BassBlaster

When they won’t eat on top, Weird fall crank colors, J-Pow’s winning pattern

Today’s Top 5

My picks are cream pie, honey shad and Lone Ranger.

David Fritts talkin’ ’bout his favorite hunting dogs — nope, wait…it’s his fave crankbait colors for fall.

Those are Berkley Dredger crank colors — check ’em out (in order):

Now ask yourself this: Other than maybe the almost chartreuse/black back lone ranger, would you fish those colors? Betting most of you say no, and that’s what’s super-interesting — cuz we’re talkin’ Dave Fritts here man! Crankin’ grand master flash so…we better listen.

Bigger question is: Can you make yourself tie on a color you don’t like? I have REAL trouble doing that….

J-Pow wimp-sticked him a Classic spot.

Hey Jacob got him a Classic bid at the bracket deal! One dude was pretty stoked about it:

BUT J-Pow did resort to wimp-stickin’ to git ‘er done. Asked him if he felt less manly now and he said:

> “In my career, over half the stuff I’ve won came on a spinning rod. So I don’t feel less manly at all about throwing a spinning rod. Doesn’t matter how you catch ’em as long as they’re in that Jacuzzi when you go to the weigh-in.”

I was like, “Uh, yeah…okay man, I think I see your point, but you know — do you feel like less of a man?” Heard crickets after that….

Anyhow, here’s how he caught ’em:

> “Pokegama had kind of a deep part out in the middle and lot of little points that ran out into the lake. Milfoil grew out to about 14-15′, then there was a little scruffy grass in 15-17′, then it turned into strictly sand.

> “The largemouth were on edge of that grass, and the smallmouth were out 15-20′ farther [not deeper]….

> “I caught them in 3 places off some ends of that stuff, where the grass was about a foot tall. In practice I fished the bank…but every one I caught out [deep] was a 2.9 to a 3.3. Those were the ones I needed to be fishing for.

> “Everybody that fished up there was throwing a jig or something like that. …nobody had a spinning rod in their hand. I kind of Cody Meyered it, John Murrayed it — I decided to go all Aaron Martens and try to catch as many as I can.”

Dropshotted a 6″ hand-poured worm (gp/brown bottom — didn’t want to show it but you might be able to guess) 2 ways: wacky not around the grass (smallies), and TX-rigged around the grass (largies). Both rigs were with 10-ln braid and a 10-lb Hi-Seas fluoro leader.

> Brown-fish/wacky: #2 Mustad Streamer Hook, 1/2-oz Elite Tungsten Drop Shot Weight (heavy for faster fall to get them to react), 7′ 4″ M Quantum Tour KVD Spinning Rod, Quantum Energy Spinning Reel.

> Green fish/TX: 1/0 Mustad straight shank hook, 3/8-oz Elite Tungsten Drop Shot Weight, 6′ 10″ MH Quantum Prism Rod, Quantum Vapor Spinning Reel.

Gotta mention: A little ugly out there. First, J-Pow was “pow”ing smallies, just like Palaniuk did:

Not sure what up with all this Elitist smallmouth hate? Second, looks like Jacob cast into someone’s livewell to catch a fish, which apparently ain’t illegal according to B.A.S.S. rules — and Trip was in his boat so:

Weird one for sure — and he for real caught it with the cull tag already on it…and insisted on weighing it thataway.

Last, a lot of smack talkin’ too. J-Pow was all this to Ish:

> “First and foremost, you don’t come up in here and say what you’re going to put up on somebody. …You only caught one, huh?

> “Don’t come out here and tell me what you’re going to do. Show me. You’re going to have to run through me to get that.”

Oops, sorry — that was the Redskins’ Josh Norman talkin’ ’bout the Raiders receivers. But I bet J-Pow would say something like that man! Dude ain’t shy.

Combs won Mille Lacs last year…sorta.

In 2016 he finished 30th. Know that doesn’t make sense so here you go — covered this a bit in his winning pattern story on BassBlaster.rocks but he underlines it in a recent post:

> …during last year’s event I didn’t shut down my brain after my chance to win evaporated. I kept trying to dial in the bite, and I learned from Takahiro Omori how effective a jig can be up there. I filed that information away and came back fully intending to commit to a jig.

Interesting too:

> When I won the Elite Series event at Falcon in 2013, I was only getting 5 to 7 bites a day, but given my long history on that venue I knew that they were the right bites. Similarly, at Mille Lacs I committed to the jig and even on my best day I only caught 11 fish.

Does it take more stones to fish for few big smallmouth bites or few big largemouth bites (not at Mille Lacs)?

Texoma Costa baits breakdown.

Okie Jeff Reynolds won it by a stout 4.5 lbs on a mixed smallmouth/largemouth bite, which you don’t see a lot in TX derbies.

If you weren’t from OK or TX you weren’t in the top 10, whose baits are broken down forthwith. All over the map, but lotsa fall bassin’ basics:

Topwater = 30%Spook, Dogma, Plopper. Shoutin’ out the beeg weener with his transparent One Knocker Spook (btw all Spooks are on sale at TW):

Squarebill = 30%Strike King KVD 2.5, Bill Lewis Echo 1.75, 6th Sense Crush 50X.

Spinnerbait = 30% — Check Alton Wilhoit (4th), who was usin’ silver and RED blades — not the greatest pic but:

TX-rig worm = 30%

Flip plastic and Carolina rig = 20% each

Shakey, Senko, Underspin, Dropshot, Crank (5XD), Bladed Jig = 10% each

More Berkley PowerBait stuff (40%) than I’ve seen in a long time, includin’ a few Power Worms in the still-killer “blue fleck.” Shoutin’-out TX sho-nuff bassin’ legend Dicky Newberry (8th) for usin’ one plus a spinnerbait and Bill Lewis Echo 1.75 crank even tho the pic shows him with a regular ‘Trap:

Dicky ain’t a-gonna show you all his secret weapons mang!

