Matt Fly

Muddy, You are dead on. Not many got to experience that green ghost sighting. I'll be trying to retrace your path tomorrow just to verify your story. L train and myself are gonna give it a shot in the morning. I'm hoping to put L train. on a nice one. As for the resident over grown lizzard, I have seen two on Fork, both in the east arm in Long and Coon creeks.

Matching the Hatch is a fly fishermens term due to the waters trout live in and the method of catch. Trout primarily live in rock filled streams , rivers, and lakes that filter the water to ultra clear conditions. A vast majority of Texas waters are stained. Do trout have laterial lines that they feed from? Trout are primarily sight feeders. Hence details can make you or break you when fly fishing. How does matching the Hatch give you the correct spinner blade combo? Most of the time, if cloudy or stained to muddy waters, you would go with copper or brass or even a painted blade, where as on clear blue bird days, you would want some flash, thus silver blades. How does matching the hatch help you decide on a colorado blade or willow leaf, or combination? I didn't match the hatch, I tried to match the weather, water conditions to seasonal patterns and known forage. I agree with Muddy's statemet. When I tell a fellow basser to match the hatch, I really meant to match the forage if they are hitting moving baits. ie shad, what type of shad? the smaller of the two, threadfin, maybe the 1/4 trap is the ticket, or gizzard, maybe a 3/4 to 1 oz trap. Shad are silver, but on a cloudy day, chrome trap may not be the best choice, no sun, no flash, and a chrome trap that has flash isn't natural. Maybe a bone/pearl will do. A fly fishermen trying to match the hatch is throwing something I couldn't even induce a backlash with on any of my baitcasters. ;D

I have used that term, Match the Hatch, a few times, but its really not the message that most try to convey when talking about bass. Most trout streams have abundantly clear water where details can mean the difference in putting numbers in the creel or nothing at all. Bass and trout are two different species, their habits are different, they feed different. When going to a new lake, we try to take seasonal patterns, seasonal habits, and match the conditions to the type of prey that are normally the main staple at that time. If a bass can get it into its mouth, and it swims, its food to a bass. So numerous baits will always catch fish most days. When bass are lethargic, we say slow down with plastics, or throw reaction baits to entice a strike. When bass have been highly pressured or the bite is slow, try finesse, light line, weightless. To me, its trying to match the current conditions to the seasonal movements of the bass or forage in hopes of raising the odds.

Congrats, What future name should we be listening for on the trail?

What pads we saw in Pophers creek were in bad shape due to being 7ft low. Chris and I had fog banks both morning that caused us to creep along to get back there. That kinda hurt finding a good morning bite. We tried blades and top waters with no luck. While running main lake south of 147, we noticed bass busting ever so often out front. We shut down and watched. We sight fished and casted traps to surfacing bass. They weren't schooled up, it was individuals coming up randomly. We boated about 15 in an hour and half. Probably had 12 lbs on our best 5. I was chunkin a chrome trap black back, Chris blue back. Both baits worked. Didn't see any surfacing bass with chop, but when it glassed, they started coming up, just not in big numbers. My better trap fish was allowing it to drop down deeper. We ran to Veach on Sat morning. Veach is loaded with grass. We worked the grass with glassed conditions. No topwater fish to be had. I was fan casting the trap and catching smaller bass. Nothing in the boat until 10am. We saw alittle of every thing being used in the on the grass. We did too. Larry went to a weightless green senko w/gold flake. Didn't take long to boat some fish. We failed to get 3 bass in the boat at the boat that were good solid keepers. We again noticed glassed conditions and randon fish coming up in deep water way out from the grass. Fan casting randomly and making sight casts boated some keepers. WE had 5 for only 10 and change. On Sunday, we again hit grass in Veach, the senko bite didn't happen, small 13 inchers at best. Best pattern on Sunday was sight fishing open water with traps. Larry and I felt if we exicuted on Saturday we should of had over 15 easily putting us in contention. We was 53rd on Sat and only weighed in 3 fish on Sunday for 73rd. We caught alot of small fish. With fall turnover recently, we saw small shad shallow, inch and half at best. What was noted at weigh in with the winning 37 lb sack was in deep timber and brush piles. Day one, Larry and I had the deep water off a point to our selves, day two, guys figured out what we did on Saturday, and they sighted fished the way we did on Saturday, we saw some better fish taken on Sunday. Bankbeaters took to open water on Sunday and beat Larry and I to the punch. Lots of boats went to open water. Anyway, big thanks to BassResource. Less than a year ago, I met Larry, L train, on here after moving from Ark. area to DFW area. Hookem

