WWM

This format is the only one where you can take a very average fisherman, get lucky, and get a check. If you are a better than average you can cash several. Absolutely love fishing them the last 10 years or so. If you pay attention to signup dates and get early signup the free rod is a nice bonus. Got to say Yeti hooked us up! I paid $175 for Friday & Saturday and got all this from them. So got all that for $110 less than "retail" and get to fish 2 days for $100k or so... Sure I'll take that.. 2.57 for 10th in the first hour! Now I'm made I'm not on the water today!

Not surprised to see Cayuga showing out after being up there last year at the event…. 35 of 40 guys had over 20lb bags today!

It was fun and informative as always Bill. I completely agree about bass force. He mentioned it many times on camera but I’ll let you guess as to how many times he looked at his phone during the day… Some other questions or comments I’ll answer here as well. Tilly was SO nice and she backs the boat in so I didn’t have to get the truck and we were like the 3rd boat out of the water 😀😀! this is what I know about next year https://majorleaguefishing.com/bass-pro-tour/2023-bass-pro-tour-requalification-on-the-line-as-season-enters-final-two-stages/ Final day guys are usually veteran guys. 🍻everyone -Trey

Just got back from 5 days on the water up there officiating. That lake is incredible, by far my favorite of the 3 north lakes I’ve been to. If you don’t have 20 pounds at the local tourney I’m guessing you don’t even show up to weight in. The amount of 3-5 pounders is truly incredible. Didn’t see a single fish that looked in rough shape. Day 1- Camera Transfer Boat Day 2- Alton Jones Day 3- Luke Clausen Day 4- Mark Davis 😃 Day 5- Bobby Lane Over 11 million in career earnings for my draws this week… Mark Davis was a real treat! Him and his wife were awesome. I mean really, where else in the county can you catch a 7lb largemouth and a 7lb smallmouth at any moment?

😳 Wow… that means a lot coming from you Sir! I will do another after St. Clair next month.

I hadn’t watched it in forever and so I went back before day 2 and watched again. Great finish! My favorite thing that happened with Tak, on day 2 there is like 15 minutes left in the third period, I notice on scoretracker he is in 6th place, 1 ounce behind Shin Fukae. (He had asked me how Shin was doing throughout the day) So I say, Tak gonna hit you with a little update blah, blah, Shin Fukae is in 5th place 1 ounce ahead of you. He gets all serious about his casts, boat placement, and just starts catching out of nowhere. He caught 4 for 10 lbs in the last 15 minutes all while saying, “Dis for Shin” “Dis for Shin”… his drive to beat his friend and be able to talk smack took over I think. It was really fun 10-15 minutes.

Lol sorry Bill and everyone, been busy since returning to work last week. Stage 6 was my 2nd event with BPT. We were back into somewhat COVID protocols, meaning we were going to be with the same guys all week for groups A and B. Group A I had Takahiro and group B was Jeff Sprague. I’ll start with Sprague, he had a mixed bag going day 1. Started off the morning fishing docks, mainly skipping a wacky rig into shade. He caught five, two plus pound largemouth in the first hour of the morning then it shut off. We left the dock deal after 2 hours of no bites and moved out to drop shot. From 12:30 to 4:30 had 11 offshore bites that were scoreable, all but two were small jaws. Quality of fish jumped up when we moved out. 7 of the 11 were over 3 lbs, biggest was 4-5 brownie and he lost a 5+ smallie (I swear it jumped 3 ft out of the water). Day one, 3rd place, 44-01… His day two, we ran straight to the offshore spot we sat first day and scraped up another 33-08 in the same manor with the drop shot to finish the round in 6th. Mostly smallie but did have a 4-13 largemouth (pictured). Jeff was a super nice guy, was willing to share nuggets of info and we had a good couple days on the water. I wasn’t with him knockout round but it looks like his area shut down since he only had 3 scoreable fish all day and finished 36th. He was fishing one bay, we didn’t move more than a mile or 2 in two days of fishing when I was with him. Guessing he eventually went looking in the knockout round, not ideal. Tak- now this was fun! Each morning we had a one hour ride around period before lines in. Takahiro and I didn’t go very far the first morning so we had about 40 minutes to talk openly with no other competitors around. He said, he fished 25 hours of practice and found his marina bite in the last 30 minutes of the 2nd day of practice. He wasn’t sure if it was going to work out but didn’t have anything else, sooo… it ended up working for 2 days to get him to the knockout round. Caught 40 lbs each of the first 2 days. 90% of his fish came on a swim jig skipped under docks. Jighead was poured for him by Tom Monsoor, he ties the skirts, and menace was his trailer of choice on the jig. We were in a marina or fishing small private docks all three days. He wanted no part of going out and fishing deep. He kept saying, as long as the grass is clean and not snotted up (see picture of clean grass) the fish would be in the shade. Biggest bass I weighted for Tak actually tied for BB of the tourney at 5-14 (tied with Shaw). His marina bite wasn’t enough in the knockout round, he finished 15th on the day 15lbs back from the cut and 17th overall for the tournament... Getting to spend three days on the water with a Classic champion was a real treat! Tak you are the man! My thoughts on Champlain, what an unreal lake, just the total opposite of TRL! More times I felt like I was on the ocean and not a lake. The wind, I see why there is a million sail boats on the lake. We were lucky and only had 1 day that I would say it was “bad” but was still nothing for that body of water… I hope to go back one day and apply some knowledge! Beautiful area of the country! Really enjoying getting to work with the MLF crew and help make this format happen. The men and women that work these events put in a lot of hard work and crazy long hours (weather delay day I was on boat from 7:15 am to 8pm). Last thing I’ll say is Wheeler. Love him or hate him, that guy ain’t going nowhere. His ability to find schools of fish and then get those fish to bite, is crazy. If you look at scoretracker insider on MLF website, the last 2 stages, his wins have almost solely been because of his quality of fish. He’s catching 3’s and 4’s while the other guys are catching 2’s and 3’s… Oh yeah, he just caught two in the time it took you to catch one, good luck. He will be a beast in the sport until I’m no longer doing it. Shoot out to MLF photographer Josh Gassmann for sending me some good pictures!

