Got my boat sitch sorted out. Gonna cost me crazy $$, but decided with the Irish gal's counsel to put the boat in the local marina. She's actually been telling me to do it since we moved here, but it was so dang expensive I wouldn't do it.

Still is crazy expensive, but it's the only way I'm getting out on the water. Starts April Fool's Day – hopefully I am not one!

A local lake stick who goes by the name of Doc told me jigs, shakey heads and ChatterBaits catch 'em on this pond. Sounds like it was made for me. Stoked!

Hope you're having zero boat issues, let's bass!

Gitcha Blaster video fix here:

Patrick is the first dude to win a regular-season NPFL tournament, NPFL AOY and the NPFL Championship – not bad! He's also won at big-fish and small-fish lakes, with and without FFS. So I guess you would call him...a real dang good fisherman. 😁 Here's how he got 'er done this time – in a no-FFS tourney.

Trimmed his practice outta this. To read about that hit the BB site.

Tournament

> "[In practice] the fishing was surprisingly good even though there was a cold front [it was sunny]. The 1st day of the tournament it was overcast, cloudy, rainy, no sun. ...that morning it was already 60 degrees...I thought, They will absolutely chew. I thought I'd catch them on a spinnerbait, ChatterBait, topwater...glide bait....

> "In practice, if you fished anything, you got a bite. I go out there and don't get a bite on my first spot. ...let me just fish around on down the bank...nothing....

> "I fished some docks – I didn't catch a fish. I was running around fishing stuff and was like, Wow I'm actually kind of struggling.

> "...I checked an area and caught a few fish, but they were smaller. I was having a hard time catching 15-inchers. So I kind of pulled the plug on everything and went to fish deep.

> "I wanted to fish shallow. Every bite I thought I could get over 3 lbs would've been shallow. I thought I would top out at 12 lbs fishing off the bank. [But] I had to go deep and catch me some fish, and I think I caught the majority of my weight deep that 1st day.

> "I could catch 'em on 2D sonar...drop on 'em.

> "I figured it's a championship, it's not a season tournament, so I gotta leave this. If it was a normal tournament I would have culled up and tried to get to 12 lbs. But I [went back to] running shallow to catch a 3- or 4-lber [but] with no sun I couldn't do it.

> "At the end of that day I ran back to the boat landing...little shallow rockpile. I catch like 6 in a row, 1 of them culls. I lost 1 on a jerkbait – a big one. It pulled off. I thought I'd just start on that fish, that spot, in the morning and just go from there.

> "It rained cats and dogs that night...it was unbelievable. We get out there the 2nd day and it's warming up. There's logs floating on the boat ramp...you could see bottles floating past the boat ramp at like 1 mph. I was like, We're not going to catch a bass today.

> "...I head to my spot and there's a mudline directly on my shallow rockpile. ...my first cast down the rockpile l hook a 5-02. I thought it was a catfish.

> "I throw in there again...and catch a 3-lb spot. That would've been my biggest fish [day 1]. ...I've got a chance now. I stayed on that spot for 10 minutes and never caught another fish.

> "I had been casting down a mudline, but once I caught those 2, the mud had moved over the top of that spot. I thought, I've got go up to this shallow bank...clean water.

> "...pitch [a jig] to a piece of wood and catch a big 3. Down the bank a little ways I catch a 3+ on a crankbait. For the next hour I proceed to catch 'em on that jig and a ChatterBait...I had like 18 lbs.

> "I caught another 5 [and] got to 20-something lbs. I thought, This is unbelievable. It was only like a 100-yard stretch – I went down it once, and back. That was it.

> "I didn't think I could cull from there [so] let's run down the lake and see if we can pre-fish for tomorrow. Find some waterfalls, some trash mats....

> "...shallow docks, some laydowns...but never caught any big ones...2-lbers.

> "I fished some deep docks and caught a 4.5-lb spot [on a shakey head] which culled out 1 of the 3-lbers. I thought, Let's save this for tomorrow. I found another area I shook a couple off on, a little current seam.

> "The next day we had an east wind...I knew it would be tougher. Turns out the water was back-flowing and was starting to clean up too. I went to my starting area. I caught 1 15-inch fish and never had another bite in there. They were gone.

> "...I ran up the river a little ways, and it's already clearing up. The water was completely still and was cleaning up...backflowing – it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

> "You know that whatever you did the day before ain't gonna work. It's gonna change...it's Smith Lake. [Day 2] was a gift.

> "I ran to another pocket...clean water...slowed down...pitching a jig to some wood. I filled my limit out and went back to the boat landing. I caught 2 decent spots on a crankbait. Now we're getting somewhere...nickel and diming.