I am assuming that picture was taken at impact. I will say, I have seen alot of deer jump on impact, so thats not unusual. Considering the arrow was still plugging the hole, there appeared to be to much blood from the entry hole initially after impact. Maybe if that deer ran some, but again, I am assuming this is at initital impact. I have quite a few pictures of deer hanging in the trees over the years. So that picture could have been taking while hanging and you want see a variation of the head posture angled as mentioned "if" the deer was on the ground, its neck would be bent. And last. Deer in our part of the woods don't normally have the brush beaten horns just yet. White!!!! This time of the year, bow hunters are some of the luckiest, they get what we call chocolate horns. They are darker in September. I don't know alot about other regions and when the rut actually starts up north. This time of the year, our deer may have white tips because they have started to mock fight some brush, but the majority still have blood stained horns, or as we call them chocolate. Horns that white start appearing before the rut. That deer has marked alot of scrapes already. Does this deer appear to be in rut? Swollen neck, hocks real dark from glandular secretions that take place during the rut? Seen a bunch of Bow hunting shows that slow the pass through shot down. Don't ever recall seeing that kind of blood shown by expensive equipment. Don't recall seeing that much blood on the entry side after a deer has ran awhile either. Being its was downward shot, most blood drains into the cavity rather than flowing out the side. I'd understand the exit wound bleeding cause the exit wound would be lower, thus draingae would come from the lowiest point, and that arrow didn't pass through. Just like a gut shot deer, its the hardiest to trail. Most deer bleedout on the inside because the wound is up on thier sides. Thus the blood pool in in the stomach and not on the ground. Seems to me that picture would be real fuzzy. The deer was rodeoing in mid air and its clear as day. Try taking a shot of a stock car passing in front of you, They are blurred at best. Just my reasoning on why I said fake.

Catt, You know how I feel about young QB's. LSU's day to shine will come with experience. As for my Horns, they have more wins than I was counting on at this time. And its a long way to go. You know what happens when you drink your own teams Kool-aid, you end up with big let down. By the way, never actually thought the ref did that on purpose. Ya'll hookem.

Leaving this afternoon. Prefishing two days and then the championship follows. Gonna try to prefish areas that I don't plan on hitting Sat/Sun. I'm gonna start in popular spots, call it defensive fishing, I'll stick all I can in those areas. Friday, I'll try to apply what I figured out the day before in my areas. What I have seen for wind appears to be out of a northernly direction this weekend 2-4 mph. If I get a little chop, may try to find blade pattern, Have frogs, yellow Magic, buzzbait, chatterbait, devil horse and torpedo ready for in the morning. Chris and Rayburn have a knack for catching big chatterbait bass in off the wall areas. Womens luck I guess. Got a few colors of traps as well. This is one lake that can produce 20+ pound sacks on various patterns. I promise that I will not rush into any areas while prefishing. I will take my time and GPs routes in and out of areas of concern. L Train is coming in Friday night. Will give details when we get back. Ya'll hookem.

That was just a good route being run by the South Carolina player, and that happens alot in football, but on the other side, how many times do you see a ref stick that shoulder out to knock someone down? Sure haven't been alot of SEC threads lately? Hookem

Unless Jerry can play Left tackle, and both guards, kick chip shot field goals before half, like against the Cards, stop the penalties, tackle on special teams, block for special teams, cover someone in the secondary? I have to vote no. Did I mention play QB? What stars? We added Pacman and Zack Taylor on Defense. Two rookies at corner. Offensively, we added draft picks and traded for Roy Williams, which we have tried for two years to get. lol We don't have enough stars yet. What other owner can boast of 3 Lombardi trophies? Very few can. Go Cowboys!!!!!

