Randall

Something to think about is that LM bass almost alway prefer weeds over other cover. I have some brush that I have put in some of the lakes with weeds I fish but it usually only produces well when we don't have many healthy weeds in the lake. In lakes without weedbeds brush etc. is usually much more productive. IMO brushpiles etc. are much better placed in areas that already have fish rather than areas with no fish. The reason being is that the brush will make the fish that are in the area easier to locate and easier to get to bite since they will concentrate or feed in and around the brushpile.

The kit works great but butt weighted rods are a matter of personal preference. It will make the rod heavier but makes the tip feel lighter. All my rods are weighted this way but I have had some people pick up my rod and ask me how I can fish with a rod that is so heavy.

Just from looking at it I don't think it was really close to a WR but who knows. Lots of water splashing and not that clear of a shot. It was a big fish though.

I started with a pretty easy to carve basic shape and worried more about the action of the bait than the shape in the beginning. I wanted a lipless bait with a gliding action that did a 180 when I stopped the retrieve which depended more on the weight placement and where the line tie was. This is the hardest type to make but I got a shortcut since Whittler was nice enough to give me an idea of where the weight should be in the bait since he had made some musky glide baits. I still had to experiment and make around eight baits before I got one with the right action I was happy with. It was trail and error until I got the line tie, weights, and joints positioned right to get a swimming action out of my bait. It took alot of work spread out over a month or more. Not easy at all. I used basswood and screweyes to make the bait. Now that I can make it and know where to put everything on my bait it only takes a few dollars to make a bait and I save by not having to spend a lot of money on a swimbait. But if I had it to do all over again I would start by making a swimbait with a lip first since it would be easier to get a good swimming action out of it. I really would have a hard time telling you exactly how to make one but the basics though is to get a shape carved then add weight in the belly of the bait to act as a ballast so it sits upright. Then cut the bait where you want joints and add hardware for joints, paint and a lip to make it swim. Here is a photo of mine which don't look like much until you see it swim. I have a video of it swimming somewhere I will post. It has probably caught around 20 fish so far for me and all were good size fish. Here is the video. http://media.putfile.com/swimbait-1

A Falcon rod is more sensitive than an Ugly Stick. As a general rule the way a sensitive rod is constructed it will always break first before a rod like an Ugly Stick. No surprise in the results but I would just about bet if they did a test on sensitivity the results would go backward from the Falcon being the most sensitive they tested down to the Ugly Stick being the least sensitive.

Most of my rods are Falcon Originals from Walmart and are abused on an everyday basis. They are thrown around and bounced around together in my boat everyday. I catch a bunch of big fish on them in a years time. I have dead lifted a couple eight pounders into the boat when I couldn't get to the net. If anyones should break mine should have. I have had them all for three years and have never broken one. About the time I got mine there was a guy who already had a bad reputation for cheating people out of money and not getting people rods they had paid him to make trying to sell rods on the web who is also the person who I believe started the rumor about Falcon Rods breaking. Very few peoples rods ever get abused the way mine have been and none of them have broken out of around ten I own. So, I have since concluded the rumor started on the web years ago is false. Not sure what happened to your rod but I doub't it was the fault of the company. I have seen some broken in Walmart but have always guessed it was from falling from racks and other things that happened in Walmart. Yours could have been damaged the same way but under normal use a Falcon rod is hard to break. Don't know about their customer service since I have never had to use it but the rods from my experience are excellent rods.

Chattahoochee River cliff. Really nice place considering it is going right through a city.

Rainbow at sunrise over Stone Mountain at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park.

We are seeing our first real heat wave of the Summer here In GA. Water temps at lake Varner are hot and just under ninty degrees in the afternoon. Most people give up on catching big bass in the heat of summer or just fish in the early morning, at night or late afternoon. The last few days we have been catching a bunch of smaller fish four pounds or less in the am. Its been the best bite for numbers this year so far since the fish are bunched up and where you get one there are usually more. Then the bite slows down and most people leave the lake when it starts to gets hot. It was 98 degrees yesterday with afternoon water temps over 89 degrees. Then the big ones start to bite. You may not get many bites but for the biggest bass in the lake the hottest part of the day has been hottest part of the day. ;D Yesterday we had around fifteen bites early from 7am til 10am. Then we had zero bites for two hours. From noon til 4pm we had four bites. Every fish in the afternoon was four pounds or better. This has been the norm for over a week now. Best bait in the am has been plastics and the best bait in the afternoon has been a wake type swimbait and a splitshot rig trickworm. Here is a photo of the biggest fish from last week caught at 2pm in 98 degree heat in two to four feet of water. :oDidn't weigh the fish but I believe it to be a fish that I last caught in November that weighed twelve pounds when it was much fatter since it came from the same exact spot as the one last year. It was much lighter this time but still around ten. Wanted to get it back quick after a photo since it was hot and I didn't have a scale ready.

