BassBlaster

19 lb largie, Why Hack cranked, Best marker buoy ever

Won’t be another Blaster til a week from now — will be at Strike King’s media deal early next week. Hit the BB social media til then, thanks much for reading bass-heads!

If you’re getting the BassBlaster for the first time it’s cuz a bud signed you up!

Today’s Top 5

19-lb Cali largie lake record.

Crazy how a 19 is only a LAKE record, but that’s Cali for you. Here’s Ryan Reynolds, Lake Chabot, caught on a jig near Alder Point. Beat the former lake record by 1+ lbs. Click the pic to see a vid of the release. Yuge! More deets:

> ….large submerged tree in 20- to 25-feet with a Yamamoto Double Tail Hula Grub (black/blue) on a 1/2-oz football head jig. At about mid-point of the fall….

 

> “I put pressure on her and she wrapped me around a tree limb. That freaked me out more. I fought her for about a minute, did a couple of figure 8s with her — it felt like forever. I didn’t have a net, so I reached in with my whole hand in her mouth and pulled her out.”

Good job westernbass.com getting the deets.

Hack cranked ’em at the Atch.

[Somehow there’s no pic of Hack with fish so have to run this one of him playing air guitar. Hack’s like, “Smooooke on the waaaater, and fire in the sky….”]

Greg Hackney finished 2nd at the Atchafalaya Open, a flipping paradise and Hack is a flippin’ master. Heck, he likes flippin’ more than chasin’ bigfoots! But…he cranked in most of his fish. Full deets on BassBlaster.rocks, but here’s a few tiddybits:

> “The area I fished had matted vegetation, but they were on stuff that was vertical. I didn’t find them relating underneath vegetation. Everything I caught came off wood.

> “I was keying on stuff sticking out a little farther — not necessarily a little point, but something sticking out from the rest of the cover. Could be an isolated piece of cover, a point, a mouth of an indentation, a ditch mouth…typical summertime stuff. The fish had made no transition.

> “I caught 2 fish flipping, but the majority came on a Strike King 2.5 [chartreuse/black back]. The fish were suspended, so cranking to keep the bait in the strike zone was more efficient than flipping. I caught the same-size fish flipping, but it was slower and I had to cover lot of water to catch my fish.

> “With the crankbait I used a slow to medium retrieve and made repetitive casts to cover. I made 5′ to 20′ casts — the water was dirty so I could be close to the cover. I used 20-lb Gamma fluorocarbon, and I held up the rod so the bait wouldn’t get too deep.

 

The jig is a 3/8-oz Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Jig (black/blue) with a Strike King Rage Craw (black/blue flake).
Boom-Boom’s area got burned.

Freddy Boom-Boom Roumbanis was crushing it at the Open, then on day 3 he ran out to his area and:

> “…a [duck] boat ran through my juice before I got there and destroyed it.”

But before that, he was winning. Here’s some deets of how he fished, rest on BB.rocks:

> “I flipped thick gator grass and hyacinth in the Bayou Black area. I was flipping up tight to reeds with gator grass with hyacinth over it. Next to reeds there was 6” more water.

> “I caught fish from 1′ to 3′. A lot of them my boat was dragging in mud.

> “I had a 50-yard stretch where I caught 4 fish over 4 lbs. That was my primary stretch, where it dropped down a little deeper. Then I had maybe another 150 yards of water. I fished it back and forth.

> “99% of fish were on the initial drop. I didn’t have to jig it.”

> He flipped a Gene Larew Punch Out Craw (black/blue) and a Larew Hoodaddy Jr. Here’s the Punch Out rigged up:

> He used a punch skirt on the Punch Out craw — “more for the clicking sound. I really thinned out the skirt.”

 

New dropshot hooks?

Want to dropshot even better? How ’bout an ice-feeshn stick (about the size of a Barbie pole) and these:

Gitcha wimp on boys!
Best marker buoy ever.

Bent-rod pattern got you down? Spot pirates fishing your buoys? Check this sweet idea:

News

1. Kennedy moves to Bass Cat.

 

Bassin’ Cat resident bass-head K-Pink:

“I’ve always felt that Steve was the best angler at the tour level. I don’t know anybody out there who understands how to find and catch fish as naturally as Steve. He’s extremely guarded and doesn’t easily forge relationships, so we are thrilled that he chose to join the Bass Cat family.”

 

Good for both of ’em.

2. Ike gets wheels.

‘Bout time you dumped that VW man, congrats!

3. Swindle on BassEdge Radio.

Do I need to say it should be entertaining as heck?

4. David Dudley not switching to Elites.

Him plus Mark Rose makes two. Some good sticks remain on the FLW Tour, but fewer each year.

5. MS community college offers bassin’ scholarship.

Too cool.

6. AL: U North AL team wins Ranger Cup event.

7. MN: Mille Lacs Smallie Alliance hires editor?

To edit an email newsletter? Who the heck has ever heard of such a thing? lol

8. Name you another YUMmy color.

Bourbon Berry was the last one, now name this one. Beat these ideas: gangrene confetti, disco puke, booger candy. Click here to hit the FB and exercise your bassin’ creativeness:

Tip of the Day

Why Greg Hackney uses big flipping hooks.

Cliff Crochet credited Hackney with giving him a tip that helped him land more fish: a 6/0 hook – specifically a 6/0 Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover Flipping Hook. Here’s a little of what Hack had to say about that hook and why he fishes it — the rest (all super-good stuff) is on BassBlaster.rocks:

> “With low-stretch line, if a [lighter-wire] hook flexes it will have a tendency to cut its way out of a fish’s mouth. A hook that flexes sometimes [can get] caught on the edge of the mouth and might tear off before [you get the fish in the boat]. This hook will stick a lot deeper in a fish’s mouth because it won’t flex. It’s a low-stretch hook.

> “A J-style hook, round bend, short shank with a big bite, gives you more room for error. The big gap and the heaviness of the wire…and that sharp point…you can put all the pressure you want on the fish.

> “It’s a relatively short-shank hook where you can put an oversize hook in a small bait. That’s really key when you’re punching with a small bait. You need a small bait to go in and out of that heavy cover, but you need a big hook when you’re fishing for big fish.

> “Case in point: I find a lot of guys flip the same plastics I do and use my hook, but they use a 5/0 and I use a 6/0. I always go for the biggest hook possible – to make up for user error. A lot of bad things can happen with a big weight and braid up close like that.

> “I don’t do it [fish a big hook] because I like it. I do it because it works better. I don’t do things I because I like it anymore. I fish for a living.”

Quote of the Day


I was fishing a point and I could hear guys talking so I knew I was fishing close to another boat. Didn’t realize how close until a large Zara Spook landed on the front deck with me.

– Story from a thread on the TFF about running and fishing in fog. Some scary stuff in there. When your dog doesn’t want to go, stay home:

Shot of the Day

 

Check out my bud Brett McComas doin’ the marital last weekend. Told him he should’ve been drivin’ but maybe he just learns faster than some of us:

Use the best!
Git on these yo!

Jay Kumar is the guy who created BassFan.com, co-hosted Loudmouth Bass with Zona, was a B.A.S.S. senior writer and a whole lot more in bassin’. Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup of the best in bassin’, and is the #2 daily read on any given day in the wide world o’ bass. Get the Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster app:

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