Randall

Here is Dave with one more good one. I will also add that anyone who fishes swimbaits needs to go out and fish with a good musky fisherman once. Dave could get followers to strike almost every single time and taught me a few things. I would share but he made me swear to secrecy.

Here is one of Dave's big fish.

The Swimbait bite turned on at Varner over the weekend. Late last week I thought the big fish had stopped biting since I wasn't catching any over five pounds and the numbers of fish I had been catching went way down to five to ten bites a day. Just when I thought the fishing had slowed down I figured out the big fish made a few adjustments and had two great days of swimbaiting. Saturday I got a few four pounders on a plastic worm in the morning in deep water but the fish hit the bait on the way down which told me the fish were suspended. ::)So I get out the big swimbait and start catching big fish on top over deeper water. Didn't weigh any of the fish but estimate the best five at 25-30 lbs with a few fish that were around seven pounds. Went back to Varner today to fish with Dave who came down from Wisconsin on vacation at Lake Lanier. Dave had fished Lanier and got a few good size bass on a spook but it just wasn't his kind of fishing since he was used to catching big Musky. Dave gets in the boat and sees my big swimbaits and says he feel right at home. He also comments that he will do whatever it takes to catch a big fish but he is most comfortable not throwing a worm or finesse fishing. He says he doesn't care if he gets skunked or not and he wants to go after a big one. Well thats all he had to say to me. The swimbaits and big rods came out and we didn't put them down all day. We fished nine hours from 7am till 4pm and got seven bites. All the fish were over four pounds except one. Our best five estimated at 40lbs with two nine pounders. Keep in mind Dave is a big guy when looking at the photos his fish were as big as the one I am holding but he makes the fish look small. Here is my big fish for the day.

Here is the first bass I caught off the spot.

Here is the big one.

Last week I had one of times you will remember for a long time. Everything lined up perfect and I was in the right place at the right time with the right bait. It was about to pour rain and the wind was blowing 20 mph plus so it was perfect for throwing a big swimbait. I get to a spot I haven't fished since last fall and first cast with a swimbait I feel a thump but not much fight on my 40lb line. I keep reeling thinking the fish is just swimming at me to fast for me to catch up. Bait gets almost to the boat and I have a big shellcracker on a swimbait. It somehow even got almost the whole big treble in its mouth. I have people tell me all the time that a bass will not eat a bait that big but if a big shellcracker will try to eat it you know a big bass will. Next cast I get a bass around six pounds. Then it gets fun and I get ten fish on around fifteen casts and every one is between five and six pounds. Well, I am tired of catching little fish and want one that is ten plus and the conditions seem right so I tie on a big ten inch swimbait as fast as I can and line up so that my first cast will be perfect right where the big one should strike. First cast with the big bait the rod loads up and I have a monster on. I grab the net and the fish goes right into the net perfect right as the rain starts pouring down. I weigh the fish and its a twelve pounder, my boat has drifted over the spot the fish are coming from , and its pouring rain. So I put on my rain suit and wait for the rain to let up so I can get a few photos. After the rain stops I take the photos, change shirts since mine is soaked from the cold rain and go back to make a few more casts but its over and I can't get any more fish. So I decide to go ahead and leave so I can beat the traffic through Atlanta. Not a bad day for the middle of July.

I would have to agree that a swimbait is not always the best lure for a big fish. I catch big fish on a bunch of baits and my best bait for big fish year round is a trickworm fished painfully slow with little or no weight on light line. But if they are hitting swimbaits then the swimbait is the best bait to throw and the trickworm or anything else will not even come close to the fish you will get on a swimbait. But ,the best way to learn to fish swimbaits is to throw them all the time for a while and start paying attention to the conditions and little things you notice that tell you when and where a fish might hit a swimbait and when it might not. Then you will know when to pick it up and when to put it down.

Believe it or not I still do.

Doghouse and myself fished last weekend in a tournament at Varner. We got off to a decent start with some smaller fish and got a quick limit then the big fish started biting. It took light line in a brush pile fished painfuly slow to get the bites but we got four bites in four hours. Each fish hooked was seven pounds plus but we only landed the two in the photo. :'( We still finished in second place and won big fish with over 23lbs. But, for the second week in a row we missed our chance at a 30-40lb sack of fish. Maybe we will land them all next time.

Owner is the only hook I use for plastics.

Lightninrod took a great photo so I hated to do that but it did have a famous landmark in the background. ;D

It depends on species of fish as to how far a bass can move in a vertical line to strike a bait. Smallmouth and spots have been shown to be able to make moves of fifteen feet to feed while some largemouths have been shown to lose their equalibrium in a vertical movement of more than three feet. I have seen hybrids and spots follow a hooked fish on a jigging spoon on my depthfinder about fifteen feet before they stop chase and head back down while I have never seen a largemouth do this more than five feet. For a largemouth to get a consistant strike you really need the bait to be no more then three feet over where the bass is suspended in deep water. You can get strikes from a largemouth five feet down but most of these bass will usually be smaller fish since larger bass usually will not make large vertical moves to feed.

