BassBlaster

FLW Cup winning baits, Wobble-head worms, Learn to pattern-fish!

Starting this off asking for prayers for Ray Scott — nothing to be more specific about, just don’t want to forget about him. Everything we have in bassin’ we owe to him (and the Lord of course). Thank you Ray! Ray will be 85 in 10 days so wishin’ him and his family a happy one — hope every day is a good one Ray!

Today’s Top 5

How Clent Davis won the FLW Cup.

Clent Davis squeaked into the top 10 cut at the FLW Cup at Lake Ouachita, AR in 10th, 4-13 out of the lead. The next and final day he smashed 17-13 to win…by 7-04!! Crazy, man. After talkin’ to him I’m gonna say it was 5 things:

1. Keeping his head in it after jumping off a 5-lber on his first cast, then losing more fish on the 2nd day.

1a) Word is Hank Williams Jr’s “Country State of Mind” helped him out:

That hot, old summer sun
Make you beg for your next breath…
I’m just laid up here in a country state of mind

Catching these fish like they’re going out of style

2. Only fishing for bigger bites.

3. The worm on the wobble head.

4. The GPS antennaHere it is.

5. Giving up classic rock. (Dang it that hurts to hear….)

> “I used to listen to old-school classic rock [pre-game], but I was so wired I couldn’t even think. Now I listen to older country to calm me down, like George Strait and Hank Williams Jr. Nothing that gets me so jacked up I can’t see straight — it’s just fishing, not football.”

All the deets on what he did are on the BassBlaster website, but here’s his bait info:

> 12″ Mister Twister Mag Buzz Worm (plum apple). “I’ve been fishing it for 3 years, but they just released it last year. Plum apple is just a confidence color — plump apple and plum are what I throw offshore.
> “I was dragging it through brush on a 1/2-oz Nichols Bulldozer Head (4/0 EWG hook). That’s a wobble head. …casting past the brush, drag it up to the brush, drag it up the pile to the very top, then open the reel and let it fall.
> “The 1st and 2nd days I caught a key fish on a Yo-Zuri 3DR Pencil (gizzard shad). They’d come up schooling over the brush.
> “I have a lot of confidence in it. Brandon Card almost won two Elites on that bait. A lot of guys on both tours are throwing it.”
> Worm line: 16-lb Yo-Zuri Top Knot Fluorocarbon. Topwater: 30-lb Yo-Zuri Super Braid (dark green), no leader.

Unofficial word is Clent will use his $300K winnin’s (before taxes) to build a treestand complex “just like the Ewok treehouses on Endor”…

…and since Ewoks aren’t real, he’s dressin’ his Brussels Griffon dogs like Ewoks:

Heard FLW TD Bill Taylor suggested the whole deal, but then Clent already had the dogs so who knows….

HAHAHA fellers!

He called it!

Check this text from Clent:

Baits of the Top 10 at the Cup.

If you weren’t topwaterin’ or wormin’:

Here’s what the top 10 baits looked like:

Buzzbait = 50%

Topwater Walker = 40%Yo-Zuri 3DR Pencil = 20% (Clent and Brandon Cobb 9th), Berkley J-Walker and here’s James Niggemeyer (2nd) with his Strike King Sexy Dawg — way to go brother!

Non-walking topwater = 40% — Plopper-type =30%, Frog = 10%, Buzz frog = 10% (one guy used 2 types).

Worm = 40%

Dropshot = 30% — all worms, Roboworm = 20%

Spoon = 10%

Shout-outs:

> How ’bout a deep brush lake being so much about topwaters…. [chin-scratch emoji]

> Comin’ out derby for Berkley’s Plopper-like Choppo, apparently used more in the top 10 than the actual Plopper.

What I learned on my summer vacation: Pattern-fish!

Went to the “Jersey shore,” aka the beach, with the fam. Rather eat my sister-in-law’s squash soup than sit on a beach all day so here’s what I did…

…or tried to do. That’s a great way to kill insomnia — slept like my wife was giving me knockout pills….

Anyhow, even though I was stuck on shore, I was around my old inshore saltwater stomping grounds, and what I saw got me thinkin’. Was the same ol’ — guys fishing the same holes/wrecks/reefs or chasing diving birds. That’s it.

What I’m saying: Most salty anglers — up my way, anyhow — don’t know how to pattern-fish. We used to go out there and catch fish after fish, and the guys coming by us looked ticked/shocked. That was years ago, and from what I saw it’d be the same now. So got to thinkin’ ’bout bassin’ and gotta say:

Don’t forget how to pattern-fish dang it! If you don’t know how, learn. All the technology in the world won’t help you if all you know how to do is run to community holes and/or spots you’ve marked.

Truly concerned that a lot of folks coming up literally don’t learn how to pattern bass. If you wanna be an Elitist, you better know how to do it — and THEN use your ‘lectronics to HELP you pattern-fish, not the other way around….

Read this quote from RRRRRRRRRaiders coach Jon Gruden:

> We have as good a technology as anyone. But what can you use? I ticked a lot of people off for some reason when I said, ‘We’re gonna get back to the nuts and bolts of football,’ because I have seen a lot of the gimmicks and gadgets not really be beneficial. Is it helping them get better?”

Word Chuckie! Unrelated: I watched a stingray ride a wave toward the shore (underwater), then take off down one side of the wave as it broke. Sure looked like the critter was having fun…?

Git yer bassin’ fashin’ together!

