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Word is Lonnie Stanley of Stanley Jigs needs health-related prayers. Please keep ’em coming. Here’s Lonnie back in the day:
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Question I bet I know your answer to: Ever NOT wanna fish with someone? Got all kinda buds wonderin’ if the fish are biting (meaning they want a boat ride), and I’m like a) no idea yet and b) I just wanna be out there by myself man, first couple times anyhow. Yep, bettin’ many a bass fishermen are a) A-D-D and also b) anti-social…sometimes…lol.
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Today’s Top 4
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How Jason Christie won…and managed his gas.
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The Sabine River is stingy. It’s the Scrooge of bass…which must mean it’s naughty too cuz seems like Bassin’ Santy Claus skips it every year. EMOJ Anyhow, someone had to win there and this time it was Jason Christie, who’d never had even a decent finish at ol’ Stingy before. Here’s the down-low on the lowdown on what went down…low…with his baits – full story is on the BB website:
> 1/2-oz BOOYAH Covert Series Spinnerbait (nickel and gold CO blades, chartreuse/blue/white) with a YUM Swim’n Dinger (watermelon pearl), 22-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro, Lew’s Hyper Mag Reel, 6′ 10″ Falcon Cara Head Turner Rod.
Said he reeled it steady with a little shake, and said he likes the Swim’m Dinger as a trailer because it has a good shad color. He shortened the trailer a bit for a smaller profile so spotted bass could get it and the largemouths weren’t real big anyhow. |
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His ‘lectronics were key…but not the way you might think:
> “I would not have won that tournament without my Garmin being able to link with my Yamaha. The cable runs from the Yamaha to my NMEA network and gave me all that data from the engine – fuel flow, how much gas I had left….
> “I had to run at low rpms making that long of a run. I could only run 35-40 mph. The 1st day I got back with 2 gallons – I had no marshal that day. The 2nd day I had a cameraman and I got back with half a gallon. The 3rd day I had a gallon, and [the 4th day] a gallon. So that played huge.
> “I would not have been able to make that run on an old-style gauge because you just don’t know where the end is. …100 more rpms on average and I would have run out of gas.”
Will add this one tiddybit if you didn’t know: The water rose 6+ FEET before day 3 and kept on going. How ’bout them conditions man wow. |
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5 Qs with the spinnerbait hammer.
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Can you hammer a spinnerbait? Can a spinnerbait hammer? Can a hammer spinnerbait? At least one of those is a yes.
1. It is bad manners to win an Elite your first season back?
> No I don’t think so. Every tournament, you just never know. This is definitely one I felt good about….”
2. The highest you ever finished at the Sabine before this was 69th. What was different this time?
> “I just came across the right area. I’m not going to say I was conservative years before…just decided to try to do something different than anybody else.
> “What makes the Sabine tough is it’s hard to run a pattern there. You gotta find an area. I was fortunate to find an area that could go for 4 days.”
3. Would you rather find dirty shallow water or the world’s greatest roadside BBQ?
> “Dirty water without a doubt.”
[HAHAHA I knew it!]
4. What do you think about so many guys winning in tin rigs this year – is it a sign of something?
> “I think it is – 3 out of 4 events have been won out of an aluminum boat.
> “On stage I said that this might be the future. I ran a glass boat for a lot of years, but to me [tin is] a mentality. I feel like there’s nothing you can’t do…I can go over logs, stumps and you can fish deep….
> “I think it is changing a little bit and it’s exciting to see what’ll happen.”
5. What was the best thing about spending a day in the boat with Larry Fleet?
> “I think us talking about sponsorship advice. Both of us. He asked me about it and I asked him…and we both agreed on the things we talked about.
> “He’s just a down to earth person, a guy that right now not a lot of people know – he’s not an Eric Church or Luke Combs yet, but he will be in the next few years and it’ll be cool to watch him make it big.” |
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2nd-5th Sabine baits.