Mr. Bill, once this stage is over I’ll give everyone a rundown of my days on the water. It’s been VERY interesting to see how guys are catching them… I weighed the big bass of the day today!

I’m up here at the event in NY. Nothing but rumor really, but sounds like iCast was a touch of a hotbed from what I’m hearing. Got to roll with Classic Champion Takahiro today. Super nice guy and had a pretty good day on the water.

This was actually the BPT event he fished after finishing good in a pro circuit event earlier in the year. I was with him on knockout round when 38 guys cut to 8 before final day. He finished 25 overall for stage 3. I totally agree though Champ. He wouldn’t stop staring at the screens offshore, all while I gave him updates about guys catching fish that were up on the grass lines within eyesight of us… guess you have to give him credit for sticking with his game plan. 😂🤷‍♂️

I drew Kyle Hall for a day on Harris Chain BPT stage 3. He had one of the more over the top setups I’ve seen. 2-12’s at the console and 2-12’s, 16inch, 2 livescope transducers, and a turret up front. I will say, kid knew how to utilize his equipment.

https://www.finra.org/investors/have-problem/file-complaint As a Investment Advisor Representative, usually these types of funds are pulled over to new accounts through custodian such as Schwab. I’ve never had an issue with the process. If someone sells securities you are registered with FINRA… I would tell them you are going straight to FINRA and discussing options. I’d think they would straighten up real quick if they like their licenses.

I heard Jacob say he is using 12lb leader on his spinning setups. The difference in time spent fighting the fish is crazy. He just pulls a 4lber right up on tight drag and has it in the boat in 20-30 seconds. Big advantage when others are fighting fish for 2-3 minutes... Been a super fun stage to watch. Will have to put SLR on my bucket list for sure!

I just got done with my first event with the BPT as a boat official. I would agree with what you say Bill about leaving names out of the deal. I know the anglers, for the most part, want to adapt and make changes to perfect the game and I’m sure you will continue to see this. For me, you can’t beat the format compared to 5 fish. People complain because they don’t like change, I think. Bass tournaments are just that, a tournament. BPT is more of a game. There’s rules you have to pay by aka penalties, time constraints for competitors, and biggest of all scoretracker. You know where you stand against your competition and how much time remains on the clock until the end of the “game” I can say that before 5 days out with BPT I didn’t know squat about fishing grass. I learned about types of grass, inside and outside lines, flipping, punching, and etc etc. It felt like I was on a different planet than the rock. Had- Jonathon VanDam Fletcher (caught an 8lb 6 oz punching mats) Shaw! John Murray (elimination day went from 37th and finished 19th to make knockout round) Kyle Hall

Fished my first BFL as a co-angler both days this past weekend. Had a good time and learned a lot of about what you need to do to catch bass out of the back of the boat. Didn’t have much water from my guy on the first day but had a better draw day 2 and at least caught some fish. Nice one that weighted 3.3 was my only keeper and came on a Redfin about 5th cast. Had 4 or 5 that were oh so close on day 2 that could have gotten me a check but they were all just short... I look forward to competing in a few more and seeing how I fair. One thing that seems wild to me is some of the people fishing these BFL’s. My day 1 boater has fished 23 events since 2015, and weighted 19 fish. This weekend he weighted 1 bass... Day 2 guy has 7 events over the last 2 years and weighted 7 bass total. Neither have ever had a 5 fish limit.... I think I’d go back to fun fishing... and I will if I can’t hang.

https://youtu.be/ZpmbqwHIf2M Castledine sums it up pretty well here. Couldn’t agree more.

Anyone want to throw out their thoughts on 106sv vs 126sv for using livescope up front. Can I get by with 10 or is it worth it to buck up the extra cash for 12 if only using 1 unit at the troller. Thanks

Only 3 five pound fish after 2 days. Kind of surprising to me.

These are from last Friday evening. Lake is up at least 3 ft since then I think. First pic from the truck is where you can take a right to get into the upper lot. Most likely blocked by now I’d guess... they are always on the single swimbait for me. Had a few topwater fish as well. Good luck.

Drove by today and the lights where on with the open Sogn on. Things changed here in SGF yesterday with what businesses can be open and do curbside. I’d call and check in with them.

Springfield Lake dam tonight.

Something like this.

Yep. Definitely saw you. Nice new rig!

I’m sure we crossed paths. I went out of Baxter at 6:45 and made it up to the shell knob bridge. Got off the water at 3:30. Had probably 15 with 6 that measured. Finesse jig, single swim bait, and drop shot. Lost my best fish of the day probably a 4lber. 👎 On to the next one.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/2019/09/04/40-pound-taneycomo-brown-trout-just-shy-new-zealand-world-record/2208277001/ nice work Mr. Babler