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Today’s Top 5
Ashley Hayden caught 14.3 lbs of chubby love in CA’s Lower Otay Lake with a live crawdad…the big-bass bait of choice for trophy bass-hunters:
Here’s a 13 from the Delta caught on a brown jig with olive pork (soooweeeee):
And a 10-01 caught on Caney Lake, LA — barely a DD, but here because it was caught on a little bit unusual bait for a DD: a Rogue.
TX Parks and Wildlife gave the following tips on catching giants based on their records in the ShareLunker program, but they sho-nuff apply anywhere:
- Fish locations where bass have quick access to deeper water, such as main lake points with plenty of cover.
- Fish bottom-seeking lures, jigs and soft plastics, and fish very, very slow.
- Be ready to catch and land the biggest bass you ever saw. Use heavy line, have a net handy, practice what to do with smaller fish so you and your partner know what to do.
- Pay attention to the moon. The ShareLunker database shows that the highest number of catches occurred during the three days following a new moon.
Other than that…the next item. But first, here’s one o’ my fave ShareLunker pics, James Caldemeyer’s 14.68:
What the heck are worms supposed to imitate anyhow — leeches? Snakes? For sure maybe eels:
That’s Lake Biwa, Japan. Looks like 4-lber, was caught on a 40 cm eel, which is 15.75″.
On the subject of bigguns, here’s the Working Class Zero dude and a wallering butter hog in slow-mo. Oh mama:
Okay we all know ‘Traps -slash- lipless cranks are the deal in early spring. Or should I say the bass know it and we may not know it as well as they do. Case in point, let’s look at two of the best bassin’ lakes in the country last weekend: Rayburn and Toledo Bend.
Saturday, Jan 23
Point 1: ABA on Rayburn won by Rayburn stick-and-a-half Todd Castledine on Saturday, with 20.77 lbs. He fished a Strike King Red Eye Shad (lipless) and a 6XD. 2nd fished plastic, 3rd cranked and C-rigged.
Point 2: BFL on nearby T-Bend, just about as red hot as a lake can get. LA dude Cody Pitt won it with 24-05, used a white Fish Head Spin rigged with a Keitech Swing Impact (sight flash) and a Strike King 10XD (sexy shad).
Sunday, Jan 24
Point 3: Rat-L-Trap has a ‘Trap-only derby on Rayburn. So, a lake that just had a decent tourney on it the day before won by a stick, and a lake not as good as Rayburn. Yet another Rayburn stick — Dicky Newberry, with partner Patrick Dennis — wins this one, but with 26.58. The most weight yet that weekend. So what are the bass telling us?
Newberry/Dennis won it with the new 3/4-oz version of the Knock-N-Trap in Rayburn red craw.
Big fish of the derby was an 8-08 caught on ‘Trap’s Echo 1.75 in blue shiner.
News
Orca Coolers sales VP Bill Terry passed away unexpectedly. RIP bassin’ brother, you are missed already.
2. Boom Boom had minor surgery.
Looks like left arm.
Not on the Elites, but he’s gonna be a-scribblin’ for the BassBlaster time to time. Excerpt from the first, read it all here on BassBlaster.rocks:
> Despite what you might have read or heard, K-Pink did not “retire.” “Retire” may have been the politically correct term used to mean I walked, but that word isn’t in my vocabulary.
> I walked away from the Elites. Had enough. Couldn’t see it going anywhere or getting any bigger or better than it is right now.
Though he was not born in — and never spent any quality time in — NJ, K-Pink sho do tell it with the blunt.
4. Clunn: How to win the Classic.
3-parter on his Facebook page.
The T-H Marine kind. Pretty sweet:
6. Meet Elite rookie Brock Mosley.
> “Just because I was a hot stick in college didn’t mean I had what it took to be consistently competitive.”
Uh…yeah.
7. Check Jay Yelas’ drive to Florida.
Now you know why so many West Coasters move to Alabamy.
8. AR: 10-lber out of Bull Shoals?
Weighed on a bathroom scale:
9. TN: Smallie bite on at Hill.
Someone send me a plane ticket!
