Randall

Great fish and photos. ;D Looks like you had fun out there.

Matt's Bluegill is the bait you need. They will chase it just like the live bluegill you hooked if you swim it since it swims back at a slow speed. I fished for an eight pounder for four hours last year and the fish wouldn't move from the bed but wouldn't react to a bait either until I pulled the Matt's bluegill by the fish one time. It followed it all the way back to the boat on the first cast and I had the bait sitting in the bed before it got back to the bed on the second cast. It hit it as soon as it got back to the bed and saw the bluegill just sitting there and not moving. The bait will sit on the nest upright and not fall over just like it is feeding on the eggs. There are photos on Matt's websight that shows it sitting on the bottom if you want to see how it sits. His website is www.mattlures.com. If the small bass has a hard time eating the bait then use the Mattlures Bluegill to get him agressive then throw a smaller bait back to catch it.

Thanks for the mention from the all the guys that mentioned me as a guide in GA in this post. But, I may not have any water to fish next spring if we don't get rain so I couldn't book you for a trip if you are making your plans soon. Right now my best two big fish lakes are closed and I have had to go get a job for a while and just guide part time on weekends vs. full time. :'( As a guide I get the chance to fish with a lot of people who use other guides all over the US and Mexico and many of my clients have fished with both Tom Redington, George Welcome and have taken trips to Mexico. I have never heard anything but good things about Tom and George but have heard some disapointment from those that have fished Mexico. I have fished with neither Tom or George but could recomend both since I have never heard nothing but good things about them from a bunch of different people who have. If you want just big largemouth that would be my picks for guides and lakes for what you are wanting. If you really want big Smallmouth in the mix then you need to go to Alabama and book a trip for one day with a guy named Steve Hacker for smallmouth and another one with one of the Gunterville guides for largemouth. There are a bunch of good guides on Guntersville and Steve Hacker is another one of those guides that many of my clients have used with nothing but good things to say about him. If you decide to go to Alabama PM me and I can get you some info as to which guides I would suggest.

Doghouse who is a member here and my tournament partner has one and has thrown his Mattlures on it and has caught some over ten pounds with no problems. It handles the bait no problem. The rod is over kill for the shad baits though and I would go with a lighter rated rod for those. Doghouse hasn't been on here much lately but you can PM him and maybe he can tell you more than I can about it. All I know is he has caught some big fish caught on that rod and the bluegill.

I have one Classic series casting rod I use for swimbaits. Great rod for the price. Mine was only $45. I am not familar with the trophy series but remember them looking more like a pure saltwater type rod that I didn't think would fit my needs in freshwater so I went with the Classic series.

It's what I use. Its worked great with all day use almost everyday for two years with no problems. If you watch online for bass pro to put it on sale you can get it for less. I would suggest the portable for what you are using it for.

I use them in GA all year long and know people who have caught fish on them as far North as Michigan. I caught my biggest bass on one back in April that weighed fifteen pounds twelve ounces but have also caught two pounders on them. I can't see why they wouldn't work anywhere there are bass and sunfish. Use the search feature on this website since there are a bunch of posts about them. Also, the owner of Mattlures is a well respected long time member here on this website.

There have been lures like this around for years but people have been real good at keeping quiet. Also many people have been making them just for personal use. First ones I can remember seeing were in a small tackle shop in South Carolina back during the eighties. I know some guys have won tournaments on other homemade versions on the same chain of lakes the Classic is being fished on next year at that time of year. If Aaron or someone else wins the classic using it or a version of it you can bet the demand will be high for them over the next year. They might be selling on E-Bay for $50 for a two pack next year so get them while you can. ;D They work best with a flat fluke type bait made more like a Banjo Minnow than a regular super fluke. I have a bunch of big flat flukes like this that are no longer made that I use on them.