It’s all good. You can be your Ott DeFoe bare-footin’ self, you can fish shirtless like FLWer David Dudley…

…and fish hatless like you’re darin’ the sun to singe your baldness. Or you can look like you’re an Elitist, dressin’ for successin’. Whatever your thing is, all good.

That said, personally lovin’ the spillage of surf style into bassin’ fashin’ — like AFTCO, Huk and a couple other companies are doing, includin’ Electric eyewear. Here’s ‘Lectric bass-head and former pro surfer (legit, seriously) Todd Klein talkin’:

> “The days of cool style/bad lens for the truck and lame style/great lens for the boat are done.”

Heck yeah, mang! Electric’s all about the fusion. Toddo sent me this pic of what he means:

I was like, “Is there someone behind Zaldain? Cuz I’m not seeing….”

Hahaha Chris! Oops since ‘Lectric and Zaldain are Cali, reminds me need to give you your CA Prop 65 Warning:

According to the state of CA, reading can cause your eyes to feel funny and your brain to fill up so Cali legislators ain’t allowed to do it — ‘specially if it involves common sense — unless it’s an organic vegetable or a dolla bill yo!

Lol gotta shout-out Simms Surf Shorts and AFTCO’s Samurai Hoodie for workin’ as advertised. REALLY dug the Samurai….

Also on the bassin’ fashin’: YUGE BUFF sale right now yo!

News

1. LA: We lost a brother in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Article says the man didn’t show up for the weigh-in, then his boat was found, then him. Bless you bassin’ brother.

2. FLWer Scotty Suggs has back issues.

> Suggs said he missed most of this season because of back problems. “My arms started going to sleep. A couple of times I lost all the feeling in my hands and threw my rods in the lake when I was casting.”

Hadn’t heard about this til now. Hope you can get that taken care of man….

3. Is this Larry Nixon or a gov’t agent??

Guy on the left of StrayCasts’ Pat Renwick — that Nixon?

4. 2018 FLW Cup back at Ouachita.

Locals plan to sink 4 million more brushpiles before then….

5. Z’s boys won the MI Champeenship!

How ’bout them apples! Jakob (left) and Hunter won this weekend’s 2-day Kevin VanDam/D&R Sports MI college championship on Long Lake (Sat) and Hubbard Lake (Sun):

> Day 1, isolated rockpiles in 1-6′. Fished a Strike King KVD 1.5 (brown craw) and 4″ Strike King Ocho (gp). Key was throwing on the shallowest part of the rockpile.
> Day 2, isolated wood from 2-30′ they side-imaged. Dropshotted a Strike King Baby Z Too (TN shad) with #1 Trokar Drop Shot hook. Caught gobies, perch, crawdads on the Z Too too — lots of bait was key. [Can’t read my notes (sorry) but they might have fished the same day 1 baits a little too.]

Sounds like the boys raided their dad’s gear just a bit hahaha! Case you’re wonderin’ if the boys share Z’s verbal gift, here’s Hunter’s quote:

> “Saturday, we caught a lot more fish, but they were smaller. Sunday, we didn’t catch as many, but they were bigger.”

Look out Z! Love it Hunter, that’s an Elite-level quote for sure man! GREAT job and congrats to your bro too!

6. OH proposes catch/keep spring season on Erie.

> …would toss out the closed season in 2019, allowing fishermen to keep 1 bass longer than 18″ from May 1 to the 4th Sat in June. The rest of the year anglers could, as usual, keep a limit of 5 bass 14″ or longer.

Dude named Randy VanDam owns the OH record smallie, a 9-05. Yep, he’s related to that other VanDam….

7. TN: Did you know TVA has an app…

…that shows water levels and gen schedules? If you fish those lakes you probly do but….

8. AR trying to find out how far Asian carp have gotten.

9. GA: Benefit bass derby on Blackshear Aug 25.

10. MI 7th-graders donate tourney profits to hospital.

How cool is that!

11. AL might have most boating deaths in 20 years.

Please be careful out there peeps….

12. Ranger tin rigs changed and upgraded.

13. Guy gets patent for light on Power-Pole/Talon.

Guess it’s a running light and a light for in-boat viz.

14. ICAST new stuff rundown yo!

If you missed it, here’s my rundown of the best of ICAST:
Part 1 – http://bit.ly/BBICAST18-1
Part 2 – http://bit.ly/BBICAST18-2

Tip of the Day

Clent Davis: Wobble-head brushpiles.

Blame Tommy Biffle for the wobble-head jig. Like, “Tommy, what up? Why you so HARD-HEADed dude?” Lol, okay here’s a quick but important tip from Mr. Cup:

> “You get way more action with that wobble head than a TX rig, and it comes through the brush way better than a TX rig.

> “With a TX rig, that weight starts pushing on that worm, and if you pull it in that brush you can push the hook out and get it stuck in the brushpile. If you do that, you’ve ruined that spot. I don’t think I got hung up in a brushpile all week.”

Quote of the Day

“I use a 10′ fishing pole because it makes for a better fight….”

– 6-yr-old diehard fish-head “Monster” Max Erickson talkin’ ’bout his favorite way to catch smallies. Hey — could it be that Skeet Reese is onto something with his 10′ stix??

Another $$$ quote from Max — first the question he was asked:

Q: Why do you like to fish so much more than most people?

A: Because it’s really, really, really funner than most things.

Dang straight Max! Believe I heard Tommy Sanders use that exact phrase once…sounds like his use of the English.

HAHAHA Tommy!

Shot of the Day

@_bamabass_ has this 14 and 17 battling over a gizzard shad in his man cave…which with a PB of 9.5 is making me feel a little less manly lol. Sick mount:

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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