BassBlaster

Flare your weedguard, Inflatables sketchy, Melons of the week

Today’s Top 5

Megafauna buttah melons of the week!

Kickin’ it off with this 10-14 mid-summer, boat wakes don’t matter none buttah howg caught by Allen “I ain’t” Rude on Arbuckle, OK. 10-14, white 3/4-oz hair jig:

CA giant melon patch farmer Mike Long is still at it — his latest is this megafauna 15.8-lber (25″). No bait mentioned, but he said Seaguar helped him lasso it:

Gotta outro with this grossly bloated largemouf. Not sure if Japan has wild turkeys, but thinkin’ there’s one in there:

Everyone, this is a good time for an important PSA: This is what happens if you hold in “personal” gas. Don’t do it!

JVD’s St. Lawrence baits.

Jon VanDam was fishing the “Uncle Kev” pattern at the St. Lawrence…. Hahaha! Just kiddin’ mang, JVD can catch ’em too. But clan VanDam was working together again, like they did when they both finished high at Ross Barnett…though Jon was laughing that this time ol’ Uncle Kev didn’t tell him about the spybait deal…. #competitor

Here’s what JVD fished, a Strike King Half Shell:

> “Used these two pretty much the entire time: prizm shad when it was cloudy, and smoke/gold purple flake when it was sunny.

> “8-lb fluorocarbon on a dropshot rig with a 1/4-oz Tour Grade Drop Shot Weight.

> “Targeted smallmouth I could see relating to sand spots and pencil reeds in 5-7′. Had 5 or 6 places I was rotating thru, but 2 produced most of the fish.”

Guess I didn’t know that the Half Shell comes in those hand-pour-looking colors now. Pretty sweet….

Inflatable PFD doesn’t open…again.

Remember in 2015 when guys were ejected from their boat and their inflatable PFDs didn’t open? Check this, recently happened on Lake Michigan:

> As he zoomed into the mouth of the shipping channel, the bottom of his boat struck a large pipe protruding inches above the water off an underwater break wall. The heavy pipe shredded the fiberglass hull of Bergren’s 21′ Ranger boat on impact and ejected both men into the lake.

> Both anglers were jettisoned across the front deck, over the bow and into 30′ of water. “It happened so fast neither of us had time to react,” said, Bergren, who was knocked temporarily unconscious when his face slammed into the console on his way out of the boat.

> Fortunately for both men, the boat turned sharply away as they were tossed over the nose and neither man was struck by the propeller. The boat came to rest against channel rocks.

> Bergren had the outboard “kill” switch attached to his life vest but had forgotten to attach it to the throttle connector. Otherwise, the engine would have shut off as he was thrown from the cockpit. Because he uses a foot throttle, the boat did slow to idle speed when his foot came off the gas.

This part:

> Both anglers were wearing life jackets; Boston had a traditional foam-filled jacket that covers the back and chest; Bergren was wearing a harness style vest designed to inflate when submerged. But it didn’t.

> “I just bought it a few weeks ago and even had the Coast Guard inspect it before I used it,” he said. “I’ll never wear one of those inflatables again.”

Ever since that FLW incident, I don’t use or even carry my inflatables anymore. A PFD has to work when you need it to, period. Not saying all inflatable PFDs are bad, just for me it’s a confidence deal. Coincidentally just saw this on Bassin’masters.com:

> Scott Rook quit wearing an inflatable life jacket the last time the Elite Series came to Lake Champlain in 2007. Rook was wearing an inflatable while trying to get back to the weigh-in site while fighting 5′ waves.

> “I thought, if I go down here, it’s 400′ deep and 2-3 miles to the bank. If that life jacket fails to inflate, I can’t swim that far in these waves. It was as scared as I’ve ever been.”

Actually Scotty told me the most scared he’s ever been was when he accidentally shaved his ‘stache off…cuz he’s had it this long:

Packed my bank pack!

Check it:

That’s the Tackle Warehouse Angler Backpack (sent to me by TW’s Joey “the Fish” — thanks man!) with Flambeau WP5005 boxes…I think that Zerust stuff actually works.

Took me a couple hours to go through the stuff I had dumped into those 2 bags (literally, lol), then put it in the pack. Worth it. Threw out a bunch of stuff, didn’t pack a bunch of stuff. But I guess I did PACK a ton of stuff — when I put that sucka on I was like, Dang!

Way more challenging than throwing tackle in a boat.

Gotta call out the YUM Dinger in camo. Dang that’s a good-lookin’ bait. Weirdly and I guess stupidly, sometimes I don’t start with my favorite baits, like I don’t want to use them til I have to. Don’t want to use ’em up. Anyone else do that??

How to Texas-rig a Vienna Sausage.

Aka in bassin’ as a “vye-enny” sausage. Fatcat takes on this controversial topic — controversial cuz a lot of folks, me included, think Vye-ennies should only be Carolina-rigged. Hahaha love it Fatcat!

