Mattlures

Very nice looking bait. That would be a world record green sunfish about to eat it!

gill swimbaits and Buzzbaits

I dont get it. what is decieving?

Ha I knew you would notice the gill. I am not sure if its a copper nose. I didnt think to look that closely. I am not sure of the right way to tell but the CN gills that I have seen have had a white edge to their tail along with the copper nose.

Thanks fellas. I figure I have to catch them now because I want to get some big salty bass this year.

What a purdy smallie. I wish I had those closer to me. I have never caught one. Good to see you back catching and posting!

Starting in early Feb My friend and I had hit lake Murray 3 times on Thursdays and DVL once on a Friday. We caught a bunch of fish but I could not catch a good one to save my life. We fished swimbaits and Jigs. Here is a decent fish Louie caught at Murray on my trout swimbait. Then I went to my favorite lake(Jennings) on Saterday the 20th to fish a new prototype bait. I caught 1 little one about a pound(I have no idea what the little guy was thinking) and I caught 1 good one. A nice healthy 9 lber. Finaly a decent fish! So being motivated to fish again I decided to sneak out last night the 22nd to lake Cantellya to do some night time swimbaiting. I was throwing my old school FT swimbait that has been discontinued for years. I ended up catching 5 fish on it, with the biggest one just under 5lbs and the others were all around 2lbs. Sorry for the pic quality, I used my cell phone to take the pics. Louie caught 1 and then broke off his bait on the next one. Then the bite died off so I broke out the ultra light and threw out a crawler. Look at the size of this Gill! Cool huh? There were a bunch of gills stacked up in this one spot so naturally I figured they might be attracting some bigger bass so I put on a slow sink hard gill and swam it threw the school of big gills. On my third cast I was rewarded. I broke out the real camera for this one. 10lbs ½ oz. My year started off realy slow but I am starting to find my groove. Hopefully I can stick some more.

Byron can fish. When he first started fishing the elites he was also doing alot of shows for ESPN. He spead himself to thin. Now that he can mostly worry about just fishing he is doing alot better. If you guys ever get a chance to meet him I recomend it. He will talk to you like an old friend.

Yes without me paying him or asking him to. I think just about all of the pros are cool but Byron is the easiest to just walk up to and start talking. I introduced my wife to him at Icast a few years ago and she was all excited because he was on that dumb bachelor show. One of these days I am going to take a trip out to Amistad and make him fish with me.

Byron is one of the nicest guys in the sport. He has been due for a long time. I am very happy for him!

Tuna are fun at first, Then its hurts. Then instead of leaning from the torture ya cast right back out again. I cant wait to go get some in a few months

Well that bottom pic was of Mike Long. Lets see he has caught about 60 over 15lbs and hundreds over 10. We never find any of his fish dead or hurt from him holding them like that. I also hold them like that and have never had a sigle problem. If we were killing all these fish from holding them like that we would find them. Actualy we do find them, when we catch them again. I have also managed a few private ponds years ago. I have never killed a single fish from holding it verticle. As long as you dont tourqe the jaw the fish will be totaly fine.

because tube baits are dumb seriously, nobody I know uses them and I know some good fisherman, much better then me. If you must try them at least they are cheap. Go ahead and wait untill you actualy get on a swimbait bite and throw the tube. If it works then add it to your arsenal. But dont waiste all day throwing the tube. Also on my 1-in 4 chance at a 10+, I only hit the lake a few times each year. I absolutley do not over fish the spot and I havent seen other guys doing the exact thing. I am sure if I tried it all the time my percentage would go way down.

gobig thanks for props! as for skipping ahead, There a re couple ways to llok at it. As RW stated it could be difficult to get the reults you want with only a little time on the water. But you can still learn. Another way to look at it is, It's easier to teach somebody something totaly new then it is to break somebody of old habbits and then reteach them. Basicaly the answer you are searching for is, Yes it can be done by you in your lakes. It most likely will not come easy or fast. it all depends on how much feedback you get while fishing and how you learn from it. Somethings I learned instntly and others took a while to beat into my head. There is so much info out there it is very difficult to know what is bad and what is good. Guys like to sound like they know what they are talking about so you still need to question everything you read or hear. There is alot of general knowledge that can be used in many situation but there is also very specific knowledge that may only be useful on one lake or even one spot. For instance. I have a consistant swimbait bite on one lake at one spot. Late spawn or post spawn, mid afternoon when the wind picks up and makes a good chop I can go to this spot and get a few bites about 50% of the time. These are big bites and at least half the time one is over ten lbs. So I have about 1 in 4 chances of getting a 10+ when these conditions happen. I also like my chances a little better when the weather is not so pretty.

