paul.

had to show y'all this fish. it's one of my babies that i'm trying to grow. this one is just off the charts. 4lbs. 5oz. at only 17.5"! according to charts folks have shown me, a healthy 17.5" bass is "supposed to" weigh anywhere from 3 to 3.3 pounds or about 3lbs. 5oz. using that as a standard. this fish weighed a whopping pound more than what it was supposed to at a mere 17.5"! don't mean to brag and i hope this ain't taken that way. it's just that i'm pretty stoked about this. looks like my plan is working! the part that i'm happiest about is that these are regular old 2 pound kentucky lake "mutt bass" that i'm starting with. barely 15" keepers. no special strains or genetics. here's a couple of pics. the first is a view from the top. a little hard to see due to the reflection (sorry :-[) but still easy see this bass' overall shape. look how small the head is. look how thick the fish is. the next is a shot from the side. girth on this fish is just freakish. o.k., i'm done now. thanks for bearing with me. just hard not to get excited when you are able to produce fish like this. hope y'all are catchin' some too.

not twinkies, but you'd be shocked if i told you. :-X

thanks guys. to anwer the question, it was a 10" that i was using. the thumper worm is beyond versatile. when you think you've figured out everything this bait can do, guess what? you ain't even scratched the surface. if you will look beyond the obvious, i promise you can unlock some VERY cool stuff. deadly stuff. things that none of the bass in your favorite lake or pond have ever seen type of stuff. the "at first glance" applications of this bait are great. beyond that, it only gets better. to say that this bait is "overdesigned" is a massive understatement. dwight, i'm sure we can work out some kind of a deal. my lm for your sm. your smallies are absolutely gorgeous. as far as my babies go, i wish y'all could see some of these fish. absolute tanks. i honestly believe i like growing big bass as much as catching them. challenging, but quite rewarding. here's a pic of one of the "little" ones from a while back. you can tell from the size of my hand in comparison to the fish that there's no way this fish should have weighed any more than a pound. yet i'm sure it weighed 3 if it was an ounce. imagine a fish proportioned like this at 25". hope i get to find out one day. that's what i've been up to this past year or so. i'll keep my fingers crossed.

went out to check on some of my kids at my project pond today. wanted to do some weighing and measuring to see how some of my young fish were coming along. last time i saw 'em, it looked like they were really getting fat, so i thought they could use a little exercise. fished with a modified ragetail thumper worm and got a nice 6-9 right off the bat. so tickled that forgot to measure that one before letting it go. doh! after that, got a little chunker, 5-2 at only 19". then one that was even more impressive, a 5-0 at only 18.5". ended with a 6-14 at 22". not richmond mills bass, but they'll do. all of these bass weighed well above what they are "supposed to" for their given length. pretty pleased with that, especially considering the drought we've had. looks like my babies are coming along nicely. also incredibly pleased with those thumpers. absolutely amazing what can be done with this bait. highly versatile is a severe understatement.

that's great man. what a toad!

the basic formula seems to be pretty simple - good habitat + abundant food + selective harvest = quality bass. the other thing that i'd encourage you to do is starting right now, set some specific goals regarding whatever it is you hope to accomplish with the pond. and it's o.k. to dream big. it's just a lot easier to accomplish anything in life once you set specific goals in that direction. that's the "something" that will get you started. please don't get me wrong. i don't have any fancy letters behind my name and i ain't a fisheries biologist. but i'll certainly be happy to try to answer any specific questions you have or help ya however i can. just holler. in the meantime, if you follow that basic formula, it will take you a long, long way towards your goals.

hopefully, if you've been considering implementing a management program in your pond, or working with a landowner to help manage theirs, what you're about to see will be a source of encouragement. here's pics of the same fish after less than 11 months of aggressive management. the first pic was taken july 29, 2009. the second, today. no matter how many times i see it, i am always stunned by one particular phenomenon. i guess it's a visual illusion of sorts. as these fish begin to fill out their frame, it seems that they actually appear to get shorter. i always have to do a a double take to make sure they haven't shrunk. ;D and this is just one of the "medium-sized" ones. trust me y'all, if i can do this anyone can. if it was difficult or expensive, i sure couldn't do it. you'd be amazed at how simple it can be to have your own little bassin' paradise. and the rewards can be huge - literally. hopefully some of y'all will give it a try. good luck.

chris, you and gavin rock! y'all make a great team. way to smoke a biggun.

wonderful! she's blessed to have you for a dad. way to get her out there. tell her all of us said GREAT JOB!!!!

terrific bud! no doubt chris, you are the man!

good question man. we have everything on our side. "on paper" there's no way the bass should ever win. and still they do. these little green fish have made me look like a complete idiot way more than i like to admit. btw, y'all really should try the shoe string. done right, it looks very convincing in the water, right up there with a trick worm. and if you use your head just a little, there's plenty of rigging options (like inserting tiny split shot in a "hollow" shoe string to add weight for casting distance. you can color 'em up with a permanent marker for different colors/patterns. and being cloth, they soak up and hold scent way better than a plastic. so like i said, give it a try. i promise you will never look at bass fishing the same way after you've caught one on a shoestring. it kinda de-mystifies things. it instills that much-needed boost of confidence and makes you realize that this shouldn't be nearly as hard as we try to make it sometimes. i'm tellin' ya, give it a try. it's a real eye-opener. and i still wanna see more shoestring fish on this thread. you might just be pleasantly suprised. trust me, if it was difficult, i couldn't do it. ;D and there's nothing wrong with having favorite baits. we all do. i have some baits that are consistent favorites. and i have some whose stock tends to fluctuate dramatically. and i have some that i don't ever like and probably never will. that don't mean they aren't good baits, just not good for me. right now i'm pretty stoked about the shoe string. ;D good luck with the shoe laces.

