AlabamaSpothunter

The whole movie is awesome, one of my favorites.

Daygum freak @deep Congrats!

I'm not sure where he caught them, it was just one of those "reels" on FB that only last about 30secs. Chris had one as well, he said he got big fish of the derby with a 8lb LM. Suspect he caught it off the bed as well. What little bit of the weigh ins I watched, I was surprised by the amount of quality LMs being weighed in. Makes sense now though.

Appears this was a sight fishing derby, Drew Cook said he caught all his fish the first two days on the bed. Congrats to Chris, very deserving dude!

I've got both, both are incredible but quite different. The SV TW is imho the best all around baitcaster on the market. It excels for chatterbaits/spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, standard size T-Rig/Free Rigs, flatside/squarebill cranks, blade baits, and a bunch of other typical Bass lures. The HD TW is an absolute unit of a reel, built like a tank. Has brass gears vs. AI in the SV TW, and has a larger handle and knobs vs the SV TW. This reel is made for "heavy duty" techniques. Jigs, larger T-Rigs/Free Rigs, A-Rigs, 1-4oz Glides, deep cranks, C-Rigs, etc. Packs a ton of power in a relatively compact and ultra smooth package. Think of the SV TW as an all around normal baitcaster while the HD TW is a heavy duty, significantly more robust baitcaster.

Chris Johnston is running away with this derby. Back to back almost 25lb bags on a Spotted Bass fishery is incredible. Him and his brother are both two very likable dudes. Hopefully Gussy makes the top 12 so he can recoup his entry fee. Hate seeing Cox and Carson not make a check. No real surprising in the top 10......local hammers and Elite Series anglers.

Better to put your everything into something and fail, then to never achieve greatness in life through lack of effort. Lots of people make excuses for why they can't or don't pursue a passion/goal as hard as they possibly can. The people who are really driven in this life don't let anything stand in their way, good, bad, or indifferent. This applies to everything in life.

That's what it's all about Mike, way to go brother! Leon will never forget this day; you gave him a priceless memory.

Awesome job Katie, I sure did miss those dark Maine beauties of yours. All of what you described sounds textbook winter pattern. Wet blanket/mushy bites, fish way offshore, hyper focused on a particular bait and size.

That size fish will turn everybody into a bed fisherman 🤣 The willpower it would take to motor past that situation is something I don't have. To me they look so much smaller under the water a few feet.....so if it looks big in the water, it's huge out of the water.

Hang in there Bob, there's always a silver lining, sometimes it just takes a while to figure out what it may be.

Congrats on an awesome day Pat.....really love seeing Jake catch a toad! As I've said before, the apple doesn't fall from the big fish tree 😁 @Blue Raider Bob Love seeing you post Bob, tell us a bit more how you upload your pics. The easist I've found, is to upload the image to your PC....then go to postimages.org and upload there, get the "share" link which is the second one down on the list of shareable links. When you upload it to your computer or to that site, you'll have an option to edit the photo, you can hit the rotate image that will correct the orientation. It's very easy, but difficult to explain lol.

I was determined to learn from my mistakes and amazing amount of frustration during March of 23 (documented in this thread lol). Failure is the best motivator, and by my records, this March was the 2nd best month I've had in 20 months being back on the water. Yesterday was great, had 5-22lbs. Today not so great, watched an easy 7-8lb fish on bed with a paired male, but only the male would fire. I left them alone after a few minutes but with much disappointment. She dwarfed the male, and the male was close to 3. 6.8 6.4 Then from Fri afternoon 6 even (one of the few fish I wish I had a length from, very long) First Fry Balls I've seen, but I'm sure I've missed some earlier ones....now realize only a handful of those countless individuals make it to be a 12" fish, then the odds of that 12" fish reaching 17.5" is equally as daunting. We as humans have it quite easy.

Perfectly fine, now what kind of bait lives in the lake? Find that bait, you'll 100% find the fish.

Got any electronics? Fishing from a boat, or bank? Sub 55d water temps, pre-prespawn fish.......find the bait. 2D and sidescan sonar are your best friends in the winter especially. Don't get discouraged, worst-case scenario you have to wait a few weeks until the water temps hit 55d+. I've always heard sub 50d water temps up north makes difficult fishing, but I've never fished up north.

If people fish in the spring, they're catching fish on the bed. With immediate catch and release, I see very little difference b/t blind vs sight fishing spawners ethically speaking. That's assuming you don't bump a bait into a fish for hours trying to get her to go. I've found it easier to catch spawners in the blind than sight fishing them.......sight bed fishing is quite misunderstood; the vast majority of fish require quite a bit of work to catch them. Once they get spooked which almost always happens, the job becomes quite difficult. That said, sight fishing them is one of the most exciting ways I've caught them. Very addictive, and it's fun to run the bank with polarized glasses and see so much life on the banks.

I see @Aaron_H is back to his old ways, just posting slaunch donkies on the reg 😎

Absolutely what Katie said, those Carp, and all the species within that genus are super hardy fish. Goldfish are like little terminators lol.

Dying to get the new 110 RS. I would have already killed them with this bait in shallow flats schooling on bait prespawn. I have to take a 110 and jerk it upwards, but amazingly it works awesome in 1-3fow without fouling the hooks. Still though the RS is going to be the deal whenever it comes out.

Daygum monster @Fried Lemons, huge congrats on such a special fish!

Send me the GPS coordinates, I'll get to the bottom of this for you in no time 🤣

Looks like it but given her size 3 years ago that would be one really old, and more surprisingly healthy-looking fish. She'd be over 10yrs and that's a really long time to live in the south. Than again how many lottery fish could be swimming in a 35acre pond? Either way it's a magnificent fish, both of them! I'd guess the orange pants fish is around 11lbs.

Peak pre-spawn hog at that....congrats on the fantastic fish!

Great job @FishTax! Nothing better than passing on the passion to the next generation.

Overhand cast, bait catches tree behind, I continue with a full bomb cast and proceed to watch the reel backlash to kingdom come. That's happened a number of times