> "...I gotta go back to that pocket...the last pocket getting clean water. ...I finally get one on a wacky worm...super-shallow. A 3-lber, my biggest fish of the day. It was the only one I caught in there.

> "I ran down the lake, fishing shallow docks, fishing deep docks – I culled 2-3 times on a shakey head. I ended up getting to 12 lbs but it was a grinder."

Baits

> 1/2-oz Z-Man Chatterbait Elite EVO (white) with a Zoom Shimmer Shad (toxic shad), 20-lb Sunline Sniper fluoro, Daiwa Tatula Elite Reel (7.1), 7' 4" H discontinued Daiwa Tatula Bass glass rod.

> Why that ChatterBait version: "I like the EVO better for some reason. I think I can get it to run truer sometimes. I love the JackHammer, but [the EVO] is an all-around good ChatterBait, I like the the colors, and I think it has a good hook and bait-keeper."

> 3/8-oz Pulse Fish HD Jig (summer craw) with a Zoom Big Salty Chunk (gp), 20-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro, Daiwa Tatula SV TW 150 Reel (8:1), 7' 1" H Daiwa Tatula Elite Skipping Rod.

> Zoom Swamp Crawler (gp) on 1/4-oz (1st day) and 1/8-oz (2nd and 3rd days) Gamakatsu Ball Head Shakey Heads, 10-lb Sunline braid to 10-lb Sunline V-Hard Fluoro Leader, Daiwa Tatula Elite MQ LT Spin Reel (4000), 7' 1" M Daiwa Tatula Elite Cory Johnston Ned Rig Rod.

He also fished "a variety of different crankbaits."

> Why BaitFuel: "Every bait was super-charged with BaitFuel. Mainly it was on the jig and the shakey head... The new Fuse Gel is stickier than the normal BaitFuel. I use [the original BaitFuel] for marinating in bags. This [gel] is sticky on baits and lasts a little bit longer.

> "I use it when I skip a dock and when I throw into a brushpile...about every single time. I'm only gonna throw in there 1 time and don't have Scope, so you have to believe [the fish is] there. I'm gonna throw in there and make it count. That's why I use it."

> Why gp in the dirty water: "That lake has 10' of visibility [typically] and where I was fishing was 5' visibility. [In practice] I was throwing [a gp jig]...and it was the hardest jig bites I ever had in my life. ...set the hook and it'd be in their crushers. Ain't no need to change.

> "I wanted to try b/b. [He did] on day 3 and I never caught a bass on it. So I was gonna change, but dude they were gagging it, why would I change?

> "My belief was it was rolling mud. You could see clouds of it, but I don't believe it was super dirty on the bottom yet."

Electronics

He said Humminbird MEGA 360 was key, along with PowerHouse Lithium batteries and shouted out Sonar Pros for making it all work optimally.

In this tourney he replaced the Garmin 16 (for Scope) and Humminbird Helix 12 he has for the Elites with a Helix 15 (for 360) and Lowrance 10.

Shoutouts

> "Shoutout to Pulse Fish for the jig, to BaitFuel, Z-Man for the ChatterBait, Sonar Pros' dedicated power harness – everybody that makes it count."

Okay don't know if he's even Irish, but he MIGHT have the luck o' the Irish – and/or some lucky charms! 🍀😁 Just messin' of course. Here's 3 regular ol' Qs with him – no funny biz!

1. You said you caught yourself fishing too slow without Scope. How could you tell?

> "I could tell because the first day I would waste too much time.

> "I'd try to break down a creek or a pocket, and I'm like – I know they're in here. I can feel it. I'd pick up and jig or a shakey head and just throw it down the bank, I'm dragging it around...instead of picking up the ChatterBait and the jig and only throwing to the high-percentage targets and catching the fish that want to be caught.

> "When you don't have Scope, you can't pick off fish that are in an inactive mood. It's almost impossible. You can do it if you know where they're sitting [but] you waste too much time and you're not covering enough water.

> "So you've got to pick that trolling motor up and fish for the fish that want to be caught...fish that are active and ready to bite."

2. Is there a way to get bigger bites reliably without Scope?

> "Yes and no. You just target different fish.

> "That's what I kept trying to do the 1st day. I was running the shallow pattern where every big fish I caught in practice was at. They weren't biting. I couldn't catch 'em. So it is also a timing deal where if they're not in an active mood, they're not going to bite.

> "Day 2 [those fish] were a lot more teed up and apt to bite."

[So without Scope it's more about timing than chasing fish around.]

3. You win where the fish are big and where they're small. Do you need a different mentality based on the size of the fish?

