Big-O

Good job Ron, looks like you're not letting the cold weather keep you indoors. They cold might make them slow to strike but the fight is still strong..... Big O www.ragetail.com

Terrific Family, Great Dad, Awesome future possibilities for you and yours. We at BR are proud to have folks like you involved. Big O www.ragetail.com

Agree, find the food and find the fish.....they are hungry right now and feeding up for fat stores. Big O www.ragetail.com

Rooster, I agree with most all of the above info on colors being Green Pumpkin, Browns and black are the basic colors necessary to be successful. And yes I have found times when white was the key but not as often as the others for sure. I will use my trailers to add the color variety to my jigs. Gr Pu blue, Gr Pu chartreuse, Watermelon red, black neon (red flake). But if I had to choose one color swing with it would be Green Pumpkin jig and trailer typical to avatar. Hard to go wrong with greens and browns regardless of the water clarity and daylight conditions. Good luck with your jig'n feats, you'll be glad you made the jump. Big O www.ragetail.com

Most all successful spooners will use a silver combo color scheme. There are more and more varieties coming on the market now and I am partial to three color mixes and all have a silver flash to them. Sexy Shad, brim green stripe and Rainbow trout. There is also white in each of these colors. As mentioned there are a variety of distributors with similar colors so it should be easy for you to locate them. Big O www.ragetail.com

Here in TX it is starting to cool off as well but the fishing is still good. Hope you find them with the jig... Big O www.ragetail.com

I always prefer a trailer that provides a flapping or fluttering action with even the slowest or minimal jig movement regardless of type of jig presentation, depth or type of structure fished. I also think it is important to vary the length and or bulk of the trailer depending on conditions. These variations will increase or decrease rate of fall for each style and weight of jig used. I use chunks for smaller jigs, pinched craws for longer or slightly bulkier presentations and pinched Lobsters for the large style jigs. (All Rage Tail) Big O www.ragetail.com

I had a terrific year as well, and most of my fishing was here in Texas on many of my favorite lakes. The fish seemed healthy and aggressive all year long which says alot for the management practices on these particular lakes. Since I only threw jigs and/or soft plastics all year, it has been very enjoyable to say the least. Big O www.ragetail.com

Niiiice!!! And she thought she was hid and you would give up on her....hehehe WTG Big O www.ragetail.com

Wow what a beautiful fish. Perfect shape and appearance of good genetics and nutrition. Congratulations tyrius....nuthin' like a "Big Jig Pig" Big O www.ragetail.com

I have also used floating twitch frogs almost year around with good results but on colder days , I wait till the sun is high and surface temp is on the rise. Big O www.ragetail.com

I do both Rooster and have ever since I can remember. I trim the weed guard 1/8" longer than the hook point and the skirt just longer than the hook bend. This works for me Big O www.ragetail.com

WTG Matt, great looking boy you have there....and the fish looked pretty nice too.... Big O www.ragetail.com

Great looking fish CFFF, and the water your fishing looks great too. Living so close to the lake....terrific. Big O www.ragetail.com

Wtg Rondef, those are nice looking fish and glad you had a chance to get after'em.... Big O www.ragetail.com

Nothing like a 10 lber to get your blood pumping...congratulations Big O www.ragetail.com

Great colors and terrific photo....congratulations Big O www.ragetail.com

Wtg LongMike, DD topwater fish is as good as it gets... Big O www.ragetail.com

Hunt4hawgs, below is a link to the instructional page from my website. http://www.ragetail.com/ragetailshad.html Ck out both the illustrations and the video instruction and you will have a good handle on things.... Spot removers will work just fine with your craws and trick worms Good fishin Big O www.ragetail.com

Daytime and clear water conditions, you are definitely correct to go to floro or mono instead of braid for finicky biters. I also think when you find the fish you will get bit on a regular basis with Soft plastics... Big O www.ragetail.com

