BassBlaster

Same jigs fall different? John Cox can’t fish?? Great swimbait tips

Ogle you my truck as it sits now — black Dick Cepek wheels I “borrowed” from Matty Lee’s shed, and a vinyl top deal over the bed. Lookin’ into some bed storage stuff — that Decked deal any good? Any suggestions pls lmk, thank you!

>> If you’re getting the BassBlaster for the first time it’s cuz a bud signed you up!

Today’s Top 5

REALLY cool info about jig trailers.

Fish scientist dude Jimmy Liao got his science on again, this time with jig trailers (vid). Takeaways for me:

1. The same exact jigs — same brand, model and weight without trailers — WON’T necessarily fall at the same rate. Never occurred to me before (doh):

2. Bulky soft-plastic craws — like the Zoom Super Chunk — DON’T slow down a jig’s fall, but trailers with flappin’ claws do. (No Strike King Range Craw in the vid, was curious about that.)

Watch the whole vid on YT — it’s short.

John Cox can’t fish a lick.

Here’s proof:

Bassmaster Central Opens points:

Bassmaster Eastern Opens points:

FLW AOY standings:

FLW Cup results:

If anyone knows John, pls ask him why he is torturing himself with all this bad stuff….

HAHAHA! Dang son, that dude is sho-nuff a STICK. He still fish outta a tin rig? Maybe that’s the secret.

Thanks much Kevin Short for hippin’ me to this insanity…and for one of the funniest Insta posts ever….

Hey John, rumor is Edwin Evers wants to challenge you to a fight behind the school man….

“…Tenkiller is a new lake to me. That’s never a good thing, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing either.”

– Hahaha! Elitist Drew Benton talkin’. So if it’s never good but not bad, what is it?

Asked that Kung Fu turtle sensei dude and he was like:

I was like, “Don’t think Drew was talkin’ ’bout news….” And he was like:

I was like, “Thank you Master Oogway.” Felt like I was stuck in a fortune cookie….

Good news/bad news for bass up north.

From an article about warmer weather and fish populations. Start with the good news:

> Crunching the numbers…the northern range of warm-water-loving sportfish such as largemouth and smallmouth bass, bluegill and pumpkinseed is shifting farther north…from 8 to almost 11 miles per decade.

> “…smallmouth bass is one of the species that’s expanding north, and now occurring in lakes in northern ON that were previously too cold for them.”

Nice! But:

> “Targeting bass [meaning, keeping ’em] over walleye in certain lakes may actually favor the long-term viability of the walleye population. These are all management tools we are thinking about right now.”

But if the water is warming and walleye won’t do as well, isn’t a better strategy to maybe boost the bass pops and definitely encourage folks to catch/release them??

What size swimbaits to fish in FL…

…and anywhere else there’s shiner-type forage? From an Outdoor Life deal on live-baitin’:

> The tough-to-find ‘mule ear’ 9-12″ shiners are at a premium in springtime, but in fall…5-inchers, and prime warriors are in the 6-7″ range.

Also says the live-baiters were:

> …casting harsh glances at any blow-dried glitter boater who looks down on them.

All us glitter-boaters: Who readin’ this blow-dries your hair??

News

1. Someone who looks like John Murray won the Watts Bar BFL.

Lookit:

Hahaha that IS John Murray! Won the 2-day Super Tourney there like this-here:

> …of the 10 fish that he weighed in, 7 — including his big ones — came from his shallow-water pattern while 3 came from out deep. Murray threw a Z-Man ChatterBait Jack Hammer [spot remover] with a clear-sparkle-colored shad-shaped [trailer] while fishing shallow, and dropshotted a redbug-colored [6″] Gene Larew TattleTail Worm out deep.
> “The key was having my deep spots for when the sun got up. A couple of the deep areas were loaded up, and I was able to find them using my Garmin electronics to key in on the right spots.”

Right behind him in 2nd was a guy who looks a LOT like Wes Strader….

This MLF.com post says John’s a guide on Watts Bar now. If you live near there, go. #nobrainer Hit him up on his Facebook page.

2. G-Spo says LA anglers are “shallow.”

Gerald Spohrer…heehee…. Because all LA has is shallow water basically….

3. Elitist Brandon Cobb bassin’ tips for Greenwood and Hartwell.

Says chicken livers and hotdogs are the deal…not really….

4. BPTer Mart-A Robinson on BassEdge Radio.

5. Cliff Crochet is selling his boat.

2019 Skeeter FX21, Yamaha 250 SHO, Lowrance stuff, Minny Kota troller.

6. WI dude won the Grand Lake Open…

…fishing the lake for the first time?? Dang that’s crazy! Big congrats to Bob “Iron Man” Downey, who won by just 8 ox over another WI dude, Caleb Kuphall. First the Canadian Elite invasion, now the WI Opens invasion…? Here’s how he caught ’em:

> …worked shallow brush lines the mid-lake area, specifically targeting isolated willows or knots of buckbrush a foot or so deeper than the shoreline cover. He used a TX-rigged Reactions Innovations Sweet Beaver and 3/8-oz All-Terrain A.T. Jig.

7. Say yo to Billy Dance’s replacement.

Congrats StrayPats!

Okay this might not be actual, but may be possibly predictive….

8. Maybe this is why the Sabine is on the Elite schedule.

Saw on a TV show there’s a Sabine Thing, aka Squatchie. Wonderin’ who (*cough* Trip *cough*) keeps pressin’ for that venue, and what happens at night there….

