Triton_Mike

Rainbow colored hat? What I win??? Who luvs ya Boobie?? Mike

This is the knot that I use for pretty much everything (except for dropshotting). I do agree with Aaron Martens about the Palomar. IF you tie it pretty the palomar is a good knot. But alot of guys get in a hurry and have a strand of line overlap another strand. Fluorocarbon is it's own worst enemy as it will cut into itself. This fluorocarbon knot below is very easy to tie and you don't get any overlaps as easily as you do with the palomar knot. Mike

Steve, It was great to finally put a name to a face with you at Icast. Man your new products look awesome!! Sorry I didn't get back to you the next am as I had some unexpected sales meetings. Your passion shows through your baits very well:) I hope you had a great show at Icast and it sounds like you did!! . Mike Bucca www.tritonmike.com

Rolltide. All I saw was the big 2 oz one. Don't be scared LOL. Keep an eye out on a few forums there is a full report on the baits coming out soon. The Kelly J does have 2 props on it. Wake Tail has the one prop.. Mike

I have a friend that took some pics but here is a little bit of what Lucky Craft is coming out with in 2008 for the US market. http://www.luckycraft.com/luckycrafthome/PastArticles/Productnews/bull.htm Also a Sammy 105 which is a 3 Hook Sammy A Kelly J which is a small double prop bait. Think Dippee Diddee. Those are the 3 main things lure wise from Lucky Craft Mike

Dgquail, can you be more specific on what you spent to get down and what was wrong with the unit causing you to spend $250.00?? Mike

The jackall giron is nothing like the bull bream that I designed for reaction strike. The tru life is a great bait but the bait Jason was using on the bass pro show was my bull bream. I hop hope this clears the air a bit. Mike

Welcome Steve!! Great site to be a part of!! Mike

Water temps 58-59. Water level is 1.5ft over full pool. Water Clarity ranges from Mud to clear. The cool front that we had last week put a damper on my pattern for just a bit. I will say that on each day last week I had atleast one and sometimes 2 5lb + fish roll on us or follow our bait to the boat. I always want a nice cool snap just after the fishing starts to get good to set us back a few days so that the pattern will restart itself all over again. I like to call it prolonging spring LOL. Tuesday afternoon I had ESPN writer John Geiger with me doing an article on Allatoona and he got to see first hand the not so dead sea in good form. The 8 inch Hampton Shad is still the bait of choice and if you understand the spring patterns fully than you will have zero problems finding locations that are holding the quality fish especially if you hit enough of those types of areas within the day. I did have a very nice 5lb + spot follow me to the boat in edition to the fish in the pic. I fully expect this week and next provided that the weather doesn't vary much for the bigger fish to start hitting the beds. I have seen very little bedding activity up to this date, but it will start anyday now and the staging of the smaller fish will start up very very soon as well. Typically the largemouth bed and at the same time the spots start to stage and get ready to bed usually 2 weeks or so after the largemouth hit the beds. If you can find one of the staging areas of fish you can easily expect to catch 30+ in short order and sometimes 50+. Historically, these staging fish are in the same areas year after year. Mike

Water temp starting at 54ish ending up close to 60 in some areas but averaging 58ish. I'll go ahead and call it full pool right now. Somebody pull the plug and drop us 5 feet right quick. I got out today with Billy Smith of Covington, GA. We worked HARD today and casted the big baits for 8.5hrs. We stopped for 30 minutes to catch 8 or so staging dinks then cranked it back up with the big stuff. We actually went without a bite for about 6 hrs of constant lobbing LOL. Total fish today was probably 12 or so. I had 2 fish in the 5-6lb range roll on me (swipe at the bait without hitting it) so that could have been a heckuva three some but still nothing even remote to like yesterdays stringer. Here is our big fish of the day a nice speckle bellied fat and about to POP 5.5lbish Allatoona Spot caught on the 8 inch Hampton Shad. Sorry for blurring out the bait. IT's a work in progress.. Mike

Man NICE fish David . Glad to see you out fishing Mike

Yup, and on that lil ol bait I showed you too TEE

Dead Sea eh??? Guys I don't even know where to begin with this report as I am still in awe!! I had a trip with Ron288 aka Ron Callahan this afternoon. The only thing that could have possibly made this trip better is Ron catching BOTH of these toads!! Ron wanted to learn something besides what he is used to ie spot stickers and finesse so we put the trolling motor on Van Dammit and chucked the Hampton Shad for 8 hrs. I know this is a rarity but here is a RARE picture of an Allatoona 9lb and 7lb largemouth caught this afternoon. Our best 3 fish only weighed almost 19lbs as only 3 fish made it to the boat. I tried to shake off a 2.5lb spot but she just had to come in the boat . I thought the 7lber was alot smaller than she was so I was kinda shocked that I swung a 7lber in the boat without the net ;D. Power of the Dobyns ML795 for ya!! All fish caught on 25lb Triple Fish X Rated and 8 inch Hampton Shad. YEs I blurred out the bait on purpose to tease ya . LOL. It's a work in progress 9lber 7lber Thanks to Ron for sharing this day on the water with me buddy. Thanks for the chat too Mike

Chris is my freakin idol!! Awesome toad Chris. Mike

Guys, I can't find that article that I did on the mold making that I did. My mold wasn't made out of Bondo but it was made out of Durhams water putty. It was a lead mold. If you want a plastic mold the guy above is on the right track. Another good option would be RTV Silicone which is what several companies use ie lurecraft for their plastic molds. Mike

