bassman31783

Your best 3 from Last Week are better then most peoples best 3 of their lifetime. Ha. Awesome fish!!! And you didn't even post any of your beastly Smallies.

Will do. Thanks for the suggestion.

Got some tools for Christmas and have started to put them to work. Built a bench for our entry way. Simple bench to make. Not good enough to make anything elaborate but I'm sure having fun learning as I go along. Here are a few before and after pics. Before applying linseed oil After applying linseed oil. The wood was still soaking up the oil.

Dude!!!! Awesome fish bud.

Good Lord!!!! What a beast.

I have the same setup with the 7' rod. Love that combo. Congrats on the new PB. Awesome fish!!!

Chunk. Really beautiful fish. Congrats.

Fantastic fish.

Dude, Hayden, fantastic catches. You've caught more big fish in just the beginning of this year then most of us will catch all year. Keep it up my man.

Awesome fish and picture, but I'm more interested in these "several nice ones but not the ones you were tageting". I'm envisioning you and Matt catching 8 & 9 pounders left and right all the while saying "hmmm, these are nice but not the ones I'm looking for". HAHA.

Man.....I feel for ya. Theres not really anything that I can say other then THANK YOU. Thanks so much for your personal sacrifice so that I may enjoy my freedom. Sounds so selfish to say but I really am eternally grateful. Much love to ya and to everyone else who is serving. Prayers will be sent my friend.

An absolute beast. Big congrats. What a beautiful fish you got there.

In a pond that size, give me a jig head and a grub 3" or less. Fish it fast or let it fall to the bottom and hop it. I can't imagine that the natural forage in a pond that small would have any size to them so I would keep with the smaller lures. That's just my 2 cents though.

Haha. Nice one.

Loosing big fish is one of the biggest reasons that I keep coming back to fish time and time again. If I caught every big fish that I ever hooked then fishing wouldn't be a challenge and therefor wouldn't be near as fun or rewarding. Great story! Conjures up many memories of the one that got away. You'll get her next time....hopefully

Good grief. What a stringer.

Haha. Weird that's exactly what I thought when I looked at it as well and I mean exactly. I was reading down to make sure nobody had already posted that but low and behold. Funny.

This will be from my personal experience and is certainly not what I would suggest is fact. During the colder months I believe that there are more productive baits then a deep diving crank (for suspending bass) otherwise a jig all the way. Once again this is all just from my personal experience as well as comfort. I generally us a deeper diving suspending jerkbait or a lipless crank. The deeper diving jerkbait is my general bait of choice due to it's ability to suspend in the general strike zone for a much longer period of time. I generally use crankbaits during winter to try and get a reaction strike and in my opinion a lipless crank is better for such an application. For me if i'm fishing deeper water during winter it means that I'm using my graph to locate either a school of bass or baitfish and know what depth they are holding. At which point i'll count down the lipless crankbait to the depth that they are holding. I can either yo-yo it or slow roll it with a few jerks or the rod tip thrown in. Both presentations keep it in the strike zone fairly well. That's not to say that a standard deep diving crankbait wont work in the winter because I've had a few excellent outings crankbaiting in very cold weather. I'm just saying that I will use my other comfort methods first then if those don't produce I'll try a crankbait. It sounds so cliche but you really do have to pay close attention and let the fish tell you what they want.

Every year my friend Hans and I try to take a spring fishing trip to Lake Fork. 2yrs ago we had our trip planned for early March but when the time actually came for our fishing trip we didn't get a chance to get out on the water because of storms. A month later we got our chance to go back to Fork and fish it on a day. When we got on the water we went to our favorite spot, threw on a few hollow body swimbaits and proceeded to have our best day on Lake Fork. We had decided that on this particular day that we would try and get some video of the fish we catch and put together a little fishing trip video. Within 10min of launching the boat we were at our spot swimming our lures through patches of hydrilla when my lure just stopped dead in it's tracks. I reared back and set the hook and imeaditely knew it was a nicer fish. I shouted out to Hans to get the camera out of the bag and start taking some video. As he was getting his camera ready my bass cleared the water to show me just how big it was, at which point I shouted back at Hans "forget the camera and get the net!!" After a short but furious fight we landed my bass, put her on the scale, took a few pics, and sent her on her way. 9lbs 2oz. After that we proceeded to catch big bass after big bass. Just after 1hr we took our 5 largest and it was over 30lbs. Heck of a day topped off with me catching my PB.

That thing is just goofy looking. Hardly even looks like a bass. What a pig.

Agreed. The Giants are looking really tough. I fully expect the Packers to win but hey I fully expected the Saints to win as well. That's why I love football. Any given Sunday.

Great looking fish. Good job.

Really good looking bass. What did you catch him on?

That's exactly where I got the mold from. I will also be purchasing the Bigfoot mold at a later date. It just looks too good to not have.