Hog Basser

I would just try to match the forage in your lake. I got the bluegill for where I fish. Ultimately, I think the profile is what really matters and not the color. The bottom of these things has a metal plate for stability weight to keep them in the correct orientation. The fish mainly just see the profile from below, especially if the sun is shining down on them.

Very interesting....not much gain at all, but still healthy. From what I've read about problems with plastics clogging bass digestive systems, it is usually several plastics that cause a real problem. Still a little concerning that one would last that long inside a bass though.

Okay, I'll bite. These are from a few months ago and a bi-catch while bass fishing, still love catching and eating them! Largest two were around 1.65 lbs. My dad caught them on an old Bill Norman Quarterback crankbait in gold color. I caught a few more on a rebel crawfish crank.

pics?? estimated count? stats on biggest ones?

Give the Whopper Plopper 130 a try, I caught 3 over 3 lbs. on it in an hour a week ago.

Cull, cull, cull, and cull some more. With a pond that size, you will need to cull a lot to get the bass population to grow bigger. I have a 53 acre pond and need to cull around 1,000 lbs. of bass from it each year to grow big bass. We cull in the 10-15 inch range, but each pond is different. Here are a few points to get you started: 1. Get a biologist to come out and look at the pond and give recommendations for management, they may even want to electro shock it to get a good idea of the size ranges you are dealing with. 2. Read the lake management section of this website: http://www.bassresource.com/lake-management/ 3. Start keeping a log of all the fish you catch: weight, length, date, conditions, etc. You can watch the relative weight of the bass and help determine overall health. 4. Visit the pros over at the pond boss forums: http://forums.pondboss.com/ 5. Learn some new bass recipes, they are very tasty! I'm thawing out some now from my last trip to cook tonight! Good luck!

Just got mine in the mail last night from Siebert!

I just got the 130 in rainbow trout color and love it. Caught 3 bass over 3 lbs. each in less than an hour on it. The little guys will go after it too, but it for sure attracts the bigger bass.

Just want to shout out to @Siebert Outdoors who caught my double-order and refunded the shipping cost on one of them without my asking! That's good customer service right there!

Sunrise over the bayou. All told we caught about 30 fish this weekend, with 4 being over 3 lbs. Starting to get too hot to fish down on the bayou, so may not be back for a while. I would gladly go fish it every weekend, but it's time to take my family to the lake on the weekends to cool off (I'll just try to sneak in a little fishing while there). Until next time, tight lines!

Pond two, Saturday afternoon

This is pond #3 on Sunday morning.

Slowly walked the brush hog through and over the lily pads and the bass just couldn't get enough of it. I look over at my nephews, who have lighter setups and only one rod each, and notice their *** and gave one of them my setup. He quickly proceeded to land more fish. I offered to rig another one for my other nephew, but he opted to stay with his light spinning reel setup. He didn't catch much more that day (Saturday afternoon), so he got bored and opted to start shooting things instead. Now let's move on to Sunday morning......We went to a different levee with a different smaller body of water on the other side. This one had a nice break in the lily pads that provided the perfect opening for my other nephews lighter setup and he capitalized on it. He pulled out about 8 bass in the matter of 45 minutes compared to just a few each for me and the other nephew. They all came from exactly the same spot, nowhere else on the levee produced. He absolutely slayed them! It started to slow down, so we were picking up to move back to the levee from the previous afternoon when the older nephew, who had been catching them that morning, told me he needed to go make a "deposit" back at the lodge. Now I carry tp with me at all times, but this guy is very squeamish with stuff like that and just had to go back to the house (I know, I'm working on making him tougher in these situations). To get back to the house, you have to take a boat down a boat trail, across a natural lake and down another boat trail, maybe a half mile in total. So we send him on his way in the boat and continue to fish the dock and bank, only catching a few more. We still have plans to go to the other levee before we leave, but we notice he is taking a very long time. Eventually I realize we won't have enough time to hit the other levee before I need to start packing up, so we pile up everything on the bank where we can load it easily in the boat when he gets back. Well, he's still not back and we don't hear him coming. The cypress and tupelo trees are so thick out here, we can barely get cell service, so I'm starting to worry something happened to him. Just then, we see him paddling the 20 foot extra wide beam duck boat around the corner with a little paddle. He ran out of gas in the middle of the natural bayou lake and had to fight the wind to paddle and come get us. I calmly loaded the gear in the boat, went back and lifted the back hatch cover and switched gas tanks while he cursed and claimed he didn't realize there was a backup tank. Fired it up and started heading back to the house. We got halfway back across the lake when we ran out of gas again. Now I'm good about watching the gas in my tanks and I knew I hadn't switched tanks since the last time I filled them. Apparently, someone in my family had used up tank one and already switched to tank two. So now we're paddling, but thankfully, we can stop at a little fishing dock and walk the levee the rest of the way back and get another small boat to tow it back. I still have a lot to teach my nephews, so I'm glad they come out with me. I just think I was a lot more self sufficient when I was that age (16 & 18). Oh well, I'll keep working on them. They are definitely getting better and having fun doing it! Will post more pics later when I can get more bandwidth.

