If you feel led, will you please pray for my 18-year-old daughter Lily. She's fine but undergoing some persecution – comes with being a Jesus follower, but she seems to get more than most folks which is tough on her. Much appreciated and hope all's well with you and fam!
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Reminder: If your email program cuts off the bottom of this email, click "View this email in your browser" up top to see the whole thing. Sorry bout that – email programs keep changing stuff.
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Here's the lastest Jason Christie FF Sonar juice: His setup 👀
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Looks like these vids are popping up on Bassmaster.com first, here's the latest:
> "...with the FF Sonar it's a combination of everything. One of the most important things is the setup. From the head size, to the line, the braid, the rod and the reel. It all plays an equal part in the system.
> "I use a 7' Falcon 4-power spinning rod. My recommendation would be a really soft or a medium rod. With this rod, what's special is the tip is super-soft.... I use braided line so I want a a soft, soft rod.
> "...Lew's 6.2 Custom Pro Spinning Reel. You want a reel with really good drag – something that whenever you lean into a 5, 6, 7-lber and he makes that run, you're not gonna lose him."
He likes 16-lb Sunline SX1 Hi-Vis Yellow Braid but says you can use 12-20, and a 15' fluoro leader because:
> "I want to keep the high viz away from the fish, and I know that 15...when you cast and the knot goes down, you know that you're 15' deep."
He uses 7, 8 and 10-lb fluoro, but mostly 8:
> "The cool thing about 8 is the sink rate...about 2' per second."
Reminder that in one of the prior vids Jason said he can make a bait basically swim at one depth for about 10', and one reason for that is the "balance" of the rod/reel/line setup with the bait.
Looks like the YUM FF Sonar Jigheads are now on TW. Interesting they only come in 1/8, 3/16 and 1/4.
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Top 10 baits breakdown from the 'Yota Championship
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How about TX's Kyle Hall! Dude won the Champlain Toyota in Aug, and just won this one. Not bad! It was on Guntersville and he was targeting suspended fish:
> Hall went with a 1-2 punch of a Shane's Baits umbrella rig with 6th Sense Divine Swimbaits and a 1/4-oz Damiki Vault blade bait. Hall was the only angler to come to the scales with 2 20-lb bags....
> "I was in about 20' of water really targeting suspended bass. I was really just roaming around and when I would get around the bait, I would get around the fish. I would go hours without seeing any and then I would just run into a whole school of them."
> ...can LiveScope with the best of them.... "My Garmin electronics were huge for me in these wins this year. When I can see them, I have a lot of fun doing it. It hurts my back a little bit doing it, but I'll gladly deal with that if it means I can win."
Here's what the full top 10 fished – kinda all over the map, which to me means Gville's a fun place to fish:
Topwater = 30% – Walking baits, Shower Blows, frog
Jerkbait = 20% – both MegaBass Vision 110+1
Soft swimbait = 20% – 2 Strike King Shadalicious and a Baby Z-Too
Bladed jig = 20% – Z-Man JackHammer 10%
Jig = 20%
10% each = A-rig, Blade bait, Crankbait, Lipless crank (looks like a BOOYAH Hard Knocker?), Punching
Shout-outs
1. SC's Marshall Robinson (2nd) is the son of tour pro Marty Robinson. Love this quote about the Damiki DC 300 he fished: "I think my dad gave it to me a while back and I just kind of found it randomly in one of my boxes. I thought it mimicked the bait pretty well and it worked out for me." Hahaha way to trust dad man!
2. Todd Castledine (8th) fished a Strike King Pad Perch! Heck yeah he did! That's what he fishes whenever he goes fishing! 😁
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3. Donny Bass finished 9th. With a name like that I'm surprised he didn't win – but maybe that's part of the plan...🤔
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Top 10 tournaments baits of all time:
#10 – Megabass Vision 110
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You've seen these kinda lists before, but pretty sure no one has focused only on TOURNAMENT baits. A bait's place on this list is part statistical (for example, # of wins), part how much it's fished at the top levels, part how much it has influenced other baits, and part we had to make a decision.
And it's not what are the BEST baits, which is a little subjective and new ones are coming out all the time. It's the top 10 tourney baits TO DATE.
