Has the winter been warmer than normal where you are? I think we got 2" of snow one day and it was basically gone by the next day. Not much rain either...but strangely one of our drawn-down reservoirs here has been steadily filling up?? Good weather to fish, no time...😫 Hope you're gettin' out!

Dang straight! I'd add that PRO bass fishing drives most of the innovation in fishing gear and techniques – which is why I'm mystified when an occasional marketing person does not value pro fishermen, or values 'em less than an "influencer"...nothing against influencers at all, all good.

Anyhow, that's Skeet Reese talking in a 10 outta 10 Grundens vid where he opens up about having depression. That is rare for men to do, and even rarer for competitors. Beautiful man. Here 'tis – worth the 8.5 minutes:

1. Fletch Shryock gets Gill.

Said they wanted a pro bass fisherman who looks good in orange digital camo and luckily they found one...😁

2. Bill Lowen and Ott DeFoe use line conditioner...

...as do many other pros:

> Bad amounts of memory in a line will result in more backlashes, which can weaken the line when they are picked out. “I love to use a line conditioner to help with this,” says Lowen. “I use Lew’s Line Conditioner and have found it helps take that memory out of the line.”

> DeFoe likes line conditioner, too, but limits its use to colder weather. “I think it helps shed water off fluorocarbon and monofilament line, which is important in cold weather. I spray it on the rod guides too. It really helps.”

3. Check Chris Zaldain's swimbait underwater.

Slow-mo from the long and good YT vid ^ – which btw has 46,000 views, pretty dang stout for such a long and specific topic...and Chris' bassin' 'stache doesn't even talk: 😆

Check the baits on the TW. Chris says in the vid that he wants the smaller 6" size for fishing where he'd bnormally fish a 3/8-oz spinnerbait – that's if Chris ever fished a spinnerbait....😁

4. Steve Kennedy's Lowrance transducer bracket "adjustment."

Hammer, vice, not protected by the warranty! On IG....

5. Andy Morgan, Jared Lintner jerseys for St Jude.

Here's Andy's, here's Jared's.

6. Learn ya a little about Billy Dance's history.

> "...that 2.25-lber just blasted that little piece of aluminum and plastic – this little artificial thing – that I was trying to give life to. And it was an amazing sight, and the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt in my life. I had goosebumps all over.”

7. YT vid: Test drive and walk thru of Wheeler's boat.

Aka the iKon LX21. Long vid.

Word is (not from that video) it's a hair shy of 22' and will be over $100K after you're done hanging everything on it....

8. BLF happenin's

Lanier, GA: Dude won his first BFL as a boater

Name of Justin Nalley:

> "...last year for my 30th birthday my wife surprised me with a bass boat she had bought from my father-in-law. So I took the leap and registered as a boater.”

> ...his baits of choice during the day were a Berkley Powerbait The General Worm, a Rapala DT8 crankbait around chunk rock for spotted bass, and an Advantage Bait Co Jaw Breaker Bladed Jig in the backs of creeks.

Chickamauga, TN: Winner fished a lipless on 25-lb mono

> Rusty White scoured the lower end of the lake, focusing on grass flats in less than 3'...red 1/2-oz BOOYAH One Knocker...used 25-lb mono to keep the bait higher in the water column and out of the grass. He said the heavy line also gave him confidence while landing big fish.

9. LA: New Bussey Brake record teener bass.

Local Todd Herrington caught that 13.58 flipping a TX-rigged Mizmo tube (black/blue) into thick brush, which is his big-fish pattern:

> “She was in that bush, and she finally came out – she just came out – and she was only a couple of feet from the boat. I had to use 2 hands to pull her up. I had my rod in 1 hand, and as soon as I got a good grip on her lip with 1 hand, I dropped the rod and grabbed her with the other hand."

Hahaha I bet! 2/0 Gamakatsu Superline Hook, 3/8-oz weight. Former lake record was Randy Howell's 12-14 he caught last year in the Bass Pro Tour event there.

10. TX looking at forward facing sonar use for crappie.

> “At this point the department is more curious than concerned. A year’s worth of data will give us a pretty good snapshot of a fishery and what is going on between forward-facing sonar users and non-users. We’ll be able to look a catch rate comparisons, the size of the fish and size of the harvest between them. From there we could dive into some simulations of what types of impacts that could have.”

11. TX wants input on proposed 2023-34 reg changes.

A few are bass-related.

12. GA: 380 buttonbushes planted in Allatoona.

> “The immediate goal is to increase the abundance of quality largemouth bass spawning and rearing habitat."

13. MO: Former Tackle HD owner started new brand.

Mitch Fields started Tackle Max Lures and yep one of the fist baits is a hellgrammite.