The weekend was a success! I could have caught a lot more fish, but my nephews joined me last minute, so had to work with them a little bit to help them catch more - totally worth it. I have two new favorite words: "Whopper" and "Plopper". This was my first time using the Whopper Plopper and let me tell you, it produces larger and more fish! I caught 3 bass over 3 lbs each and a 4th 1.5 pounder in the course of an hour. I had to make myself switch to other baits I needed to try out. Also, there is a large risk of losing a crank like that in these waters due to the stumps, so I'm trying to take care of it and only use it in ideal spots. The WP survived the weekend (after many trips to retrieve it in shallow waters with the boat) and I moved on to find some more new favorite baits. Next up on the list, we decided to spend the afternoon fishing the levee between the main fishing lake and an unstocked pond. Fish over the years have swam through the pipe between the two when open and it makes for some pretty good fishing on the "other side". So good in fact, there's not much difference between the two. Pulled another 3 pounder out of the lily pads along with about a dozen other decent sized bass. For this location, I switched to 40 lbs braid on a heavier rod setup and my AG 6500 C3. Tied on an Owner beast screw lock keel weighted hook (size 4/0) and a Zoom Brush Hog and we're off to the races!

Welcome aboard! There's untold volumes of knowledge here, enjoy!

Well, it has unfortunately been a very long time since I've been able to visit my lake. Work, kids, and family stuff get in the way of fishing, but I don't mind the kids and family stuff so much. I finally got clearance to make a trip out this weekend (will be leaving in about an hour to head that way) and I have a lot of new tackle to try out and can't wait! The judge is packed, beer is iced down, new tackle sorted and ready and rod/reel setups fine tuned to perfection! If I don't get a single fish this weekend I'll still be happy, but I hope to report a good catch back to you guys. With the heat, it looks like I'll only be fishing morning and evening, but I can break up the day in the middle with a little 4-wheeler riding and shooting various weaponry. Here's a satellite view of the lake and here's to hoping I can find a new PB this weekend!

This one was about 20.75 inches and 3.45 lbs., which is way underweight. She looks pretty decent from this perspective, but when I held her up, you can tell she's skinny. I use the relative weight chart I found in the lake management section articles on this site. You want fish to at least be in the upper 80's to low 90's on RW, but this one came in at 65.71. Cause is probably not enough forage for her to eat in the lake, although other factors come in too. This was post-spawn (right after). I'm working on culling unhealthy and smaller fish to increase size on the bigger ones. Sometimes if they are underweight (stunted) too long, they will never reach their full potential.

Ugh, I'm on a roll today.....saw the Father's Day Sale thread by Siebert and went into their sale section.... Items Qty Description Price Each Total 1 Grid Iron Football Jig Weight Size:3/8 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Sweet Craw $2.80 $2.80 1 Extreme Football Jig Weight Size:1/2 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Bama Craw $3.01 $3.01 1 Dredge Dock Rocker Jig Weight Size:1/4 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Bloody Shad $2.72 $2.72 1 Dredge Dock Rocker Jig Weight Size:1/2 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Summer Craw $2.72 $2.72 2 Dredge Dock Rocker Jig Weight Size:3/8 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Bluegill $2.72 $5.44 1 Wave Jig Weight Size:3/4 Collar:Band Skirt Color:Sunfish Hook Brand:Owner All Purpose Soft Bait Hook Hook Size:4/0 $2.40 $2.40

Dangit, now I've ordered twice from you in the same day after viewing this thread again! Does the bait monkey live at your house?

Oops....forgot to mention I picked up a whopper plopper 130 too! (a few weeks ago)

Well, gotta keep my streak going, so I just ordered some Rage Tail Swimmers from Siebert Outdoors. Now I just gotta find the time to use all my new gear. I did fight the bait monkey off on convincing me to purchase a new Lew's baitcaster though (for now).

I treat it like any other top water. I fish them early morning and late afternoon as sun rises and sets. Also fish them on overcast days, but they could be successful other times as well.

Alright, haven't posted in a while on this thread, but have been collecting none-the-less. Found a few deals over the last month or so and that bait monkey whispered in my ear that I must get them! First, we have the Shimano bait binder for my soft baits.... Now some baits to fill it and more..... Zman chatterbait, Zman project Z chatterbait, Rat-L-Trap, Heddon Zara Spook, Mann's Baby 1-minus, 2x Norman Flat Brokes, 4x assorted Owner twist lock hooks, 6x Zoom assorted superfluke/brush hog/lizard......and some pliers to stash around bags and boat.

I fish a little bit of everything. I like to fish topwaters like frogs and spooks early and on cloudy days, but I switch it up for fun to see what else they'll bite as the day goes on. I've had days where I catch on cranks, topwaters, frogs, swimbaits (keitech swing impacts), T-Rigged worms, spinners, and trailered jigs. I stick longer with the ones that produce, but sometimes conditions change or locations on the lake change, which necessitates a change in baits for me. I just try my best not to be too stubborn and use the same bait all the time.

How to fish is located in the sticky threads at the top of this page: and also, articles here: http://www.bassresource.com/fishing-lures-articles/ Jerkbaits are generally long and slender and cranks are a little shorter and stubbier.