Bassmaster Open on Lake Okeechobee Scott Martin takes it home!

[PhishLI]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:06 PM, Captain Phil said:

wouldn't use FFS unless I was fishing for money and I needed it to be competitive.  Not because it doesn't work or because I have anything against it, because it doesn't seem like fishing to me. 

Last night, and with only minutes left in the MLF tournament, my wife called me up for dinner. She cooked, so I couldn't stall. I'd been streaming it all day on my laptop, so I wasn't going to miss the end even though Connell had already locked things up. I brought my laptop upstairs, explained myself, then plunked it onto the kitchen table so we both could watch. I quickly lubed her up with some info to try to get her interest.

 

I never talk about pro fishing with my wife at all, and she's never watched a minute of it. Immediately she asked about the TV screen he was looking at. "Is he watching himself?"

 

I went on to explain what FFS is and how it works. Told her it was like radar where on the screen you could see the fish hidden underwater, including its distance away and depth, and my hand to God she channeled Randy B right into my kitchen. With a furrowed brow she proclaimed, "That's not fair to the fish". "That's not sporting at all", and the kicker, "Where's the mystery in that?" "You don't have that, right?" "Of course not, poopsie oopsie", said I. I was never so relieved to not have a fishing toy.

 

Out of the mouths of babes. How could I argue?

[Pat Brown]

My 0.02 ¢

 

Bass have adapted to run away from the whopper ploppers, spotlock, silent trolling motors, chatterbaits, people walking nearby, banging sounds, things flying through the air, everything that actually evolved to kill them for the past 3,000,000 years, not to mention flashers, down imaging, 2D, 360 and guess what....forward facing sonar is the latest flash in the pan and what's happening overall is not that all the big bass are dying or being caught, it's just another thing for them to learn and every angler willing to spend xxxx amount of money per year to have til it's another gizmo that their boat has on it.

 

The things that worked well for catching  exceptionally large bass back when all the major records were set back in the 80s and 90s are the same as they always have been....learn seasonal patterns and bait movement and behavior and how bass relate to it and then learn the subtle nuance of skillful presentation.

 

If you are good at that stuff, you will be trend proof and the latest gizmos are just gravy.

 

I turn off my 2D now fishing shallow and I get a lot more bites.  Fish learn fast what's happening and they're so much more aware than we give them credit for.

 

Todd Castledine also makes the point on his channel that basically if every fish that every angler caught all year got killed, it still wouldn't touch the population of fish that has literally never been caught and never will, which is always much much larger.  And fish overall are being caught and released and not kept which is education.  We release the aggressive fish that are curious and willing to bite with an education and they signal that danger is nearby and the school responds negatively from that moment forward.

 

Only exceptions I can think of is when you're bed fishing but you can exploit that without FFS and people have since the 80s and 90s.

 

Interesting points all around.  I don't have it and don't really have much desire to have it mainly because I don't seem to need it to catch a bass or even a big bass.

[Zcoker]

4 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

My 0.02 ¢

 

Bass have adapted to run away from the whopper ploppers, spotlock, silent trolling motors, chatterbaits, people walking nearby, banging sounds, things flying through the air, everything that actually evolved to kill them for the past 3,000,000 years, not to mention flashers, down imaging, 2D, 360 and guess what....forward facing sonar is the latest flash in the pan and what's happening overall is not that all the big bass are dying or being caught, it's just another thing for them to learn and every angler willing to spend xxxx amount of money per year to have til it's another gizmo that their boat has on it.

 

The things that worked well for catching  exceptionally large bass back when all the major records were set back in the 80s and 90s are the same as they always have been....learn seasonal patterns and bait movement and behavior and how bass relate to it and then learn the subtle nuance of skillful presentation.

 

If you are good at that stuff, you will be trend proof and the latest gizmos are just gravy.

 

I turn off my 2D now fishing shallow and I get a lot more bites.  Fish learn fast what's happening and they're so much more aware than we give them credit for.

 

Todd Castledine also makes the point on his channel that basically if every fish that every angler caught all year got killed, it still wouldn't touch the population of fish that has literally never been caught and never will, which is always much much larger.  And fish overall are being caught and released and not kept which is education.  We release the aggressive fish that are curious and willing to bite with an education and they signal that danger is nearby and the school responds negatively from that moment forward.

 

Only exceptions I can think of is when you're bed fishing but you can exploit that without FFS and people have since the 80s and 90s.

