Triton_Mike

Sorry guys i just got back on line a second ago. My little 5 incher weighs roughly 1 1/4 oz. Cute little thing. Thats called the bent pole pattern. Problem is their pole obviously didnt' bend . LOL. Dave thanks for the feedback on the music. I found that to be the hardest part of the video. It did get repititious to the point that you have to reduce the volume to get through the video. Point taken and hard to find good video music! The explosion at 3:45 is fish LOL. They were like that all over but thats the only one I got on tape. Anyone got spare pliers . Tee

Ok I'm trying to one up LBH in being a film director . This is like my first video ever. Lemme know what ya think. I got 85 fish total on swimbaits before noon. This is just a SMALL sample of the day.

One trick to try..... If you have access to BOTH rods in a store do this. Put both rods in your hand and put the tip of BOTH rods on the vocal cords of a buddy and hold the rods at the reel seat or in front of the reel seat. Have your buddy talk and see which rod you can feel his vocal vibrations the best. Then switch hands and repeat. THEN close your eyes and have your buddy swap the rods in your hands and try it. Make sure your buddy says the same phrase during each test as well Thats really the closest you will get in deciphering sensitivity between rods without getting scientific. Mike

What do ya need to know?? It's heavy duty!! Mike

I have two companies looking to sponsor a few college fishing team or team(s). One is a line company and another is a rod company. I will be in charge of both venue's.. There are other possible perks/incentives involved. If you are interested or know of a team that might be interested email me @ mbucca@comcast.net for more info/details Be sure to list your college name in your email. Thanks "Triton" Mike Bucca

Water Temperature: 72 Water Clarity: 4 feet or greater Water Temp early 70's Water Clarity mostly clear Water level .99ft above full pool Moon Phase 57% Fishing for numbers is on fire now on Allatoona. I'm averaging 20+ a trip and at times pushing over 30 and missing bunches more. Really alot of things are working but I think you'll be hard pressed to find a bait that catches more numbers than the 4 inch Senko. The key for me is to do the "run and shoot" offense. Either you are on them or your not and keep running and shooting until you find them. Spots are very very close to start their spawning ritual and the largemouths are at the very tipsy end of their spawning season. I was out with the DNR electro fishing for 2 days this past week and I saw very little spot spawning activity that I can see. I did a full report in the General Fishing section on my outing on AllatoonaBass.com Shell Crackers are just about to start spawning as well with some in the mix now and I will be doing some shell cracker trips this year for those that have kids. We have some massive shell crackers in Allatoona. Here is a trip I did with my 3 year old last year and was the first time ever he has been fishing with his dad in the boat . We rigged up his snoopy rod and he went to work on these fish and caught well over half of them on his own while I was taking them off and re baiting his hook. Good luck out there . The fish are biting so go fishing! Mike

Well Mike, You da MAN!, but I don't think this is the right advice for the vast majority of our members. Your level of skill allows you a great deal of latitude. For others, cranking down their drag will result in broken rods, snapped line and lost fish. If you're fishing for big smallmouth, I feel this technique is totally inappropriate. The surge at the boat will cost people "the fish of a lifetime". 8-) Kent, Most of the fish people lose are at the boat. The reason they lose them "at the boat" is because of their drag and quite possibly bad fighting practices (allowing the fish to jump).... Granted I do have some years under my belt on the technique but I personally don't feel there is one setting for all on a drag hence the reason I free spool. If a fish surges to the right or left it expends X amount of pressure. If a fish surges under the boat it's Y amount of pressure. I even free spool the bigger fish that I get on the big swimbaits. Personally if you have your drag locked down on the hook set then loosen it a good bit or had a pre set switch of some type that would give you a fairly loose drag instantly. That coupled with the aide of your thumb that would be ideal. I came upon the free spooling technique because back in the day drags were horrible. So i started disengaging my reel using my thumb as the drag ie free spooling. Works for Spots, Heads, Smallies, sharks, redfish, tarpon, snook, you name it. I just lost too many big fish at the boat because of a drag and since using the free spooling technique I can't remember the last big fish I lost boat side. Mike

I take channel locks and lock my drag down as tight as I can get it. When I need to give line I use the free spool method. Mike

NiceBass, I hate to tell you this but Monte Burke the author of Sowbelly is a fraud just trying to create a soap opera. Mike Long threw him out of his boat when he found out his intentions. Take what you read in Sow Belly with a grain of salt. Mike

Randall would know more than I would but I believe the next biggest Georgia bass to Perry's fish was 17lbs 9oz. A good long way from 22lbs. Thats just one of many reasons why I don't buy Perry's fish as the World Record. I follow along with Mattlures and Fish Chris train of thought.

