worm especially on the back side of docks, and under overhanging trees/bushes. I learned the hard way at least for my fish that during the spawn (when females are actually present near a bed), moving baits aren't the best way to go. Lots of people preach to move lots during the spring and some days that's true especially after that first true wave of bigger fish spawning, but if you're fishing for bigger spawning females.....a very targeted approach with a much slower presentation is deadly, and I haven't had the same level of success with a moving bait. Lastly, I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, I've just nerd'd out on the spawn as it's really fascinating to me. Most of the above is based on first hand observations on my home lake that has several feet of viz and easily observable beds. So like most advice in fishing, it's mainly applicable to my own lake and fish population 🙃

If you're seeing fry balls, then your fish at a min. started spawning at the beginning of April. 7-14 days from laying eggs to fry "swim up". Those are males guarding the fry balls, and they'll always run away once they detect you....not far though. They don't behave during this stage like they do when defending or locked on a bed. If you want to catch those fry guarders, stay off the bank where you think beds are located or already observed, or make long parallel casts down it with a whacky worm, and a buzzbait. You can assume at least a portion of your females are in a "post spawn" funk, likely the biggest fish. They might spawn again, but you'll likely have another wave, one that is bigger in numbers leading up to the next full moon which is the 23rd. You might already know all the above, so no disrespect if you do.

FIRE ME UP, the whopper plopper queen has come out of hibernation.......I'd hate to be a Bass in Maine until next winter 😎 Such a beautiful lake, and really love hearing you caught your first strolling a minnow.

Fry ball guarders moving your bait away from the Fry is my guess. Fish a buzzbait around all those Fry balls and watch how many blow it up without eating it. I almost never see a Fry ball without a buck around the perimeter of it and usually a few feet deeper than the Fry.

I'd like to see some scientific literature that says weighing fish in the center of the lower jaw is detrimental. I saw a biologist use a physiological diagram to show how the Bass's jaw works, and why clamping them near the center doesn't pose a risk. What does the science say in regard to how big a fish must be in order to be at risk of being weighed traditionally? Either way I doubt I catch big enough fish to matter 😆 I applaud your continual effort to improve fish care though!

No I don't think any rule changes should be made. Sight fish should be hooked in the mouth, not hard to snag them on bed.

I catch as many if not more jerkbait fish outside the mouth than in it. Jerkbaits are notorious for not hooking fish in the mouth. If you made that rule, you could eliminate jerkbaits from the Elite Series.