Two Lake Varner Giants From 8/14

[Randall]

Here are a couple big bass I caught at Lake Varner last Sunday. First one hit a High Power Herring swimbait as I called my shot as we fished out behind Chris at Tech. Chris tells me not to make him look bad catching fish behind him at the ramp as he is heading out from the ramp. About an hour later I find Chris fishing near an area where I knew there were some big fish the day before that I couldn't catch. As I went by him we hadn't caught a fish yet. We got just past his boat out deeper behind where he was fishing and I started joking with him about how I was getting ready to catch a big one. Had to yell at him to turn around as I set the hook. I really just got lucky as the fishing wasn't near good enough to call my shot but it was funny to see from our boat at least.

the guy I was with and myself then fished for hours without another bite then I got a few fish and bites here and there on swimbaits, and toads as I tried my best to make the trip a learning experience since the fish weren't really tearing it up. We ended up fishing the entire lake and by the end of the day hadn't caught many fish.

I was getting ready to load up the boat at the ramp and had an idea to fish a spot where I had seen a couple really big bass follow my swimbait. I asked the guy I was with if he wanted to run to another spot and fish it for an hour or so. He was fine with it so I went to the spot and start seeing the depthfinder full of fish and bait. We made about three casts on the spot and I set the hook and the fish doesn't move on the hookset. I just hold on and the fish swims to deeper water only jumping once. I see the fish start swimming back down to deeper water on the depthfinder just off the bottom where it might get hung up on stumps but below the thermocline and just hold it there straight under the boat until it just gives out and comes up. First time I can ever remember using the thermocline to help wear out a big bass. But it worked pretty well.

Thanks to Chris at Tech for putting up with our jabbing at him. Thats the second fish over nine pounds we have caught right where he was fishing this summer so I had to give him a hard time. Here are the photos of the fish. They really don't do either fish justice but both fish were worn down pretty bad so we had to be careful on keeping the fish too long in the hot water. We didn't weigh the first fish because of that but did weigh the second fish and it weighed 13lbs with a little adittional weight from a rope we had it attached to tied to the side of the boat. Both fish were over 27 inches long with the mouth closed and compressing and moving the tail to get the longest length.

[Mattlures]

Awsome fish Randall you are a machine!

[Lake Forest Bassin]

Wow those are some monsters right there good job

[Dwight Hottle]

Very nice swimbait toads. I'm sure you got Chris's attention.

[Shane Procell]

Those are Slobs!!!!

[Chris at Tech]

Very nice swimbait toads. I'm sure you got Chris's attention.

Yeah, you could say that -- I saw it all the way from strike to the net. And he stuck a 9+ in front of me earlier this summer too.

I'd also like to document this post as evidence of the fact that Randall learns his fishing spots from me

[senile1]

Those are some nice hawgs, Randall. Varner continues to produce.

[Big-O]

WTG RandalI, those are nice ones. I had to get a hat like the one in your second photo too... Tx sun will bake a Brain

Big O

www.ragetail.com

[ICU812]

That's a great story and thanks for sharing the pictures of the monster bass! Congrats! Big bassers like you give us little guys something to aspire to!