BassBlaster

Dumbest fishing trend ever? What up Matty Lee! Locks hurt bass

Gonna be on the road, hopefully spankin’ a few fish, so just 1 Blaster next week (probly). Hope you catch ’em this weekend, or maybe thump a deer instead!

Almost forgot: YUGE THANK YOU to all our vets — for Veterans Day and every day. Toughest job in the world, God bless you and your fams.

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

Today’s Top 5

Dumbest fishing trend ever?

Dumbest? Weirdest? You tell me (from here):

> …microfishing, to be specific: the art of chasing not trophy bass or trout, but tiny species most fishermen regard as bait…line fishing for species that rarely grow above a few inches in length….

> …has been slowly attracting a devoted following in the U.S…. There’s a healthy concentration of microfishing enthusiasts in IL and elsewhere in the Midwest….

> …rod is so small it collapses to fit in a pocket.

For real, this is one of the pics from the article — look closely, that fish has a hook in its mouth:

For me this is harder to understand than the whole goat yoga deal:

Yep that’s a real “trend.” The Lord ain’t made a goat clean or, uh, “regular” enough yet to be gettin’ on my person!

We finally exported a bassin’ technique to Japan.

They gave us dropshots, Nekos, etc., and we gave ’em:

The Ally-Bama Rig! Those baits are Damiki Armor Shads btw….

WTHeck happened to Matt Lee this year?

Matty “I always wear black” Lee was 15th in the Elite AOY points this year, WAAAAAAAAY up from 82nd in ’16 and 65th in ’15. Plus this year he made 4 top 12 cuts. WTHeck happened?

Called him, here’s part of what he said — full deal on BassBlaster.rocks here, includin’ whether he and Jordan are helping each other:

> “I wish it was something easy where I could say, That’s what made it happen. I just trusted my abilities. I was [almost] getting kicked out of the Elites [after ’16] but made a check in right about half the tournaments I fished so I knew I could catch ’em. I just needed to believe in myself, practice smart and fish smart.

> “All the guys know how to catch ’em. All of them are sound in what they do [skills-wise]. It all comes down to making good decisions in the little bit of time we’ve got.

> “I really believe God put me on the earth to be a fisherman. The way I won the college deal, this maybe is what I’m supposed to be doing, and it’s what I wanted to be doing. I really gotta trust Him that I can make good-enough decisions to hang.

> “A lot of times, even in practice, it’s so easy to start out swimming a jig and 2 hours later you’re still doing it and you haven’t had a bite yet. You’re not thinking, just casting, just trying to run into them.

> “The guy who does well, he puts his boat in the water and immediately by something he sees or feels — his instincts — he’s changing it up. He really understands what’s going on.

> “I realized this year there’s usually a lot more fish [in a good spot/area]. So I try to start in an area where I’ll get some bites, and realize if I swim my jig in a 400-yd stretch of grass and get 3 bites, I should turn around and go back — not leave — and I’ll probably get 2 more. There’s usually a lot more fish in an area than I realized.”

Asked him what up with all the black and he was like:

One mo: Check this shot — have the Lee bros not aged at all?? #fishy #botox

“…you’re seeing people getting concerned about the fact that in northern WI, the largemouth bass populations keep growing, expanding….”

– Concerned?? These people he’s referring to, are they…Americans?? That’s a dude talkin’ ’bout how climate change is affecting ENHANCING fishing in WI hahaha! Right Chuck?

Do locks hurt bass?

Yes. Yes they do:

Man, lockmasters can be some mean peeps….

News

1. FL: Update on boy who passed on after bass boat crash.

Here’s the family’s GoFundMe account, help if you can.2. Palaniuk looking for title/wrap deal??

Lost the Rigid light bulb deal. Cracks me up — dude is a hammer, wins AOY this year, has a huge social follerin’, but last year loses Pure Fishing and now this? Hello? Keep that in mind all you peeps wantin’ to be an Elitist.

Really only one explanation:

3. Cliff Pirch gets Savage Gear.

Makers of ducks, bats and such, but also some great swimbaits. Cool fall trout swimbait thang from Cliff comin’ in the Blaster next week….

4. Ott DeFoe caught a-feeshn barefoot again.

This time on the MLFs:

Told me the barefoot thing has nothing to do with being from TN. I was like, “I reckon so.” He looked at me funny after that, but it felt like we were cool so….

5. Hank Cherry gets V&M.

Already have Elites Cliff Pace, J-Pow and Koby Kreiger.