 

Interesting points all around.  I don't have it and don't really have much desire to have it mainly because I don't seem to need it to catch a bass or even a big bass.

 

Excellent points! With the whopper plopper, I cannot buy a bite on one out in the everglades. At one point it was the ONLY thing I used out there, like every cast, boom! Heck, I won tournaments on the thing using it and only it, 7-10 pounders annihilated it.  Now they don't touch it no matter where I fish out there. The big questions is this: how the heck do ALL the bass obtain negative information about this one lure holistically? Or any other lure, for that matter? It seems like once they know, they ALL KNOW.

 

As far as sonar off, I do the same thing, shut it off. When I was running it in the shallow water with hard bottom, the fish spooked easily away or the hits would be few and far between. When it's off, the hits increased dramatically. I only turn it on now when I shove off to get a temp reading, that or when I am in a new unknow body of water. 

 

In any event, FSS is the in thing for pro tournament fishing, here to stay unless it's regulated in so form. Hard to imagine anyone fishing without it. Seems like ALL the pro boats have it, like a blower on a nitro pro drag car, can't race without it. 

 

 

[Pat Brown]

@Zcoker My theory is that bass behave a lot more like bait fish than we realize and when wolfpacks are hunting (and make no mistake when you catch one. You're usually catching one out of a school of at least three or four that's in an area) if one of the big fish reacts negatively to something, the rest of them learn to react very quickly.

 

Imagine this for a second.

 

You're a hungry wolf pack of bass and one of you happens to see a heron swooping down.

 

If one of the bass darts away rapidly and the other four bass do not, how do you think that typically ends for those other four bass?

 

I think they learn to sort of be curious together/ be aggressive together/ be afraid together.

 

I've seen this so many times around beds in the later spawn when the big wolf packs of females are examining my glide bait together and spooking together or attacking it together.

 

I completely agree it ain't going nowhere anytime soon but I reckon eventually, like all gizmos, it's gonna go the way of the flasher.  I can't wait to fish with my AI controlled robot Jerkbait. 🤣💀

[gim]

21 minutes ago, Zcoker said:

Excellent points! With the whopper plopper, I cannot buy a bite on one out in the everglades. At one point it was the ONLY thing I used out there, like every cast, boom! Heck, I won tournaments on the thing using it and only it, 7-10 pounders annihilated it.  Now they don't touch it no matter where I fish out there. The big questions is this: how the heck do ALL the bass obtain negative information about this one lure holistically? Or any other lure, for that matter? It seems like once they know, they ALL KNOW.

 

As far as sonar off, I do the same thing, shut it off. When I was running it in the shallow water with hard bottom, the fish spooked easily away or the hits would be few and far between. When it's off, the hits increased dramatically. I only turn it on now when I shove off to get a temp reading, that or when I am in a new unknow body of water. 

 

The whopper plopper craze ended here years ago already.  The popularity of this lure peaked when Chris Lane won an elite event on Toledo Bend using it for the whole country to see.  Then River2Sea marketed the heck out of it with flashy colors and various sizes.  Everyone got sucked into it and the fish wised up quicker to that presentation faster than perhaps any other lure in recent memory.  They're nothing but glorified Christmas tree ornaments now unless you're fishing virgin waters where bass have never seen them.

 

For those of you shutting off your sonar in shallow water, I assume you're also shutting off the bow mount.  If you think a fish is smart enough to avoid the pings of sonar, they can certainly detect the pulse and vibration of a prop moving in the water much easier.

[Pat Brown]

@gimruis Actually when I'm super shallow in my boat, I will indeed drift fish as much as wind allows and in general I try to maintain speed and healthy distance from cover when I can't drift.  I find that I still get bit as long as I'm not banging into stuff or stop/starting the prop.  I definitely have noticed that up very shallow is the only time it seems to matter.   When fish are schooling, the pings become pretty irrelevant.

[gim]

46 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

I will indeed drift fish as much as wind allows and in general I try to maintain speed and healthy distance from cover when I can't drift.

 

I do a lot of shallow water fishing, especially in the summer time for largemouth around docks.  Boat positioning is extremely important so that I can present a lure properly on the sides of the dock, and then underneath, if I choose to do it (depending on time of day and sun angle).  This is when I use my talon a lot.  I will approach the dock from upwind, shut off my bow mount, and then talon down while I can work a specific dock.

 

Quite often, after I raise the talon, I just let the boat drift a little further into a new position, and then put it back down.  In this case, I don't even use the bow mount.