3679 views. 90 responses. over a brand of baits and a simple matter of opinion. unbelievable. if the old saying that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is true, then strike king and ragetail are sitting pretty right now. i hope this thread helps Steve get a new truck. ;D

;D ;D ;D ain't that the truth! so will i. my ragetails might not be a silver bullet, but they'll beat the crap out of a shoe lace.

what's up y'all? been a while. i've seen some fine catches here on the forum and lot's of good info as usual. but one thing i have seen on here lately that bothers me just a little is folks blaming baits for their lack of success. one thing us fisherman are never short on when it comes to our lack of success is excuses. we fished at the wrong time, the weather was wrong, the moon was wrong, the wind was wrong, other anglers are fishing better water than we are. the list goes on and on. and then of course there's my favorite fishing excuse, "these baits i'm using don't work!" when we fail as anglers, oftentimes the baits bear the brunt of our anger and frustration. we are quick to say that a particular brand or type of bait completely and totally SUCKS and head to the store to buy "good lures" that will surely outfish the crappy ones we just caught the skunk with. let's face reality here folks. the baits we have today are head and shoulders above what our fathers had. advancements in lure technology and effectiveness have been astounding. and yet we are still quick to proclaim a bait as an epic failure when we don't catch a fish on it. hence my little experiment today. my buddy is always using the phrase that so and so could "catch a bass on a boot lace." well just for kicks, i decided to put that to the test today. i went fishing with a shoestring! and i caught a bass. you can see the "bait" and the bass in the photo below if you dare to believe there's a grain of truth in what i'm saying. and i'll go ahead and push my luck and tell y'all that i had 8 other bites that i took the "bait" away from intentionally because i just needed 1 picture. i just wanted to see how many i could actually get to hit that little piece of shoestring. now PLEASE don't misunderstand my intentions here. i'm not saying that i'm so good i can catch a bass on a shoestring and you can't. quite the contrary. you can. anybody can if they do things right! maybe we just need to stop blaming this, that, or the other for our lack of success as fisherman and honestly search for the real reason when we come up short. as long as we can convince ourselves that the only reason we are struggling is because of the baits we are using, we have no real reason or motivation to try to improve our game. after all, if it's the bait's fault, it surely cannot be my own. here's a pic. and i challenge each of you to go and prove this to yourselves. you might just be surprised. in fact, if you wanna, use this thread to post pics of your own bass caught on your own "non-lure" lures. hopefully that will convince some folks who are so hung up finding the "right lure" that there just might be a little more to it than that. now let the debate began over who makes the best brand of shoelaces and which colors are most effective on bass. ;D

i like 'em. and i like the guy behind 'em. both the man and the baits are cool in my opinion. i've caught a bunch of fish on ragetails and some good ones too. and i've never seen a guy that goes to the lengths that Steve does to try to make sure folks succeed with his baits. but i don't reckon there's a fishing product out there that everyone unanimously loves. and i don't reckon there's one that everyone unanimously hates either. even the helicopter lure and the pocket fisherman have their fans i guess. ;D ;D ;D

nope. 1-3 ft. timing of the road trip is excellent. right now, you can catch fish shallow if you wanna or you can catch 'em deep if you wanna. if you have one particular thing you really like to do, you can catch fish doing it. i suspect it won't be that much different further south on the river either.

i'm sure gonna try bro. i'll pm ya.

went yesterday with my good buddy chris (cj on here) to the tn river in my new boat. wanna thank chris for the great fun and fellowship. it's always a pleasure bud. make no mistake y'all, chris is the real deal with a fishin' rod in his hand. i continue to learn from him about the "big water" which at this point is still pretty much a new ballgame to me. our best bite came on jigs and plastics. even though we had no giants, they were plenty cooperative and we did manage some good ones. below is a nice little chunk on a jig and rage craw. these rage craws (in all their sizes) have become a "must have" for me and i can't tell ya how many times they've proven their worth. then today, i had a couple of hours to get out and fish a pond close to the house. i honestly had no big plans in mind when i went today. just wanted to catch a few on the light spinning rod and trick worm and tussle with a few of the big bluegill that live in this pond. caught quite a few fish on the little trick worm and set up shop to bluegill fish. after a few minutes, i noticed a commotion down the bank about 20 yards. went over to investigate and saw this BIG bass. unfortunately visibility was kinda limited with the cloudy sky and stained water. even more unfortunate was the fact that all i had to my name was a couple of light spinning rods, some little hooks, one trick worm left, and some bluegill bait. well i did the only thing i knew to do, baited up for a small gill, caught one, and put it on the biggest hook i had - a 1/0 circle. cast to the area i saw the fish and it didn't take long. it was on like a light switch with the light line and a big ol' angry bass. wondered if i'd bitten off more than i could chew as the sow burned line off the little spinning reel. but everything held and soon i was holding a 9-1 beauty pictured below. pretty cool for 6 lb. test. and real nice on a day when i wasn't expecting anything bigger than 2 pounds. you just never know what's gonna happen when you wet a line, do ya? 8-)

put in at new johnsonville.

absolutely gorgeous! jaw dropping smallies right there. amazing.

fantastic. excellent pix too. what a trip!

stay with it burley. you'll figure 'em out man. nice stripe there.

smoked 'em. great job man!

that's a good 'un for sure. nothin' like a new pb. congrats!

great job. big congrats.