I'll say this again. Bass are dumb as rocks and color is the most overated thing in bass fishing. Put a bait in an active fishes strike zone and hold on.

If you have to know it's a Humminbird 1197SI . Mike

Water Temperature: 57 Water Clarity: 4 feet or greater Fishing is Fair: As of right now we are finally fairly clear throughout the whole lake. Earlier in the week the largemouth have gotten closer and closer to being on the bed. Yesterday I saw a good bit of males up and shallow gaurding the bed with females still off to the side and roaming in the vicinity. I would have to bet that with the recent full moon and stable weather (HA!) we will get our major spawning wave this week. I did find 2 good fish very close to being locked on the beds yesterday and one of them is pictured. I figured the next day she would be locked on and gaurding heavily. I didn't sight fish her though I got to the area early and just bombed the area with the 7 inch Bull Shad swimbaits and I got her to commit on the very first cast to her roaming range. The other fish I found is a BEAST!! I got her to follow yesterday but couldn't get her but, I bet she backed off on moving up with the recent front. Right now just concentrate on spawning areas at first light for the shot at getting a big largemouth to commit. After that it's a site fish deal. Now for the spots. It's a little tough out there. There are certain areas that are producing and even with those they are hit and miss. But if you hit the right area at the right time you can catch 2 GOOD limits very quickly and it doesn't make much difference what you throw when they are busting like that on top but the hard part is finding them and even harder is finding consistant areas. These conditions are not normal for this year. I think too much of anything is too much ie recent weather, full moon, extra water etc. When you have adverse conditions that our fish aren't used to like alot of water they fish tend to turn off and move to a more stable environment (deeper). With water temps in the low 60's traditionally it's balls to the wall in numbers and quality. The good news is later this week (pending normal weather HA!) it should get back to normal as we get away from the full moon and the weather starts to stabilize. The sonar picture below is what I have found happening ALOT as I saw this type of picture ALL day everyday for the last week or so. When the bite is tough usually your sonar will tell you or give you clues to what is happening. If they aren't hitting finesse baits and they aren't chasing subsurface baits the only place they can be is deep and suspended and that is where they are and what I am targeting to catch the spots. It's definitely tricky out there so don't feel bad if your struggling.

Water Temp 59 Water clarity clear to stain water level 1.08ft high Moon Phase: 3/4 full Water is stained from Kellogg and North and fairly clear south of Kellogg. Fishing this week was horrible at the beginning and fairly strong at the end. My fish didn't like all that rain one bit but now that things have settled they are right back where they were a week an a half ago. The spots are still staging and schooling and just went back into that mode today it seems. There are some males (largemouth) on the bed but the vast majority of the females haven't locked on yet. I'm seeing some decent cruisers in the vicinity of the beds but nothing any size and in any numbers. I am positive someone somewhere can find a good fish or 3 on the bed if you look hard enough. But today was the best day for looking in over a week it seems due to clouds, wind, rain etc etc. Then to make matters more confusing we will be in the 20's on Mon and Tuesday of this coming week and in the 30's on Wed...... Looks like we will be prolonging spring ;D As I said earlier the spots are busting in pockets early and late. Pick your poison on what you want to throw at them. We got them on topwater, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, traps, Jigs etc etc. Here's the fish of the week on an almost 9 inch Bull Shad.

Ryan, get in touch with me when you get set up at KSU . Mike

BTW, Thats the Hitch color. I personally like the following colors Hitch Kokanne Golden Shiner Blue Back Herring But to be honest I have a trout colored Triple Trout and it gets bit too LOL I'm not so sure color matters much Mike

Should lure manufacturers do away with chartreuse and white spinnerbaits since they don't match any forage? What about Sexy shad??? You see where I am going with this....

