F14A-B

Haha, figured it out, here they are from my story above. Recovered topwater prop bait.. moral of this fishing story and posting picture difficulties is never surrender 🤣

Well I shot the lure pic in jpeg but this site won’t allow the upload, says file size to big still.. this IS the only sight where this is a problem. Oh well..

Well in was 1988 on Lochloosa lake. It was a 6’6” Lews rod, made in Korea. It was a heavy, stout action. Had a graphite fore grip and gold frame Fuji guides. Best rod I ever owned. Reel was a Quantum burgundy colored with a magnetic dial, graphite frame. That reel never gave a moments trouble. I took both items to Puerto Rico about a dozen times.. the fish broke me off on a topwater at daybreak I suspect but can’t be certain, but 10 minutes later she was mine. Same rod n reel but I tied on a worm hook and a Gilraker worm, black spinal core, 6 or 7” probably 1/2 ounce weight (lead) 16 pound Stren clear blue saltwater grade.. here’s the recovered lure, it popped up about 10 minutes later, I’ve never used it since! I pitched into a circle opening in the very thick hydrilla and BAM! Big fish big fish!! 11.2 weighed in by Wade Boggs father who ran the fish camp.. he had large tanks, long and fairly shallow and if you caught a big fish they would tag it and hold it while you kept fishing..( a lot of guide fishing with clients) I loved that place. Totally. Buddy Baker of NASCAR fame told me about the lake when he came by a friend of mines father in Georgetown, In. He had a 10 pound mount with a 10” blue Mann’s auger tail worm. I swore I would fish there and I was 15 at the time, and so I did….its the greatest fish story of my life and there are others.. but it’s my most fond. Again, here is the topwater bait pic, I believe it is a Poes cedar bait…

Looks good, you gonna fish that bad boy?

Haha, I took a gander at it based upon the air temperature you stated and the healthy appearance of those fish.. so I’m not surprised, in guessing that you all share the same latitude, 😁 hope you have a nice day fishing tomorrow! Look forward to pictures no matter the size..

Nice. Good to see some very healthy LMB, casting or spinning gear? You must live next door to A-Jay lol

Good to know they don’t distort, I don’t use them much, but have had issues with Yamamoto grubs and plastisol baits changing their shape. I keep my fat swings in their clam pack myself..

The main concern for me would be the baits taking memory which will affect action.

I’ve seen a very few in Indiana, but it’s coming. This one is suppose to be a doozy 🤣

^^^Strike king jig, dark brown with orange and a pork trailer, dark brown, claw pattern. Hand sharpened hook.

Haha, Bass can’t read. They are rebellious by nature. 🤣In the mid nineties I got on a pattern on a lake here in Indiana, in December, air temp got up to 28, water was 41. I was using a casting jig and trailer casting from deeper water into rocky/ boulder like shoreline, Sun was up about midday, I worked my jig thru the rocky area and would burn it back to the boat and BAM! 3 pounder , I repeated that and saw another big fish follow it to the boat and turn away. I cast again & again, I caught 14 pounds of bass that day, basically cookie cutter bass that would strike only at high speed retrieve.. go figure. 😂 basically breaking the rule of slow fishing in cold water. Totally accidental on my part! I guess I should add, I was fishing for smallmouth and caught largemouth 😂

I believe you & I would do well if we were sharing a boat together, Mercer drives me insane with his clown act 🤣 Trip was on live mix this morning, nice to see him, I always liked the guy. Although not an MC, he was a solid director.

He’s having a great tournament. Watching these guys today definitely made me more aware of this teamwork on the water issue, particularly in today’s example the brothers. I know what you mean, it just feels wrong to me also, I’m not saying it is wrong, but it really is a solo sport at this level.

Gerald Swindle is a loser, Guy cry’s about FFS, and can’t even junk fish tbh. He should retire and take up stand up comedy somewhere. (Except he isn’t funny at all) My question is this: If it was so egregious what Trey did ( State of Florida says otherwise) why didn’t the Marshal in Trey’s boat report him? And yes I know the tournament rules explicitly explain the tournament rules in multiple formats.. The St. John’s river system is awesome. I’ve got a hundred story’s easily about it. I lived in Jax and Green Cove Springs which is 25 or so miles north of Palatka. It’s a river system you could fish a lifetime and never cover it all. Back to Trey, I hope the kid recovers, he’s quite a fisherman. He was 1 min. late last tournament and he dropped 2 places over it and that cost him money. A 90 minute punishment could cost him tens of thousands. He has to tighten up and I hope someone is coaching him proper. He was even fearful about traveling to his day one location because he thought he would run out of fuel. He’s got to do better on these calculations and I mean now. He’ll learn though, maybe the hard way. Exactly, he’s a lousy competitor. 1 AOY.. & I don’t know how..

It is absolutely my favorite way to fish. One thing imo is you need to fish it slow. After watching the elite series pros at Harris those guys were fishing trigs way faster than they should have. If living in Florida and fishing for big largemouth taught me anything was s l o w d o w n. I mean very slow on casting and retrieving the trig worm. Just my experience.

Maybe the most spectacular revival of a thread I’ve ever witnessed 😂🤣😂

Yes. Let’s face it, a hook in the belly doesn’t constitute an eating largemouth.

McKinney looked like a kid playing in the bathtub today. He camped out on top of that lock and dam about all day.

I hear ya, I use 3000 and 4000 size reels on my freshwater rods as well. The 4000 is a Shimano CI4+ on a North Fork rod. I’ve always preferred a bigger spinning reel so did Guido Hibdon. I have several Saragosa spinning up to 8000 size for the GOM. I do enjoy a 1500 or 2000 for these small rivers here and throwing 1/4 oz pop r’s on a medium light avid ..

7 pounds of drag is plenty.

Some of that looks like delamination. I would contact/send those pictures to Berkley.

I’ve used Yo for 20 years now, I don’t fish topwater much, occasionally throwing 1/4 pop r’s on spinning w 6 pound Pline. I’ll use Big Game as well although I prefer Yo and Pline. My advice is use what you can afford and be done with it. Good luck.

This is a few years old, the member hasn’t posted since 2019.

This is my third one. It was ok, my location was about 99.8 totality. Had my equipment and was hoping to possibly see Jupiter with the Pons/Brook comet to its right. I wanted to get that shot if possible but no joy.. a lot of cloud cover and a Leer jet with William Shatner flying around the sky.. 🤣🤣🤣 Anyway.

I use owner hooks that are ringed but that is in the Gulf of Mexico when I go fish the rigs.. as far as light freshwater applications, I wouldn’t know for sure. You could check with Owners website.