MLF St. Lawrence River Massena, NY Jun 25 - 30, 2021

[A-Jay]

On 6/30/2021 at 5:51 PM, jbsoonerfan said:

Wheeler caught 101 fish for 351 lbs in 3 days of fishing and was on cruise control on day 2. That's almost a 3 and a half pound average. I dont care what anyone says, that is impressive!!!! There isnt a single person on here who could dream of doing that. 

Under 'normal' circumstances', I'd totally agree with you.

 I like JW a lot and would Never question his skill & phenomenal tournament record.

And I am Totally addicted to big brown bass, and there were plenty of of trophies landed, seemingly every hour of this one.  However, Competitive fishing aside,  you can count ME as The Single Person on here, who has no desire to lay on my belly and stare into that flogger deal for hours on end,

looking & hooking for brown bass on deep water beds. 

 

The spot lock TM's made this all possible in the current and as a relatively new deal, it really made a huge difference, IMO.

Not a bad thing, but clearly a game changer. 

So there's that.

A-Jay

 

[GReb]

Dude is incredible. Everyone says he’s consistently one of the hardest workers on tour and he has a great support system. Success seems to come in waves for most anglers even the great ones. But he seems to be winning consistently on whatever format he fishes for a number of years now. And on all types of fisheries. Pretty impressive. Not to mention he’s only around 30 years old. I know his competitors are probably tired of seeing him lift trophies!

[ryanerb]

2 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Under 'normal' circumstances', I'd totally agree with you.

 I like JW a lot and would Never question his skill & phenomenal tournament record.

And I am Totally addicted to big brown bass, and there plenty of of trophies landed, seemingly every hour of this one.  However, Competitive fishing aside,  you can count ME as The Single Person on here, who has no desire to lay on my belly and stare into that flogger deal for hours on end,

looking & hooking for brown bass on deep water beds. 

 

The spot lock TM's made this all possible in the current and as a relatively new deal, it really made a huge difference, IMO.

Not a bad thing, but clearly a game changer. 

So there's that.

A-Jay

 

Unfortunately, he had to do what he had to do to win. If he didn't flog, someone else would, and they would beat him. The best way to avoid this is to have MLF ban it like they did A-Rigs. Sadly, a lot of these guys probably didn't want to flog, but they had a stronger desire to win (aka it's their job) than to pass up flogging because they don't really like it....  My .02 cents, is I blame MLF. There isn't much to 'blame', it's more they just decided to have a circuit that allows this, so this is what will happen. If they ban it, we can see them catch a lot more fish in a lot more conventional ways. Avena said he hadn't really ever used this flogger. I don't think guys wanted to do it, they had to do it unfortunately. 

[Happybeerbuzz]

15 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Under 'normal' circumstances', I'd totally agree with you.

 I like JW a lot and would Never question his skill & phenomenal tournament record.

And I am Totally addicted to big brown bass, and there plenty of of trophies landed, seemingly every hour of this one.  However, Competitive fishing aside,  you can count ME as The Single Person on here, who has no desire to lay on my belly and stare into that flogger deal for hours on end,

looking & hooking for brown bass on deep water beds. 

 

The spot lock TM's made this all possible in the current and as a relatively new deal, it really made a huge difference, IMO.

Not a bad thing, but clearly a game changer. 

So there's that.

A-Jay

 

I do not bed fish intentionally.  I fish during the spawn so I am sure I have hooked up on a bedding fish just by chance.  However, even if I did, that looks too uncomfortable to be something I would do.  It looks like real work.  I am in reasonably good shape and could probably pull that off, but I can not imagine some of the "unathletic" people I fish with doing that.

 

 

[Team9nine]

15 hours ago, A-Jay said:

The spot lock TM's made this all possible in the current and as a relatively new deal, it really made a huge difference, IMO.

 

This^^

 

Spot lock has taken the art of boat control out of the tournament picture these days (sadly, IMHO).

 

 

[Happybeerbuzz]

9 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

Spot lock has taken the art of boat control out of the tournament picture these days (sadly, IMHO).

I have never known life without spot lock.   I imagine life without spot lock to be on the level of life without toilet paper.  

[Tennessee Boy]

I think it was Sprague who said at one point yesterday that he could not hold his position and that spot lock did not work well in the wind.  Then they cut to Wheeler who seemed to be doing just fine with his Ultrex.   I’m sure Lowrance was not pleased with these comments.