Will we leave some stuff out by mistake? Probably. Will you disagree sometimes? Probably. All good! Here we go with #10 and will count up to #1:
#10 – Megabass Vision 110 Jerkbait
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Why
The Vision 110 has been used more and won more than any other jerkbait. It forever changed the jerkbait game, and no one has made a better jerkbait yet, at least in the eyes of most pro fishermen.
History
Long-time Megabass pro Randy Blaukat said: "...we took some of my ideas and custom jerkbaits, combined them with the technology and creative mind of Megabass and Yuki Ito, and came up with the Megabass Vision 110 in the late 1990s." The bait was introduced to the public in the fall of 2000.
On Tour
The bait was kept quiet by guys "in the know" for a few years despite high finishes with it like Tim Farley's 2006 FLW Series Lake Lanier win, and Table Rock FLW Tour top 5s in 2009 and 2010 by Ron Shuffield and Dan Morehead.
In 2011, the Vision 110 simply dominated some tour events, like the FLW Tour Walmart Open at Beaver Lake, AR – it was used by 8 of the top 10 finishers including winner Bryan Thrift.
Since then it's been more of the same. Sometimes it's shown and mentioned, sometimes it can't be shown because of sponsor conflicts. The biggest recent finish was Hank Cherry's 2020 Bassmaster Classic win at Lake Guntersville.
Runner up in this category: Lucky Craft Pointer (and its cousin the Staysee SP)
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The OG of higher-end Japan-made jerkbaits. First got popular out West in the mid-90s. It was a favorite of early rippin' tactics pioneered by guys like Gary Dobyns, who used to be a stick (lol Gary!).
The baits had a real low center of gravity and special brass weights that shifted position to help with casting, along with a high attention to detail and quality Japanese paint finishes.
The bait gained popularity on tour quickly with western guys like Skeet Reese and Brent Ehrler fishing them. In 2002, Gerald Swindle mentioned the Lucky Craft Pointer 78 as being his favorite jerkbait. By 2004-2005 it was winning EverStarts out West, then Brent used it in his 2010 Table Rock FLW win, and westerner John Murray used a Pointer 128 in his first Elite Series win on Toledo Bend in 2017.
In 2020, Scott Dobson said both the Pointer and the Vision 110 were 2 of the 3 key jerkbaits used to win the Detroit River Toyota tournament.
Honorable mentions:
1. Smithwick Rogue – THE mainstay of early jerkbaiting and is still around and in use.
2. Strike King Wild Eye Shiner and KVD Jerkbaits – Kevin VanDam of course did well with them, and they also accounted for wins like George Cochran's 2004 Bassmaster win on Guntersville, AL.
3. SPRO McStick – Designed by jerkbaiter Mike McClelland, the bait suspends at lower water temperatures and has been a popular choice among top finishers on Ozark lakes, especially at Table Rock.
4. Rapala X-Rap and Shadow Rap – The earliest X-Rap prototypes were brought to the US in 2002 and over a million were sold worldwide in their first year. Used a lot up north and might be better for smallmouths. Bernie Schultz says, "It has a really wide gait – it'll go way to the left then way back to the right better than most jerkbaits, and that's a big deal on smallmouth. They seem to like that walking action better than something that has more vertical movement." The Shadow Rap and Shadow Rap Shad seem to be great at suspending or slowly rising in certain water temps.
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Few thinkin's on the MLF BPT change to 5 fish
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Some thoughts ping-ponging around in my head:
1. More power-fishing and flippin?
For sure not every tournament, but as we all know sometimes it's worth powering up all day for 5 big bites. If so, personally I'd love to see this.
2. Biggest test of forward-facing sonar?
Will FFS find fish that are big enough to win a 5-fish tournament? In other words, are the "between spots"/roaming/suspended fish big enough to win or not? From the Elite Series we see that the answer is "yep sometimes" so I guess that'll be the same on the BPT – where every fish caught is recorded and reported?
Or will FFS just be a needed component sometimes, like Jason Christie at the Classic?
Can some BPT guys now do great even without FFS, like John Cox?
I wonder all that bearing in mind we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg with FFS – and something new will for sure roll out in 2023 anyhow.
