Randall

Fishing at Varner has been good over the past week. Last weekend Doghouse and myself placed third in a two day tournament. We caught all of our fish except one sight fishing with jigs. We were over four pounds behind after a tough first day where we broke off and lost a big fish that would have won it twice. We came back with a big sack on the second day around twenty pounds but were still around a pound short. We had been on a roll winning tournaments and our luck had to run out sooner later. :'( I was on the lake everyday this week and we got a least a six pound or better fish every day except one. There are big fish on beds now all over the lake and big fish cruising the shallows looking for bedding areas. We have a full moon coming up this week which will bring another big wave of fish shallow and on beds. The best baits for these bigger fish have been Matt's bluegill and white jigs. Also some of the fish that spawned in March/early April have recovered and are starting to feed again. Senkos and trickworms fished in postspawn areas have been the best baits so far for these fish but a great topwater bite could start any day. I also got to fish with Burley and Beast from this site on Saturday. It was nice to meet and fish with two guys from here. They were a pleasure to fish with and Beast caught a beast of a fish. ;D I would tell the story but I will let them tell it. They have a bunch of photos so look for their post in the next couple of days. The photo is four of our fish we caught last Sunday in the tournament. I believe our biggest fish was just short of eight pounds.

Thanks everyone. Now I have a problem. I have caught my fifteen so what do I do now? I have been after a fifteen for years. Good problem to have I guess. ;D

OK , You guys here get to see it first. ;D Got the pic just a little while ago. I had a few more but my camera broke on the wrong day. The fish was 15lbs 12oz and around 31 or 32 inches long. It was caught on a Mattlures Bluegill just below the surface in twelve feet of water. After looking at the tail I am guessing she is spawned out and maybe a post spawn fish. We were fishing in the AM and only catching a few smaller fish and the wind came up to over twenty MPH with gusts to over forty mph. So I tell the guy I am with who's name is Benny Shiver that since its nasty out and tough to catch fish I will teach him how I target bigger fish and even if we don't catch anymore he will learn something about the habits of bigger fish and what kind of structure to find them on as we go back toward the ramp before it gets real bad. We stop at what I call one of my ten pounder holes and Benny is casting a rattletrap and I am casting Matt's Bluegill. I am actually having to cast the bait and judge the wind to get any accuracy with it since the flat sides are catching plenty of wind. Benny's rod loads up with a big fish on his first cast but the hooks pull free. On about my third cast I see a shadow coming just below the waves and it takes the bluegill about five feet from the boat. I set the hook hard and hit the thumb bar on the reel to release the spool so the fish don't rip off as it dives under the boat. With some slack in the line I put the rod tip down to get the line under the boat and under the trolling motor and turn to the other side to tighten up on the fish and it's still there so I start reeling and it jumps one time. I see the bait in the mouth of the fish deep so I bring the fish to the boat before it can jump again. Benny nets the fish perfectly. Thanks Benny. We put the fish in the live well and regain control of the boat. The fish will not fit in my livewell since the back of the fish is higher than the water. I call Doghouse and tell him something like, "I don't know how big it is but it's at least 13lbs but could be 15lbs". We pull up to the most protected place we can find in the lake to get at least out of the waves and weigh the fish. The scale was bouncing as high as 16lbs but finally settled on 15lbs 12oz. We measured with an eighteen inch golden rule and decided it was over 31 inches long. I thought about having it certified since it would beat the certified lake record of 15lbs 8oz but my livewell wasn't big enough to keep the fish alive for sure and I weighed a 16lb 8oz bass for a guy there a few years ago so even though it would be the certified lake record I would still know it wasn't really the biggest fish ever caught out of the lake. I had a witness and photos and thats enough for me so I released the fish to be caught again. I look at the pic and it don't do the fish justice. This fish was thick as well as long and I still can't get over how big the eyes were. Thank's to Benny for the job with the net and taking the photos. Also thanks to Matt for making a great bait. In a week and a few days I have caught two eleven pounders, and eight pounder, and a this monster all on Matt's bluegills.

Doghouse and myself fished a tournament Saturday at Lake Horton. We had already decided before the tournament we were going to go for broke and fish swimbaits all day. Fishing was slow and I did pick up a worm for a few minutes but when that gave us nothing I picked the swimbait rod back up. By around noon Doghouse had put around six fish in the boat on a swimbait and I had done a good job of netting fish. : We needed a kicker fish and I saw nothing but small fish swiming around in shallow water so we went deep and started fishing for fish suspened in standing timber and bushes in fifteen feet of water with a Mattlures Bluegill. It wasn't long until I had the fish in the photo on the way to the boat and Doghouse had to finally pick up the net. ;D It weighed over eight pounds and gave us over twenty pounds for the win and big fish. Second was around sixteen pounds and third was around fifteen pounds.

Thanks. I really don't keep count but I believe last year I caught around 20 over ten.

The reason I was using the swimming jig is that the wind was blowing to hard at times to throw a fluke very well so I was fishing the swimming jig much like you would a fluke with jerks and then letting it fall. It had a white skirt and a fluke as a trailer. I was imitating a bait fish swimming over beds. The swim jig I use is 1/2oz with a head that makes it plane out in the water and kind of glide. It was heavy enough to throw in the wind but the head gave it a slower gliding action. Only other time I really use it much is over shallow grass in much the same way.

One more.

Another good one.

