Team9nine

Not sure about warp drives, but those trolling motors that are coming and that combine with FFS to lock onto a target bass and follow it around sound an awful lot like a tractor beam to me

Advertised from 1987-1990. It was a low end reel, usually selling for around $29.99 and often sold as a combo with a composite rod. It had a 4.7:1 gear ratio and featured Autocast, which was their one-hand casting thumbbar feature. There was also an MA10G size.

You did good. At least those fish still have a chance. Guessing either the puddle dries and they die, or a heron comes along and eats them otherwise. If the river refloods and fills the pool, it’s no different than what you did, just in reverse. Take the river to the fish, or the fish to the river. I’d have done the same - and have before.

We each had our own bass boats already. We also each received 1099s from the org at year end stating our halves on the value of the boat for tax purposes. So we agreed and put both our old boats up for sale at the same time early that next year. The first one to sell got the new boat, and bought out the other guys half based on the 1099. My partner sold first. Blood R. area, just north of Kenlake State Park.

In the late 1990s, my partner and I decided to fish a regional team trail (Team Bass of America) out of NW Indiana. It pulled in some big local sticks from that part of the state, as well as from the Chicago area, and some of the sticks from down in the southern part of the state. We fished a monthly series of tournaments throughout Indiana, which culminated with the final event in Sept. At that event, on the morning of the final day, they announced where their Classic would be held, as it had been kept a secret all year, and how the qualifying process worked. As it turned out, the Classic was going to be held on Kentucky Lake. When they announced it, I was really disappointed. I wasn't much for traveling to fish, especially out of state, and taking time off work because we'd need to be down there on the Thursday before to register and start practice on Friday. So I kind of went into that last tourney with a, "if we qualify, great, and if we don't, that's great, too" attitude - lol. As it turned out, we did well in that event, and even if we hadn't caught any fish, we still would have qualified for the Classic through either of the two eligible routes. I ended up taking that as a sign that it was meant to be, and weirdly got this notion that we were going to win that (Classic) tournament - like truly believed it. That was kind of a stupid notion, but I became more and more convinced during the off-limits period, which started the morning they announced the location, that we would win. I never told anyone, not even my partner. It was a weird confidence despite having only been there a time or two fishing a couple club tournaments on a completely different part of the lake. The Classic rolls around in early October. We drive down Thursday afternoon, get all settled in our room, and head out on Friday morning for the one official practice day. We check out a bunch of creek arms in the immediate area, fish a bunch of stuff, and catch a few bass, but nothing crazy. It's our only practice day, so we spent all our time fishing shallow and staying relatively close, trying to maximize our time on basically unfamiliar water. The first day starts Saturday morning, and we head out and begin on our best shallow areas. We spend a couple 2-3 hours running a variety of stuff, and only have two keepers to show for it, 2-3 pounds apiece. So about lunch, I'm idling around in this large creek arm, and it was the weirdest feeling. I'm kind of talking to myself, wondering where in the heck I'm going to find the fish we need to win, since I'm convinced this is what was supposed to happen. I still truly believed that would be the outcome. It was supposed to happen, despite only having 5 pounds in the well halfway through Day one. Being a structure fisherman, I had looked at a bunch of maps of the area, studying up for the tourney. We never checked deep in practice, but I distinctly remembered one area that stood out to me on the maps. Much like today's maps, different manufacturers/sources had different levels of detail, and a place might show up on one map, but not really on another. One area that had jumped out at me while studying during the off-limits period only showed on one of my maps, but I liked it the minute I saw it. It was a small horseshoe shaped bend in the main creek channel, and I hadn't forgot about it. I thought I should now go check it out since our shallow morning bite had died. There was still a couple hours left to fish before having to weigh-in, so I motored over to where the map showed it should be and started graphing. It didn't take to long to find the area, and I dropped the trolling motor and started moving along what I thought was the outside bend, fishing as we went. About a half hour in, we hit a keeper, then lose one, then catch another. The last one is about 3.5 pounds, and it ties up our Carolina rig in a big brushpile. We stick with it, hoping it will swim out or free itself, but that doesn't happen. My partner swears the fish is still on, but we're afraid to just break it off. We lightly tug and pull, and this actually goes on for close to 15 minutes. Somehow, the brushpile eventually gets loosened from its resting place, and I slowly start to pull it up inches at a time from about 12 feet of water. The line holds...I can see a branch, and grab it, and start pulling. Lo and behold, I see the fish still attached, bait in mouth, with the C-rig leader all wrapped through the branches. We grab the fish, get it unhooked, and well the 3.5 pound fish. Amazing. We keep fishing the area, looking around. I lose a big fish that stayed deep and moved off like a freight train, unable to even turn the fish. Then 5 minutes later, I hook and land a 5.5 pound fish from the same area. In the well it goes, and time has now run out. We head back to weigh-in, and after all is said and done, we are leading after the first day. Storms move through the area as a cold front passes overnight. Winds change directions and blow out of the north on Sunday morning. We start on our shallow areas again and blank. The front has definitely affected them. About two hours in, I decide to head back to the channel location from the afternoon before and live or die there. I hook and land one bass, over 6.5 pounds. At weigh-in time, the front has hurt a lot of guys. Areas got blown out, north winds affected others, and we just have one fish. But a couple guys figured out a decent bite and have 4 or 5 fish today. Everyone weighs, as they hold us back to be the last one to weigh, making a big deal about it - the only ones that still have a chance to win...but they only have ONE fish. Then we pull that one fish out of the bag and you can hear the groans along with the "oohs" and "ahhs" from various competitors. That one big fish wins the event for us, and we get to drive home with a fully rigged Nitro bass boat in tow; 19 ft., 150 HP FI engine, custom color painted and matching trailer - the works. It turns out, when the tourney director asked where we caught our fish, he kind of shakes his head in disbelief. One of the local crappie guides had told him of the area, and that was their "secret" spot, which they built up by planting brushpiles all around that channel bend for the crappie to hang around. What are the odds. We don't catch the big fish that last day, we don't win. We don't get that hung C-rig fish in, we don't win. We don't find or fish that spot, we don't win. Everything that had to happen, did. It was the weirdest mental thing I've been through in tourney fishing, and I fished tourneys heavily for close to 25 years.