Something else to think about when getting a widebeam finder for shallow water is that you will miss many things that a narrow beam finder will show. For example if your beam is hitting in the middle and on the edges of a small creek channel you depth finder may not show the actual depth of the creek and breakline or even show the channel at all but show an average of everything the beam is hitting making a well defined narrow creek channel with a big drop off look much different than what is actualy there. In shallow water I want a low power unit with a narrow beam to get the most detail of the bottom. I know guys who get old low power depthfinders that havent been made in years just because they give a better picture of whats down there in shallow water. I am not familiar with quad beams, duel beams etc. but from what I have heard they do much the same thing and take an average of what is under the boat from all the beams giving more bottom coverage but with much less of what is actually there.

I use braid :-? but sometimes use fluro and keep my rod pointing toward the bait as I fish it. When I feel or see the strike I sweep the rod as far as I can while reeling and almost never let the fish stop or slow down on its way to the boat. I feel I can move the bait better in the mouth of the fish with braid and keep it coming toward the boat better without fear of broken line.

It's hard to say since I made it in steps a little at a time and didn't pay attention to how much time each step took. But I would guess three or four hours and maybe more total time.

Also, if you want a quiet gliding type of walking action when you need a subtle quiet type of bait the gunfish is perfect. For me its the best use for the bait instead of the noisy franitc action decribed above and most people throwing the bait don't know the bait will work this way. My favorite on slick water with no wind on a bright sunny day or when the fish are spooky. You can get a bunch of different actions from the bait depending on how its used. There are better noisy splashy baits and better walking baits but not many that are versitile enough to do both then glide quietly along on the top without making much of a splash at all. The glide action is more like a fluke type of action. For me its perfect when fish want something quiet but also works as an ok substitute for when fish want a Pop-R type action or a Sammy type action without having to change baits. It also is a great bait to see what the fish want without having to try a bunch of baits since it does everything. After I figure it out I switch to a sammy or Pop-R or if they like the quiet glide of the gunfish I leave the gunfish tied on.

I have ultimate bunkboards on one of my boat trailers. It is much easier to load and unlaod the boat but you can't unhook before you start to back down the ramp or the boat will slide off. They dont cause any other problems as long as the boat is straped down. They also last forever and don't have to be replaced like wood and carpet. I will be putting them on my other trailer next. With out the ultimate bunkboards I wouldn't have been able to fish a lot of lakes this year due to low water. The ultimate bunk boards allowed me to push my boat off into the water with out backing all the way into the water. I am friends with the owners of the company but I never thought they were that great and didn't have them on my trailers until one of my buddys bought a boat with the ultimate bunk boards already installed that I borrowed. After trying them out on his trailer I have decided to put them on all my boat trailers.

My question is can they be paired together tomorrow? Would make for an interesting day on the water if so. Would also be funny if she out fished him from the back of the boat. I bet TMZ might be there with a camera just incase.

Quantum used to make some quality reels for the price at $40. I am not sure if these are still in their line up but I have a few of them that are six or more years old and still get everyday use from them with no problems. The name they used to be called was the Profile series but I think they are almost the same reel as the Quantum pulse. They may or may not be as good as they once were though since many companies are not making good low end reels any more and I havent tried one.

Al I just saw on another website that you live in Athens. If I lived there in the fall and winter I would fish the lake at Sandy Creek Park with a rattletrap, jerkbait fished slow, and a jig fished slow anywhere straight across the lake from the ramp. Those three have never failed me there in the fall, winter or early spring. That is if the lake has some water in it.

For a baitcaster a Falcon Original seven feet MH action. For a spinning rod I like BPS Bionic blade seven feet medium action. I have limited space on my boat so I set out a few years ago to find the rods I could do everything with even though there are better rods out there for specifics. You can start with these two and cover most anything with them. If you add a third rod get a Falcon Original seven foot medium action baitcasting rod. I use these three rods and a swimbait rod for 99% of my fishing because I can do everything with these rods although I own over twenty rods. If you find a seven foot rod a little long you can downsize to six foot six inch rods with no problem. I just like longer rods personally. All these rods are in the seventy five dollar range at regular price.

