Team9nine

1. 2. Anytime, but especially post-spawn through fall 3. Never any issues with those listed. Have always considered beaver dams a great place to find bass, and in the ponds I fished, bass and catfish would use the ‘lanes’ created by muskrats. Only big ‘negative’ that comes to mind is otters, but those are usually river based and primarily affect smallmouth in my former area. Osprey and eagles take LMB, but it’s fairly opportunistic and random from what I can tell. 4. Nothing specific outside of some northern natural lakes where large populations of big pike or musky exist and rule the weedlines, forcing smaller bass (-3 lbs or under) to stay largely inside the weeds or to the inside weedline/shoreline. Really big flatheads and blue cats will eat them, as will some snakeheads, but again, more random and opportunistic, I believe.

Technology has shortened the learning curve so much, I don’t even like discussing the subject

Lake kicked my butt today. Didn’t blank though - haha. The largest of two…and a PB pickerel, so there’s that 😆

This was also 1975 bassin’ attire in some parts of the country…

In my case, this has been the second wettest January on record, so the lakes are muddy and the water is cold (low to mid 40s). They become almost white/silver in color under those circumstances.

I’m not going lie - nothing like big crappie to get me to set down the bass poles 😆 After a quick weight and pic (3 lb. bass), I looked down at my graph and saw a big fish sitting about 10 ft off the boat. Pitched a crappie jig to it and it bit - turned out to be a 1.94 lb. fish. Next mark I saw like that resulted in a 1.5 lb. fish…then a 2 lb. fish, and finally a 2.5 lb. fish. Missed one big one too, though not sure if it was a bass or a crappie. Happy, happy 😎

Started out good with a 3 pound bass on a jerkbait…then got sidetracked a bit by crappie as big as some of the bass I catch. Only took two fish to get me to set down the bass gear for the afternoon - lol.

No (straight fluoro), unless I was punching heavy mats or maybe cattails/tules, etc., then straight braid, no leader. There’s no advantage to a leader in that latter situation, IMO.

Rebel ad, 1975

That last one is a fun bait…love catching fish on vintage stuff.

The foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, elevation just over 1,000 ft. There are a few ponds around, but they’re small and private. Building codes are much different here than where I came from, and the ground doesn’t seem right for holding water.

I'm an 'old man' that spent about 30 years fishing tournaments when I was younger, so I've seen a good bit of water. My #1 driving rule was always, "don't blank," so I built my whole approach around getting bites, and letting size fall where it may. Another was something Al Lindner said in a seminar I attended when I was a teenager that has always stuck with me - "There's no such thing as 'the fish aren't biting.'" So I simplified and streamlined a lot of aspects of my approach, probably OVER simplified, but it seems to work for me. Of course, it now really tests my patience trying to add some 'big fish' tactics/approaches into that mix, but I'm not getting any younger, and I put more value on quality these days than I ever did prior. Thanks - haven't found a single fishable pond I can access down here, so it's looking like reservoirs for a good long while - lol.

Only had a couple hours to fish this afternoon, so stayed close to ramp side of the lake and did a lot of looking around. Eliminated a lot of water - lol - but did get one nice 2-1/4 pound fish by expanding on a good stretch of bank from yesterday. Hoping to get more time either tomorrow or Friday to head toward the deeper end of the lake and try and put something else together.

Good stain, but the pic is right in the sun, so the red clay was getting reflected, I think. I'll get a secchi reading next trip out. Betting at least 12" of vis or more.

Gambled on a new lake I’ve never been to hoping to find fishable water after all this rain (2nd wettest January on record). BINGO - Got my first bite within half an hour, so I ran with the clue and was able to put a pattern together, good for 4 keepers. Biggest went 5-08. Only got 3 hrs on the water this afternoon, but I’ll be back soon.

One more serious question… My current Ned outfit has yellow braid on it. Should I tie direct in that chocolate colored milk, or use a fluorocarbon leader? If you went with a leader, would 18”-24” be long enough? It would keep the connecting knot outside the lip of the container, but I’m afraid if a good one were to bite and make a run, it might pull my knot over that lip edge and risk break-off. And I’m not good with FG knots yet. Would a Uni-Uni hold up okay in that instance?