I had the pleasure to fish yesterday with the famous Lightninrod. I met him at the ramp around noon and a Varner regular had already recoginized him from his famous fishing reports. He needed no introduction even though he had never been to Varner. So, I was fishing with a celebrity in the world of fishing. We got started and it wasn't long before I had a bite on a trickworm that didn't feel all that big until it started taking drag. We got it in the boat and weighed it at 7lbs 4oz. We are off to a great start since we are just after nothing but big ones. A few minutes later a storm came up and we fished for a while since there was no lightning and got soaked. It looks like the storm will go on by but then we get some lightning. Its not good to be out in an all electric boat in a thunderstorm with big bolts of lightning so we take off toward the ramp. Later I am thinking that it might even be worse since the guy I am fishing with is called Lightninrod. We wait out the storm back at the ramp and get to go back out for a while but the big ones aren't biting. We got a few more small fish but nothing big. Had a good time despite the rain and got to meet and fish with Lightninrod.

Thanks. I probably enjoyed that trip as much as any I have been on. He was a great kid, loved fishing, and was very polite and well mannered. He got excited over catching that small fish and when you think about the fact that he doesn't get the chance to go fishing you can see why. The people at Fox Five and Wednesdays Child do a great job of trying to get these kids adopted as well as making sure they have a good time doing things they love. Most would never get the chance to do things like going fishing that this program allows them to be able to do. If anybody knows anyone who might be looking to adopt a nice young man who loves fishing please pass the link on to them. I would love to hear that Chris has been adopted by a nice family who will take him fishing.

Doghouse and myself fished in a tournament Saturday at Varner. We had a bad day in the fact that we didn't boat all the fish we could have since I missed two giants on a 10 inch swimbait and had another fish that I set the hook on that didn't move that doubled up the rod before coming off. We still managed to get on some other good ones and get them to the boat on plastics and a Mattlures bluegill. Our five fish weighed 25.5 pounds and beat two other sacks that were right around twenty-five pounds. If we had landed all the fish I feel like we would have had 40lbs+ . Were going to try it again next weekend so hopefully the big ones will still be biting and we can land them all.

Someone pointed this out to me this morning that a few California guys that fish the lake also think this is the same fish because of the markings. They posted it over on the Bass Fishing Home Page in the Other Topics. At least I wasn't the only one that thought it was the same fish. It still looks like the same fish to me. But I guess we will never be able to ask the fish where she was earlier this year. Chris I will take your word for it. Just thought it was interesting that I wasn't the only one.

If you take the photos of the fish and match up the markings its the same fish. Each fish has its own markings and no two fish have the same markings. The fish has a unique mark on the tail and although the fish has a different coloration when caught this time the markings are the same for the ones that you can see this time. That fish has just been eating real good.

If I am not mistaken that is the same fish that Fish Chris had caught earlier this year as well as another guy who also turned it loose. Shows what catch and release can do!

The water was still hot at 85+ but it was nice yesterday with the breeze clouds and temps lower than the ninetys. One of the nicest summer days I can remember for just being comfortable.

Here is our first fish of the day that hit a Mattlures East Coast Series swimbait (same as the Mattlures Perch) that Matt painted to look like a shad for me.

Sombody please tell the fish at Lake Varner its not spring it's July and the big ones aren't susposed to bite unless the water is at least below 70 degrees. ;D I took a vacation for a week and didn't fish at Varner for five days in a row. Wife had a big list of things for me to do and it was hard since the last day I fished before I took the Vacation I thought I had just about got the big ones figured out and we caught a big one that afternoon. Next day I was cleaning out the attic and doing home repairs wondering if the big ones were biting while I was stuck at home working. So Sunday afternoon I got out to the lake in search of the big ones and had five good ones out of around twenty fish caught that went 25lbs plus. Water temps were 85-90 degrees. Next day I was back with a couple of guys and the first spot we stopped I got a big swimbait fish just under eight pounds that confirmed for me that the big ones were feeding. We fished the spot a while longer with nothing so we continued to move around the lake on what I call big fish holes since the big ones were eating getting one here and there until we had caught around ten fish with most of them going over four pounds but we still hadn't got the giant we were looking for. Around 1pm we hit what Doghouse and myself call the 10lber hole. Its an area that multiple big fish live and feed in that gets very little fishing pressure because to most it looks like nothing. More than once it has produced two fish between 10 and 12 pounds in one day so I am thinking this is one of our best chances to get a big one. Its also the same area my big fish in my last post here came from. . The guy in the photo, Victor , makes the first cast with a trickworm right on target to where I think a giant might be. His line starts moving off and he sets the hook with eight pound line and it don't move. Then the fish comes to the surface and goes crazy pulling off three big jumps in a row while spitting out a big gizzard shad before it starts taking drag. A few minutes later the fish gives up and goes into the net looking every bit of eleven or twelve pounds. We weigh it and the scale says 9.5lbs. He was really wanting the fish to be over ten but it had an empty stomach when it got to the boat and the shad it spit out weighed a pound easily. :'( We finished out the day with some more fish but no more monsters. I started estimating our best five for the day and came up with at least 30lbs minimum but maybe as high as 35lbs for our best five. ;D Best five I can remember in July. My camera lens must have been fogged up when I took the photo since this photo didn't come out well and a couple more didn't come out at all but I did get another photo of the first fish of the morning thaty came out pretty good before the lens fogged up.

Good choice for an affordable swimbait. I caught a bunch of big fish like the one in the photo on it last fall.

Spot Stalker www.unclejosh.com

I have about ten chairs on my carport that almost went to the dump today I guess they will be in the lake by next weeek. ;D

15lbs 12oz on Mattlures Bluegill.