Jim H.

Back around 1980 I started fishing the Redman Tobacco Co. bass tournaments. Being from MO, the closest lakes they fished were in KY, IL,and TN. One of the first things I noticed was that many of the top rated contenders were using Eagle trolling motors from Byrd Industries in Deyersburg, TN. They made bow mounted trollers, both hand and foot controlled. and 6/12 volt models vs. the 12/24 volts common today. The 6/12v. models powered by two 6v golf car batteries were awesome. They could handle a 18' Ranger even in 25 MPH winds. The steering system was patented, but Motor Guide and others circumvented the patent by reversing the gears. Remember, this was in the era of "Draw Your Partner" tournaments. The rules were you had to share the front of the boat 50/50 with your partner. Well, guess what? About 90 % of the partners I drew, went crazy when they tried to use my "backasswards" trolling motor to my advantage. The HUGE downside on the Byrd Industries 'Eagles' was the armature shaft. The motors were so powerful that the shaft would bend, causing the O rings to allow water to enter the motor and causing a failure. This could have been easily fixed with either a larger shaft or a hardened one. Personally, I carried a hand controlled spare in the rod box. I heard Byrd sold out to somebody like Tohotsu or Nissan... in any event, the foot petal on these things were great. There was a hinged plate that allowed you to touch the pedal and turn the motor on. No messing around trying to find a micro switch or 1 inch button. Question: What ever happened to this design? The motor was fragile but that foot pedal was AWESOME?

I am 70 years old and have caught and released thousands of bass incvluding my all time best of 10 lbs+. That was then and this is now. If it is a legal bass and I catch it. I wiil eat it. If it is 4 lbs or better I will scale it and filet the fish leaving the skin. Baked in the oven, skin down, with butter and lemon pepper, it is a gourmet's delight. Smaller bass I fillet and cut into bite sized pieces. Just anorher thought... slot limits are imposed for a reason. For example a 12" - 15" slot limit is considered by many to be the same as a 15" minimum. Not so! When the DOC imposes those limits, it is because there are too many small fish and they want you to take those home and eat them! That is a hard pill to swalliow for the catch and release crowd but it is the key to the good health of a fishery. Just my $.02...

I prefer mine dead... and cooked! Shushi (sp?) ain't for me plus they are hard to eat still squirming.

Strange but trrue. My PB tournament bass was 7lb15oz winning me the big bass money and with 2 other nice fish, winning the event. My actual best was never weighed and cost me a friend! Our club was sponsoring a charity tournament and the evening before, my friend and I were just boating around the lake enjoying a brew and watching the sunset. Suddenly we saw a big fish strike a skipping shad. I stopped the boat and my friend made a very long cast with a topwater bait. The monster blew up on the lure but didn't connect. I had a tiny crankbait rigged on a spinning rod with 8lb test and made a cast near the spot... and the battle was on. She was in the brush, then around the trolling motor. and back into the buckbrush. Finally I was able to lip her and got her into the boat. She was HUGH! My friend was stunned and said "My God, that's the biggest bass I have EVER seen. That sucker has to be well over 10 lbs (the lake record was 8 1/2 lbs)." My thoughts at the time was : "So what? I don't want to eat this fish and I can't afford the bucks to have it mounted, so what AM I going to do with it? I decided to let it go. Then my "friend" says "of course you are going to release it, right?" So I did, and he hasn't spoken to me in the last 20 years.

Wow, I think you guys are kinda missing something here. That is the fact that cranking deep runners requires the use of a set of muscles that are unique to that task. I once fished the St. Judes charity bass tournament and drew a retired NFL quarterback as a partner. I was tossing bagley's DB-3's and dragging them through a ditch. We caught enough fish to finish in the top 10. My partner told me after the tournament that his throwing arm was tired and he couldn't figure why a over the hill fat guy was still cranking while he was too tired. The answer is, I routinely used one set of muscles to throw crankbaits while he used a completely different set to throw footballs. Personally, I can't see having a rod/reel combo for every possible situation. I can always turn the handle slower but there is a limit to how fast I can turn a reel handle.

Everybody gets skunked. I once fished a tournment on the Ohio River in the spring. I managed to catch one questionable bass that was pushing the 12" length limit. When I got to the weigh in I debated whether or not to try to weigh in the fish and thought "that's crazy, one 12" dink isn't worth the effort." There were 127 boats in the tournament. That is 254 guys out there trying their durnest to catch bass. Turns out there were ZERO, ZIP, NADA, fish weighed in and the prize money was prorated and mailed out to the entrants. For years now I have wondered what would have happened if I had tried to wheigh that fish?

Thanks guys for all the great info. I talked to the Fishin Rail folks but the http://www.hollaende...m/?page=flanges doesn't come up. The weather has turned sour so I should have some time to look further.