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2nd: Brock Mosely
> 1/2-oz JackHammer with a Yamamoto Zako, 20-lb P-Line Tactical Fluoro, Shimano SLX Reel (6.3), 7′ 6″ MHF Ark Invoker Rod.
> “A lot of seawalls and laydowns, anywhere from 1′ to 8′, covering water.” |
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3rd: Taku Ito
Haven’t heard back from him yet…but Bassmaster said this was one of his rigs?? |
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Either that deal’s big in Japan, he’s one creative dude or he’s a new-level sandbagger…or all of the above?
4th: Chris Johnston
> SPRO Poppin Frog (nasty shad), 7′ 4″ H Daiwa Tatula Elite AGS Ish Frog Rod.
> Zoom Trick Worm (black), 4/0 Gamakatsu Straight Shank Worm Hook.
> Strike King Rage Bug (b/b), 4/0 Gamakatsu Aaron Martens G-Finesse Flipping Hook, 3/8-oz Woo Tungsten weight.
> “Any shallow vegetation that was green and had more than 6 inches of water. Or trees – any structure they could get on that had water.” |
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5th: Drew Cook
> Crankbait: SPRO Fat John 50 (“Sharpie job” literally lol love it), 16-lb Sunline FC Sniper fluoro, Dobyns 705CB Champion XP Rod.
> Spinnerbait: 3/8-oz Nichols Pulsator Spinnerbait (bombshell shad) with a Big Bite Grub, 16-lb Sunline Sniper, Dobyns 704CB Champion XP Rod.
> Shakey: 4″ Big Bite Finesse Worm (junebug), a 1/8-oz Gamakatsu Slider Head, 18-lb Sunline Xplasma Braid to a 10-lb Sunline Sniper, Dobyns 733 Champion XP Spinning Rod.
> “Most of my fish came fishing everything in 1-4′, cypress trees with fish spawning on them.” |
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How to make serious coin with social media bassin’?
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Just gonna excerpt this deal ’bout Josh Jones ^, an Okie who caught a couple TX teeners and then some over the last couple months:
> Josh Jones must be the hottest fisherman in America. Who else can boast of catching a 15-lb bass and winning a national crappie fishing championship in the span of a month?
> …fishing at several TX lakes during a 3-week stretch in Feb and Mar, Jones caught more than a dozen big bass, including a 15.4-lber from Lake O.H. Ivie. …fishing at O.H. Ivie alone included a 13-lb largemouth bass, a 12-lber and 9 11-lbers.
> Jones said he probably caught more than 20 largemouth bass that exceeded 10 lbs during his 3-week fishing blitz through TX…. “It was just good fishing”….
Just…good…fishing??
> Just 3 weeks after his bass fishing blitz across TX, Jones and his crappie tournament partner, Josh Reynolds…won the 2020 American Crappie Trail National Championship on the AL River. |
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> “I was riding a 3-wheeler with a flat-bottomed boat hooked to the back of it when I was 10 or 11 yrs old, with a life jacket on, headed to the lake. When you are obsessed with something, it becomes easy after a while.”
> Jones also has a reputation as an angler who is adept at using the Garmin LiveScope…. “I got a lot of hours on the water, learning my electronics, learning my Sidescan, learning what to look for. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have 10,000 hours staring at Live sonar.
> “I put in the hours. You put in the hours that I do, you are bound to get lucky.”
Here’s the $$$ part – from social fame from ketchin’ ’em proof?
> Now everyone wants to go fishing with Jones, who makes his living as a crappie and bass fishing guide.
> “It’s crazy. I get $1,000 a day to go and there is not enough days in the year. I could book every single day if I wanted to. I could book 2 trips a day every day of the year if I want to.”
Man good for him! |
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News
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Shoot, I mean who DOESN’T one-handed hookset when you’re flippin’ in wood…when the bigs are around? Here’s Fletch doin’ it on a bite from a 9-04 – ain’t a thing mang! |
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Must have some crazy wrist strength!