9. KY/TN: 2-day BFL on KY Lake, no one had 10 bass.

None of the top 10 anyhow — can’t find the complete results fast on the FLW site. Winner had 7 fish. Dang.

Related: The latest Rapala podcast has FLWer Terry Bolton talkin’ fishin’ KY Lake, where he lives….

10. MN: More on the Mille Lacs fire drill.

From an article about the crazy fish sitch there hurting lake businesses:

> …the perception of a closure would usually involve a decimated fish population. “In reality, this economy/lake was closed because of a flawed quota co-management system. We have a healthy fishery up here that is teeming with walleye and other sport species — smallmouth, muskie and northern. There’s nothing that compares to this lake — we have big fish and lots of them. There are trophy-sized fish in all the species.”

All true and stranger and more disturbing than a shaved bear:

11. Here’s you your current yummy shad size.

The special fall baits BassBlaster has recommendations for mimicking that….

12. FL: Register to maybe win a Phoenix boat.

Register here at TrophyCatch. Sounds like it’s a drawing and you need to be registered by Sep 30.

Also FL HS fishin’ teams can apply for DNR grants.

13. KY: Low oxygen levels at Cumberland…

…might be stressing out some deep fish, maybe not bass:

> “You have a normal thermocline below which you have cooler unoxygenated water. You go down another 40′ and there is an additional oxygenated layer. When the dissolved oxygen in that deeper layer disappears [due to drawing water out through a dam], we get fish kills.”

14. Lookit the lip on this Molix crank!

Wait…maybe I said something about this a while back? Anyhow, ever seen claws painted on lips before? BPTer James Elam holdin’ it — believe it’s a Molix Sculpo crank in “Aquavelva craw” — hahaha Aquavelva!

15. More Vexus demo ride dates/locations.

Even if you’re not in the market, you’ll enjoy the fire outta it:
Sat, Sep 21
10 AM – 3 PM
Bull Shoals Lake Boat Dock, 140 Boat Dock Cove, Bull Shoals, AR

(870) 445-8358

Sun, Sep 22
12 – 4 PM
Taylor’s South Shore Marina, Caesar Creek Marina, Waynesville, OH

(513) 855-4402

Tues, Sep 24
3 – 7 PM
FC Marine Group, Portage Lakes (New State Park Ramp) New Franklin, OH

(330) 644-5346

Fri, Sep 27
2 – 7 PM
Mid Montcalm Marine, Crystal Lake, Crystal, MI

(989) 365-3015

16. NY: They’re building robot largemouths now…

…to see if they scare invasive mosquitofish:

Gotta think that if they colored the top half green it might work a lot better. BUT the betterer and cheaper option in the real world has to be REAL largemouths…?

17. ID: Tiger muskies being stocked in 2 more lakes…

…biologists say they do not hurt bass populations.

18. KY: Owensboro HS adds bassin’ team.

Like to hear it!

19. Gander Outdoors closing a bunch o’ stores.

Not close to all, but that was fast. Says big sales are already on at those stores, just not for firearms and ammo.

> The retailer owns 165 locations that offer RV products and services and 37 that lack them. Of those 37 locations, Camping World Holdings plans to close, sell, move, or repurpose 27….

Dude who owns Gander is big-time in the RV biz.

20. New GM at Crestliner tin tubs.

Guy named Jack Martin, internal hire.

21. Now camo’s on beard products?

Mossy Oak. Pretty soon I expect to see camo on citrus fruits, hammers and HVAC units.

Tip of the Day

Couple great swimbait tips from Chris Zaldain.

On the Bassin’masters.com, worth a full read fer sher:

> It’s a rare day when I retrieve a swimbait downhill. …2 problems with pulling up on a point or an underwater hump, positioning your boat in deep water and throwing shallow.

> The first is that the bass have seen that approach a thousand times…and the bass become conditioned to it.

> The second has to do with the inherent design of most swimbaits. As you retrieve them back towards the boat they have a tendency to rise. If the bottom is falling and your lure is rising, you’re getting farther and farther off the bottom…. The farther it gets off the bottom the fewer bass you’ll catch.

> …pull up into shallow water and throw deep. I let it fall all the way to the bottom and then bring it back slow enough so that it ticks something every so often. That’s a different approach, but once you start doing it it’ll seem natural to you, and you’ll start catching more and bigger fish.

> Something else that’s critical with swimbaits is the angle of presentation. There are times when you can bring one back on top or alongside of the structure you’re fishing and you’ll get bites. But there are more times when a 30-, 45- or 60-degree angle across the structure will get you more bites.

Really wanna get in the boat with him and do some learnin’…. Will even fish with one of Trait Zaldain’s pink rods, but I draw the line at a pink spin-noodle….

Quote of the Day

“…if this fish comes off or that fish comes off or somebody else fishes a spot before me on a certain day, I’m not even here.”

Cliff “Big Cajun Baby” Crochet talkin’ how thin the margin is between just being on the pro tours and not. Course if any of that happened he’d still be HERE, just maybe not there, if you know what I mean.

Said he has no regrets about going pro, feels like this every day:

Shot of the Day

Here’s 7.1 dang good reasons for the MN DNR to get it together on Mille Lacs — @jeremiahjohnsonfishing shot:

Random

Couple quick facts: I live in NJ, kinda in the sticks, nothing much ever happens outta the ordinary. Then I saw this in town:

Pretty sure that’s an emotional support iguana? Anyone see the report of that lady who brought an emotional support miniature horse on a plane?? #outtahand

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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