I need help thinking out of the box... I am 67 and have damage to my spinal cord which limits ability to walk. I have virtually zero feeling in my feet. Not a big deal usually but when I try to get into or out of my boat things can get interesting, especially when either the boat is rocking or there is nothing on the dock to hold on to. I am thinking about mounting a standard hospital style walker with the (10" legs removed) to the bow casting deck. Not only would that help in getting in/out, it would help me when I raise my Minn Kota Power Drive trolling motor. Once upright on the dock my cane does fine. The question is, how to attach the walker to the front deck? My boat is a 17 1/2' aluminum, deep vee and the deck is 3/4" marine plywood that is carpeted. Is there a better option? I do fine when I have someone with, me but that doesn't seem to be practical to find somebody that can fish as much as I do. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

K-Mac is right... I know that lake. Years ago there were no limits on crappie and one day my partner and I caught 300 one day. When we passed the bank in Anna IL the temp was 23F. We put in at 8:00 AM and didn't catch a fish for 2 hours. Then we saw a fish splash off a point. We tossed a 1/16 oz maribou jig up in shallow water (less than 3') and immediately had hits. I missed mine but got bit again before I got the jig back to the boat. It was literally a Crappie every cast... for hours... At the end of the day we had over 50 lbs of boneless filets. That is a great lake! I once made a bet with a guy that had a cabin on the lake that I could catch a bass over 12" on the first cast I made and I hadn't been on the lake for over a month. It was easy... there was a ledge that stair stepped from 6' to 40' with stumps/cover on the steps. There were bass there 24/7. Right now I havent been on the lake for 15 years but I would still make that bet.

That is a myth, A dead fish will actually gain weight, Science tells us that liquids concentrate in areas with the higher mineral content (osmosis) attracts water. That is one of the reasons tournaments give a bonus for alive and/or a penalty for dead.

Everybody should read Buck Perry's Guidelines For Fishing Success. Yes, I know it is dated and some of his theories are questionable, but all in all it is IMHO a must read. Part 6 on lake types and part 7 on mapping may be but is relevant. It still amazes me that so many of todays fishermen confuse structure and cover.

Not as hard as it is in August! I have caught bass in the midwest (MO,AR,IL) during all 12 months. In fact bass fishing in Nov. is a lot of fun. Not many other boaters on the lake, and the fishing can be awesome. Remember that by Nov. the spring spawn have grown and most of the forage fish are bigger so larger lures can be effective. In addition, by November the lakes in the midwest have turned over. The thermocline disappears and the oxygen is mixed from top to bottom and the fish may may move deep. A quality sonar can confirm this and jigging a spoon in 25' - 40' can be productive. HTH

The question here is how many bass over 2 lbs do you think a 1 acre pond can sustain? You have probably caught them all... maybe more than once. Even if you released them and they survived, they are "sore mouthed" and may not feed again for weeks. A good bass fisherman can decimate the bass population in a 1 acre pond in one afternoon. just my $.03

Tom has pretty much nailed the lakes. The 2 lakes are small enough that any part of them may produce fish. I find the bar on the NE side of Elk very interesting... but so will a lot of others. The obvious spots like that are probably heavily fished, while other areas (that are not as attractive to fishermen) may hold more/better fish. Sometimes trial and error can produce unexpected results. Once upon a time far, far, away... I was on Kentucky Lake when my engine quit. I was only a couple of miles from the put in and decided that I would fish my way back to the truck. I was near a nothing looking shoreline that dropped off into 25' of water with no apparent breaks. I had on a deep running Bagley's crantbait and thought what the heck, so I started cranking. After I had gone probably 1/2 mile the lure hit something and the Bagley hung up. I did the bow and arrow trick, the bait came free and was nailed by a 4 lber. She was followed to the boat by 3 of her siblings! I actually caught 2, 18" bass on the next cast. Then I won 2 club tournaments on that same spot in the next couple of months. The point is there was no reason for anybody to fish that spot and your lakes are no different. edited; didn't realize that N was rotated 90 degrees from 12 o'clock. Neither did I.

Without doubt, when you catch the 7 lb+ LM bass in a midwest or northern lake, it is going to be something of a fluke. Even in southern climes it is going to at least be out of the ordinary. I simply do not weigh any fish except in a tournament situation. The very biggest bass I ever caught I realeased immediately. I won "big bass" money over a dozen times with fish under 5 lbs so I know I get my share of the larger fish. Of the 3 over 7 lb tournament fish I caught, 1 was flipping a 1/2 oz brown and orange jig with a black trailer, 1 was on a 10.5" Culprit worm fished weightless over millfoil in August, and the other was on a 3/4 oz Rattle Trap. If you will look at the posts with an open mind, and take them as gospel, you will see that there is no single lure that really stands out. In my non professional personal opinion, big bass are caught on what ever was being fished when the fish hit. Out of the literally millions of hours spent tossing various artificial lures in the hope of catching the big one, the odds of catching a real trophy bass is fairly low. Just as an earlier post observes, the odds of that 7 Lb+ bass are much greater in CA and the gulf coast states than they are in NE, MO, IL, IN, PA, etc.