punch

I may have already used this three times today and maybe use it several more times this weekend. Maybe maybe not.. I don't keep track of what my body does...

https://www.classicbass.com/tournaments?action=view&id=4061 I wish I could, but my wife's working that day (so I got kids) and we got some plans that evening.

I couldn't fish the GH Fall Open.. I had no child care. My wife was working and my usual babysitters (my folks) were working. Not sure who else I could dump my kids off with at 5am so I can go fish all day haha. Looks like they are trying to fill up the Aresnal Fall Brawl though, if ya'll are looking for one more derby to hit. It's on E/W Rush.

Same stuff all year honestly with the exception of metal spoons and blade baits as the water gets into the 40s. Once it gets really cold, the metal comes out. Swimbaits are a big producer in the fall, for me. Slow rolled on the bottom.

Good point but seems like the majority of the strife about the selection process is coming from the anglers, not the fans.

Randy Blaukat

Good article

Yeah, they are dangling a big $20,000 carrot for current Elite anglers not to jump.

http://another site.com/news_article.asp?ID=9370&t=Breaking-Down-The-Dollars-&-Cents#.W6Jmpc5Ki00

If given a choice, I'd still pick the league that's backed by legit billionaires (MLF). Bass could easily go back to their old payout structure after a few years when they run out of money. Regardless, this is GREAT news for Elite anglers that haven't gotten "the invite" to MLF.

The new BassTalk Live that just got posted has details about the "packet" that BASS gave out with all the new updates. Pretty impressive.

We've had some good luck going out of the east side at Liberty recently. Probably where I'll go this weekend.

I was out there on Friday, did you end up going? We went out of Cove bay and hit some of the reefs in the south west end and even made a run up to Indian Point. We caught some smallies but no biggins. They seemed to be on the dropshot & ned rig but they wanted NOTHING to do with the swimbait.

I was out last Saturday & Sunday up in Alex chain. The topwater bite on Saturday was AMAZING on lake carlos. The popper was on-fire. It was so much fun. The afternoon I was mostly getting bit on a green pumpkin jackhammer chatterbait, but the bite wasn't as good as the morning. I was getting NOTHING on my usual finnesse setups.. like the Ned & dropshot. Sunday the morning topwater bite sucked. I got like one? The rest of the afternoon the chatterbait was pretty consistant in grass flats around 5-8' FOW. Same green pumpkin jackhammer. I guess I'll have the chatterbait tied on the rest of the season this year.. it's always good in the fall and they seem to be wanting it now.

I think prestige and records all will get quickly get kicked to the curb when money gets involved. If the MLF Pro Tour offers anglers a more substantial way to earn a living, with lower overhead... they will flock to it. The financial power of Johnny Morris is real. Bass and FLW have to be very, very concerned. They don't have the coffers that JM does. Ike on (on his most recent Ike Live show} admitted that out of 100 BASS Elite pro's, 60 will barley break even or lose money fishing the tour. If MLF offers anglers a better opportunity to make a livable income, they are going to jump on it so fast it'll make your head spin. The fishing industry isn't doing THAT well. MLF could easily blow up the entire landscape of the professional bass fishing sport. As a fan of the sport I can't wait to see how this whole thing shakes out over the next couple years.

One thing you're not hearing much of is how much people LOVE their Curado DC's. A diehard shimano friend of mine (who has JDM DC's) says the Curado DC is a basketcase in comparison to the scorpion DC. He's convinced they used cheaper components for their first crack at the US market. He gets the same backlash issues. He's already listed his for sale on the local fish groups.

If every marshall in the boat has a smart phone or tablet they could easily get footage all day and cut to an angler at any point during the day, as long as they have a data connection.

They are! I found some dock fish over the weekend.

I think you nailed it @FryDog62.. but if all else fails just toss some wackySenkos around the grass and docks.

Nice tiger! I gotta ask which lake because there's only a small handful where the Tigers are doing well. Lake Elmo? Clear?

It's a 36v 52”

Fishing wasn't great tonight up on Lake George, but I did get to go test my new toy.. got an ultrex this week.

This is why we're heading all the way up to Kab where the smallies are totally un-pressured next month. Mille Lacs is still awesome because it's like 1:15 minute drive from my house in the north metro. I get there's a lot more bass pressure nowadays, BUT the lakes so d**n big it's easy to find your own water. Most people tend to hit the more obvious spots & community holes.. but if you can read your graphs/maps you can easily go find your own spots away from the other boats.

I'm noticing some muddy water and dead vegitation floating around. I'm camping/fishing the Alex chain next weekend.. i'm hoping the fall 'chew' is kicking off soon.

I hit Mille Lacs on Saturday morning with a few buddies. We fished the east side out of Liberty and did pretty well. We caught about 7 walleyes (one 24" tanker) and over a dozen smallies. The biggest was 4lb 1oz. We bounced around from reef to reef and the fish seemed to be up really shallow. Most of our bites came in like 10'-6' on offshore reefs. I've been getting more and more confidence with Mille Lacs over the last couple years. I'm starting to be less intimidated by the lake as i'm getting more comfortable reading my electronics. I'm going to go on a little reef fishing rant here.. buckle up. I've been spending more time on big rocky smallmouth lakes in the last few years, such as Kabetogama/Vermillion/Mille Lacs. One important lesson that i've learned is that when you're targeting offshore reefs, don't waste time on a dead reef. I've learned some of the obvious signs of a good reef. Good structure, sharp drops in depth, and most importantly FOOD. If you're not seeing bait balls around the reef.. be skeptical. If you see food, start working the depths from the shallowest then out to the edges. Walleye seem to be a great indicator of an active reef. Walleye see to be pack hunters that follow food around. I've noticed that if I catch a walleye quickly on a reef, there's a 100% chance there's food in the zip code which means smallies are likely SOMEWHERE on the reef. They might be at a different depth, but most often they are shoulder to shoulder with the smallies. If you're not seeing food on your sonar, and you don't get bit within the first.. 20-30 minutes.. GTFO. Because that reef isn't active today, doesn't mean it wont be active at another point. Not every reef is holding feeding fish.. you just gotta be willing to move around and find the ones that are currently active. The presentations I like to use on reefs are pretty simple. Swimbait on a 1/4th oz head, ned rig, jig head + soft plastic jerkbait, dropshot, a tube (duh), and a neko worm. Neko's are actually really great on offshore rock reefs, as they rarely get hung up. A great example of this was up in Kabetogama last fall. There were two reefs that were about 50 yards from each other. On Saturday, the southern reef was boomin.. we caught a ton of smallies.. had a blast. We went back to the same reef the next day and it was a total ghost town. I said, hey.. lets go over to the northern reef.. maybe they just moved over. Sure enough the schools were there.