Pepe

Only fished a few hours in the morning and again in late afternoon. Came in during the rain(s) and stayed close. Marked lots of suspended fish but couldn't get them interested. Worked topwater with some success but didn't pull any off vertical wood. All came dead shallow near small cover. No keepers.

At least 2 guys are having some good practice days. After a late call yesterday, I worked all day and got a package out to one, got another call this afternoon and will get that package out as early as possible for fedex. Probably wouldn't be right, pre-tournament, to say what they are excited about. We are working on the website but, for now, all the money is going to St Jude Children's Hospital. They treat very sick kids and never ask the parents to pay. We will add several other charity choices as the site comes up. The email is working now. whiteriverlures@gmail.com We plan to fish after those guys, and the weekend, are gone.

Thanks for the report and good pictures. Swimming squirrels and bass with poison ivy rash? Must be related to Halloween?

I don't really have any comment on a different recent topic where folks catch fish in ways I don't practice, but those posts serve to demonstrate the bass CAN be caught on any given day. I appreciate that folks here share, and I usually feel better reading those reports because it tells me that if we were willing to be more versatile we would catch more. If the goal is to catch fish, you enjoy the method you are utilizing, the company in the boat with you & the surroundings, AND are having success - I would submit that you may be having the perfect day. Shame on us, you could say, because we don't care much for certain methods and are generally willing to forego a better catch rate to fish the way we like. We are also often willing to get off the lake if it gets too crowded, or just stop fishing, rest and enjoy the wildlife on a beautiful uncrowded day. Like a lot of folks, I have had a career full of intense focus on success. We now consider our time on the lake as "smelling the roses", but we still want to catch good fish. As I told the kids I coached in baseball - we are here to have fun, but let's not forget how much fun it is to win.

We came to the lake on Sunday evening and really enjoyed being out on the lake this week with mostly nice weather and few boats. We covered a lot of water but fishing was tough for us. What bass we found were very tight to cover. We didn't want to fish spoons or drop shots so never tried that, but worked topwater, Spinnerbaits, jigs , etc. Many fish were short striking our jigs and spinnerbaits and mostly ignored our topwater. When we were able to find active Shad in an area, and kept baits very close to cover we could entice a few to come out and play. We are bailing out in the morning to avoid the week end wake makers but will be back when the water cools.

Cindyjo, thank you for that valuable tutorial.

That was Pete & Jacque Fleischmann, stopped during their tournament to help. I'm proud to call them friends. Great guys.

Talked to a couple guys who each got a check but they were very discouraged. There were a lot of good sticks and very few limits. We just arrived and hope to fish this week, but are expectations are low.

Great information, Thanks

We had a great time on this trip. We really wanted the topwater to work so we threw Whopper-Ploppers until our arms were sore fishing between Pt. 23 & Big M. We found most of our fish in the shallow backs of coves. We did pretty well on Friday. One of the few times I actually caught a limit of keepers with quite a few shorts. Smaller WP worked better than the big one though it took a while before I changed. Spinnerbaits with paddletail trailers and moderately moving FB jigs also worked. Saturday was brutal. Not much luck and more boat traffic but weather was fine.

Lily & I got on the water at 8 am - fished till noon and then again from 2:30 to 5:30. it was a little chilly and overcast but not bad. We found fish in cedars and caught some on topwater and 3.6" PT swim bait on 3/8 oz head. About 1 in 4 of the topwater attackers actually got hooked but the Swimbait fish bite was solid. Lily worked a football jig with a "Lumpy craw" and did well by keeping it moving slowly. I can't remember the last time I caught a legal limit of nice fish but I did today. Biggest was 4.2 LM. Overall, the actiion was not furious but pretty steady. Lily caught 4 keepers but a lot more shorts.

Congratulations on the win, Adam. An amazing feat to fish all day, stay up all night while your son was born and then clinch the win on day 2.

Please post when you return, and let us know how you did.

Bo, glad to hear you are on the mend and hoping your bad luck has passed.

Sure looks like you are having fun. Thanks for the report.

I have the large and the small Snootie as well as the large & small Poison Tail jig molds. They are similar & they all pour very well. you will need to decide which hook type you like but there are several good choices. Either the Snootie or the Poison-Tail could be your favorite general purpose jig. Very versatile.

thanks for the feedback. interesting idea on the worm; will look into that.

I hope the baits work but please let me know if you see ways to improve. Next project is to focus on a good worm mold. Just have the 4.5" finesse/ds & a 12" one now. Need to get something in between. Your thoughts are welcome. We got the water & debris cleaned up at the house and have Larsen Plumbing lined up to fix/replace things. Left all the fans and dehumidifiers running and am hoping to avoid a mold problem. Our disaster delayed a personal delivery of a box of free baits to a re-seller and that resulted in me getting fired as a supplier. Tough day, but he was polite about it, and probably did us both a favor.

We had an ugly surprise at the house involving a ruptured water system that created an interior flood but I did get 18 boxes mailed out of Shell Knob finally. Most baits will have a bit of a smell since they have an additive included, and they may slowly sweat out that additive. My hope is that the additive is more effective than annoying. While most items sent are typical-use soft plastic baits, each box should also include a couple of 5 inch wake-bait/swim-baits that are line-through design. They have a drink straw inserted from the nose to the belly. I reccomend that you remove these from the envelope and store as straight as possible. To rig, run your line through the straw at the nose, remove the straw and attach your hook of choice for use as a wakebait. Size 2 treble seems to work with a split ring. One of the hook tines can be imbedded in the belly or the hook can be allowed to dangle free. By utilizing a tru-turn type hitch hiker http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Tru-Turn_HitchHikers/descpage-TTHCH.html screwed into the rear portion of the belly, a single hook tine can be suspended without tearing up the plastic. I understand that Ott Defoe did well this past weekend on a similar bait and that he uses the sleeve from a pop-rivet up line from the hook. I tried rigging one that way yesterday and it looks like a great way to go. To use as a Swimbait, add a tungsten bullet weight up line from the hook and insert the weight into the belly of the bait along the channel formed by the drink straw. We wont get a chance to fish this trip due to the water damage to the sub-floor and lower level, but hope to get into them after returning from visiting our son In Colorado next week. Best of luck to y'all.

Congratulations, Sir, on your leadership and sportsmanship.

We played rough in the alleys so there was always a bunch of us "runny-nosed welfare kids" needing stitches or plaster.

Thanks for the report. I wouldn't have thought the Ned would outperform DS this time of year. Good thinking and nice fish.

We are using a marine-biology protein extract in the plastic and calling it "plasma". Learned about it from a bright niece at FSU who is in bio-tech chemistry. it is perfectly tolerable but is not welcome in the house. But make no mistake - I wear the pants in the family (whatever pair she picks out for me)

Oh yeah, the shop stinks (even before I get there)