Hammer time

You bet! Anytime of the year fishing with your son or family is the absolute best time to go! The memories are priceless! And sharing them with family is a blessing!

They don't have a chance with Alsbama, Clemson and all the other bigs schools getting all the top 5 blue chip players in the country, no one has s chance!

Haven't bought one in15-20 years so don't know price of them now. They are very light and mostly used spinning tackle to throw them like smithwick rogues.

I also have a lot of balsa bees from their hay days, mid 80's through mid 90's hot bait. Killer bee 2 my favorite in bleeding shad. Still got lots of balsa bees and poes left from them days. May have to get them back in action.

Great report! Congrats! Any size! Catch any blacks?

Now that's a sac!!! Jig or stick bait my guess. Or maybe something else? Are you gonna mention what you caught em on ?

Gotta love that clown color! My favorite except in stained water then black back gold sides and orange belly. Here's a picture of my two all time favorites! I only use smithwick rogues.

Fish that hit and come at you are tricky, unless you're paying complete attention, especially with a cb. Neat story, thanks for sharing.

Gotcha, haven't seen any at the stores or heard of anybody mention ever that I can remember. They were hot bait in mid-90's and we cow killed em, mostly 300 series in Tennessee shad.

Put in at 1 so short outing. Worked from this side of Thompson to Buzzard on main channel banks with deep diving clown rogue. Bait had to sit a longer time than normal with vertically no wind. Second bank was good to me had 3 spots and squeaker keeps. Hit some more banks and nothing. Noticed my bites were by huge rock and chunky rock met. Almost got to Buzzard and bam just after I paused seen my line twitch and set the hook! Nice black, beautiful in the clear water and good fight all the way back in and around trees with 8lb test. Went up to the James side of point 15 and caught 6 nice slab white crappie on 1/16oz chartreuse jig and called her day. Fun way to start 2017 season! We are blessed to have such fantastic fishing within a hour drive!! Tight lines and CPR

That is so funny, I laughed so hard my stomach hurts. Lol I'll just keep my 300 and 400 series to myself, take em out and look at em then put back. Great balsa bait, are they made anymore abkeenan?

There is even a Thinfin, top left corner second bait to the right. Wow!

I can't believe the number of hellbenders eithe! Had no idea guys still used them, that blows me away. The othe baits make sense DD-22 all the 5xd and 6xd and all the stick baits. Looks like might even be a Poes 400 in there

Vernon, it has been 9 years since the theives got everything and I still don't have the quality of equipment I lost, and all the hard baits and spinner baits hurts the most! Soft baits, hooks, sinkers those are easily replaced. It's the loomis IMX's GLX's. Oh well, I've just tried my best to replace what I could and start over again collecting tackle as I go. Still miss my old stuff that has long since been discontinued or changed.

Way to go, thanks for the pics. Fishing with family is the best! Eagles everywhere this winter, and lots hanging out together. Beautiful!!

Nice! Congrats!

I feel your pain and agree that rods reels and baits are the tuffest to replace. I had my boat hocked up to truck in drive way, walked out of the house to head to lake and noticed front graph laying on deck and console graph missing. Called local police, them came and tried to get prints with no success. The theives took everything out of front deck compartments! All my rod and reels every bait box, all my high dollar rain gear even my containers of snacks! Front deck compartments emptied! They were locked but easily broke into, no lock bar. My home insurance handled claim since boat was on my property, but 1000.00 dollar deductible and losses of loomis rods shimano reels and countless baits, I took a huge loss, graphs where my least important loss. Checked all pawn shops in Republic and Springfield with no luck ever finding anything. Since that happened I've never left my boat outside!

Awesome, my dad taught me way back that the hot n tot with the metal bill was a key! He explained to me that the different sound metal makes contacting rocks and wood "banging" was so different than plastic lipped baits was the key ingredient! He went on to explain that the bass become conditiononed to the plastic sound and that the metal sound was different and unique thus triggering bites. Main reason we casted tots and trolled hellbenders!

Just like my old hot n tots in red crawdad, they don't work either!

When I was just a kid and dad got tierd of paddling us around(no trolling motor) we would troll that exact bait with his old 6hp Johnson and just kill the bass. I'll never forget that and would try to talk my dad into trolling from spot to spot instead of motoring. I wonder if that bait would work today casting like any other cb?

No report D, or from Jeremy?

Like all new baits, there's a learning curve till you get bit and build confidence. I remember when fb jig came out and I kept trying it and would put it down after 20 minutes or so and go to a c-rig that I have confidence in. Then one day at the mouth of Buzzard creek, I had several nice blacks and one toad brownie dam near take the rod out of my hands. Since that day fb jig is one of my favorite baits! Untill you get bit and build confidence in any bait, there's a learning curve.

Fished like a jig, hopping down ledges on bluffs and swings with a full craw as a trailer not a critter craw to slow the fall, I think would really be interesting?

Will gladly bring you a bag of crappie, but bass are never stocked so I CPR all bass. CPR = Catch Photograph Release for those that don't know. Hoping 2017 is your best year ever D!

Nice black and pic! Thanks for the report and hope to read many more in 2017. Happy New Years to you as well.