Since most of the bassin’ world hasn’t seen it yet, the Luck E Strike Drop Dead Craw:

That’s the same bait he showed me in the staging area at the Classic, said it was a killer. Guess he was right! He also used a Johnny Morris CarbonLite rod and 50-lb Stren braid.

Petey “aaaar I’m a pirate” Robbins wrote a column asking that question – sorta – on Bassmaster.com. Actually asked whether the Classic should be in Feb. Here’s my way of asking that:

Was it better at Hartwell in the winter or Pittsburgh in the summer?

I was at both. I’ll take Hartwell.

Yep the summer’s fun no matter what, but 1-lb fish? No thanks.

Which to me means this: Classic LOCATION is everything. For that matter, Elite location is everything. No offense to the folks of Orange, TX and surrounding areas, but the Sabine River??

I get the economics that determine location, but let’s not assume that a summer, fall or whatever Classic will be automatically better.

Will someone who knows excel out there do a spreadsheet that shows the % of suck locations to good ones over the last X years of the Elites? Might be innerestin’.

For hish-schoolers, props to B.A.S.S., super stoked about this because:

1. It’s an awesome idea.
2. We tried to do this back in my BassFan days, even pitched it to a few companies, but they were like, “What?”

Cuz that was way before the internet — no wait, BassFan is a website so it was after the internet but before the blowup of high school and college bassin’. ‘Bout time. Should be a college All-America team too.

Does McDonald’s still sponsor AA teams? Maybe if fishin’s not cool enough for the big Mac, we can at least get Mac Sabbath to play before the weigh in:

Click the pic to hear them play “I am Frying Pan.”

Trevor Fitzgerald of Trevor Rods — haha, Fitzgerald Rods — with his 12.10 Gville Ray-o-Start big bass. He had 32-00 in one day.

> Shane’s Baits 5th Element A-rig with Keitech 3.8s on it. I was fishing it for staging fish in about 12 foot of water close to spawning areas. Fitzgerald Rods Stunner HD 7’6″ MH….

Guess what the other fish he’s holding weighs…

…7.5!

[Can’t find the shot, emailed to me, but taken by Jesse Shultz of FLW.]

More here.

Acquiring CEO comments here.

> Both the existing angler and new angler who purchase their licenses together will pay half the cost of a regular fishing license. The new program is available to anyone between the ages of 16 and 65 who has not purchased a license since 2010.

Tip of the Day

Hack on swim jigs.

> Basically all swimming a jig means is that you’re pulling it through more or less open water as opposed to fishing it on the bottom or in cover.

> I like my swim jigs to have a narrow build. That gives them a thin profile which is what I want most of the time.

> A small line tie angle is also very important. I want an angle of 20 degrees or less. That’s pretty close to straight off the nose, although in reality it’s not quite that tight. This allows me to truly swim the jig back to the boat and also gives me more speed control. At times that can be critically important.

> The other thing I want in my swim jigs is a softer weedguard…however, I do like a heavy hook. If I catch a big one, I don’t want my hook to fail.

> I almost always throw my swim jigs on braid. It almost impossible to break off with it and the fish aren’t paying any attention to my line so I’m not worried about it scaring them off.

Quote of the Day

If we find a color that works in a bait, he’ll experiment two colors each way on the spectrum to see if we missed something.

Shot of the Day

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