3. What will a real-time leaderboard be like in a 5-fish tourney when competitors can see? Still nail-biting?
I assume it will still spin some guys out in some situations, so that'll be interesting and fun to watch.
Let's see what happens!
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Local bassin' adventures – part 2
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Checked out the ramp area at the way-low Dead Sea and it was doable so I had to get on the lake and see what was up. Launched yesterday afternoon for a couple hours and was blown away at how much bait was concentrated in what was left of the lake – this shot doesn't really do it justice:
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Had a plan and got something going – caught these 2 in 10 minutes...
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...but then this happened:
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Or actually it happened as I was landin' that smallie on that Rapala DT8. Felt the hook go in and tried to yank it out right away but was past the barb – shout out to VMC for some crazy-sharp hooks! 😬
First time that's happened to me. First order of biz was to unhook the smallmouth without getting more hooks into my hand, which meant that my mind instantly went from the regular "be as gentle as possible" deal to "it's you or me fish and it's gonna be me!" Lol but I'm dead serious.
My experience dealing with getting splinters outta wriggling kids and dogs helped – I pinned that fish on the carpet against the seat box so it couldn't move, and extracted the bait. Took a quick pic with the fish, tossed it in and it swam off. Bass are amazing man. A trout would've been dead as a hammer.
I was bleeding pretty good and had to assess the hook: Couldn't push it through to clip it, so it had to be yanked out. So I had to remove that treble from the bait, which took about 20 minutes 1-handed. Then I was gonna yank it out myself (prayed hard!) but lucky for me 1 of the 2 other boats still on the lake wasn't too far away.
Headed over there, asked the guy if he'd ever removed a treble before, he said no but knew how to do it, so we bumped hulls and got to it. I held the eye down – which kinda hurt – while he held a piece of plug knocker string around the one hook. He said, "You ready?" I said yep but told him I wasn't gonna look. He yanked and sure enough, the hook came out.
He said, "Holy s--- it worked! You didn't even feel it!" I was like, "Oh no I felt it!" I couldn't find my first aid kit so he gave me a wipe and Bandaid too. Very cool.
Thanked him profusely and gave him a pack of my fave color ("the deal") Z-Man Jerk Shadz – because he was Scopin' hybrids and hadn't tried the Z-Mans yet. Shout-out to John – thanks again man!
So that was an adventure. Gotta shout out some things:
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I love the DT8 – the smaller size for that depth gives me confidence for some reason. I did smash mine with pliers tho...EMOJ
Was fishin' it on that Abu J-Lee combo I talked about before: 6' 10" MHF Topwater/Spinnerbait Rod ($99.95) and 7.1 Abu J Lee Reel ($109.95). Casts GREAT – the way I cast, meaning everyone doesn't cast the same, just like hooksets. I think I'm gonna get more of those reels....
Largie came on that jig/color I really like: Terminator Pro Series Jig in "bama craw" – no surprise most sizes of that color are out right now on TW – with a Berkley MaxScent Meaty Chunk (gp).
Shout out to the 6' 10" Virtus/Jewel Finesse Jig Rod. REAL nice – the jig I was fishing was either 1/4 or 3/8. Rod is light and cast great, and set the hook no prob. The no-longer-made Abu REVO MGXtreme helped too, but anything jig-related Gayle Julian of Jewel is involved in is a 100% win for me.
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1. MO: We lost a brother at Lake of the Ozarks.
> One person is dead after drowning while attempting to recover [swim after] a bass boat which got loose and started floating away from the Coffman Beach Access dock in the Rocky Mount area.
Lord please help his family. 🙏✝️
2. Who's in and out of the Bass Pro Tour.
MLF announced next year's Bass Pro Tour field.Shaw Grigsby and Mike McClelland – both MLF owners – are out due to points, as are Paul Elias, Clabion Johns and Jason Lambert.
Ish Monroe requalified but left and like Bobby Lane will fish the Bassmaster Opens to get back on the Elites.
Shaw will fish the MLF Invitationals, not sure about the others' plans yet.
BassFan says Bass Pro Tour rookies will be Matt Becker, Josh Butler, Mitch Crane, John Hunter, Nick LeBrun, Spencer Shuffield and Jacob Wall.