Will say again, one of my fave bit-getttin’ baits is a 10″ black Power Worm….

Why you should bluegill-fish with the young’uns.

Lol, can’t remember where I saw this one but too true…even for adult bass-heads:

Cracks me up when people say they’re too impatient to fish. I’m like, You have no idea.

News

1. Win a PILE o’ Keith Combs tackle.

Combs has ongoing auctions for the 2nd Annual Keith Combs Sam Rayburn Slam (Oct 7) on his FB page, and is now are raffling off 3 suh-weet prizes:

> 1st — this-here 6×4 stainless steel tackle cabinet filled with products from Strike King, Seguar, Owner and mo’. $5K of stuff.

> 2nd is a Minnie-Kota Fortrex, 3rd is a GoProfessional.

Gitcha tix here online or at the Rayburn Tackle Addict — $10 each or 3 for $20. All of the money will go to Warrior’s Weekend Texas and to help Harvey victims. You do not have to be at the weigh-in to win!

I bought 3 tix — if I win, I’m givin’ it away to a lucky bass-head!

2. Lindners think catch/measure/release derbies are good.

Good means it’s a trend that they (Al and Ron) welcome. Respect and love those guys a ton, but I’m not on board with the C/M/R instead of weigh-in derbies yet, and may never be. Believe if we start treating our fish like kittens or whatever, our days are numbered. And trends always indicate directions — they don’t end at the trend….

Plus I’m naturally suspicious of trends, like this one (eeeew):

Only one man can make a man-purse work:

3. 2018 FLW Tour stuff.

Stuff that jumped out at me:

> New for 2018, the FLW Tour will now feature a cut to the top 30 pros (previously the top 20) on day 3…. [Doesn’t say why, but since the top 40 make the Cup, maybe even more important to be in the top 30 consistently.]

> Entry fees are unchanged from 2017: $31,500 for pros, who must fish all 7 [events], and $800 per tournament for co-anglers. [Good, but still would like to see entries actually come down for the top trails.]

4. NV: WON Bass US Open Oct 16-18 on Mead.

Wonder if any Elitists will fish it. Several used to.

5. Bass Pro $4bil buy of Cabela’s a done deal.

Someone asked Johnny how it felt to git ‘er done — he just showed them this image on his phone:

After that he said: “I like turtles.”

6. MO: New bassin’ HOF inductees in Nov.

At the new home of the Bassin’ Hall of Fame, Johnny Morris’ “Wonderousness of Wildlife” place in Springfield. New guys: Wade Bourne, Shaw Grigsby, Bob Sealy, Morris Sheehan (ABA prez) and Louie Stout, who I believe with this award has won them all. #Winner #Stout

Bummed I can’t be there.

7. AR: Beaver Lake cleanup this Saturday.

Please do not recycle any small bass…lol.

8. FL: Country music hootenanny at Bienville Plantation.

Some big-name stars, and you can be ketchin’ howgs in private ponds while all the other folks are a-gittin’ pounded over their heads by Telecasters. Reminds me of the time some dude named Jerry Jeff Walker played at my frat house and I was upstairs listenin’ to metal….

9. New shallower-diving SPRO RkCrawler.

Mike McClelland:

> …I realized that I needed the same bait profile, just a shallower-diving bait that would allow me to catch fish when they transition to shallower depths. The RkCrawler MD 55 allows me to catch these fish.”

Same 55mm body, same 1/2-oz, same Gammy trebles. SPRO be sayin’: “With a shallower dive angle, this bait will be able to come through rock more like a squarebill…. When the fish are shallower than 7 feet, the RkCrawler MD should be your go-to RkCrawler.”

Top is the MD 55, bottom is the regular 55:

Don’t see ’em on TW yet but word is they should be there soon. Will hip you to it when they parachute in.

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Tip of the Day

How to catch bass that won’t bite a topwater.

When you KNOW it’s a topwater day but the fish won’t hit it, here’s what you do. Russ Lane made this change after both of us were slinging every bait in his boat, but reeeeeeally felt like they should’ve been hitting a Spook. They wouldn’t get that (or anything else), so here’s what Russ did — then boated 20 lbs in the next 30 minutes. #stout

Real distinct bite on those soft jerkbaits: Fish rolled on them. Didn’t slash, didn’t sip. Rolled.

Check out the Big Bite Baits Jerk Minnow. Russ even dished his fave color for this: glow silver. That’s the bait on top — the bottom bait is a regular Fluke. Notice that the Jerk Minnow is bulkier, which Russ likes.

Quote of the Day

This tournament was more a mental game than a fishing tournament.
J-Pow talkin’ ’bout the bracket deal but…pretty sure all the Elite fruity-jars are mental grinds mang! All the guys are so good, REAL good.

Shot of the Day

How rad is this! Thinkin’ ’bout makin’ me one…or makin’ my kids do it:

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, sell the list or anything else crazy….

Use the best!

Git on these yo!

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Jay Kumar is the guy who created BassFan.com, co-hosted Loudmouth Bass with Zona, was a B.A.S.S. senior writer and a whole lot more in bassin’. Jay Kumar’s BassBlaster is a daily-ish roundup of the best in bassin’, and is the #2 daily read on any given day in the wide world o’ bass.

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