[TOXIC]

Between the two, spot lock and flogger……spot lock is the game changer in current and wind.  The flogger has been around since before paper graphs, it’s nothing “new”.  I love the northern cold water clear lakes and I have known about floggers for as long as I’ve been fishing.  If you are well versed at using one, it would actually help from sticking every fish on every bed just to see how big it is.  You can tell with the flogger pretty well how big they are.  

[TnRiver46]

It doesn’t matter one bit how long the flogger has been around, or how high tech or low tech it is.  A lot of folks don’t like sight fishing beds and when you do it with a magnifying glass, then they really don’t like it. 

[TOXIC]

58 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

It doesn’t matter one bit how long the flogger has been around, or how high tech or low tech it is.  A lot of folks don’t like sight fishing beds and when you do it with a magnifying glass, then they really don’t like it. 

I get your point but the flogger is not a magnifying glass, it’s just glass or plastic that allows you to see just like a scuba mask.  My point is if you want to hate on something that creates an unfair advantage, there’s a lot more sophisticated  “devices” than a traffic cone?. As for the bedding fish debate, that one has been kicked to death.  You’re never going to get that changed.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

I get your point but the flogger is not a magnifying glass, it’s just glass or plastic that allows you to see just like a scuba mask.  My point is if you want to hate on something that creates an unfair advantage, there’s a lot more sophisticated  “devices” than a traffic cone?. As for the bedding fish debate, that one has been kicked to death.  You’re never going to get that changed.

I’m not trying to get it changed. Like I said in my previous post, hi tech or low tech is not important. it’s the optics of laying down on your boat and looking through a cone to locate spawning fish.  Some viewers would rather not see that and it’s not just a tiny fraction, I didn’t watch any of the coverage. Obviously not everyone feels the same way about it, it’s quite a hot topic currently
 

[jbsoonerfan]

I suppose this would be like an old school roofer seeing guys using air guns and just shaking his head because they aren't doing it the hard way with a hammer. These guys are literally trying to make a living and I bet they could give a rat's butt what anyone on a random internet forum thinks about it.

[TnRiver46]

9 hours ago, jbsoonerfan said:

I suppose this would be like an old school roofer seeing guys using air guns and just shaking his head because they aren't doing it the hard way with a hammer. These guys are literally trying to make a living and I bet they could give a rat's butt what anyone on a random internet forum thinks about it.

Or maybe more like a guys with the best air guns using a hammer instead, they’ve got 360 imaging and live scope and are using a megaphone with glass in it

 

Perhaps sometimes the old school stuff is better?

 

I think we’ve learned from the MLF dink fest discussion that the powers that be indeed care about what “random” Internet forums think 

[TOXIC]

When I bed fish, I don’t need a flogger.  I can see these same type of beds in 15 feet of water on a good day on St Clair.  That’s the only place I bed fish and even there, we tend to target those moving in more than those locked on beds.  

[webertime]

My buddy and I spent Saturday on the river.  Used his flogger.   You want tired...  up down up down, hold the cone in the moving water, up down...  your back and neck are roached after doing it.   Provided a bit of perspective...  it made the bed fishing easier while the physical strain was increased exponentially.

[Happybeerbuzz]

I wonder how far off Lowrance, Garmin, and Humminbird are from perfecting transducer cams. 

[ryanerb]

On 7/5/2021 at 10:56 AM, Happybeerbuzz said:

I wonder how far off Lowrance, Garmin, and Humminbird are from perfecting transducer cams. 

LOLLLL if they wanna be rich, then they ought to start doing some R&D on that. Great idea!

On 7/5/2021 at 10:39 AM, webertime said:

My buddy and I spent Saturday on the river.  Used his flogger.   You want tired...  up down up down, hold the cone in the moving water, up down...  your back and neck are roached after doing it.   Provided a bit of perspective...  it made the bed fishing easier while the physical strain was increased exponentially.

Yup, no one said it was easy....

On 7/2/2021 at 6:42 PM, jbsoonerfan said:

I suppose this would be like an old school roofer seeing guys using air guns and just shaking his head because they aren't doing it the hard way with a hammer. These guys are literally trying to make a living and I bet they could give a rat's butt what anyone on a random internet forum thinks about it.

I think you hit the nail right on the head (no pun intended haha)

 

However, what is the point of MLF? Is it for spectators? Because if it's basically for spectators, then they want the action, the sweat and the tears. They wanna see the hammer swung. Air guns are boring. 

 

I don't blame the anglers, they are using the right tools to perform their job the most effectively...

 

But if MLF is for pure entertainment, and for the spectators, then the MLF leaders should ban flogging and bed fishing (yes, essentially making life 'harder') purely for the sake of entertainment and for the spectators...