Mottfia

Lake Eufaula, Al. It fishes different in four separate regions. Plus the competition is strong and tournaments are numerous Mottfia

HAHA now thats a great commercial in the making. Mottfia

KVD did great on the River. I wasn't blown away by the weights of the rest of the field. I figured that two other guys would be around 25lbs cause of the number of 2.5lb spots we have here. That being said I loved the event and noticed some things. 1) KVD is still the man on top. nothing changing there 2) Ike is a class act and is great for the sport ( his first stop on day two was a ledge right in front of the blast off crowd...and he caught his whole limit there. The crowd loves it) 3) The elite series guys love to be close to each other. Of the twelve competitors, I know of four that were within sight of each other even disputing about holes. In the 50 or so miles of river available with 100s of shoreline miles to fish, I thought it would be a tournament where the gusy would be spaced out. 4) ESPN puts on a great show. I'm a fishing fan anyways so I loved the weighin 100% but ESPN also got the Zac Brown Band there so that others can enjoy the event and learn more about fishing that wouldn't have came without them. Mottfia

I like that idea that MattLures gave us. I may have to give that a try on some of the cruisers on a public lake near my home. When we have schoolers, I go aggressive. whether the bass around them is interested, feeding or whatever I believe a bass won't pass up an easy meal if it believes it to be real and you get it in his strike zone. I'd use a fluke in the a color to match what they are eating up fished with fast twitchs. I like this for clearer water. I like spinnerbaits for stained water. Make it fast and crazy Mottfia

Great pics guys. The sunsets remind me of camping with my family back when i was younger Mottfia

horizontal shad type baits - jerkbaits, traps, swimming jigs, and oh yea spinnerbaits Mottfia

I've used them for fishing clear water. depending on the cover you can fish them a number of different ways. When on rock lakes I will shakey head them with hard hops. They have a nice craw fish look to them. I have also flipped them into grass with success. I've also experimented with them weightless. They hop on top like a frog when retrieved in a steady twitching motion. They're a great bait tho Mottfia

That color is an old favorite for clear ponds back when I first started fish some 15 years ago. They are great for clear to slightly stained but begin to lose effectiveness as it gets darker. If the water is black swamp what, look out. Its killer. but I haven't had as much luck in brown muddy water as I have with darker colors. Man I have to go buy a pack of those worms now Mottfia

O rings for me. I have no trouble with them or retieing. I haven't experimented with trying straight to the lure but I have read that it takes away from the action of the bait. You guys will have to tell me yall's take on that Mottfia

The only reason I would think to make long cast is when you are covering a large area such as a point or flat with a moving bait. If I'm using anything that requires any amount of hook set, I use a shorter cast. If you do make long cast and have trouble hooking fish you can use a stiffer rod such as for spinnerbaits. The speed of the lure and the extra pull tends to help stick em better. I think that most of the time distance is of little importance so long as you aren't too close. Accurancy ,soft landing, and flat out being near fish are way more important. Mottfia

WT*??? are you serious Paul? Gasoline had no affect on the catch rate? Mottfia

Haha thats the first time I've seen that video. Glenn I've got to say you're camera skills are coming along great. Make the next video about jigs! but back to spinnerbaits. What type of places are you fishing them at. If its a pond then I feel you're pain. I fish spinnerbaits everywhere and the only places that i have to get tricky is in ponds. Fish em early and on low light days for your best luck. I'll throw em all day on stained and muddy water. Not so much on clear cause I swim baits more there. Run that dude into cover and in the face of where you think the fish are. For some reason they can't stand a spinnerbait crashing into objects around them. And buzzbaits. throw them on low light days for best luck...and alittle secret that you should know. they catch big fish anything fish are shallow. good luck Mottfia