10. TX: 4 going into state HOF.
> Ray Sasser — If you live in TX and don’t know who Ray is, I can’t help you. (Congrats Ray!)
> Randi Wayland — A TPWD instructor and a board member of Texas Black Bass Unlimited. She also is an instructor in TPWD’s Becoming an Outdoors Woman program
> Texas State Bass Tournament — The Texas State Bass Tournament will conduct its 61st annual [yes, 61st annual] event at Toledo Bend on April 23-24. That means their first tournament was in 1835, the year the propeller was invented.
> Lucha Libre star El Hijo del Santo — El Hijo got a lot of props for the recent revelation that his two-footed kicks inspired Gary Yamamoto’s design of the Senko:
Okay, I made that one up but the other three are legit!
11. MA: Bass U in Boxborough this weekend.
Worth every penny.
12. MO releases “Fishing Prospects” book.
13. VA: Cabela’s IS coming to Gainesville.
Was, wasn’t, is. Sounds like Cabela’s is a little, shall we say, in disarray, unless that was all about strong-arming the locals.
14. Lookit this sick vid of the Yum Warning Shot.
This is why these vids are so much better than lookin’ at stuff in packages:
I admit: Even though Jason Christie and Alton Jones killed the smallies on that bait last fall, I was skeptical til seeing that vid. Get ’em here on, yep, Tackle Warehouse.
15. Learn about the Bill Lewis Echo 1.75.
Vid on how/why it’s different — get em at TackleWarehouse.com:
16. Shimano Stradic FK review.
Check it on TW:
17. Kistler gets BASS Nation champ Albert Collins.
Makes 3 Kistler pros that’ll be fishing the Classic, with Alton Jones and Matt Herren.
Kistler’s also looking for Okies and Cajuns.
18. New Lew’s Super Duty Wide Speed Spool.
40 more yards, 7.1:1. Debuts at Classic.
19. Get a purple Troll Perfect and fight cancer.
If they made it in the Gummy Bear stuff, man I’d be chompin’:
21. Laurence Fishburne’s “Fish Burns.”
Ain’t callin’ it out because Blasters are PG at the most and that vid is TV-14 for sure, but he does rag on smallies so…. If you’re at work when you click, turn down the volume.
Tip of the Day
How this jerkbait master does it in real cold water:
> “Bluff walls are the kinds of areas that bass can move up shallow to feed, then turn around and be deeper in seconds. I also look for banks that have deeper docks on them, and if they are near a channel swing, then they are even better.”
> “If I can make a long cast parallel to these steeper banks, I maximize my time in the strike zone. My only task at that point is figuring out what cadence I need to use on my retrieve to trigger strikes.”
> While most anglers use a short snap of the rod to activate a jerkbait, McClelland said that more of a subtle pulling action is his standard starting point. “I begin my retrieve by winding the bait down eight to ten turns of the reel handle to get the bait into 3 to 5 feet of water, then I pause for 5 to 10 seconds.
> “After that initial pause to allow the bait to settle into the right position, I methodically pull the bait forward with the rod tip 1 to 3 feet. Following that motion, I pause the bait again for 10 to 20 seconds before twitching the bait again.”
> “The colder the water, the longer the pause should be. Experiment and find what works for you on any given day. Once you find the cadence that creates a response, perform this retrieve all the way back to the boat on each cast.”
That’s SLOOOOOOOOOOOW man. Don’t know if could do it…without a sammich in one hand, anyway….
Quote of the Day
I really feel like it spreads everyone out and takes away the element of help.
– Justin Lucas talkin‘ ’bout the fact that the Elites this year should fish shallow, ergo waypoint tradin’ won’t be as much of a factor. Got a point, but then he said:
> By the laws of physics, if the fish move up shallow and spread out, there’s going to be fewer fish per acre.
Pretty sure that’s geometry, but hey they’re both math and we’re all bass-heads so whatever. This is the only math book any bass fisherman should ever read:
I will not eat them on a train, I will not eat them in the rain!
Shot of the Day
We need a bass fishin’ migration to Cali every year — this is gittin’ ridiculous:
New smaller ad sizes
For smaller companies
Lemme know…
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’. His 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. Get the Blaster on an app too:
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