Did get out this weekend, more on that later, but gotta say I misjudged how cold Lucky the Lab would get so I stumbled on an invention some of you probly also invented – the dowg hoodie:
|
|
5 Qs with Ish "I power-fish or I don't fish" Monroe. 😁
|
|
Love talking to Ish. He has a different way of thinking about stuff, and is REALLY into the deets of fishing, presentation, baits, etc. I mean, all the pros are but Ish is all Morpheus like:
|
|
Hahaha for real! Anyhow here's 5 with him:
1. You're still fishing your brains out in Cali. Are all your pro homies who left there a bunch of wimps or what.
> "Yes."
|
|
2. You post a lot about stuff in National Forests but not one bigfoot post? How is that possible man, really.
> "Haven't found them yet. I'm looking."
3. When you fish team tourneys, like the one you just won on Clear Lake, do you like anything better about 'em than solo derbs?
> "No not really. But it's cool to fish with a guy that you know is gonna catch 'em."
[That Clear Lake win he had ^ he fished with Ryan Brewer, a stick who used to fish with Dee Thomas, Ish said.]
4. Is there any possibility that one of the world's most powerful power-fishermen is power-fishing this time of year?
> "I'm punching the little bit of grass that's left. Even on places like Guntersville, the grass is dying away. I'm punching whatever's left over that hasn't died yet."
5. What's the next Ish-designed bait or piece of gear we can expect to see?
> "Either a new rod or a double-prop buzzbait."
👀
Bonus Q: What's your secret to catching bigger than average fish? Big baits or...?
> "Mentality. So think about the way that you fish. The biggest fish in the lake either eat the biggest bait or live in the heaviest cover – but there's variables to all of it.
> "I can tell you if I'm punching and there's a guy out there dropshotting, he might catch a lot more fish than me but I'm gonna catch bigger fish than him. Same thing goes with a swimbait. So it's a mentality and a thought process of the way that you fish."
Makes sense! And he said yep, you have to be cool with getting fewer bites.
|
|
'Yota Champeenship baits breakdown.
|
|
Congrats to Pickwick guide Brent Crow, who won it by 4-01 on Pickwick – and might be drivin' a new Lambo by the time you read this...😁 He's a guide there but sounds like it wasn't easy:
> "I planned to fish below the [Wilson Dam] tailrace, that's what I do. ...I didn't want people to see me up there or know if they're biting good." So Crow checked some grass and a few spotted bass holes...and met with some success.
>"I ran up there the first 2 days and they weren't biting at all. They were running a little too much water for me to do what I wanted to do, so I basically struggled and squeaked in catching spotted bass."
Day 3 they weren't releasing as much water so it was on:
> "I got out and made the first cast and had 2 boil under my bait, and for the next hour...I either caught one or lost one every cast it seemed like." ...a wakebait thrown on 15-lb Berkley Trilene Big Game monofilament.
That "wakebait" was an old bone Bomber Long A – I'd call it more of an OG jerkbait but for sure can be fished as a wakebait:
|
|
Crankbait = 30% – 2 were squarebills
10% each = Shakey head, Jerkbait (the Long A), Punching, Hard swimbait (6" Bull Shad fished by Cody Nichols in 4th), Swim-jig, Buzzbait, Carolina rig, Jig
Shout-outs
1. Brent fished the Long A on one of the new Abu Jordan Lee Rods – first time been mentioned in a win and not Jordan Lee! 🤯
2. OK's Jeff Reynolds (5th) only fished a Plopper. I think that's a law in OK (and parts of AR) in the fall but someone maybe shoulda told him he could fish other baits? 😆
3. How TX's Todd Castledine (6th) didn't fish a Pad Perch at all is perplexing and disturbing...🤔
4. TX's Dakota Ebare finished in the top 10 for the 2nd year in a row and 1 of his baits was a C-rigged Fluke in what looks like watermelon/gold flake or Houdini??
