merc1997 Bo

nothing like a lot of action. hard to beat. bo

sweet!!! bo

looks like i am going to have to find a free day, and get in on some catching. bill you have to be having a blast as well as your clients. i have always said that if i were taking someone that knew nothing about fishing that i would always hope that there was a spoon bite going. bo

what is to say that fish that are one for a crank or two did not grab the blade?? bass that do have the hook in the mouth and are poorly hooked is just from bad hooking mechanics of what you are fishing with. to address misses on top water lures, the lure being on the surface and is creating bubbles around the lure can all be issues with bass hitting all around the lure. i know there are times that top water lures get good results, but they are like crankbaits in that they have trebles hanging on the bottom of the lure, and good hookups with a high landing ratio are just not going to be consistent with those type of lures because of really bad hooking mechanics. they do catch bass, but losing the wrong bass at the wrong time is very frustrating. i use topwaters, cranks, and jerk baits too, but have had some very disappointing results in tournaments at times because of a bass coming unbuttoned. guess that is why they still call it fishing. bo

most of the time when you are having problems with bass blowing up behind your buzzbzit, it is the design o the buzzbait that is causing the problem. if bass missed what they intended to eat that often, they would starve to death. either we make them miss, or they are not fully committed to taking our lure. if you have ever spent a lot of time watching bass feed, when they commit to eating something, they never miss. mike sowders and i used to watch the bass in their aquarium at night after closing hours, and it was very eye opening watching the bass feed. bo

i happen to know the owner of NuTech Lures. but, they are available from monster fishing tackle, land big fish, ideal baits, hilltop gas and grocery, and a few other places. tackle warehouse is not stocking them yet, but do have other SpinJigs in stock. they will also be up on NuTech Lures website shortly, or just call NuTech. bo

since the emphasis anymore is all about getting the bass back into the water unharmed, i do not see the sense in hauling bass that far, and especially this time of the year. this time of the year, a good amount of those bass will be caught from deep depths, and that fact alone makes them hard to keep alive. i do not agree with any of these tournaments hauling bass a long way from the lake to a weigh-in. then there is the issue of just where they actually release these bass. bo

james, that is my point. plus, it makes those same type of bassers that are meat hunters very happy. i have been happy to see the amount of smaller bass that have shown up this year. that in itself is very encouraging. with some big schools showing up munching on shad like bill and some others have gotten in on, it might be a great fall at least for numbers. bo

there are a few out there, but i just do not believe there are any numbers of them. there are a lot of great bassers on this lake, and when no one is bringing in sacks of big one consistently, it just leads me to believe they are not there. we did have a decent crop of bigger bass coming on a few years back, and i think many of them disappeared with the umbrella rig. guess we will see if the non-existent big ones begin to appear this fall in any numbers. anyway, thought there were some really good weights brought in at the mill creek finals. very good jog everyone that fished. bo

some nice weights 3lb. average to win, and 2 1/2 lb. avg. to get in the money. it is easy to see by what has been weighed all year at this event by some of the best on the rock that the rock is lacking in numbers of quality bass. 4 lb. average used to be the norm to be at the top, but now it seems that 3 lb. avg. is going to be up there. the weights brought in were as good as they have been all year. bo

my long time buddy mike sowders and i hooked to do a bit of fishing. caught our first limit of keeps before we ever put the boat on plane. most bites were close to 25ft. ended up with 10 keepers. had 2 lmg, 2 kentuckies, and 6 brownies. most were 16 to 17 inch. most were caught on a brown and blue 1/2 Blitz football jig with blue trailer, but also caught a few on a 3/4 Black Widow SpinJig. after the initial flurry of bites, it seemed to be a bite here and there. was definitely a gorgeous night, and we only saw one boat, and it was a big noisy one. could not hear yourself think while it was within a couple of miles. bo

great trip bill, and it goes to show you use all of your senses. that will be a trip those two will remember a long time! bo

that is the kind of day that keeps you coming back. great job! bo

yep, from the loudness of their voices and what not, i am pretty sure that budweiser might have been doing the driving. bo

bill you are so right about our fine guv. the water patrol are not on the water hardly because of our fine guv. my cousin mark james, who used to be the head of the department of transportation, certainly does not like what is going on. of course, it is out of his hands now. best we can do right now is to do like i did and call in boat numbers, and hopefully be able to dodge all of the idiots and not get ran over. maybe sometime there could be a lake built for all the crazies. bo

no, it will not. i have witnessed this same boat doing the same thing before, and so have a few other people. i just decided that this time, i was going to get the boat numbers and call them in to the patrol. that boat docks right in the sweet water vicinity. the other illegal thing they do is to be running with flood lights on all the time will someone is over the side surfing. i always worry about one of them falling and get ran over because there is not one way to see them in the water. bo

yep, my buddy tracy was on the phone telling me about the nice one he caught. he caught it using a 1/4 Nujig with an 1/8 sinker, and a beaver type bait. same combo i have been getting them on. it sure seems that you have go just go hunt them every night. can not catch them in the same area or same presentation twice in a row. and, a lot of times it is the "trolling motor" pattern. pull in catch one, you might as well leave because there is not another bite there. sure glad that there was some money raised to help out. bo