Good time for Cassell to mature some more. Denver''s defense gives up 72 % completion ratio.

Fake

By the way, those mushroom heads melt real easy. Takes a few seconds to heat them. One, I like to burn the paint off to powder coat most, and second, by heating them up, you can flatten that mushroom out to make cheap spot removers. Over heating will totally melt them down, so alittle practice and its very easy to master.

A drop shot was designed to present a bait off the bottom as when they are suspended off the bottom. A drop shot allows you to tie that hook 3 ft off bottom if needed. As Tin noted, they each have their own place and time. Both presentatios have vertical and horizontal capabilities.

X tools is one of the best out there. Any type gripper scales is better. Dont think that sliding that hook in between the gills and gill plate is all that great. I had a nice fish decide to flop when hung to weigh. She flopped hard enough to have that hook relocate into the gills and the end result ended with the fish dieing due to gill damage. A hole in the lip isn't what I recommend either but is better alternative than chancing damaging the gills, a sure way to kill a fish if that happens. Also, that berkley scale has a nice fat, big dull hook, at least sharpen it to make punching holes easier. To alleviate that big hole, I took off one of the smaller metal stringer hooks, makes a smaller hole and a hole will heal, gills that are damaged won't. X Tools cost more, but don't harm the fish at all.

Spot Remover jigheads cost us alot of money earlier this year. We had numerous fish come unbuttoned at the boat. Without having to go up in weight to get larger hook, I cut about 2/3's of that spiraled baitkeep off, which opened up the throat more. Made a big difference. Anyone having info on other types of Spot Removers, please share.

Detroit was worthless before Roy was drafted. All those number one drafted receivers, and ya'll don't have a running game or QB. Easy to blame Roy, but history shows that Detroit has sucked for years. Period. Records don't lie. I don't get many Detroit games, but did watch Roy play at UT, he was hard worker back then. I don't care if TO sneezes, the media drives the bus looking for anything they can slam him for. Romo was throwing yesterday in practice.

Paper tourney kinda changes the game alittle. Is Mike meeting you in the morning? Are you having organized take off from LFR? Or can you be on the water, but first cast goes at certain time? I don't think the clouds will be here on Sat and Sun. Tomorrow, the bass may stay aggressive in the shallows due to cloud cover . What are Mikes and your strengths. I think bass can be had a number of ways in a number of areas?

That third round pick, it came from Cleveland two years ago when Dallas moved down in the draft and let Cleveland select Brady Quinn. I get the impression from the Boys, that Adam Jones maybe done. Jerry went out on a limb for this guy, and he made Jerry look bad.

So slot fish will count Since its paper trail?

FOM, The only thing I'd disagree on, I think you might of exaggerated a little on that chin hair. lol I didn't see UT's def. line being that good this year. The young secondary was big issue. I though for sure, this would be the year that Mack's streak of the nations longest 10 win seasons comes to an end. Thats one I didn't count on. Hookem Horns and Go Big XII.

Jack, What part of the lake are you launching from? 2 day stringer tournament? Are you prefishing any on Friday? Tell Mike to hang on to his wallet this trip. I haven't been on my brush piles lately, as you know, I have been concentrating on my Championships this fall. The IBC, Irving Bass Club, will be fishing Fork as well this weekend, usually draws 200+. Allow me to check the winds out and give me an idea of where you'll be launching from and I'll giadly share some info. Matt

Heres a question, what were you driving, better yet, what was she driving that allowed her to park without having to parallel park herself?

We arent buying anything you have to sell FOM. Texas trailed the whole game against OU basically. Us fair-weathered fans are like any other fans that see a good team get behind early. By the way, how did the OU linebackers do against that "little boy" Colt McCoy? lol I actually think UT's secondary will be their achilles heel in the end. I still don't know how Texas won that game!!!!!!!!!!

Dallas now has an upgraded version of the old Roy Williams 3.1. We now have a faster version. Scary offense on paper. But ...... Dallas has bigger issues. Special teams still arent very special. As seen by the Returned Kickoff and the blocked punt. Defense can't stop the run consistently, and that secondary can't cover.