Hard to say why you aren't catching them since you didn't say what you are doing and as far as big lakes where you are fishing. On ponds fish in the afternoon since the water temps are a little higher then. Also pond fish will go into winter patterns faster than the fish on big lakes since the water cools to lower temps on cold nights. I haven't been out everyday like I usually am this time of year but I am catching them when I go. The fishing should be better with the drought if you are fishing in the right place.

The lake Acworth pics are from last Saturday. The Varner Pics are from somewhere around the 15th but can't remember the exact date.

Chris, I told Jake and Roy that you had a tough time out there. Jake said we could have stayed longer and caught more but they had to go watch GA beat Tech. He said that without knowing you were a Tech fan but I got a good laugh out of it. ;D Won't be fishing for a couple weeks since my wife just had another surgery but I will let you know when I am going back.

That's real common here at Lake Varner in GA. My theory, and my catches support it ,is that there are fish that live at depths or locations that are lacking in enough or the right type of forage to grow well and others that live at the right depths and locations to make the most of the right types and amounts of forage. These skinny fish may also be living at depths/locations where they have to compete with other more aggresive fish like stripers or hybrids. You may not see a big difference in the smaller fish at different depths but once these fish get big they need a better supply and choice of forage in the depth/location they live. If the food supply is lacking what the bigger fish need at the depth and location that fish lives then the fish gets skinny and stops growing as fast. If they are in the right locations or depths they grow larger and fatter than others. It could be other things like parasites and diseases but knowing your lake has produced big fish this is my first guess. Here is a Varner fish that should weigh in the teens but was only nine pounds. It had a terrible choice of home range where it lived and had to compete with hybrids for a very limited food supply but probably had the genes to be huge if it lived in the right location. The fish was longer than a fifteen pounder I caught this past spring but weighed nearly six pounds less. Looked young and healthy other than its body weight.

Here is the second photo.

Lake Varner closed just a few days back because of the drought and what they called dangerous conditions :. Before Varner closed I got a good one just a few days before they closed the ramp. It closed just when I was on the big fish good catching three or four over ten pounds in a few weeks. Next best option that was still open to fish after Varner closed for big fish was Lake Acworth so I went out with my buddy Roy Mims and his son Jake to Lake Acworth last Saturday. The lake was at full pool which was nice but it was windy and cold. We got on a good group of fish in one small area and Jake had a bunch of fun catching them on a jighead with a trickworm. We only fished a few hours since the GA-GA TECH was coming on and Jake didn't want to miss it. But, we caught them pretty good once we found them. I guess we caught between 10-15 fish. Here is a photo of Jake and some of his fish and Jake holding his biggest fish of the day. The second photo is an eleven pounder and another good one we got at Varner right before it closed.

Lipless baits like that one can be pretty tough to make. There are a lot of varibles that can totaly mess up the bait or make it swim great. I just posted one I made and I was shocked I got it all right on the first try. Ones that use a lip to swim are not near as hard to make from my experience.

Here is a new lipless wakebait /swimbait I made. Made a plan on paper and just took a piece of basswood and grinded it down to the shape and size I wanted with a Dremel tool, cut the joints and added the weight. Sealed it up and added the hooks and screweyes. Used a broken Storm Kickin' minnow tail attached by a wire screw thing as the tail. Worked on the very first try with no adjustments. Either I got lucky or I am getting good at this. Swims better or as good as any swimbait on the market I could buy. Swims at a very slow speed as well as fast and does a 180 back at the fish when stopped on a follower as well as some other tricks. Added the paint, eyes, and clearcoat and it caught a 5lb fish on the first cast when I was just watching it swim for the first time. Here is a video http://media.putfile.com/Swimbait-slow-retrieve . And here is a photo of the bait. Now I just got to get me a slow sinker made to go with it.