…and Doug Hannon, too 👍

I've never been a big fan of "gut feeling." I blame a childhood watching Star Trek (Spock) for that - lol. Yet my personal favorite professional angler has always been Rick Clunn, and he was the first (or one of) to push the idea of intuitive based decision making in the bass world. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time studying both aspects of decision making over the years. If you follow the research, especially in the area of AI and computers, then you know there has been a lot of studies which support "intuition-based" decision making as equal to or even better than traditional logic based decision making. However, we have also seen the rise of "big data," which is beginning to swing decision making power back into the hands of 'logic.' In the past, you’ve seen this with computers like 'Watson' and 'Deep Blue,' and newer, more powerful AI based machine learning is in the news almost daily. So in short, both approaches have their moments. I have used past experiences to help drive most on the water decisions over the years, but have gotten further away from that recently thanks to FFS. I don't have any great stories about "gut feelings" to share....except for one tourney I won, winning a fully rigged bass boat as top prize 😎

Our buoys were made by a friend of mine out of closed-cell foam, no bigger than a bar of soap, and painted black. Incredibly difficult to see if you were more than a cast away from them. While a team was weighing in, one of us would be scoping out his boat, looking for left out lures or broken pieces of soft plastics on the floor to clue us in. I’d pick up clipped off pieces of the tag line left on the floor of the boat and then mic them to know what pound test line guys were throwing certain baits with. And, of course, everyone carried binoculars with them in their boats. We’d turn off our aerators when fishing by someone so you couldn’t tell if we had fish in the livewell, and slackline fish we were playing (thumbbar) if someone was moving past us.

On my home lake back in the day, that would get removed upon being “discovered.” The weeknight tourney guys were pretty cutthroat - lol. Someone tried a little orange spray paint on bushes once - they got trimmed with clippers. Strategically placed boulders got moved 20-30 ft further down the bank. Brushpiles got hung with anchors and dragged off spots. The defensive strategies and head games played were as much a part of the competition as the catching 😎 Good times!