And I probably stand just as good a chance catching a bass out of that gallon of milk as I would being out on my local lake right now - maybe a small Ned dropped through the opening and deadsticked on the bottom of the container 🤔

That’s the nice thing about the Sealy Big Bass data shown above - it’s a big bass only tourney. Five fish or total weights mean nothing. Hourly winners as well as overall winners. 3 days - over 3,000 people fishing. Catch the biggest bass you can catch in the lake. It’s a pretty good representation of what’s swimming in the lake, both in size and numbers.

It's the one you chose to link ...but I'd bet the pattern holds true overall - some events better, some worse. EDIT: I went back and pulled the data for the past 10 years at your suggestion, only for Toledo Bend to keep things comparable, and I'd argue you can see a declining pattern in the big bass catches over that time period. A lot more 8's and 9's among the Top-5 bass overall, just 3 bass over 10 out of the past 5 years vs. 11 over the previous 5 years, and only 1 11/12 pound fish the past 5 years vs. 4 the previous 5 years. You also never saw an 8 pound fish make the Top-5 for the first 4 years shown (2014-2017). Now they make up over half the Top-5 catches.

Another great example of what I mentioned. You have a lake ranked by Bassmaster magazine more than once as the top bass lake in the country, and a huge 3 day event with an estimated 3,000+ anglers (estimated 63,000 angler-hours), and it only produced one 10-pound bass, no 9-pound bass, and just six 8-pound bass. Also, 4- and 5-pound bass accounted for over 80% of all the bass weighed-in receiving prizes.

Keep in mind this is just looking at the biggest bass for a single event, across all events, and not how many big fish of a certain weight were caught in events (if that makes sense). So big bass for an event could have been a single 5.5 pound fish, but there might have been 10 4 pound fish weighed in overall that wouldn't be reflected in the numbers I posted. Total size distribution for a body of water is usually a bell curve, most often centered around the 8"-16" size range, but not always, as some lakes have unusual size distributions due to things such as slot limits, missing year classes (bad spawns), etc. Generally though, much above 3 pounds, the next size class of fish becomes less numerous than its predecessor (4's less common than 3s; 5s less common than 4s; etc.).

Great set of data that your club has documented! It's really easy to get the idea that big sacks, and big fish are being caught everywhere, all the time, by most based on Internet/Social media postings. The reality is much more like your tourney data shows; a lot of average/typical catches, and how truly rare big fish are or can be. For example, I exported all your club's data and resorted through it, running a few stats. So with 192 events recorded comprising 256 tournament days, equating to roughly 60,000 angler hours over a period of 17 years, only 6 bass of 7 lbs. or more have been caught, with just a single 8 pounder. That's 10,000 angler-hrs to catch a single bass of that size. Even 6 pounders are relatively rare with just 31 caught over that period (~1,600 angler-hrs per fish of that size or bigger). On your waters, it's just as likely an event is won with a 3 lb class big bass as it is a 6 pound one. Four and five pound bass are by far the most common, and that's probably pretty typical for a majority of waters most of us fish (see chart of your BB data below). Tournament data I've pulled from my new location here in SC, though considerably less robust, matches your set well; Typically 12-18 pounds to win most events, with almost no bass over 8 pounds, and just a handful of 7's. There are certainly lots of waters that produce above average fish, and states that kick them out regularly, just like there are anglers who have a knack for catching large bass more frequently than the masses. But in general, I'm convinced they're becoming more and more scarce.

Thanks! I was going to say, that doesn't look too terrible - lol. I'll be checking a new lake out early this week. No high hopes. Will probably return to another just to look around, but one is definitely shot until at least mid next month. Sucks for me, but I got what I got, and it ain't NC or AL

From what I can tell, it looks like we’ll fall about half an inch short of our January record rainfall dating back to 1906. But, the nearly 2” we got yesterday combined with the 1.4” plus on Thursday will certainly trash my local lakes again (doubled our monthly average). They were starting to recover finally, more than two weeks after the last 4” blast of rain, but alas, another big setback. Forecast models are for more than average rainfall the next two months, so I’m going to relent and retool today, removing all the usual clearer water tackle from the boat (jerkbaits, A-rig, some finesse, etc.) and replace with all muddy water selections and beefed up tackle - then just hope for the best. Big disappointment, but there’s always next spring to look forward to 😆

…and new model rods, too, then discontinue the old models so you can’t buy them anymore 😡 Over half my rods and reels are probably close to 20 yrs old - I just pick them up from time to time when I find someone selling an old original - lol. I need a rod/reel sponsor 😉