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‘Nother thir-teener caught, this time in a tourney!
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Bass-head Chad D sent it in:
> We had a small limit, and about 1:30 my partner Dusty said it would be nice to get a big bite today. 5 min later she bit! Lol. Caught flipping a YUM Tube [virgo blue] in hydrilla. Gotta love the “so old school it’s new” tube comin’ back!
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Here’s some info on how to weight the Tokyo Rig and more, from Rapala’s Danny Quinn who’s fished it a lot more than most:
> Basically, the [not yet out VMC] Slider weight works in every situation very well, but since that isn’t available until fall, there are 2 ways to rig it.
> For fishing in and around grass, wood, anything EXCEPT rock, slide 2 bullet weights, back-to-back creating a missile shape. When rigged this way, it slides in and out of cover perfectly.
> The only time I don’t rig it that way is dragging it through rock, similar to a swing head, and for that I use a single bullet weight rigged upside-down. The reason for that is the bottom of the weight is widest and that will contact the rock first, causing it to bounce off, rather than the pointed end contacting first and wedging in between rocks more often.
> When fishing a Tokyo rig around grass, it is almost always less than 20′ and straight braid. Straight fluoro or braid to a fluoro leader seem to work well too, more of a personal preference.
> I have had great success with straight 17-lb Sufix Advance Fluoro for all applications in 20′ or less. I can flip and pitch grass, wood, any cover with that and then turn around and drag it across a point or whatever — incredibly versatile.
> But when you fish in more than 20′, straight fluoro has a lot of stretch, making it difficult to get a solid hookset on a long cast. So I use to 30-lb Sufix 832 [braid] and a 17-lb fluoro leader. It’s awesome for fishing deep: better feel and 832 doesn’t float, actually sinks slowly, so you aren’t fighting a floating line.
> I guess the braid to a fluoro leader would be the best all-around set up, but…I prefer having 2 setups: straight 17-lb fluoro and another rod with braid/fluoro.
> When reeling/dragging this rig in deep water it stays on bottom incredibly well, likely due to the weight being separated from the bait. It has virtually eliminated a swing head for me — the Tokyo Rig is a better way to present a bait for that technique, especially with a swimbait in deep water.
> I could go on and on — this thing is THE DEAL for real! Punching mats in FL to deep winter-time smallmouths in MN, year-round and everywhere bass live this thing excels in so many situations.
> The 2 main highlights with this rig are: 1) The freedom of movement presents a bait in a more natural way and the fish haven’t seen it. Shallow to deep, it gets more bites than a TX rig. And 2) The weight is out of the picture on the hookset…more important with heavier weights. So it doesn’t pop their mouth open, resulting in better hook placement and more fish in the boat, no questions asked.
Yep DQ works for Rapala/VMC so weight his comments how you will, but can tell you that he’s for sure a bass-head and isn’t a hype kinda guy…not too much anyhow lol.
VMC now has 3 Tokyo rigs: EWG, flippin and worm.
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Does soft-plastic SOUND make a difference??
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Never thought about it even 1 time til I saw that a BFL was won dropshottin’ a Cornerstone Baits Shimmy Shot and looked that bait up. Check this description — don’t know if they’re just messin’ or what:
> The texture is the best in the game, the action does the catching, and the sound it makes when a bass chomps down is supremely realistic.
Really? So…what if soft baits had a “crunch” — would they be:
(Has “scrumptious” ever been used to describe a bassin’ bait??)
Here’s the Shimmy Shot:
Looks like a dead ringer for the 10,000 Fish Shimmer Shad, and somewhat like the Lunkerhunt Bento Minnow.
Btw PA FLW Tour pro Grae Buck won that BFL with that bait on Onedia, NY. Few innerestin’ deets:
> “I was working in 8-12′ of water and targeting areas that had a mix of rock and grass. There are a bunch of small perch fry in those areas right now, so I was looking for the bait and matching the hatch.
> “I caught all of my fish on the Shimmy Shot — probably 15 or so total. It’s got a piece of foil on the belly which gives it a little extra glimmer. When I cast out there I’d let it sit on the bottom, and then let the slack out without moving the rig. It was a subtle bite, but I could see the line start moving away. They’re finicky when they are eating perch fry.”
Dude who isn’t finicky when you’re eating perch fry, dang….
Shimmy Shot colors were TN shad and violet on a #2 Hayabusa DSR132 hook. Rest of the rig: 1/4-oz Eco Pro Tungsten Full Contact Drop Shot Weight, 18-lb Gliss Supersmooth Monotex (yellow), 12″ 8-lb Seaguar InvizX fluoro leader, Dobyns Champion Extreme Rod, Ardent C-Force 3000 Reel.
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Slower-learning bass are smarter??
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How does that make any sense?
Study (pdf) found that “slow-learning largemouth bass were better able to avoid capture.” Derpy the bass be sayin’:
Study also said:
> …fisheries selection based on cognitive traits could cause an evolutionary shift toward slow-learning strategies in exploited populations.