 

Now I'm starting to wonder if they will sense a talon being deployed or raised.  They haven't yet, at least.

[TnRiver46]

My buddy that fished the Great Lakes a lot said if you were on the troller in shallow water you could see fish spook. Pull up the troller and anchor down and they came back to hang out near the boat 

 

all wildlife will respond to any pressure put on them. Possum can’t get out of the road so they make more possums. It’s survival 

 

as always, the humans will worry and the fish will kill stuff and eat it. They have to be tough, we don’t 

[gim]

7 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

if you were on the troller in shallow water you could see fish spook

 

Well if you can see the fish, they can certainly see you too.

[TnRiver46]

Apparently they are much happier to see you when it’s nice and quiet 

[A-Jay]

8 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

The things that worked well for catching  exceptionally large bass back when all the major records were set back in the 80s and 90s are the same as they always have been....learn seasonal patterns and bait movement and behavior and how bass relate to it and then learn the subtle nuance of skillful presentation.

 

If you are good at that stuff, you will be trend proof and the latest gizmos are just gravy.

 

I have no problem Doubling Down on this frame of mind.

In fact, I might even get this tattooed to my forehead. 

As for 'being good at that stuff' - IMO, that's where the work comes in.

Doesn't just happen. 

Peace out.

A-Jay

 

[Zcoker]

3 hours ago, gimruis said:

 

The whopper plopper craze ended here years ago already.  The popularity of this lure peaked when Chris Lane won an elite event on Toledo Bend using it for the whole country to see.  Then River2Sea marketed the heck out of it with flashy colors and various sizes.  Everyone got sucked into it and the fish wised up quicker to that presentation faster than perhaps any other lure in recent memory.  They're nothing but glorified Christmas tree ornaments now unless you're fishing virgin waters where bass have never seen them.

 

For those of you shutting off your sonar in shallow water, I assume you're also shutting off the bow mount.  If you think a fish is smart enough to avoid the pings of sonar, they can certainly detect the pulse and vibration of a prop moving in the water much easier.

 

I don't have anything else running when I am fishing the shallow water. I usually position or drift in while making my cast--dead quiet. Everywhere out in the glades is skinny water. Very rare to come across deep holes unless in a canal or something similar. Many of these impoundments were once cow pastures which were built up and eventually flooded, places like Headwaters Lake. Places like that are rimmed with canals which were dug out to make the surrounding levee's. The canals are about it as far as depth goes and even at that, you're only talking a few feet, maybe 10-15 feet at the most. Even at night where you'd think a light is a must, it rarely comes on. I only turn on my headlight to net up these big monster bass. I need to see what they're doing in order to get a good fix on them so I can position the net. They're as crazy as crazy can be in the dark! 

[Zcoker]

3 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

@Zcoker My theory is that bass behave a lot more like bait fish than we realize and when wolfpacks are hunting (and make no mistake when you catch one. You're usually catching one out of a school of at least three or four that's in an area) if one of the big fish reacts negatively to something, the rest of them learn to react very quickly.

 

Imagine this for a second.

 

You're a hungry wolf pack of bass and one of you happens to see a heron swooping down.

 

If one of the bass darts away rapidly and the other four bass do not, how do you think that typically ends for those other four bass?

 

I think they learn to sort of be curious together/ be aggressive together/ be afraid together.

 

I've seen this so many times around beds in the later spawn when the big wolf packs of females are examining my glide bait together and spooking together or attacking it together.

 

I completely agree it ain't going nowhere anytime soon but I reckon eventually, like all gizmos, it's gonna go the way of the flasher.  I can't wait to fish with my AI controlled robot Jerkbait. 🤣💀

 

I can certainly see what you're saying about the pack theory, one fish may do something that is a big mistake and then the other bystanders, what, learn from it and then pass on the word? How do you think this word is spread to other bass over many miles? I have this image of all the fish frantically swimming around screaming at all the other fish to avoid something lol Seriously, though, I can go many miles away from certain areas and the bass react the exact same way to certain lures, like the plopper. How is this "knowledge" of one bad thing spread across the lands for many miles or even thousands of miles? It seems to me, that even in places that've never seen a whopper plopper-- and I can tell ya right now, the everglades has never seen much of any lure made--how do they ALL know to avoid it when at one time they ALL used to eagerly hit it? What would be your best guess on that? 

[TnRiver46]

Survival. Why do all the deer go nocturnal one day after hunting season opens? This is chess not checkers 

 

also the thing with WP could definitely be the sound. One plastic worm doesn’t sound that much different than the other but the noise from a WP is unmistakeable 

[gim]

47 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Why do all the deer go nocturnal one day after hunting season opens?