> "Yeah I think you do. Because if you're on a big fish place, you're not catching them good enough. I don't care how good you got 'em, you ain't got 'em. And with small fish, you have to catch enough to survive or you can lose it on the 1st day.

> "Big-fish places you can come back. Like at Fork you can have a 22-lb day and then come back with a 35-lb day. When it's big fish, you better be catching the biggest fish you can possibly get.

> "Where it's light weight, you've got to survive."

2nd: Kyle "Reese (name that movie)" Welcher

> Rapala CrushCity Bronco Bug (various colors), 4/0 Gamakatsu G-Power Heavy Cover Hook, 1/2-oz tungsten weight, 25-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro, 7' 6" H rod.

> "I was fishing debris mats and flipping to any type of current break or shallow wood."

3rd: John "Bunyan" Cox

> 5" Berkley CullShad swimbait (HD gizzard shad), new 15-lb Berkley GinClear Fluoro, Abu REVO Premier Reel (6.7 – "29 inches per turn kept me from reeling too fast, keeping the bait in the strike zone longer"), 7’ 2” MH Mod F Fenwick HMG Rod.

> "I pretty much threw the CullShad at everything that was in front of me that looked like a fish might live there. Rocky banks, docks, laydowns, sandy banks.

> "I think I was catching fish that were on the verge of spawning – like they were so ready to go and were just waiting on their partners to show up."

4th: Todd "not Mike" Auten

> Zoom Thick Trick Worm (brown purple), #1 VMC Fast Grip Octopus Live Bait Hook, 10-lb Seaguar InvizX fluoro, 7' 1" XF G Loomis 852S Rod.

> 1/2-oz TW exclusive Z-Man ChatterBait Custom (no longer made?) in chart/white with a Zoom Z-Craw Jr (white), 20-lb Seaguar InvizX, 7' 1" F G Loomis 845C Rod.

> 6" Megabass Magdraft (pearl white), 20-lb Seaguar InvizX, 7' 3" H Fitzgerald AP73H Rod.

> "Mainly fishing docks, laydowns, and rocky banks and points. Water depth was 2-15'."

5th: Hank "bing" Cherry

> BassMooch Midge crankbait (mellow), 15-lb Xhing Fluoro, Seviin GF Reel (7.3), 7' M Mod Level NGX Rod. "Early in dirty water on a few isolated banks with wood."

> BassMooch HC 115 Jerkbait (viper tiger and toro), 15-lb Xhing Fluoro, Seviin GF Reel (8:1), 6' 10" ML F Level NGX Rod. "On bluff walls on the main run. Secondary shelves in 8-15' of water."

> Clutch Eco Glide, 20-lb Xhing Fluoro, Seviin GSC Reel (7.3), 7' 2" MH Mod Level NGX Rod. "On bluffs and big rock sections on the main run. All these were in eyesight of spawning pockets."

Here's the best I could do of the 43-03 sack weighed by Cody Pitt and Cole Moore at the Texas Team Trail derby at Toledo Bend.

How someone doesn't get a pic of a sack that big I have no idea, but congrats to 'em! Kicker was a 10-15 which was not the biggest fish. No word on how they caught 'em.

But I do have some deets on this 31-lb bag caught by the winning team of Chase Hux and Dylan Thompson:

They won the Sun Country Bass Team Trail 2-dayer with 52.95 – on Amistad! Not exactly known for the bigs for a while now.

2nd was 44.96, 3rd was 36.76 with 9 fish. Not bad! Winning weight for the exact same tourney last year (a week earlier) was 21.60.

Sounds like all that peanut butter and Crisco Denny Brauer has been faithfully putting in the water down there has paid off! 🤣 Or maybe it was:

😁 Dylan said:

> I am seeing so many 4-7lb fish right now it’s crazy. It’s like they showed up out of nowhere.

> A good bit of hydrilla is back in the lake and I think it’s pulling all the big ones up that have been living in the depths.

> ...seeing them on LiveScope. We are catching them just fishing too though. All the big bags last weekend were caught just fishing. 2nd place yesterday had almost 25 lbs just fishing.

Another recent tourney there went 24.63, 24.39 and 23.13 in the first 3 places.

New Reneau Bladed Jig Replacement Head/Hooks

How sexy a name is that – Bladed Jig Replacement Head. 😁 Anyhow that's one of the latest offerin's from compulsive bait inventor Tim Reneau, and it's what Dylan was fishing at Amistad.

As you can see, it has a double hook – which if it works could be borderline genius. Here's Dylan talkin', who somehow gets all the Reneau stuff before anyone else:

> "Has a 2/0 Ryugi double hook in it [a Pierce Double]. You can put any blade you want on and it has a nail bait keeper. You slide a bait on and glue it – I’ve been using the same bait for at least 5 trips. Elastomer baits last even longer.