Went out today at Varner despite the gusts of 30-35 MPH wind. It was tough holding the boat in one spot or even getting anchors to hold in place. It was worth fighting the wind all day since the big ones were biting. We used swimbaits and swimjigs almost all day and caught the fish in the photos and a few more not photographed. Got my second 11lber in less than a week. I am windburned and half the skin on my thumb is gone but it was worth it .

Here is one more photo of eight year old Parker who I fished with Saturday with one of the fish he caught.

One more photo from Friday.

Another fish from Friday.

Friday a severe cold front hit Georgia's Lake Varner. It was the best thing that could have happened. ;D Instead of the fish being scattered all over Varner's huge flats where they can be tough to find at times, they went to the first deep water off the flats into the ditches, and off points where they were tougher to catch but easier to find. The result was fish being caught including a few big fish with the biggest going eleven pounds one ounce that hit a Matt's Ultimate Bluegill fished very slow over deeper water off the edge of a flat. Most of the others hit a splitshot rigged trickworm fished painfully slow taking up to five minutes to bring it back to the boat. On Saturday I took an eight year old and his dad out fishing in 30mph winds and water temps that had dropped 10 degrees overnight. He was a good kid didn't complain at all about the weather like most adults do and had fun catching fish. All of our fish on Saturday hit trickworms on jigheads and splitshot rigs fished slow.

I have caught them in real muddy water with a visibility of less than a foot on swimbaits. They excel in clear water because of their natural appearance in the water but most also move a lot of water due to their size so they will work in muddy water. Just use any swimbaits that fish well at slow speeds.

I personaly have never used a stinger other than attaching a treble on the bottom of the bait. I have found that if a big bass hits it it will swallow it if it really wants it. I have had bass come off of beds and follow it just nipping at the tail trying to chase it away but can almost alway throw back to the bed and get them once they follow it.

I don't know. We took his boat and I am not sure of brand.

There were a few big bass on beds today but they were deep and tough to see with the rain and wind. I am sure I could have caught a few big ones off beds if the sun had been out.

I also did something I don't do much this time of year when the big bass are on beds which is fish for crappie at Varner. While sight fishing for bass I had happened across the biggest bunch of crappie I have ever seen in one spot. The guy in the photo loves to crappie fish so we got out the spinning gear and started casting 1/16 oz jigs. In about two hours we caught way over 100 crappie. We got bit on almost every cast we made. Not the same thrill as hooking into a 10lber but alot of fun anyway.

Here is another photo of the eight pounder.

Today I fished lake Horton with a buddy that was wanting to learn the lake before a tournament he has there in a couple of weeks. I used to fish the lake alot when it was full of hydrilla but haven't fished it as much since grass carp were introduced and elimimated all the grass. I may have to start fishing it alot again since it seems that the elimination of the grass hasn't really hurt the fishery as much as I thought it might. The lake still has plenty of cover in the from of deeper wood cover and standing timber that was left in the lake when the lake was flooded. We went looking for spawners but didn't see too many and cloud cover and wind didn't help any. So, I started throwing swimbaits over deeper wood near spawning areas and any larger deep beds I could see and starting catching big ones. We caught a bunch of fish with the biggest two in the photo. The biggest was eight pounds and the other one was probably five to six pounds. Some big pickerel also ruined a few of my swimbaits but it was worth it. ;D.

When I throw swimbaits I am looking to imitate two types of forage on the lakes I fish most often. The first is sunfish (Crappie, Bluegill, Perch, etc.) and Mattlures baits are the best and the best for the money. The second type of forage is gizzard shad and for $3 to $6 dollars the Storm Kickin' Minnow does a good job although I feel it could be better designed.

I use one baitcaster and one spinning rod to catch 98 percent of the fish I catch. My favorite all around baitcaster is a Falcon Original MH 7' rod My favorite all around spinning rod is a Bass Pro Bionic Blade M 7'. Both of these rods will fish most baits well. The Falcon has enough backbone to fish jigs in Heavy cover but has enough flex down the blank to fish crankbaits. I looked at a bunch of rods to find these all around type of rods since I am limited in space on my boat. Now that I am used to using these for everything I wouldn't change even if I did have the space.

Fish usually get the whole trap with no problem with the exception of hot water later during the summer when they sometimes just slap at the bait. So there is no reason for the rear hook. Its always best to use the biggest hook you can get the fish on since bigger hooks are harder for the fish to throw and you dont have to worry about how you play the fish and the fish jumping. Most people use a soft rod to keep the fish on when it pulls and jumps. I do just the opposite and use a heavy action rod and big hooks so I can take the fight to the fish and don't have to worry about pulling the hooks out of the mouth of the fish. Also If you get a real big fish it will win the battle on a trap with smaller hooks most of the time because they don't penetrate as deep and the bite of the hook isn't big enough to fit around the jawbone of a big fish where most hooks stick at. On crankbaits I upsize hooks alot and sometimes will only use a front hook If I am catching real big fish. I use the same graphite heavy action rod and just set my drag loose. When I set the hook my thumb is on the spool for a solid hookset then I let the fish take drag to wear its self down. If it trys to come to the surface I pull hard so it can't get up at all which you can't do with small hooks or a fiberglass or soft rod. I just prefer to take the fight to the fish on crankbaits and rattletraps instead of trying to adapt to what the fish wants to do and hoping it stays on as it jumps and pulls with small hooks.

Beds were from one to five feet deep.

I use 40 lb braid. I feel it helps me move a big swimbait in the mouth of a big fish after it clamps down on the bait and helps me horse it straight to the boat so it can't shake the bait free.