Thanks alot! Got any pics of the one you make?

I will pass on the tickets. The wagtail had to get a repaint. I painted it pearl white with a glitter clear coat and it catches twice as many fish. ;D

A lipless one I make, an ABT Wag Tail, Jackall Mikey and ABT Titan/ Strike King Kong.

Yep thats a Toona shirt. I was planning on fishing there some this year just for a change but its hard for me not to fish Varner even though "The Dead Sea" is closer to my house.

The past couple of days I have still been catching them on plastics and the Mattshad but I found a new pattern. Wake type swimbaits over grass beds. If you think that nothings better than topwater fishing you haven't had a big fish follow a wake bait then hit it twice as hard as any topwater strike you have ever seen. I got between five and ten fish a day to hit different wake baits. I lost three or four big ones that looked between seven and ten pounds :(but also landed a bunch of four and five pounders like the one in the photo.

Here is the Mattshad compared to a shad a hybrid spit out. Perfect size.

Here is a Hybrid we got on a Mattshad.

Saturday I fished lake Lucas with Adam Stanton (Doghouse here on Bass Resource) in a SJA tournament. I had never seen the lake before but we did OK placing 5th with a little over eight pounds. We caught most of our fish and all of our better fish on topwaters fished over suspended fish in deep water that were off the side of a hump. The rest hit trickworms on a jighead on top of the humps. We also went looking for some big fish suspended out in deep water where we had seen some big swirls on top. All we found were some big gar suspended near the surface. Since Adam and myself can't resist throwing at any big fish we see we had to try to catch one anyway even though it took time away from our bass fishing. Adam hooked into one over three feet long and lost it at the side of the boat and we had a lot of big ones follow swimbaits and topwaters back to the boat. I might have to go back one day and just fish for big gar. Sunday at Varner we had around ten fish fishing a half day with the biggest going around four pounds all on trickworms except one that hit a fluke over deep water. Monday I took two boys and their dad out on Varner. We started fishing for hybrids and largemouth around deep creek channels with a Mattshad and jigging spoon and it wasn't long before we hooked into some big hybrids but most pulled off at the boat. After losing one huge hybrid at the boat the young man in the photo adjusted and took a little more time to get this one close playing the fish perfectly so it didn't pull off. He was happy and got the big one he came after. Later in the morning we caught around seven more bass on trickworms and jigging spoons with dad as well as both boys catching fish. Here is dad and sons with a couple nice bass.

Chucks dad with a big one.

Chuck with another good one.

The past few days at Varner the fishing has been good. We have been catching both bass and hybrids around deep creek channels on swimbaits, jigging spoons, and crankbaits. The best bait for these deep fish for me has been a Mattlures Mattshad prototype that I have been fishing. It's a small swimbait around four inches long that looks just like a shad and swims just like a shad. The great thing about it is I have been able to use it as a swimbait throwing it to fish feeding on the surface as well as dropping it straight under the boat after the fish go back down and fish it like a spoon. I just drop it in front of the fish and it gets hit more often than a spoon does. We have also been catching fish on plastic worms on grass flats. We had a great day last Friday on plastics. I fished with Chuck Norton and his dad. We caught fish all day and had some good ones as well. We each hooked into fish over six pounds and I estimate our best five somewhere between 25 and 30lbs. We only stopped fishing long enough to weigh one six pounder. This is Chuck with a big one.

Should be a good bait. These types of baits have been made and used for years by musky fishermen and fishermen in Europe but are just now starting to be used for bass. I have been using them for years for big bass. ;)It's nothing really more than a downsized musky glide bait. There are already are few being made for bass in Japan with much better action than the Rapala version but they aren't cheap. I also noticed when I was looking for some a few months ago that Whittler from here on Bass Resource has some on his website.

If you are more comfortable with spinning gear then use it. For spinning gear I would suggest 40lb braid and a larger saltwater type reel. I have at times cast my Mattlures Bluegill on spinning gear although I prefer a baitcaster. It worked just fine for me and didn't wear me out at all but I do feel I can bring a fish to the boat faster and with more power with a baitcaster. The baitcaster is a winch where a spinning reel is designed just to take up line.

One more photo.

Another photo.

Fish are now in their summer patterns and fishing will not change much day to day or week to week. bass and hybrids can still be found schooling out on the main part of the lake early and late. On some days they are coming up all day so keep something ready to throw at them at all times. Best baits for schoolers have been small swimbaits but crankbaits, topwaters, and jerkbaits have also caught a few. The other bite and the one that is most dependable is the offshore structure bite on soft plastics and crankbaits. Something else to look for is a bluegill swimbait bite over grass. There have been alot of bluegill and shellcrackers suspended over grassbeds this week and I have had a couple of good fish on a Mattlure's Bluegill fished near the surface. The fish in the photo was caught on a trickworm on a splitshot rig as well as the next couple of photos I will post.