Pay no attention to the naysayers @ol'crickety, your concern is much more nuanced and valid than the generalized arguments being made. Doug Hannon would be proud of you

Yep - old news 😉 A couple other shots showing docks/shed/rental boats in background. Might help.

Read back through the press release, but just said releasing this year. MSRP is $6.99. Also said, “Rebel Crawfish models getting Matte Series colors include the original Wee-Crawfish, Deep Wee-Crawfish, Middle Wee-Crawfish, Teeny Wee-Crawfish and Deep Teey Wee-Crawfish. Matte Series Crawfish colors are Gully Craw, Rusty Craw, Tiger Craw and Winter Craw.”

I consider all three times as well known and accepted bite windows. I don’t do mornings any more, so I target midday and/or evening bite windows on nearly all trips. Combined with weather/water windows, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, especially some good sleep

Speaking of the Wee Craws, have you seen the new matte finishes Rebel is releasing on that line of baits? One of the best looking finishes I’ve seen in a while. I don’t even throw the baits, but am still tempted to buy a few - lol

Since this is an FFS thread about concerns, I have to share this just released UA video on the topic. If you know Aaron and enjoy sarcasm, you’ll love this. Doesn’t change my overall opinion, but the mashup of old and new clips, combined with the “big names” we all know, was superbly done. Long, but worth it.

There were two versions of LLN books, the original version published in 1972, and then an updated one in 1988. If you’re only interested in the structure aspect, Perry’s book is the “bible” in that regard. That said, if you’re interested in structure presented in a slightly more modern way, along with any of the other stuff (tackle, sonar, maps, cover, fancy diagrams, etc.), then just pick up a copy of the “updated” version. Done that way, there would be no need for the 1972 edition.

Good stuff! I always do the same with old pics, and have documented numerous fish caught more than once from smaller bodies of water. But, I had one special fish that ranged between about 4.25-5.25 lbs that I have pics confirming I caught her at least 14 times over a 4 year period. That’s not including how many times I might have hooked and lost her, or others may have also caught her. Pretty cool when it happens.

Growing up, the 3 I remember were Ivory soap bars (cut up), those cheese injected hot dogs, and Velveeta cheese blocks. The latter were my favorite, and I would simply mold a piece of the block around a small treble hook and then fly line (weightless) on a spinning outfit. Worked great for eater sized channels.

KenDammit28/Raul: Paul Roberts: Tufts Lab video and description (need to watch in YT to access written explanation):

Short answer is chromatophores, specialized skin cells that have the ability to regulate pigment. A brief description from Dr. Bruce Tufts lab: He has a short YT video of smallmouth color changes with a more lengthy write-up of his experience with this.

So many variables at play, it would be hard to determine. Short term and with immediate release, any affect should be minimal with just a brief recovery time and likely just show up if you sampled blood parameters. Temperature difference from the surface to 20 ft. if often a lot less than many would imagine, since all the water above any thermocline would be heated pretty consistently. Even so, all water bodies vary, so hard to generalize. Add in the health/condition of the fish before capture, length of fight, how long out of water, how badly hooked, etc., etc. It happens.

1. Picture? Suppose it’s possible, but I call it questionable. 2. False …just my initial thoughts

Open Access write-up MS Crappie study article

I actually credit them (MS) for trying to protect what is widely recognized as some of the best trophy crappie lakes in the country based on their study data without restricting access, tournaments, overly complicating rules, etc. Waiting for the data showing that the trophy fishery crashed, and THEN reacting to it, is a bit foolish. Lots of write-ups mentioning some of their findings as the reasons for the change. Like I mentioned earlier, there is a much deeper discussion that needs to take place beyond what the vast majority of Internet discussions entail.

Bardin is a good dude. FFS and fish populations is currently being argued and viewed in a very limited sense, though, including by most biologists and related reports I've seen. There’s a much deeper dive yet to be had instead of the ‘one size fits all’ argument most Internet/forum positions seem to take, including in relation to a lot of studies that never get mentioned in these arguments. He also seems to be waffling a bit on the WR bass/recent species separation controversy, so still not 100% certain where his thoughts align there.