News

1. NY/VT: Elite day 1 canceled because…

…when the wind runs north or south, Champlain lake is dangerous. B.A.S.S. said 4-footers — seen guys fish in worse than that, but I guess the issue would be the run. Plus a bunch of the guys wanted to see Despicable Me 3 and Trip said he was sick of being at these lakes and never fishing so…lol

2. How A-Mart sets his graphs.

Good stuff from a feeshn black belt.

3. MO: Bass Feeshn HOF coming to Springfield.

> The Bass Fishing Hall of Fame…will set up shop in Johnny Morris’ Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium when it celebrates its grand opening on Sept 21.

Good! Some folks thought it should’ve gone there in the first place, but props to the HOF for trying to make its own place. Glad it has a physical home now.

4. MS: New ramp planned for Ross Barnett.

> The parking lot and ramps will be located on Mississippi 43 south of Tommy’s Trading Post and east of Sunset Marina. The intent is to reduce the parking problems at Goshen Springs Landing during weekend bass fishing tournaments.

5. IL: Kid gets bassin’ scholarship to community college.

> The 2017 Momence High School graduate received a $500 scholarship through the school’s bass fishing booster club.

> “I was thinking, ‘Holy cow. I just won a scholarship for fishing.’ That money is going to come in handy this fall.”

Too cool.

6. TX: HS bass association giving out scholarships.

> “To reach out to more students in the form of scholarships, for the 2017-2018 season, we will award the 1st-place team from all 30 open events a $1,000 scholarship.”

#stout

7. NE/SD: Zebras in Yankton/Cottonwood.

Now it just needs gobies…KIDDING!

8. New Zoom Frog.

Not out yet, 4″ long, 1/2-oz, 5 colors. Called the Frog. Not Horny Frog, but here’s a Horny Toad for comparison:

9. B.A.S.S. Nation, Jackall support pitching soft-plastics.

Throwing ’em out.

10. Power-Pole has a new iPad for your boat.

> This all-in-one touch-screen tablet allows multiple boat accessories to be connected and controlled by one smart device.

MSRP = $1,600. I assume it can be operated with wet hands?

11.New sales guys at Shimano.

12. Liberatore up, Paro out at Outdoor Sportsman Group.

OSG owns a bunch o’ media includin’ the Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, World Fishing Network, magazines and Bassin’Fan.com.

13. Some ICAST stuff already at TW.

Little list to gitcha started, my ICAST honor roll (or whatever) happenin’ soon:

New cranks

New jigs

New topwaters

New worms/stickbaits

New craws/creatures

New swimbaits

Bassin’ science stuff

> No surprise — “Juvenile survival was negatively affected by boldness, with bolder juveniles having a lower probability of survival than shyer juveniles. In contrast, bolder adult male bass had greater reproductive success than their shyer male counterparts. Female reproductive success was not affected by boldness.”

> Bass like FL canals — Lake Griffin but should apply to many: “The canal creel showed that anglers used canals throughout the study, with peak use during the spawning season. The tagging study revealed anglers caught Florida largemouth bass in canals throughout the 12-mo study….”

> Gobies eat smallie eggs — “Round gobies preyed on smallmouth bass eggs and larvae when the guarding male was absent from the nest. Largemouth bass nests were located in areas with very low round goby abundance and are likely not experiencing significant predation….”

> Length limits don’t work? — Study was on Ross Barnett, MS but “largemouth bass harvest regulations may no longer be relevant in many waters” because so much catch and release.

 

Tip of the Day

Todd Faircloth: Flare your weedguard.

Here’s what Todd does for better jig falls and hookups when bass fishing. Bottom line: trim, then FAN your weedguard:

The jig he’s talking about is the new-ish Strike King Skipping Jig.

Quote of the Day

In boats, no one is spending much, and efficiency is what it was for cars in the 1960s.

Andy Rebele, inventor of the all-electric Pure Outboard, talkin’ fuel efficiency. His outboards go up to 40hp:

> A 4-stroke outboard puts out as much as 10 times more pollution than a modern car engine. “The effort into getting a 1-mpg improvement in efficiency into a car costs millions. In boats, no one is spending much, and efficiency is what it was for cars in the 1960s.”

> Pure Outboard has a range between 28 and 69 miles, depending on the speed, though it can go farther at really low speeds. A battery can recoup half its charge in as little as an hour from a 240V outlet, or about 3 hours from a 120V outlet.

Didn’t know outboards could operate at “really low speeds”?? lol

Seriously tho: You better believe all-electric outboards are gonna be a thing.

Shot of the Day

Even big smallies can be too greedy. This shot also means biggy smalls can be caught by things other than just dropshots:

Random

Way-back country artist Stringbean doin’ “The Fishing Song” — more like a banjo rap than a song, but it’s about a smallmouth and a Jitterbug so…. Is this the most bass-specific bluegrass-ish tune ever? Lmk if you know of another one.

Way back in the ’50s Stringbean was already dressin’ like some kids do now:

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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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