A common misconception is that big bait guys get skunked alot. No..... beginner big bait guys get skunked alot. Experienced guys catch a lot of swimbait fish. The biggest difference is, that with time on the water you get a much better sence of when its going to happen and when its not. You cant make them eat but If you present the right swimbait the right way when they want it you will not catch 1 or 2 in a day. You will catch a bunch. If its one of those days that ist not happening then you will probably get skunked or if you keep throwing all day you might run into one. This is why so many guys say your fishing for 1 bite. Because they dont know the when where and what. I am not one of the expert guys who catches lots of swimbait fish when ever I go. But I do have a high percentage of catching them when I try for them. The reason is SOMETIMES I can recognize if its going to happen and I put my self into position to catch them and SOMETIMES I can recognize when its not going to happen and I try other more productive techniques. This comes from time on the water and getting to know specific lakes. Where I am at, almost no lake fishes the same as the next. They are all different. So basicaly what I am saying is that with more experiance you get better at guessing which lake, which bait, and how they want it. Unfortunatley this is learned by catching fish. I also have the luxery of calling my friends for good fish dope. This is HUGE. As for gear , get an Okuma hvy swimbait rod and a good reel like a calcutta or cardif or induron. To start you will only need 1 set up. You can expand later. I recomend starting with baits in the 5-8in range. They will get bit by fish of all sizes. The giant baits realy are 1 bite baits. Buy qualty baits that are known fish catchers. you will be much better off spending $100 on 4 good fish cacthing baits then spending $100 on 20 baits that you will give up on. Oh yeah go out and buy Bill Murphy's book. It is soo much better then the BBZ book. I dont think I even finished the bbz book. BUT the BBZ video is VERY good and I do recomend that. i guess I am just not much of a reader but I ate up Murphy's book.

congrats that a great day for any bass man! If ya got pics, post them up

Very Nice JR It does swim like a snake

Have you tried it without the bill? I am curious to see how it swims without it. It doesnt look like the bill is helping it. Good looking snake.

Good job Paul the recipe for growing big bass is not complicated. Keep the small fish, let the big ones go. Soo many people cry about bed fishing well thats the best time to keep them especialy in a small body of water. you will never catch all the males but if you keep some durring the spawn you are helping alot. First you imediatly remove fish that can never grow big. Second you keep the population from outgrowing the food source. lots of food, small populatoin of predators (mostly female bass)=trophy bass. pretty simple. of cource in northern states or lakes where they have a small population of bass they should all be released. But in most southern states bass can out grow their availible food and should be harvested. Dont know if your doing the same thing but what you are doing is obviously working. Good job!!!

the dukes used to be my favorite show as kid. I recently saw an old rerun and the two duke boys were skinny dipping together. That ruined it forever. I will now remember that show for that and it defenatly sucks. The A team WAS cool too but it also sucks. Kids just like different things. I cant stand the shows my 5 year old daughter likes

The hardgill is a little longer. It is used primarily as a cast and retreive bait. I also like to deadstick the floater. The ultimate gill I preferr to use on the bottom like a jig. Slowly working it over and across points making small hops or drags and pauses. I also use it on beds for big girls

what do you recomend? Invest? Sell? Buy? Refy? what does this news mean?

After reading this thread I have to wonder if guys are not using certain baits when they should, or use them for their strengths. I realy do like my rage shads. Now I'll be honest, I preferr a good buzzbait. I am confident in a buzzer and I am good with them. However, there are many times I would like to throw a buzzer but I cant because its too weedy. This is where I use the rage shad. I use it for its weedlessness. Some guys might opt for a frog or toad but I preferr the rage shad as a weedless buzzbait. Now I have to agree with the Dancin eel. I tried but I threw in the towel. I couldnt get bit on it. I have caught fish on the moto chug and it was exciting. Huge blow ups. I havent tried any other TV baits

I hope your not confusing Matt Newman with me. He was using a Huddleston which is a direct competitor of mine. By me saying I have seen the pics should add a little integrety to the story becuase he caught the fish on a competitors bait and I have absolutly nothing to gain. I remember the title of the article. it was "California dreamin" and it was in a bass west magazine. There were many pictures. if I remember right there were 3 boats with full live wells and there was atleat one pic with several guys holding up numerous big bass. I dont think they held up all 28 but there was a bunch of them. He also took some greif for keeping over his limit and holding so many big bass in the wells but as far as know all the bass were fine. They were all released healthy and none were found later. I am sure if anybody wanted to see the pics bad enough they could order a back issue of bass west.

ah the Matt Newman story. I have seen the pictures. I think it was in a Bass West article. Very impresive and I have no reason to doubt it. I have had a couple days where I found numerous big bass stacked up and we had epic days. Not nearly as many as Newman caught but enough to know that his day was possible. The pictures are out there.