First of all, that’s not “evolution” — it’s “adaptation.” Lots of folks use that “e” word wrong. Second, if that’s saying we’re gonna get more “slower-learning”/dumber bass, great! Kinda like these maybe:
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Everybody wants one, how ’bout you?
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YEEEEEEEEAH! Check that EVH reel man, whoa. Painted by @rembrandtreels. My brain is like: Must…have…can’t…afford…must…have….
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News
No bait is worth it folks, pls be careful out there.
2. MA: Kayaker hit by bass boat.
Sounds like she will be okay, hope so. Be careful when you’re getting on plane — from this article:
> The passenger told the officer as the two were leaving the cove, they were talking to one another. It was then when Magurn accelerated the boat, causing its bow to lift — which can also restrict the operator’s view of what is directly in front — before it begins planing or flattening out.
> It was at that moment, when the bow was out of the water, the two heard a woman scream and the boat collided with the victim’s kayak, according to what the passenger told the officer.
3. Brent Ehrler makes fun of bass.
Good! Bass are always makin’ fun of us man….
4. Do these shorts give Josh Douglas an unfair advantage?
Either way they’re must-haves:
Those shorts (where are they from?) + On ‘Em hat = guaranteed win.
5. Little more on the Lew’s buy/merger/whatever.
> US fishing equipment firm Lew’s Holdings bought Essex-based Fox International, Europe’s largest privately owned tackle company, for around £150 mil [about $182 mil].
> Daniel Sasaki, managing partner of UK private equity firm Mayfair Equity Partners, which sold Fox to Lew’s, said: “If you are a dollar-based investor, you are buying anything in the UK at a discount to what you would have done 3 to 4 years ago.”
Shoot that’s a BIG $$$ #.
6. PA: Susquehanna smallie problems blamed on LMBV.
Largemouth Bass Virus — not sure I’m buyin’ it with all the pollution found in there but:
> It turned out that largemouth bass virus can be lethal to smallmouths when shallow water near river banks…becomes stagnant and warm. In that environment, the virus does not kill but causes lesions and sores where bacteria and fungus enter the fish’s body, eventually killing them.
Okay but there’s a lot of shallow, warm, NON-stagnant water (it’s a river!) where smallies with lesions were caught…
7. Check the Frabill Bearclaw net…
…for 1-handed nettin’:
8. ‘Lectric outboards are comin’.
T-Roy Lindner posted this vid of a Pure Watercraft-powered tin rig. Not much to hear — just water slappin’. Told the guys at ICAST they needed to put a fake cowling on it cuz it looks weird…!
9. IL: Piranha-like pacu caught in Hennepin Canal.
Tropical fish. If they let it go, it should be dead as a brick this winter….
10. Mercury emissions way down but…
…supposedly mercury concentrations in fish could go up anyway:
> …overfishing and climate change, both of which could nudge fish toward pursuing more heavily contaminated prey.
C’mon man….
11. Irish teen figured out how to remove microplastics from water.
Take that all you PhDs….
1. Treestand bassin’ was for real??
If’n y’all remember this pic from last week:
Bass-had JD sent this in:
> I fished a flooded cypress lake in GA somewhere around Valdosta when I was stationed there in the military (1996-ish). There were tree stands scattered throughout the lake. I asked a local and he said they were for “bass fishing.” Freaking crazy!
!!!! That may be true but…can tell you I’ve been pranked a few times by my southern buds, messin’ with a Yankee….
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On BassBlaster.rocks right now…
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Tip of the Day
For flippin/shootin’ — from the MLF site:
> “I do something different when I TX-rig a Senko when I’m pitching. I use nail weights and I weight one end of the Senko, usually the head. When I weight it that way, I rig it backwards. It makes it a lot easier to skip it under docks — I call it ‘shooting docks.’ As long as you keep the bait straight, it will take off away from you and get under floating docks.”
> …he actually catches more fish when he power fishes a Senko rather than when he finesse fishes one. …he prefers using a 5″ green pumpkin/purple flake Senko as his universal go-to.
> “I use a baitcaster when shooting under docks and I can cover a lot of water that way.”
That whole “weight at the back” deal can also work with rear-weighted hooks, and I believe the Flying Lure — which actually worked — was the first bait to “swim backwards.” The principle (supposedly) is that when a bait moves TOWARD a bass, they smash it sort of defensively.
Fletch didn’t mention this, but for any bait going away from you the key in letting it do that is SLACK LINE.
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Quote of the Day
“…I feel something best described as ‘heroic’ when I fail at fishing….”
– More (from here):
> …the intrinsic goodness of being on or near the water, the primal piercing of the soul that results whenever one matches wits with a wild creature, and the meditative pull of the cast and retrieve, all are reasons enough to enjoy the sport no matter if your creel is empty or your livewell dry.
SOUNDS good but no way. Don’t know ’bout you, but when I don’t catch any — which never happens lol — I get pretty ticked and/or bummed:
Hahaha that’s right, it’s never just not catching, it’s losing baits too! Or is that just me….
Those quotes are from a muskie fisherman, a deal I never understood til I saw this:
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Ya got me
Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup
of the best, worst and funniest in bassin’, as curated 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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