Hey Guys, Sorry I've been behind on updating about my club tournament. For the guys that didn't read my thread a week ago, I made the decision to chase suspended bass. it was something that I wasn't confident with but the guys on site gave me some great advice. So here's how it went. This was our first college qualifier of the year. Everyone had two days practice and we knew the fishing would be a bit funny. On blast off half our guys went for backwaters, the other half stayed out in the river. When we pulled up to our first stop things looked perfect, the current was pulling and shad were flipping on top. I played with a few lures trying to see it I could get an aggressive strike and find a depth. No takers. I tell my partner that we are going to fish pretty fast and take whatever the morning gives us cause most of our bites have been later. On the second stop, I see shad rolling near a fallen tree in a creek mouth. I grab my spinnerbait and high ball it over the limb. Bam a solid bass grabs it and pulls me in the tree. He makes a hard run and cuts me off. He would have been a nice bonus but I wasn't gonna let it slow me down. We then run a few creek mouths with laydowns in them but nothing else comes up. Shad were everywhere but I can only guess that I didn't find the right angle for a fish to attack it. We go through a blank spell until we pull up on a narrow section of the river with new laydowns and produced to catch two within minutes of each other. Still fishing the blade high. One was on an outside limb just like he was supposed to be. i got a call from one of my other guys saying that they had lost some good ones early in backwater. Since the river fishing was slow, we idled into the backwater until we saw shad. We started fishing the grass with swimming baits. Once again covering water. My Partner has a good one blow up on his lure but he is having some "technical" difficults with his braid :-? After a few back out to the river. This is where I fill like we made out day. We roll out to that creek and start fishing the mouth of it. I'm fishing a crankbait fast at about 10ft and bam a suspended spot jumps on it. Not a keeper but its a suspended fish. I'm overly excited. So we keep fan casting around and Bam 2 pounder jumps on. I get him to the boat and see that he has only the back hook in him. So being me I go to flip him in the boat and half way up he comes undone. Now this is where I knew it was our day. That fish landed 2 inches inside my boat. I got her in the livewell and we were game. We ended up finishing our limit out on another mouth doing the same thing. A few were out in the open and others were contacting bottom. To add to our luck while fishing another creek mouth I see shad moving back into the creek. So we idle to the back of the creek and sure enough catch a few more. We have a small team (6 boats). A number of guys lost fish early and couldn't find them late. We ended up winning the first qualifier cause we found those suspended bass, made good adjustments, and stayed on fish all day. So Thanks guys Mottfia

Hey man, Its understandable. We all need a breather from things so that we don't get burnt out on it. Give it time and you'll be right back there after it. Mottfia

Haha they have figured you out. thats classic. Mix it up buddy. Try fishing deeper, slower, faster, shallower. If something isn't working then its time to find something that does. keep at it and you'll figure them out instead of the opposite Mottfia

Haha yes Catt I've looked around. I've split the day looking at different stuff and continuing to see the river. Basically fishing ledges and backs of creeks throughout the day The size of the ledge fish is much bigger than the creek fish...its just slow. My thought is that if I buckle down and ledge fish all day I can pull out 5 fish but thats just a thought in my head and I'll have to see how the day treats me. But I do feel that its my best chance. Thanks for the advice guys. I'll post Monday when I get back to let yall know how it went. Mottfia

Hey Guys, I need some advice here. I have been pre fishing for a tournament the past two weekends on a river section that it loaded with ledges. We fished them hard without much success, a few nice fish but nothing consistent by any means. After studying what was going on around us, I believe the fish are suspended off the ledges. How would yall target these fish? Thanks, Mottfia

I told myself earlier this year that i would develop at least some type of technique for fishign deep water. And I've kind of sort of have gotten some good feedback. I can still catch fish on my blade and as always cranks have been great. I think the one big plus is that I can mentally picture ridges and breaks better now. Now I just have to develop some Catt like qualities and slow down even more. One step at a time tho Mottfia

and a delayed hookset. try to feel the fish before bowing up on him Mottfia

Haha nice disclaimer Paul. But all jokes a side I completely agree with the above post. I was going to type something up very similar but I was beaten to it. lol The good part is that he wrote it much better than I'm capable of. Mottfia

I've always had this thought that the light gets the photoplankon or whatever you call it goign and growing. Since the shad and minnows feed of this, they become active thus giving the big bass a chance to wait until the bait gets to them...or maybe the big un needs so much food that he has to take a lunch break from lying around all day. I'd like to get some insight on exactly how it breaks down. It would probably give everyone some extra confidence goign into this part of the day. Mottfia

HAHA minnow is not a fish. Now thats comedy. Sorry to laugh but thats the funniest thing I've heard in awhile. Its ok everyone has those moments. Umm... I would have to agree that they are some type of minnow. But they could also be very young bream. Its hard to say. But you know the color of the fish so you have everything in your favor. Mottfia

1) White and Char. Stanley Wedge spinnerbait (All purpose baby) 2) Alabama Craw Davis Paca Jig ( can be swam or flipped) 3) Alabama Craw Paca Craw Jr. ( Jig trailer or T-rigged) 4) Shad patterned DD22 (Summertime special) 5) Rattlin Rouge (I don't fish it much but it just fun to me) I could legitimately fish all seasons with these lures. Mottfia

There are a couple of trains of thought when it comes to the midday slow down. You can slow down, fish deeper, or go searching...or do all at once Personally I like to fish fast. So if I haven't already developed a plan for the afternoon, I will take what I've learned from the morning. When the fish are active you can find the pattern pretty easily. When they slow down it doesn't mean the pattern has to change. I believe that atleast a couple of fish will be active all day. It may be different fish but there are still a few. My goal is to continue to cover as much water as possible, effectively and find those few active fish. You may end of having to adjust your whole pattern but atleast you have a starting point. RW's plan is a pretty good one too. He might know a thing or two about fishing Mottfia

Beautiful baits, Matt. When i get out of college and get my income going I'm going in invest into your baits. Keep it up Mottfia