> "I’m using my retired JackHammer blades. Mostly silver. Easy to swap out by bending up the wire on a JackHammer.

> "'Violet pepper dawn' is my favorite right now. With a tilapia Little Dipper."

Also says on the website that the hooks are shorter and more compact = better in grass, and:

> Because of this larger looped .045 wireform, the blade can swing more freely side to side, creating more thump.

Available in 1/2, 5/8 and 3/4 – 3/8 coming soon.

For now you can only get 'em on the Reneau Tackle website or via their FB page. Here's Tim showing how to rig it up (FB vid).

1. Here's your Top 10 from the NPFL Championship

7 are current tour pros, Todd of course a former one so 8 outta 10. Not surprised!

1. Patrick Walters 44-11

2. Kyle Welcher 42-11

3. John Cox 40-08

4. Todd Auten 40-03

5. Hank Cherry 40-02

6. Derek Lehtonen 39-07

7. Jason Williamson 39-06

8. Bill Lowen 39-02

9. Shane Lehew 38-00

10. Kevin Rogers 37-08

2. Byron Velvick is auctioning a bunch of stuff on eBay

Mostly baits.

3. 2027 NPFL Championship will be on Lake Mitchell, AL

Heard of it? In Clanton, 5,850 acres. It will still be in the early spring.

4. TN: New state record largemouth caught on a JackHammer

Dang that must have been an epic bite! 1/2-oz Z-Man JackHammer (gp) with a Hog Farmer Spunk Shad on the back. 15.75-lb, 29.5" long fish was caught out Nickajack – who woulda thunk.

Fisherman was Darren Nunley (R) guided by guide Hensley Powell. When certified this fish will beat the record set in 2015 on Chickamauga by 0.5-lb. Believe Nick is the next rez down from Chick.

5. Berkley outed its new fluoro

Called GinClear. Word is there were 2 factions inside Berkley: vodka and gin. The vodka folks got fired up too fast and had to tap out early – so gin it is! 🤣

Okay back to reality – their pros have been teasing this so far this season, here's a little info about it.

• Superior manageability and casting performance without sacrificing durability
• Ultra-smooth, flexible construction with low memory to reduce coiling, overruns and dig-ins
• Smaller diameter for its break strength
• Level-wound construction for consistent handling and improved reel control
• Designed for versatility as both a mainline fluorocarbon or leader material

It's already on TW, $18 a spool.

6. MudHole now selling those Svivlo no-backlash reels

Those reels have gotten a bit of a buzz at ICAST the last couple years. You can find 'em at the MudHole site, more info on the partnership here.

7. MLF Nitros and Rangers for sale

8. We lost former Cabela's CEO Dennis Highby

Joined the company in 1976 as the first salaried employee. Rose through the ranks and stopped working there when Bass Pro Shops bought Cabela's in 2017. Bless you outdoor brother. ✝️🙏

9. Suzuki Marine looking for a graphic designer

Should we be fishing below the boat again??

Patrick Walters said he was "2Ding" fish below the boat. After hearing what he said, maybe we should be doing more of that again??

> "I would just make short little casts [with the shakey head]. I'm super-impatient so I don't want to make a super-long cast out there and then have to drag that thing back.

> "I would make a quarter-cast and wait on one to get under the boat on 2D and drop on him. Literally it was old school. I felt like I could catch fish like that literally at will out deep.

> "I don't think anybody catches them beneath the boat anymore. With Scope nowadays, we've stopped casting beneath the boat. I think we all cast out, and then once they get within 20' we're like, 'Ah whatever.'

> "But that one that gets underneath the boat...he's so curious...we stopped dropping on 'em.

> "When you don't have Scope and [you know] there's definitely fish underneath my boat right now, for sure you drop on 'em. In practice it was 9 outta 10 they bit."

He mentioned that TN's Todd Goade caught a 5-06 spot doing it in practice so...🤔

"I didn't retire."

- AHA! That's KVD talkin' recently. Now he says:

> "I just changed jobs."

🤔😁

Wonder how this kid ended up getting so angry at 'em. And at other people on the water. And at me and others occasionally. You could say that he has anger issues? 😁

Alright semi-serious: Can you name another fisherman who gets mad and then catches 'em BETTER? I can't!

Since it's not Apr 1 yet I assumed this is real and Tackle Warehouse tells me it is so: Bucca Brand released 2 new 2.5" baits – the Lil' Baby Bull Shad (pictured) and the BFS Trick Shad.

Until I see Mike Bucca fish these with my own eyes, I'm gonna assume he's in the dark about 'em...🤣 Just messin' but wow!

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