2. What Jordan Lee likes in the spring.
Besides foot rubs…lol. He likes orange kicker blades, and bladed jigs with Chigger Craws (tips dyed orange) on ’em. Jordan’s middle name should be Chigger Craw….
3. How a couple Elites ran the Sabine.
Spin up yer fave ultra-fast bluegrass pickin’ and check:
4. AR: 50K more FL bass comin’ to Ouachita.
Word is they enjoy the slower-paced lifestyle and lower cost of livin’…
5. TX: At Travis ketchin’ is “fast and easy.”
6. Gobies causing a muskie crash in the St Lawrence?
> …population was thriving until the goby arrived in 2005…brought with it a virus, viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), to which muskellunge proved particularly vulnerable. It led to a 3-year die off among the river’s older, larger muskies. The population has not recovered from that event and researchers are finding fewer and fewer juvenile muskies….
TOLD ‘EM they shoulda gone with Betamax instead of VHS…HAHAHA who remembers that deal??
Anyhow, real weird is that same virus makes smallies all swole.
Okay that happens but not from the virus…I don’t think….
7. Sportsman’s Warehouse sales way up too.
Along with all the major fish/hunt retailers. Wonder if this means Bass Pro Shops will have to pay more for ’em now – thought the cardinal rule was to buy low, sell high:
For the quarter ended Jan 30:
> Net sales of $438.2 mill, an increase of…69.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Gross profit of $142 million (32.4% of net sales) compared to $85 million (32.9% of net sales) in the comparable prior year period. For the year ended Jan 30:
> Net sales of $1,451.8 mil, an increase of…63.8% compared to FY 2019.
8. Sounds like tackle inventory getting back to normal.
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Sounds innerestin’ but:
1. At crowded lakes/ramps? No way.
2. Seems like they’re assumin’ everyone can do an efficient turn around, back up, pull out. Nope! |
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On BassBlaster.rocks right now…
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Best Vision 110 colors, Colors pros won’t fish? Lake Fork UFO spotted!!
Note: The TackleWarehouse links in this email are affiliate links, meaning if you go through them to make a purchase I might earn a commission…at no cost to you. Click here if you want to learn a little more about links in the BB.
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Tip of the Day
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If the water’s still cold where you are…or when it stops being cold again:
> I like tight-wobbling crankbaits this time of the year while focusing on rock…because it’s just able to hold heat better. I try to work the crankbait at around 5-6′ deep, just deep enough to not skim along the bottom. I cast parallel to the rocky bank or at a 45-degree angle. The heat coming from those rocks doesn’t radiate very far, so you’ll need to be casting pretty close to them….
> Ozark anglers like to use a SPRO RkCrawler to get to about 8-10′ of depth because they need it with steeper bluffs. In east TN we can get away with more shallow depths and something like a Rapala Shad Rap or a homemade version to stay a couple of feet closer to the surface.
> Every great angler I know from east TN throws these shallow-running balsa crankbaits on a spinning rod. There’s something about the action a spinning rod imparts on that bait that a baitcasting reel just can’t imitate. I like 8-pound test….
> In terms of color…it either has an orange belly, it has to be red in body color or gold. One of those 3 things always needs to be present in order to have success. I’m not mimicking shad with these baits, it’s mostly crawfish. |
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Quote of the Day
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“I know guys like to slow down and flip, but in tough tournaments I like to cover as much water as I can.”
– B Rock Mosely talkin’ ’bout usin’ a JackHammer at the Sabine. I feel the same way but not because I know it’ll work…just impatient… |
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Shot of the Day
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Love this Josh Douglas shot cuz it says a couple things to me:
1. He makes his bass sing before he releases ’em?
2. Whoever takes his shots is a hard worker…and trusts Josh >> #flyinfeesh |
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Ya got me!
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Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup of the best and funniest (sometimes worst) stuff in bassin’, picked 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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