5. ON's Barry Graves (9th) is from a place called "Canadia" 😁 and props to him for only fishing a BLACK jig the whole time. Power or nothin' man! 👊
|
|
What the AR DNR says about Live sonar...
|
|
> ...alarmed the angling community, which believes that live imaging makes catching crappie so easy that it might be deleterious to crappie populations.
> ...enables an angler to target big crappie exclusively. Anglers worry that this will result in the elimination of older crappie year classes, leaving nothing but small crappie.
> "Anglers that use [Live sonar] have learned to back off. If they get too close, fish leave."
Interesting statement. Not sure if that means the bigger fish "hear" the sonar or what.
> ...commission biologists interviewed 700 parties fishing for crappie statewide.... Slightly more than 33% used Live imaging...caught twice as many fish in 1 hour than anglers not using Live imaging.
> However, both groups of users harvested the same size crappie, about 12" long and weighing about 1 lb. Even though Live imagers catch more crappie...they don't harvest more crappie...not harvesting appreciably higher numbers of fish than they did in the pre-Live imaging days.
> Remember when we thought that the Alabama rig would destroy our bass populations? It didn't.
|
|
😂 Just messin. It's fun that's fo sho!
|
|
I think this won the home decoratin' bassin' Halloween contest?
|
|
Along with Jacob Powroznik, the 2 other "overall" points guys are Masayuki Matsushita and Daisuke Aoke. The Japanese invasion continues (what up Canadian peeps!) – congrats to 'em!
That means a lot of catch 'n KEEP – because the DNR is nuts about controlling the walleye fishery there, which is about the healthiest in the country:
> Walleye catch rates continue to be low, and based on conversations with resort operators, it seems a lot of the pressure was directed at smallmouth bass.
🤨
Think that's what he's saying? Seen it done elsewhere:
> Start the morning with two different types of topwaters, a prop-style bait and a...Spook. If there's a little wind, focus on the prop bait or big chugger first, something that kicks up a lot of spray and makes a commotion on the surface.
> "Try it retrieved slowly, at a medium speed and fast before you cut it off the line and try something else."
Delta craw, goby, ghost orange craw, olive craw, sparkle shad:
|
|
I texted Mike McClelland: "These colors any good?" He shot me this back:
|
|
👀
$15 mil, includes a 2-acre stocked pond with 3 fully-rigged bassin' tubs.
Okay kidding about the last part...but I bet they wish!
Maybe not largies but stripers and sheepshead:
|
|
On BassBlaster.rocks right now...
|
|
> ...when it comes to finding fall fishing spots and travel paths, the blunt truth is all you really have to do is fish your spring spots. That's a simple truth that a lot of anglers overlook. Bass move according to predetermined paths. They move up shallow in the spring when things start to warm up, and they do the same thing in the fall when things start to cool off.
> But fall bass react to lures a little differently than spring bass. You have to change things up if you want to load the boat.
> ...it's important to understand that even though the water is cooling off it's still warmer than it was in the spring. Everything around the water is warmer too. That keeps the metabolism of the fish higher which in turn means they'll hit faster-moving baits.
> ...I've noticed that they also seem to prefer smaller lures.
> Most of the good-size bass I've caught recently were in less than 4'.... I know some anglers are going to say that's too shallow for this early in the fall. I don't care. That's where I've found them.
> ...this week. I went out to do a little fun fishing. The bite was tough – until I started throwing a small squarebill crankbait and a small buzzbait. I cranked them back really fast too. In fact, the faster I cranked the more bass I caught.
Dang it I have to re-rig a couple rods now Chris!
|
|
"I've had texts all day and most of them are from fishermen that are better than I am."
> "A quarter-million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. But it's not all about money. All fishermen have pride, or I don't know what it is, but everybody likes to be recognized from your buddies more than anything. I've had texts all day and most of them are from fishermen that are better than I am."
|
|
Just 1 Q: Did they leave a message??
|
|
Jay Kumar's BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup of the best and funniest (sometimes worst) stuff in bassin', picked 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'!
|
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 or sell the list or anything else crazy....
|
|
Gitcha hands on the best stuff!
|
|
Gitcha BassBlaster social at these links:
|
|
|
|
|