Welcome to the BassBlaster, your daily email about all things bassin’. Hey – forward this Blaster to a bassin’ bud, willya?

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Today’s Top 3

1. Trout eat human flesh!

Or…”Trout Gives Fisherman the Finger.” From Priest Lake, ID:

> As Calvin was cleaning the fish, both were examining the contents of what was inside. In one of the fish, they found a crawdad. In the next fish, they saw something they thought was just another crawdad, but as Nolan discovered, it wasn’t.

> “I opened the gut sack and out pops this finger!” Nolan exclaimed.

> At first they thought it might be from a fishing accident, then they thought a dead body might be on the bottom of the lake. “We figured we would let the sheriff’s department figure it out,” Nolan said.

> Sgt. Johnston had one of his deputies go pick up the finger, which Nolan had on a bed of ice. Sgt. Johnston…fished through their records…that’s when they found record of a wakeboarding accident.

> Haans Galassi and his friends were out on his boat, wakeboarding…. The boat turned, and the rope slacked and tangled around Galassi’s hand. “My hand felt numb, weird and I thought I better check to makes sure my hand is still there. I pulled my hand out of the water and just saw carnage.”

> “I ripped all my fingers off. I just assumed they were going to be fish food.”

> Sgt. Johnston and the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office has offered to give Galassi his finger back, but as of now, Galassi [said]: “Why would I want a 2 month old dead finger? What am I going to do with it?”

Use it for bait, man!

2. Billy Dance catches 100-pounder.

Don’t know what’s more impressive: That he’s still out there doing it, or that he can effortlessly hold up this 110.25-lb blue catfish, which missed the TN record by just 28 oz.

> Dance said the [MS River] catfish are healthier than ever because they have been gorging themselves on forage fish like skipjack herring. The unusually low water levels on the Mississippi have confined such prey fish to smaller areas, making them easy targets for predators like catfish.

> Dance released the catfish alive. He has also released a 75-pounder and an 83-pounder recently on the Mississippi.

3. New FL TrophyCatch program begins Monday.

> Called TrophyCatch, the program’s goals are to promote conservation of trophy bass and to document catches of trophy bass in Florida.

> There are three tiers of the program, with rewards for each properly submitted qualifying fish. The reward values increase with each tier, and criteria for entering vary by tier. The tiers are as follows:

– Lunker Club: 8 to 9.99 pounds

– Trophy Club: 10 to 12.99 pounds

– Hall of Fame: 13+ pounds

> To enter a fish at the Lunker or Trophy levels, you just need a photo of the fish on a scale with the weight visible, and a photo of the fish on a measuring board. Then submit the fish photos through the TrophyCatch web page to be verified.

Reward/prize descriptions are here. If you catch the biggest bass of the year, put a ring on it baby – the “heaviest bass of the year will earn the TrophyCatch ring donated by American Outdoors Fund.”

If that’s not enough:

During the first year of the TrophyCatch program, the Kissimmee Convention and Visitors Bureau will award $10,000 to the largest bass caught in Osceola County waters by a registered TrophyCatch angler. Additionally, if that fish was caught with the help of a fishing guide, the Kissimmee Convention and Visitors Bureau will award that guide $2,500 as well.

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Tip of the Day

Aaron Martens: Bridge tips.

> Morning topwater: “I catch a lot of bass by fishing the eddy 50 to 100 feet down­current from the pilings.”

> Later in the day cranks: “Cast past the bridge pilings and retrieve the crankbait with the current. Try to bump the pilings with the crankbait and hit them from different angles. Don’t sit in one spot all the time.”

> Deeper fish, a shaky-head jig with a Zoom Fluke. “Cast upcurrent past the bridge pilings, count the jig down to the right depth, and reel it back slow and steady. Try to hit the pilings with the jig.”

 

Quote of the Day

If I buy the hot local lure and win, I talk about it….

– Wally-tooth angler Tommy Skarlis talking about how he will use any bait he finds and talk about it, even if it’s not a sponsor bait, to help goose tackle sales.

 

Shot of the Day

Found this whale somewhere on the interwebzz. Don’t know nothin’ ’bout it, but by the looks of the fish and the water, gonna say: Falcon?

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