took the wife fishing again, and put in at Viola around dark. thought we would go up the kings and try it. just two shorties for all of our efforts. it did not help matters when an idiot with a wake boat, boat numbers MO 4483 FN, was skiing people up and down the lake for a couple of hours around 11 pm. i had finally had enough and chased them down to get their boat numbers and call them in. of course the water patrol is not going to do one thing even though there are two witnesses. i am pretty sure that boat is docked in one of two places as i have seen it out before doing the same thing. i feel sorry for the boat docks in the area they were running up and down because they were taking a brutal beating. they need to do that around their own dock. the dummies shut out their lights and tried to out run me when they figured out what i was doing with a light on their boat. those wake boats do not go very fast when full of water, about 20 tops. other than that, it was a pretty evening out. bo

unless you are using a hook that attaches the plastic to the hook via a hitchhiker or similar, you still have the plastic sliding down the hook shank, which will at times block the throat of the hook enough to cause hooking problems. lure profile does make a difference. especially when using a worm. a big bulky head does not blend in with the profile of the worm. over the years and trying to use a bigger head in place of a smaller one coupled with a slip sinker, i have found that it just does not work as well and just do not get as many bites. as i have stated many times, there are many ways to catch the same bass. but, i have always been one to put everything in my favor over my opponents since i used to fish tournaments all the time. another thing about t- rigging is that the sinker when falling will separate from the plastic slightly and at times the bass will just bite the sinker and never have the hook and plastic in their mouth. you will probably ask how i might know this, and it is because i have landed several that only had the sinker in their mouth. i was just lucky the bass never jumped or opened its mouth. that is also another point of just how tight a bass can clamp down on a bait. one other aspect of t-rigging versus using a NuJig is that a bare hook will not and can not hook as accurately or lock the hook in. tournament fishing always made me really break down every process and figure out what put the odds in my favor the best. worms were fished on jig heads a long time before the t- rig method came along, but you were also hung up a lot. fishing is a lot of fun because of all the many ways to catch them. and, believe me just listen to the talk after a tournament, and it is amazing at how many different ways that bass were caught. bo

no, it is to add weight to get the right fall rate. if you use a 3/8 head, it makes the profile look to big, and they will not bite it as well. so, it is better to go with a 3/16 or 1/4 NuJig and add whatever size sinker you need to get the right fall rate if the head you use is not heavy enough to begin with. this technique has won lot of tournaments for me over the years. i rarely ever use a t-rig for fishing any kind of soft plastics. the NuJig head is more snag proof, and most definitely hooks more accurately. plus, you are fishing with an exposed hook. how many bass are missed or not hooked well because of having to drive a hook through plastic?? bo

got on the water right at dark and fished until 1:45 am. flat whacked them. 10 keeps, with 4 being in the 3 lb. range and a 6 lber. caught most of them on beaver type baits rigged on a 1/4 NuJig with a 1/8 bullet weight on the line. fished around big m and caught them way out on flats around 20 ft. was really surprised that there was not anyone on the water. bass just are not where they usually are, and you flat just have to hunt and peck around until you place an area where the shad chasers have laid down. bo

quill one of the best prop type top waters that i am not for sure they even make anymore is a hoodler. i still have some and still use them when i have the right opportunity. there are lots of ways to work them, but mike sowders and i use to throw them out and crank them in. they will dive under the water and wave around and then surface making a splash andbuzz from the blade, and go under again. about the third time that baby comes to the surface,BAM!!!. try it sometime. bo

i sure think that there is a lot of quality lmg mouth up very shallow. it is one of those cover lots of water type patterns though. but, when that is the best method to gather up some better bites, it sure sounds good to me, and you sure can not argue with the success reported. most tournaments i fish, i just fish for 5 or 6 bites anyway. alex, you have to have some killer arms and wrists to stay with that top water all day. way to whack them. bo

now, i will definitely agree about why in the world that you go fish Lake Sterile (beaver) all the time unless you are chasing stripers. that is most of the time even harder to catch bass on that table rock. by the way, another fisherman told me about the same story as what was posted about catching the largemouth very shallow on the top waters. he also follwed that up by catching them in about the same areas after dark on a spinner bait. so, if you are snooping around for a derby, you might want to keep that super shallow pattern in mind to try at beaver. and often times at beaver the bass do seem to be in very shallow water at times, and i always figured that could be to stay away from the stripers. good luck in the tournament. bo

there is not a right or wrong here, but just different methods of catching the same bass. one other important factor is to fish with what you have confidence in.(quote) champ, this is how i ended my first explanation of how i viewed line size. you are the one that disagreed with what i had to say, and i merely gave specific examples as to why i, personally, did not really buy into having to use light line. i also gave examples of just why speed is so important, and why speed is a factor even when dragging your lure of the bottom. many bassers, such as yourself, have great success using the light line approach. i stated that fact very clearly. read first quoted sentence again. i did not give my answer or explanation to argue what you stated from your experience, i gave an answer to specific questions based on my experiences, and also gave specific side by side experiments we had done over the years to better explain why i do not necessarily go to light line. now whether you or anyone else wants to try this method for themselves is up to each individual. i did not ever say that your methods would not work, but i did give specific trials of how i arrived that light line does not make much difference for me. bo