Low Budget, I know exactly a bait that will do more than a 180. But it's not LOW BUDGET LOL. Triple Trout will do it easily. Mike

Fourbizz I agree with you 100% here.. I feel like we both try to catch the top 5% of what is available in the lake. Which to me is trophy fishing. WHile others target decent or good keeper fish. There's a big difference between the two. I strongly believe that if anyone hasn't fished an 8 inch bait hard for over a year they couldn't possibly understand what we are talking about. You have to breathe it, dream it and believe in it and go the weeks/months without a bite to even understand it. But when you do understand it and have the passion for it it's a habit that will consume you forever. Big bait fishing is more addictive than anything I know of. Fourbizzes analogy is one of the best I have seen in seperating the cute stuff from the big stuff. YEs Paddletails are swimbaits but they aren't big baits. I guess we need to start using the word "BIG BAIT" (7 inches or bigger) instead of swimbaits more. I personally feel that basstrix type baits deserve their own "paddletail" category to prevent confusion between the bigger swimbaits. Good post! Mike

I'm a little in left field on this topic in my thinking on swimbaits. My lake has a TON of 1-2lb dinks and they hit 6 and 7 inch swimbaits like they are candy. I am having to throw bigger 8 to 14 inch baits to weed out those smaller fish to give those bigger fish a shot at getting to the bait. Now granted my lake is 90% spots and little spots are 5 times more aggressive than any largemouth you will find so by going bigger I have actually increased my odds of weaning out the smaller fish and targeting the bigger fish. Yes I still catch alot of 2-3lb fish on 8-14 inch baits but I have actually seen this make a tremendous difference especially with schooling fish. How many times have you reeled in a dink fish only to find 3 bigger ones following your fish to the boat?? By going bigger I have reversed this trend. It's not 100% foolproof but the odds are more in your favor in my opinion. If you want the biggest fish in the school I throw the bigger baits. I also feel that bigger baits have more drawing power to the bigger fish to get them to move futher distances. Kinda like putting a T bone on one table and a jar of baby food on the other. I'd be more apt to draw toward the T bone (bigger meal) than the baby food. There is NO BAIT that is too big for largemouth. Thats the first thing you need to get out of your head that a bait is too big. I remember when I started throwing swimbaits. I thought a 5 inch bait was HUGE. I gradually worked my way up towards the bigger baits. It was a transition but you will learn real quick alot about the size of fish in your pond or lake by throwing the bigger baits. Matching the hatch is always a good thing but not all shad and gizzards and bream are all the same sizes at any one time of the year. You will always have 12 inch gizzards just like you will always have 5 inch bream. I also feel that color is the most overated thing in fishing. Clear Lake and the Delta are notorious for not having trout in their waters but they are constantly caught on trout colored baits. I caught thousands of swimbait fish on a trout colored bait and I don't have trout anywhere close to my waters. To me paddle tails like basstrix are NOT what I call swimbaits. I feel like I do well on swimbaits NOT because I am throwing a swimbait but because I am throwing BIG swimbaits. Thats the key for me but it may not be the key for everyone on your home lake. Each lake is different and requires different train of thoughts on how to approach them. Just my .02 Mike

I use this knot almost exclusively. Not sure about quickest but its one of the strongest for not only braid but fluorocarbon and nylon mono as well. It hasn't lost me a $200 swimbait yet (knock on wood) LOL

Ok This was my first shot and video making. Here's a video I made on making lead baits for those of you that have never done it. It's in 3 parts.. View the first link then the 2nd then the final 3rd link. I did do some safety NO NO's in the video so just be careful when pouring lead and use common sense. I got more burns on me than I care to mention. Gloves, glasses, long pants, shoes are all mandatory deals when dealing with hot lead... Mike

Awesome technique for fishing both deep and shallow and a very very good panic bait rig to when all else fails. In edition to the great articles mentioned above here is one I personally wrote a few years ago. http://www.tritonmike.com/flattail.html

I think Strike King has a winner with this one. I threw the Shad Rage Tail and I was beyond impressed with it. YOu can throw that bait weightless a mile and burn it back to the boat like a buzzbait and it won't blow out. This is really going to be a awesome bait for spots in open water as well as largemouth in heavy cover. The best innovation I have seen in plastics in quite some time. 2 Thumbs up to Strike King! Mike

I'm with Randall on this one. 8 inch gizzard shads are a delight for our fish. Thats one of the very first things you learn about swimbait fishing. Size of bait isn't a deterrant to BIG Bass. You give them the opportunity and they will take it. I've got 13 inch swimbaits that little 2lb spots just kill it. Thats the perfect size that Randall is showing.. Mike

I have fished both Pickwick and Erie. Erie by 5 landslides. There are more 4 to 5lb smallies in Erie than probably any lake in the country combined.. LOL. Just full of them. There was one day where we had 3 guys in the boat and we caught over 200 smallies from sunup to sundown. Too many 5lbers to count with a few 6's mixed in. I agree with Road Warrior on catching a Gigantic smallmouth Pickwick might be a better choice... I'd also have to add lake Pardee in California and Dale Hollow as other great smallmouth fisheries. I hope to go to Dale Hollow and Center Hill to the list of places to go. Mike Mike

in some states, they make you pay extra if you want to wet two lines at a time Do you mean that if I am fishing more than one rod at a time I must pay extra? Please explain... check your local states DFG rules in california yes, you must pay an extra 12 bucks to have a second rod in the water. Unfreakingbelievable!!!!! LOL. Now that is a screwed up State. I'd hate to be a crappie angler there. LOL.