Here's the 2023 field.
3. Boyd Duckett is now the CEO of Major League Fishing.
And he's still somehow fishing the Bass Pro Tour too? Maybe Boyd got access to Ike's cloning machine??
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Anyhow it's part of organizational changes/armed insurrection/vote tabulation errors at MLF: 😁
- Jim Wilburn will no longer be prez/CEO but will stay on as prez of sales.
- Don Rucks will be gone as EVP/GM at the end of the year but will be an advisor.
- Kathy Fennel is taking over as EVP/GM
- Her son Daniel Fennel is the new TD of the Bass Pro Tour
- Kevin Hunt is the new TD of the Invitationals
- Michael Mulone is now VP of marketing and biz development
4. St Jude auction: Josh Douglas' jersey.
5. Get to know B.A.S.S. CEO Chase Anderson.
Incredible life and faith story – another great episode on the Bass Chaplain's "World's Slowest-Growing Podcast." I love how Chase is so transparent with his story. That was just about the first thing he said to me when we were intro'd to each other at a Classic. Love it! 💪🙏✝️
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6. AR: Huge baitfish stocking in Monticello.
> Approximately 180,000 fathead minnows, 111,900 golden shiners, 78,840 bluegill and 82,056 redear sunfish were stocked...to re-establish a flourishing forage base in the newly renovated lake before predatory gamefish are introduced.
> "The water in Lake Monticello currently covers approximately 470 acres, and has only increased about 20 acres since May. At full pool, the lake covers 1,520 acres. It took about 5 years to reach that pool level when the lake was originally flooded, and that included 2 drought years.
> "We plan on stocking threadfin shad this fall as well, if there is surplus threadfin shad available. Florida largemouth bass will be stocked during the summer of 2023. The forage and bream species already mentioned will be stocked again in the fall of 2023, along with black crappie."
7. Outdoor sports are an $862 bil industry in the US.
> ...outdoor recreation generates $862 bil in economic output and 4.5 mil jobs. This means the outdoor recreation economy contributes more to the US economy than oil and gas extraction, mining, and agriculture. The report includes national and state level data.
8. CA: Fish among concerns about release of GMO mosquitos.
Sounds like so far no real in-depth review of potential impacts:
> "There are too many unknown factors when it comes to how it could affect our biodiversity in the long run, including how this might influence populations of birds, bats, fish species and other insects."
Believe they were already released in FL?
Doh!
The 10+ smallmouth was 10.15 lbs, not 10-15. Thanks to all who pointed that out!
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How sonar expert Johnny Soukup changes things in the fall.
From the Alpha Angler site, talking sonar and crankbaits:
> "When the bait uses the top of the water column like they do in the fall, I move the transducer of my LiveScope up 10% or more. The standard setting on the transducer can miss the top foot or 2, and that'll cause you to miss fish.
> "Another thing I do is use the emerald green pallet on my Garmin. That seems to provide the best return in this situation for both bait and fish.
> "Unlike other times of year, you don't need to hit cover to generate strikes in the fall. Bobby Lane won Redcrest last year throwing a crankbait and 'reeling clean.' The bait never touches cover, but as it goes by bait-hunting bass they snap at it. For some people that's a hard thought process to accept. We've all been taught to hit cover with our cranks.
> "Probably my favorite little crankbait this year has been the Booyah XCS in 'chart black' or 'foxy shad.' A really good trick is to put a feather on the back of the crankbait. The fish are feeding up, and the feather helps the profile and keeps the bait high in the water column."
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"I am now fishing deep, clear and difficult lakes. And black is as good as any color I've tried."
- WV bass-head Burton Bosley talkin' in an older In-Fish post by the one 'n only Ned "Rig" Kehde. He's talking about finessin' with soft-plastics.
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Check Elitist Ed Loughran's 30-year-old Spook! 🤯 Had chrome at one time but now could that color be called...bone on bone??
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This Company Creates the World's Smallest TV Sets
Might be the worst idea I've ever heard but I bet someone will buy it – and I bet if you put a hook on it you could catch a largemouth with it! 🤣
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Jay Kumar's BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup of the best (sometimes worst) and funniest 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'!
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