BassBlaster

Bass boat at White House, New Tickle frog, Chocolate-dipped smallie?

By (mostly Jay)

Posted on July 24, 2018

Give ya a warm bass-head welcome to BioSpawn baits! New-ish company that sponsors Sethstache Feider and from what I saw at ICAST is coming out with some cool stuff. Btw the “Feider shad” color they make is crazy — looks translucent from one angle (top, if I remember right), much less so from the side.

BioSpawn gives out free samples of its baits every month to a lucky “50-100” bass-heads, just sign up at the bottom of their website.

Super grateful so many folks want “in” to the Blaster. I still say no to way more folks than I take on cuz this ain’t about the $$$. And content-wise there’s WAY more than I can use so sorry if your stuff doesn’t get in. Reminds me of when I launched BassFan.com in 2001 — everyone was like: Is there enough stuff in bass fishing to write about it every day?? Lol no one had a clue back then….

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

Today’s Top 4

A bass boat was at the White House!!!

Ranger was there as part of a “made in America” display, but who cares why — I’m takin’ it as good sign. Forget politics — bass-heads haven’t had a true friend in the White House since #43, the second President Bush, so it’s been a while…and that’s saying something since feeshn is one of the most popular things to do in the US of A and bassin’ is at the top of the fish list.

Side note: If this means Johnny Morris runs for capital P Prez, I don’t know the guy (his loss lol) but gonna say…DO IT!!!

Could see KVD as Secretary of Defense (“you ain’t part of the community“)…Zona and Sanders as White House spokesmen…Evers would head the Dept of Ag and make everyone buy pea-cans…Ott would be Secretary of the Interior and lift the B.A.S.S. ban on tunnel hulls…you get the picture.

Looks like Jimmy might get himself a Cabinet post too:

Love it man!!

Looks like this is the newest Tickle frog.

Okay it’s Teckel but that’s not as funny…to me (lol). Check the Teckel Maracker — click the pic to see a short vid on the Insta:

Whaaaaat? It’s already on Tackle Warehouse! I’m like:

Better learn to flip spoons…

…cuz it’s a for-real thing, prolly comin’ to your home lake. Had a brief Ish vid on it last week, and check what the top 2 teams at the Bassin’masters college champeenship did (on OK’s Tenkiller), starting with the winners, Bethel University’s Garrett Enders and Cody Huff:

> All of their fish came on either a 5.5″ Strike King Sexy Spoon or a 7/8-oz Jewel jigging spoon as they targeted sunken cedars around docks with most hits happening between 15-20′.

> Campbellsville’s Dunagan and Ratliff also worked spoons around marinas…. “We just started looking for spider webs, pitching where nobody else had been. We lost like 15 spoons today.”

> Their two best lures were a 4″ Strike King Sexy Spoon and a 3.75″ Talon Custom Lures Lake Fork Flutter Spoon. “It’s a little heavier on a shorter frame so you can slide it back in there,” Ratliff said.

Chocoloate-dipped smallmouth?

Sent to me, from this dude’s account:

Believe was caught in MN, where most of the cool smallies live…but not all….

Also found this pic of a chocolate-dipped golden retriever:

News

1. Here’s what the Elite AOY standings look like.

First 4 are crazy tight:

Bryan Brasher scribbled a good post on B-Rad Roy, and donny barone wrote a good one on the race.

2. Will Mike Iaconelli have an advantage this week…

…at the Chesapeake? Not gonna say it’ll be like the Delaware River (#deadsea), but my bud Mike Scott was like:

3. Alton Jones’ renewed safety procedures…

…after his Skeeter beached at the Sabine. Good post, here’s the line that stood out to me:

> “I wear a full Skeeter life vest so I don’t have to wait for anything to inflate.”

#Don’tWaitToInflate

4. Keith Combs having toughest season ever.

> …has posted 3 finishes of 85th or worse on the Bassmaster Elite Series this season. That’s 1 more than his combined total from his previous 7 seasons on the circuit.

Weird! It happens, man, just keep swingin’.

5. Did Garmin make Jason Christie get a tat?

Check it, from a Garmin ad:

Word is Jason wanted it to say “I will rain destruction on you” but they couldn’t fit that on his knuckles so….

6. PA’s Matt Becker is the FLW ROY.

Congrats to him! A great bass fisherman hasn’t come out of PA since…ever? Hahaha Lefebre!

7. Jimmy Houston is 74 on Friday.

Lookin’ good too:

Says he’s caught 64 bass over 10 lbs!! And has read the Bible 50 times!! #stout

Now I’m thinkin’: I wanna be just like Jimmy Houston? Just can’t do the hair….

8. OH proposing opening up bass fishing year-round……”in the Lake Erie sport fishing district.”

9. OK bass anglers ticked about stocking wipers in Grand.

Bassers be sayin’:

> …over a million hybrid striped bass stocked at Grand Lake are part of a trend that would ruin the fishery that attracts tournament anglers and bass fanatics from across the country.

Apparently the guy behind all this stocking is:

10. WV: Cheat Lake is back, smallie pop up.

11. OR boat-registration fees may be going up…

…33% from $4.50 to $5.95 per foot.