Thanks to ol' bud Keith for the heads up. Can't link it, it's at forums DOT ozarkanglers DOT com

14. AFTCO CEO Bill Shedd going into IGFA Hall of Fame.

Congrats to him and glad to have AFTCO in bassin'. Other than that, the rest of the folks being inducted are salty and fly fishing – one reason in my 2c the IGFA should not "oversee" bass records. You hearin' me Bowman 'n Mazurk?? (I've been pushing a little to get "us" to handle our own records....)

15. Z-Man HQ now is solar-powered.

Peeps who work there lie out in the sun til they're good 'n warmed up, then run inside and pedal hard on some bikes that power generators...5-minute breaks every 60 minutes for rehydration...1 week hall pass for every new Ned or Chatterbait idea...okay I'm done! 😆

16. TN: Small jig company helping human trafficking victims.

Wow amazing:

> “Zoe Angling Group started about eight years ago,” said Jeff Coffey, founder and CEO. “We started as Fair Flies with the intent that rather than exploiting people to make sporting goods, that instead we could use sporting goods in our case – flies, jigs, lures – to create jobs that pay double living wages for women that have come out of the sex trade.”

> Coffey says they work in places like Nepal and India and Tunisia, with partners there to create products to be able to create sustainable jobs. “The problem is 92% of those that get rescued end up back in the red-light districts. The reason is nobody will hire them, and so what we figured is that we could create jobs.”

Check their hair jigs here.

17. NV: Boaters are 20% of Mead's 7.6 mil annual visitors.

Stat from a post about how ramps and marinas are left high and dry right now, and what's being done about it.

18. TX/LA not worried about salvinia at Caddo right now.

They say it's under control.

19. Sonar updatin's

Furuno low-frequncy side scan goes 750+ feet:

> ...Furuno scans the water at a lower frequency (220 to 240 kHz) than other side-scan sonar brands...lower-frequency chirps don’t deliver the same crisp returns as higher-frequency transmissions....

> The software update is free, the transducer costs $900.

MIT dudes are working on 3D holograms – As a "display." Fyi in terms of what tech might be able to be used by us at some point.

20. Asian carp updatin's

MI and IL are proposing $114 mil toward Brandon Road carp-blocking project

Couple guys are grinding 'em into powder to ship to poor areas around the world

21. Garmin Marine Q4 sales were up 7%.

22. $140K all-electric boat goes up to 50 miles at low speed.

Max speed is 30 knots. Not a bass boat, just the "Tesla" of boats.

Headlines of the Day

Wall Street Scooping Up Colorado River Rights in Bid to Profit From Historic Drought

> Financial speculators are buying and selling rights to the Colorado River's dwindling water resources in a bid to profit as historic drought conditions lead to worsening scarcity.

> Matthew Diserio, the co-founder and president of a Manhattan-based hedge fund called Water Asset Management (WAM), makes no secret of his intentions, having described water in the US as “the biggest emerging market on Earth” and “a trillion-dollar market opportunity.”

> ...WAM has purchased at least $20 mil worth of land in western CO over the past 5 years, making it one of the biggest landowners in a farming and ranching region known as the Grand Valley.

> ...WAM has bought more than 2,500 acres of farmland in the area. But “it’s the water” – not the land – that investors are really interested in...the farmland comes with water rights.

PSAs/Updatin's

1. Sea Foam Top 5 of the Week: Say it ain't so KVD! Wheeler's deck! Texas is on fire, what up Cali?

If you go on YT and haven't subscribed to my channel, would appreciate it if you did! Here's the link to do it.

2. That "radar" puck on Jacon Wheeler's boat is probably either a Lowrance Point One or Minn Kota GPS antenna. Thanks to bass-head Nate O for the info.

3. Check out Tackle Warehouse's spring picks:

Ever hear of a Floatzilla?

Me neither but Elite rookie Joe "E" Cifuentes outed it on his IG. What it is:

He takes that Berkley General, snips the tail off and screws in a Floatzilla Tail:

Says it makes the tail of that stick worm rise up, and he was going to use it at Okeechobee (he finished 19th) whether he was bed-fishing or just flipping.

That Floatzilla Tail comes in 7 colors and 2 sizes. They also have heads and wacky models. Interesting. Please let me know if you get 'em and what you think!

"...days that your momma likes to be outside sitting on her porch or cleaning out her flower bed – I slow way down."

- Cliff "broke the mold" Crochet talkin' fishin' in the pre-spawn. Lol love it Cliff!

Check this pic of the 2 guys who won the Bass Champs on Lake Fork, TX – notice anything different about the facial expressions? 😁

GA hunter mauled by 3 wild dogs

Wow. If you wanna see some crazy pics, click that link. Nothing too terrible, but it's incredible how many bites he got. Glad he survived.