6. Shin Fukae qualified for the Elites.

Says he’s not sure if he’ll make the jump. Dude is a hammer. I bet he goes Elite. Just a hunch.

7. Russell Cecil also going Elite.

Guess I missed that. Another TX stick, sounds like he’ll travel with Todd Castledine. Will be real interesting to see how they do at that level.

8. Check FLWer John Cox’s yard.

Dang:

9. OK: Thunder’s Paul George is a bass-head.

Probly too big a dude to fish a sticky wimp, so he doesn’t:

He knows how to set a hook, not so much the ESPN dude….

10. Costa’s Melinda Hays fished Costa Champeenship.
Love the industry folks walkin’ it like they talk it:

11. TX: Zebras confirmed in Richland Chambers.

12. TX: Does this proposed new reg sound weird to you?

> Grapevine Lake would change to no minimum length limit with a bag limit of 5 fish of which only two can be less than 18 inches.

So most fish would have to be OVER 18? Does that affect derbies too?

13. MO: Jig/pig night bite for smallies on at Bull Shoals.

On bluffs.

14. ’18 FLW/TBF HS schedule is out.

15. MD: Southern Garrett Bass Slayers are MD HS champs.

Slay-uhs in the house!

16. StutterStep 4.0s are on TW!

Here’s a comparison of the original vs the smaller 4.0 size:

17. Keitech Fats now in big sizes, 6.8″ and 7.8″.

18. CA: Cool new Cali bass Ts but……big bass T-shirt has a small bass?

3 Alpha Angler rods winner!

Byron B outta ID won it! (Coincidentally, same state as one Brandon P.) Will announce the winner of the BOOYAH/YUM giveaway soon….

Subscribe to the BassBlaster YT channel yet??

You’re a bass-head ain’t ya?? Just click the YT logo to get there and make sure you sign up! Same as here: No junk, just beef.

Tip of the Day

Keith Combs talkin’ rods and hooks.

I’m all about the right rod/line/hook, especially rods, and the great thing about this is how Keith tells about his screw-ups:

> Matching your rod to your bait is such a big deal. …I didn’t fully understand how those subtleties affected my effectiveness.

> Earlier this year a friend and I went out to test some new rods flipping deep hydrilla in 15-18′. We thought we had the right one, but at one point it became evident that something was wrong because we lost about 10 in a row. Then we decided to switch rods and after that we never lost another fish. It wasn’t a major change — just a half-power or so — but that made all the difference.

> …all of my time guiding on Falcon taught me a lot about selecting the right hook for a particular application. I spent a lot of time cranking there, and I learned that while there are a lot of sharp trebles, there aren’t a lot of strong ones. Those big fish would jump, the bait would rattle back and forth, and they’d send it flying back at me with a straightened hook. When I figured out the right hook for each bait, those losses went way down.

> When the vibrating jig craze first started…figuring that I could fish it on the same rod I used for my spinnerbaits. Those early days with the Strike King Pure Poison were painful because I was losing a ton of fish, and I simply didn’t have the confidence to use it on tournament day.

> …another very talented angler discussed it with me and told me that the rod I was using was way too stiff. Rather than thinking of the Pure Poison as a spinnerbait substitute, I had to think about it more like a crankbait. With the stiff rod, I was literally pulling the lure away from them. With one simple change, and a little bit of time re-learning the technique, it became one of my confidence lures.

So start ‘sperementin’ away from just your MHs!

Quote of the Day

It’s like a fishing lure, man, how could you resist this thing?

– Hot-rod builder Brian Bass (that’s seriously his last name) talkin’ on the Gas Monkey TV show ’bout an eye-candy car…using the ULTIMATE analogy. We totally get it dude! #WANT #NEED #GET

Shot of the Day

Hahahaha! Anyone who has more than one kid or fishes with a bro or sis will get this 1,000%! Actually, this was kinda what it looked like in the boat with my 15- and 13-yr-old this summer….

Love competitive kids mang!

Random

Aggressive turkeys terrorizing MA town.

Yep, turkeys, a mere 2 weeks before Thanksgiving! So I guess turkeys are evolving to become a dominant species??

Just in case you think people can only be terrified by birds:

A worried resident in Germany alerted police to what he thought was a World War II bomb in his garden. Officers rushed over — and found a particularly large zucchini.

Sheriff Buford T. Justice sums it all up here.

Sign up another bass-head!

If you’re forwarding every Blaster to other bass crackheads, tx much — or you can email me the addys and we’ll take care of it! We’ll never send spam, sell the list or anything else crazy….

Use the best!

Git on these yo!

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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.

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