Rhino, I'm still on the mend and doing fine thankyou, will be back rockin' on the waves soon. Sam, 30 yrs ago I don't think I ever listened to the Radio for a forecast and not even sure my radio worked...I had an 8 track tape player for the tunes though.. ;D Hawk, When we're lucky enough to be where the fish are just prior to the storm they're usually excited but I wouldn't go thru that again. Firefightn15, exorcism was exactly what I was thinking about when I had to turn my back and try to disconnect the leads. Mattm, No lightening or thunder preceded the storm but looking back on things, the strength of the wind was definitely on a steady increase for several hours prior to the ordeal. We were in a protected area and too engrossed in the bite to even notice what was coming. Today, I call it "Young and Careless". Mother Nature is a wonderful teacher if we lack understanding but she has no patience with ignorance.... I'm not quite as brave or inconsiderate any more. Big O

Great job FishinDaddy, you two will remember these wonderful outings forever. Terrific Photos Big O www.ragetail.com

Used many different Digi scales and so far, they're all better than nothing. Favorite thus far is Rapala. Big O www.ragetail.com

Was in the Hospital for a while recently and since I couldn't fish, I decided to write about one of my many fishing adventures that was very memorable.... Hope you enjoy the read. Best laid plans Back in the late 70's, my best friend Jerry and I would take long weekends and drive from Texas to North Central Florida for some of our favorite bass fishing adventures. On one particular outing, we were fishing a 500 acre lake near Tallahassee. My boat of choice was an 8 ft Bass Buster (small pontoon rig) with a 60 lb. thrust 24 volt hand control trolling motor. These two pieces of equipment were my most trusty servants and had taken care of Jerry and I on many previous adventures so we knew them well. In those days we were impulsive, just grabbing up gear and heading out without regards to anything including weather conditions etc., JUST FISH. When we arrived at the lake for this excursion, conditions couldn't have been better, literally no wind and we could cross the widest and longest part of the lake with ease to get to our favorite area. Oh yeah, this plan is coming together. Our preference was night fishing and by last evening's light, we were sitting in perfect position to start the smackdown and "WOW", what a smackdown it was. The big 'uns were feeding heavy on our 10 inch worms and a 7 inch TX-rigged Uncle Josh pork rind eel rigged on a 4/0 wire-clip weedless hook. By midnight, we had boated and released as many as 30 fish between 5 and 12 lbs. "And it was on!" A real night to remember was in the making. About 12:30 a.m., it seemed the wind started blowing a little, but hardly noticeable to us because our plan was too good and we were on the sheltered end of the lake where there was a huge stand of pine trees along the bank and an entire wall of extra large cypress trees between us and the shoreline. We're gonna hammer these big fish until daylight. No sooner had we toasted Coca-Cola's, being full of confidence for our obvious good fortune then suddenly CRACK - a huge pine on the shoreline snapped in half and came crashing down thru the cypress trees within 30 ft. of our small 2-man craft. Limbs and branches from the many trees in its path were broken and falling all around us. "Wow", Jerry said, "the wind must be getting up a little". This my friends was an understatement, we were so keyed up from wailing on these huge fish, we failed to actually take note of what was really happening around us. As we glanced back across the lake, we noticed that there was a war taking place out there. In the moonlight, it looked as if portions of the lake were exploding from beneath the surface up into the air and almost hid the appearance of waves or swells. Very different from anything I had ever seen. Time to change our plan..... "Ahoy Mate, hoist the anchor", wisely or unwisely I had decided to make a run for it, to try to get back to the truck by following as close to the shoreline as possible just in case we get into bigger trouble. Within moments the trolling motor is on high and we're running with a slight cross wind at our back, staying between the swells and I swear you could ski behind us we were moving so fast. Then CRASH, the entire boat lifted and bucked over a submerged stump and jumped several feet to the right while the trolling motor ripped from the bow. The tremendous cross wind immediately took control of the boat, blowing us helplessly toward the warring center of the lake. My instant thought was "Ohhh ^$%& this is gonna be a ride.... As if things couldn't get worse, within seconds my trusty friend "the trolling motor" came blasting out of the water and started flailing around wildly, buzzing at us from all directions. "IT WAS STILL ON and IN HIGH GEAR" securely attached to the batteries that were firmly fastened under my seat base. Our most dependable friend had become a demon. This gave us cause to take even more drastic measures. We must now focus on performing an exorcism in the midst of the battle. I immediately started struggling to detach the hard fastened leads while dodging the slasher. Since the boat was on a free course and the trolling motor was porpoising and flailing directly behind me, Jerry knew that he couldn't move toward me to help for fear of capsizing. "So I was the Chosen One". Thankfully I had a knife and a pair of pliers close at hand and was able to cut loose the battery cover straps quickly and immediately after removing the two positive leads, the thrasher died and had become like an anchor dragging behind which was quickly pulled back into the boat. Time for yet another plan. I grabbed our small paddle and tried my best to rudder and direct our course to avoid being swamped. We were now far from the sheltered shore line and entering the area where the water explosions were described earlier. Our description was absolutely correct, there were massive waves and swells all running together with huge amounts of water shooting straight up out of the lake and thrown in all directions. I remember it like it was moments ago. As I did my best to steer our helpless little craft with the tiny paddle Jerry yelled, "Hey Big O! the trolling motor bracket is okay, the clamps just came loose". Whoo-Hooo..All is forgiven and our dear and reliable friend was immediately remounted and leads reattached. She was back to life and giving her best to guide our little rig through the turbulence and toward the safety of the distant shoreline. Although far away, things are looking up. The further we went the rougher it got and the waves and swells were growing to enormous sizes. Jerry was never the type who could take extremely rough water conditions and sometimes got a little woozy when things really started rockin'. By this time, he had thrown up twice and was now in the dry heaves stages. Desperately he yelled with all seriousness, "Do you think we're gonna make it?" and I yelled back Hell yeah, and we're just now getting to the good part. All of my time was committed to steering and avoiding capsizing and Jerry was busy bailing water from the boat. We're getting beat up but we're not beaten. Neither of us remember exactly when the rain started but by the time we were able to make out the approaching shoreline it was raining sideways and blasting at our backs. But that's okay, it was driving us ever closer to safety. The span of time that it took for us to complete this wild trek across the lake was probably 30 minutes, but seemed like two hours and finally, we were there blowing through the shallow lilly field then surfing up on shore and slamming to an abrupt halt. We both sprawled out onto the sand laying flat on our backs while waving our arms and making muddy sand angels. "We made it". After loading everything in the back of the truck and driving 30 minutes through the wind and monsoon rain conditions, we found a hotel with the lights on. Over this time period we had discussed and relived each of the twist and turns that took place in order to basically survive the ordeal. Like drowning dogs we trudged our way in the front door of the hotel and the night clerk said Wow, we weren't expecting any business during the Hurricane! We inquired back, HURRICANE? And he said Yeah man, this is Hurricane Frederick, it's a Category 4. After a few hours of sleep we found a small restaurant that was also braving the storm and open for breakfast. After ordering our coffee we sat down and Jerry said the most memorable words from the entire trip, he peered over his cup of coffee and asked, Didn't we catch a 12 pounder last night? Now that's an adventure. Big O www.ragetail.com

Hey Paul, I didn't fish yesterday but I sent out a couple of our Field Staff went out to a local lake to ck out a couple of new designs for me and they too said that the fishing is ON!!! There was cloud cover and light rain off and on all day and the water temps in this particular Tx lake are running in the 70's. They were catching fish from 2 to 10 ft in the mid to back creek areas and told me they ran out of baits because I didn't give them enough of'em. They say that everytime just so they have an excuse to ask for more... ;D Big O www.ragetail.com