Haha.  I've experienced this many times, especially with the mature bucks.  You'll see them on trail cameras for days before the season opens during daytime hours and then BOOM its like they just vanish.

 

The dumb ones walk around in broad daylight.  But those are the spikes, forks, and antlerless deer.

[Tennessee Boy]

Maybe no one catches fish on a Whopper Plopper anymore because they stopped using them after learning on Bass Resource that they no longer work. 

 

The herd effect in action.

[Zcoker]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Survival. Why do all the deer go nocturnal one day after hunting season opens? This is chess not checkers 

 

also the thing with WP could definitely be the sound. One plastic worm doesn’t sound that much different than the other but the noise from a WP is unmistakeable 

 

Maybe so. But that doesn't explain how this survival information is spread so quickly when something is suddenly introduced, like a whopper plopper, for example. I can go to a small, isolated place in the middle of nowhere that has never seen a whopper plopper and the bass there react the same way as they do in other bigger bodies of water that have seen it all the time. How is this info jumped over dry land to other bass? That's kinda my line of thinking here. Interesting stuff, to say the least. 

[Bankbeater]

I've seen a bass charge my bait just to turn away at the last second before biting.  I've also seen bass run from a plastic bait that was rigged a certain way.  Makes me think that some of these bass are a lot smarter than we think they are.

[TnRiver46]

4 hours ago, Zcoker said:

 

Maybe so. But that doesn't explain how this survival information is spread so quickly when something is suddenly introduced, like a whopper plopper, for example. I can go to a small, isolated place in the middle of nowhere that has never seen a whopper plopper and the bass there react the same way as they do in other bigger bodies of water that have seen it all the time. How is this info jumped over dry land to other bass? That's kinda my line of thinking here. Interesting stuff, to say the least. 

I’m sure they would eat it again if you dragged it around long enough. But they can pass the info along year after year to their offspring, I can’t explain the dry land part tho haha. Maybe a canal ? 

[N Florida Mike]

On 2/5/2024 at 12:29 PM, TnRiver46 said:

Same ole story, people are worried and the fish are just fine. Been happening since the 60s or so 

 

lemme tell ya what happen in the 80s and 90s in Florida. Every single tire shop owner in America went there, caught 10 lb bass, and hung it in their tire store back home. 30 yrs later Scott Martin breaks the weight record and releases his fish. All of a sudden the bass is doomed ?? 

^^ This …

Id swear the fishing was better then , in N. Florida anyway, when we kept most of the fish, than now, after 30 years or so of catch and release…maybe because the state’s population is 3 times what it was then?

[JHTR20]

I'd like to know what that prop bait Martin used on day 1.  Custom?

 

[king fisher]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:03 PM, Zcoker said:

 

Maybe so. But that doesn't explain how this survival information is spread so quickly when something is suddenly introduced, like a whopper plopper, for example. I can go to a small, isolated place in the middle of nowhere that has never seen a whopper plopper and the bass there react the same way as they do in other bigger bodies of water that have seen it all the time. How is this info jumped over dry land to other bass? That's kinda my line of thinking here. Interesting stuff, to say the least. 

Bass have had free high speed internet for over 100 years.  

[Zcoker]

10 hours ago, JHTR20 said:

I'd like to know what that prop bait Martin used on day 1.  Custom?

 

 

Looked like a Berkley Spin Rocket with a feathered rear hook. 

[JHTR20]

12 hours ago, Zcoker said:

 

Looked like a Berkley Spin Rocket with a feathered rear hook. 

The color / paint job is not in the Berkley line up.  I'll go back, I think the shape was a bit different.  But thanks, I didn't want to de-rail the FFS discussion but was interested as I have an interest in dual props and was hoping someone could ID it.  

[Zcoker]

11 hours ago, JHTR20 said:

The color / paint job is not in the Berkley line up.  I'll go back, I think the shape was a bit different.  But thanks, I didn't want to de-rail the FFS discussion but was interested as I have an interest in dual props and was hoping someone could ID it.  

 

Maybe so. Only reason I suggested the Spin Rocket is because I've seen him use them before. I know his dad makes his own Devil Horse, makes them much bigger, spins them out on a lathe and then adds the regular Devil Horse hardware. I believe the color Scott used is MF Bluegill with the yellow bottom. Can always reach out and ask him. He's very open on what he uses.