12. NC: Folks win lottery, buyin’ a bass tub!

Raise your hand if you would NOT do that — didn’t think so:

> Their plans for the windfall include paying off bills and a bass boat. Strickland told lottery officials he has wanted a bass boat for years and years. In fact, he said, it was his dream buy whenever he thought about winning the lottery.

I HEAR YOU DUDE! If I win TWO lotteries I’m buying Tackle Warehouse…seriously.

13. NY: Waddington still fundraising to afford Elites again.

> “Having Bassmasters is important for local business….”

14. MN: Guides, anglers take 100 kids out fishing.

On Vermilion. #stout

Line that says it all about phone-generation kids:

> “Why is it taking so long?” Libbie, 11, asked…had been fishing with a nightcrawler under a slip bobber for a full 5 minutes and the bobber had yet to dip below the surface.

Okay that IS outrageous….

15. Watch the Cabela’s College Champeenships on YT.

16. College scholly updates.

DE HSer gets Bethel U scholly.

#stoke

> “He fishes all the time. That’s all he does,” Concord football coach Greg Mitchell said. “If he wasn’t playing football during the fall, he was fishing.”

MS HSer signs with Blue Mountain College.

Too cool.

Shimano gives out 9 scholarships.

17. Coast Guard wants name/addy on paddled vessels.

Because if one is found, without that info they have to search for a missing person even if it just drifted off or whatever.

18. DC: USFWS proposing changes to ESA.

USFWS = US Fish and Wildlife Service, ESA = Endangered Species Act. Because the ESA is legislation, only the Congress can change it (or the Supreme Court, but that’s not supposed to be allowed…!) so this is only about implementation.

If whatever they’re doing means states don’t have to constantly divert fishing and hunting money to ESA stuff, that would be good. Not sure if that’ll be the case though….

19. FL: TowBoatUS now on Okeechobee.

Quick story: Only time I was in a boat that had to call one of those services (Seatow) was on Pamlico Sound, NC. Boat capt was freaking out, I asked why, he said: “We’re on a bombing range.” I looked around, saw a rusty bombed-out hulk of steel a ways off, looked at my bud, he looked at me, and we commenced to trying to fix that outboard real dang quick….

20. New T-H Marine neon apparel.

Gitcha SS tees, LS tees and head covers.

Headline of the Day

Live bait works for bass fishing

Don’t know why but givin’ this the shot put derp:

On BassBlaster.rocks right now…

Crazy derps! A-rig toads?? Gary Yamamoto’s Senko tips

New ICAST stuff 5-second video tour!

BassBlaster Special Post-Spawn baits and stuff issue!

All past BassBlasters are archived at BassBlaster.rocks!

Tip of the Day

Gerald Swindle: Burn Rapala DT-20s right now.

> “This summer, the bass are feeding on a lot smaller gizzard shad, I think. I’ve seen a lot of shad around 3 or 4 inches.”

> “The DT-20 has a really good shad profile, but it’s not as big and gaudy as some other baits. The sound’s not as obnoxious and it really does match the shad they’re eating.”

> …spool up a disco shad-colored DT-20 [pictured] on 10- or 12-lb fluorocarbon line on a 5.3:1 baitcasting reel and 7.5′ baitcasting rod….

> …locate a few hard-bottom humps or high spots in otherwise deep water, “where it comes out of like 40′, up to 20, and back down to 40.” When you see fish on your sonar screen in such areas, move back downstream a bit and set your trolling motor to its virtual-anchor setting.

> Cast your DT-20 upstream past the hard-bottom hump and retrieve it fast and hard. “Boat position is key…I want to crank my bait with the current to get that natural presentation.”

> “It’s key that you make bottom contact. 90% of the bites will come on the bottom. So a key for me is burning it to get it down. But once I get that bait down on the bottom, I don’t slow up on it, I keep bringin’ it. I’m reeling it like I’m having a fit, reeling it so fast.”

More deets here.

Quote of the Day

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been…. I mean, I was only about 56 lbs away from catching Mark Daniels Jr.”

– Hahaha! Greg Hackney puttin’ a positive spin on his finish at Wahooee. If you don’t know, Hack is a funny dude…except when talkin’ Sasquatch, aliens and such. Then he’s all biz:

Shot of the Day

Most times when you go to the HQs of bassin’ companies you’d have no clue what biz they’re in — til you walked in and scoped out the merch (and filled up a few pockets lol). But the home of BOOYAH and YUM just made a statement with this…and I kinda wish that’s how my office looked too:

Random

Biologists freezing trout sperm.

Well…guess the only thing I can say is if we told our granddads that would happen in the future, we probly woulda gotten a good whack in the head, our mouths washed out with soap and sent to a military academy for high school….

Ya got me

Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup

of the best, worst and funniest in bassin’, as curated by me — Jay Kumar. I started BassFan.com, co-hosted Loudmouth Bass with Zona, was a B.A.S.S. senior writer and a bunch more in bassin’. The Blaster is the #2 daily read on any given day in the wide world o’ bass so thanks for readin’!

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