Pumpkin Lizard

Another football caught with The Mayor. Need to dump this Boxer Jig. After three fish it the bait slips and won't hold in place. Probably going to give the VMC Hybrid Swimbait Jig a shot next.

Why watch the NFL when you can catch fish? I DVR the tournaments and put them on in the background while I tie flies.

The Mayor came through on election night. I think I am geeking out on Crush City products. I love this swimbait. It's like a mini magdraft. I drove by my neighborhood pond at lunch and saw the wind pushing everything up against the rip rap like it had been for 4 straight days. I suspected the bass were stacked up there so I hit it up after work and they were. Had a limit in 15 minutes and kept going for another 30 minutes. Also the time change is always awful.

Here is my son catching fatties on the same rock I used to stand on. Pond is a little more grown in now but now that they never see lures and he was getting them on almost every cast. Tough to beat a silver Phoebe.

I think the payout schedule has to be reworked. They are for sure getting some "feedback". But these guys are also perfectly capable of going out and securing funding from sponsors. With some simple business acumen they should be able to cover substantial expenses. They all do have boat wraps and sponsors so there is some kind of money coming in. I remember in one of the Elite Series events on TV they said one particular angler had secured "only $27,000 in sponsor money". I mean if that's on the low end then what are the middle and high end guys taking in.

Had a five acre pond in my backyard stacked with stunted bluegill and bullhead in CT. Some neighbors offered to transplant a bunch of bass from another pond. A few seasons later we were catching 3-5lbrs. Neither of my parents knew anything about fishing so for the most part I was self taught. I read Bassmaster, Outdoor Life and In Fisherman religiously and would go out and put almost everything I read into practice. In the summer I would fish every night. Literally every night. I had a dalmatian who insisted on going with me. Had another public lake a mile down the street and we belonged to a private club with a beach and canoes. I used to get up early in the mornings and ride a 10 speed with three rods and a huge tackle box. I had a cinder block with a rope tied through it staged in the woods for an anchor. I used to try to catch a limit by lunchtime and I kept a journal of everything I caught. One of my Dad's business buddies lived in Atlanta and he had Bomber Bass Boat. One year he had me down for a week of fishing on Lake Oconee. He fished some tournaments and taught me quite a bit that week. Honestly I consider that one of the greatest things anyone ever did for me. I was extremely lucky.

Fellow nutmegger Alex Wetherell made a spreadsheet and you can download it. Based on the data it looks like this benefits the anglers at the bottom more than the ones at the top.

Mostly a rhetorical question. Seems like being an Elite Series guy would be kind of marketable within the industry, guiding, social media, seminars, etc. Of course some of these guys have families and real life expenses too.

There are elite series guys sleeping in their trucks for sure. The turnover rate at that level is insane. I don’t think people realize how hard to mouth some of these guys are. As an observer who wants to see the best competition possible, I would prefer the most professional field possible. What we have now is the equivalent of having your favorite NFL players working at Dick’s so that they can afford to play ball. On the other hand the Elite Series guys have 8-9 events a year. That’s 8-9 weeks. What are they doing the rest of the year?

I would spend it all on Magnum Pumpkin Lizards.

I just don't get BASS here. Now that anglers don't have that $45k expense sponsors will have all the more reason to reduce funding. This would be a great thing if the BASS suddenly had increased revenue streams from the additional FOX coverage they are getting and that was what subsidized an elimination of or reduction in entry fees. Instead the message seems to be that anglers now have to go find the revenue themselves instead. Guess everybody better get serious about YouTubing. Seems like a potential disaster to me. Does anyone here know anything about the details of BASS's tv deal? Is BASS buying time on FOX or is FOX actually paying for the content? Also I thought I saw something about General Tire pulling out of the BPT is there anything to that?

So the anglers had a meeting in New York and they asked for this. Be careful what you wish for!

it’s more like they robbed Peter to pay Paul.

They definitely won’t like that.

Good advice. I’m as hardcore as it gets with fly fishing, except when it’s at not. It’s such a visual experience for me, you take that out of it and it just doesn’t hold my interest for more than a few hours.

Their costs have been reduced by $45k can’t be that bad.

https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/bass-elites-pay-103024.html Looks like winnings have been restructured a little from 11th and beyond.

I’m not really imitating shad with the jig, I’m usually using a Rage Bug on a VMC rugby jig dragged on the bottom.

I tried the Freeloader’s cousin “The Mayor” Sunday night. I bought the bigger size. I was headed to a lake where I was running into some wipers and I thought it would be good and it was. It swims like a small Magdraft paired on the VMC Boxer Jig. Good tail action and that wobble. Results were a lost LM that was easily 4, and a few others. Also a mess of wipers. I burned through half the package. My only beef is that after a few fish they really don’t stay rigged in place well. It outfished the Rat L Trap and the 25 dollar Jerkbait I was also using.

I live in Missouri too but on the other side. I fish around KC and in the Northwest. I got back into bass fishing recently and there was an interesting learning curve for me because most of the places I bass fished in the past didn't have shad. For a while I was still not getting much because I was using the wrong presentations or using the wrong sized baits. Once I started trying to figure out and find the shad and the baits, I started finding active feeders and my luck improved. When I can't do that, I'm fishing creature baits on rugby jigs or shad imitation on a jig. It's been tough at times late this summer and this fall because it's always sunny and we haven't had many overcast days. Most of the best action can be in the morning or in the evening, but by jigging through the day I find them and they are in fact exactly where you usually expect them to be. So many of the lakes and ponds I fish seem literally infested with shad and carp. I think with so many shad being available the fish are also just really well fed, and it's probably harder to attract and trigger fish that have such easy access to food all around them.

https://www.bassresource.com/

nm

It's fairly popular outside of Michigan. The reason for the heavy leader isn't just for the strikes and the chance at a bigger fish. It's really hard to turn over a big air resistant fly on a fine diameter tippet.

There was a soft plastic lipless crankbait that Mann's used to make. That thing was money.

This is true. Once browns get to 13-14 inches they start needing food like crawdads and things with a spinal cord. The streamers I use for big trout are big swimbait size. Almost always articulated. I think they work better than conventional tackle too. Honestly I wonder if a frog would do the trick and then you don't need the bobber. When I lived in Wisconsin I knew a guy who fished the same spring creek region as me and he kept a fish every now and then to in part to see what they were eating. He usually kept 13-14 inchers and he almost always found mouse remains in the stomach. In nearby Iowa we could fish 12 months a year and the trout he caught would have mouse even in the dead of winter. It's not just a novelty. There is a fairly famous creek in Iowa loaded with wild browns that I fly fished all winter. The browns would stack up under the bridge in winter and I watched a 14-15 incher eating another fish, likely a trout that was easily 9 inches. It was almost like watching a snake eat something big.