OK, fishheads, here’s the way the 2019 GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’s Sporting Goods unfolded. It’s going to take me three or four blogs to tell it all in detail but it’s so important that I think it’s worth me writing that much. And the Classic part of things is something that we all should take note of if we love the sport of bass fishing. It was a wonderful tournament that was put together with everything a top-shelf professional level should have and need. So, here we go. . . They had massive amounts of rain in the […]
Category: Fishing Lures
Discussion about fishing lures used to catch bass.
Fishing Blade Baits Shallow
When most of us think about blade baits we think about deep water, and cold water. Recently, however, I fished one shallow in the Upper Chesapeake Bay, and with great success. I do have to admit, though, that the water was cold. We fished with a Molix Trago Vib Blade Bait for several different reasons. For one, it’s well balanced. It’ll hang in a horizontal attitude no matter how it’s fished. Another thing is that you can change its vibration. There are three holes on top. If you attach your line to the front hole you’ll get a light and […]
Ice Fishing Lures for Warm Water Bass
Just When You Think You Know It All…
Just when you think you know it all something comes along that you’ve never heard about, not even thought about. That’s what happened to me this winter on the Upper Mississippi River when I was fishing Pool 2. I was introduced to the tumble rig. We were fishing near a power plant with a warm water discharge. Typically that’s where you find a lot of fish in a small area, and that’s exactly what we found. But, even though we were catching fish, the bite wasn’t anything close to what we expected. That’s when the fellow I was fishing with […]
My Second Favorite Winter Bass Bait
Last time we talked about jerkbaits, my favorite bait in the winter. This time I want to talk about my second favorite, the Rapala Rippin Rap Lipless Crankbait. But you should know this: Just because it’s my second favorite doesn’t mean I don’t use it all the time. In fact, when the water’s cold I never leave the dock without one tied on and ready to go. I fish this little jewel two ways. The first is with a traditional yo-yo type retrieve. I just cast it out, let it fall to the bottom and then make it lift and […]
Winter Bassin’ with Hard Jerkbaits
Becky and I got back from vacation last Saturday and I decided to fish a Winter League tournament up here on Sunday. The air temperature was really cold and the water was in the low 40s. The bite was tough. Nevertheless, we won with four bites that put four bass in the livewell. They weighed 6.86 pounds. Here’s how we did it… We used what’s probably my favorite winter bass lure — a hard jerkbait. But, we didn’t fish with just any jerkbait. We spent a lot of time matching size and figuring out how we wanted the bait to […]
London Here I Come
Ok, so we’re in London, England, this time. This was the first time I’ve ever been there and I have to say that it’s awesome, really cool for a guy from Philadelphia. I’m going to go back in the near future and take Becky with me. There’s no doubt that she’ll like it as much as I do. Let’s talk fishing: Our targets are English Pike, Barbel and European Yellow Perch. You saw most of it on TV last night but I’m guessing you’d like to hear a little more about exactly what we did and how we did it. […]
New Orleans: It’s Special
This trip was really special. As you probably already know, I won the 2003 Bassmaster Classic on the Louisiana Delta. I won’t go so far as to say that it totally made my career but I will say that it’s a huge part of it. If you want to be considered one of the best, you need a Classic title. I will be forever grateful to New Orleans and the surroundingarea for mine. So anyway, when we arrived in New Orleans we had three species on our five day bucket list: Alligator Gar, Sea Trout and Bull Reds. Alligator Gar These […]
Rigging a Drop Shot
I’ve been catching bass on a drop shot rig for years, and until a couple of years ago I always rigged it the same way. I tied a fluorocarbon leader to a braid main line and tied the hook somewhere down the leader. Then, I nose hooked my bait, or maybe hooded it in the middle, and went fishing. It worked. I caught my share but I was dissatisfied with my hooking percentage. I just felt like I could do better. And, at the same time, I was having trouble with line twist. Even my braid started giving me trouble […]
Smallmouth and Scent
All bass use a wide variety of their senses to find their prey, but smallmouth primarily use two — sight and smell. We’re going to save the sight part for another day. Right now I want to talk about scent. I’ll start by telling you that I never fish with a plastic bait that isn’t scented or to which I haven’t added scent. That’s an absolute rule of mine. Never means never, not ever. It wouldn’t make sense. I want the smallies to smell something attractive and I never want them to smell me or anything I might have on […]