I believe that it has alot to do with a bass's adaptibility. In order to be in such a wide variety of conditions they must have conditioning that tells them to feed experimentally. Cause I'm sure that there ain't the same forage everywhere . This could be why Bass jump on some crazy stuff. Imagine this, a bass has been transplanted to Japan. I'm about 99.9 % positive that Japan doesn't have the same baitfish or any fish that we do. So if that bass is to survive, he/she must eat and eat soon. What does that mean? Let's start sampling until it finds something that supplies it with enough energy to survive. So to a bass that pink trickworm may be a sampling effort. But Bass have grown used to eating a few specific forages and will even key in on them at times. So why not throw something that resembles what they are keying on? Mottfia P.S. I agree that a billion lure colors is too much to deal with. Find a system or train of thought that you have confidence in and just go fishing. Mottfia, Thats one way to look at things. The other way is bass are predators and opportunistic feeders. They are at the top of the food chain in most lakes. They eat because they can and they react to baits within their strike zone. So if a bass hits a pink trick worm and learns that pink trick worms gets his jaw yanked on your saying he won't hit a pink trickworm again?? Think of all the pond bass that have gotten caught over and over again on the same type of lure. I personally think bass are dumb as rocks. It's the anglers that need to understand the fish better. Mike

Terry, I have never fished Nottely but it's a good bit north of me. My fish aren't in the spawning process so I would have to guess with Nottely being up in the Mountains that your going to be very very early pre spawn. I would expect temps to be upper upper 40's to mid 50's. Mike

My opinion? Color is the most overated aspect in bass fishing. Lets take Zoom for example. Do you have enough $$$ to buy every color that zoom makes?? Even worst do you have the time in a day to fish all of those colors to see which one makes a difference under different circumstances? Do you have PAGES of notes to record all this data? I don't? So I try to worry about what I can control and that is finding active fish and getting the bait into the strike zone of said fish. The key here is strike zone, it's the cornerstone of bass fishing. Mike BTW why do bass eat pink trickworms and senkos? Does it match a hatch? Something to think about...

Water Temp 52-60 Water Clarity clear to stained Water Level 1.78ft low Fishing is good.... Due to the rains last week we got a good bit of debris on the water from one end of the lake to the other. Some areas are "unfishable" due to the wind packing the debris. Water temps are starting at 52-53 and ending up almost 60 degrees by early afternoon. Like clockwork the big bait bite is on and just cranking up. I know of one 6lb spot caught this week on a swimbait and one of my good previous clients got a 6lb largemouth on the Bull Shad and I also got a few good fish this week while pig hunting myself. I'm concentrating on the short pockets just off the main lake for the heads and main lake points for the spots. I have seen a few males up shallow but nothing on the bed yet but as the week goes on there should be more going shallow weather permitting. I'm throwing a modified 8 inch Triple Trout (modified to 10.5 inches) and the 7 inch Bull Shad on 25lb Triple Fish Camo Line and using a Dobyns Rods 795ML. In the stained water the Triple Trout is the deal. There simply isn't a better swimbait for working stained to muddy water due to the massive amount of vibration and water that it pushes. In the clearer stuff I'm going to a more natural swiming bait and using the 7 and 8 inch (prototype) Bull Shad. With the big baits your fishing for one or two bites for the bigger fish. Nature's Tackle Box in Hiram, GA (678-567-1211) is the newest 22nd Century/Triple Trout dealer and Natures Tackle Box along with Hammonds Fishing Center in Cumming, GA both exclusively carry the Bull Shad. This is only just the beginning, more big fish pics to come.... ;D Mike

I caught one small spot in Ray Bob. They are in there but not in any big #'s. I had some guys email me fishing a tournament on Ray Bob. Due to the size restrictions on largemouth they were askign me about spots since they don't have a size limit . Pretty smart..

I used to live in Dallas before I lived in Amarillo. Denton was my favorite city because it was home to my favorite lake. Ray Roberts. That was a fun place to fish! I miss Texas especially the DFW area. The hardest part of fishing DFW area was deciding which of the 100 lakes within 100 miles of DFW that you wanted to fish. One time I actually couldn't make up my mind and ended up not going LOL. I don't miss the wind one bit tho LOL Mike

***, I have to ask. Is Lubbock as boring as Amarillo?? I lived in Amarillo for 3 months and I got bored. The culture was very cool tho. Lots of no stop light towns and between there and Dallas was where over half of the PBR guys are from LOL. BTW I hope you guys grow bass better than you grow trees . I know Alan Henry is a power house. By chance do you know Thad Rains? He's originally from Post, TX. I never fished Lake Meredith tho but I visited it. Very nice country Loved watching the Antelope.. Mike

Lets do it. Glen, Fluke, Kent, Highbudgethookers. 1955 views and this post is still kicking . You would have the only spotted bass forum in existance (aside from my personal forum). What do you have to lose Mike ***??? You like fishing for them weakfish??