OCdockskipper

A: Hackney - I couldn't fathom him not being in the top 12 B: Combs - Top 12 last time, low percentage. If he finishes ahead of Swindle (high %), then this works out. C: Herren - Not completely sold that this was the right choice. D: Prince - decent finish last time, couldn't find anyone I was real comfortable with here. E: Zaldain - One of 3 or 4 people in this bucket who usually is in A or B, better percentage than Lucas.

I always thought that was a list of gentlemens club's that catered to chubby chasers...

I know it irritated you when I highlighted a spelling error in the past, but this response intrigues me because I'm not sure if you meant what you wrote. Do you believe the format change is being done "defiantly", that it is being changed despite the objections of some higher ups? Or did you mean "definitely", that it is indeed going that direction? Either response will work, although the first one implies some inside knowledge that there is a disagreement as to which direction the organization should go.

My guess is that it will be lights out...

On the Bassmaster tables, the moon rise & moon set times are about 20 minutes off for my location (each occurred 20 minutes earlier than listed on the table). I though the variance was based on the exact location of my lake as opposed to the general listing for a time zone (i.e., the sun/moon rise is later the further west you are within a time zone, so Las Vegas & Los Angeles will have different rise & set times even though they are both PST or PDT). Being that the times were that close, do the predictions apply to my time zone or does it kind of wash them out?

**UPDATE** So I went ahead & flipped my schedule to go fishing today. Conditions seemed really good, we had overcast skies and a 3-6 mph wind all day to put a mild chop on the water. Air temperature was in the 60's all day and water surface temps stayed steady at 76 degrees thru most of the lake. The previous 3 days had been warm & sunny, and with the bass in post spawn, my expectations were for some active fish. The results, not so much...Statistically, I had a slightly below average day (for this lake), catching 15 bass, with the best five being in the 14 lb range. However, the fish were not chasing and I never really put together much of a pattern. The only lure/technique that resulted in multiple fish was a 1/15 oz TRD fished in 6-7 feet of water out beyond some of the main lake docks. I used a hop/swim/stop technique & most of the strikes came when the lure was not being moved. 11 of the bass, including the 5 largest all came from this Ned rig, the rest were all just one-offs, caught on other slow moving lures in other locations. As a reminder, today was rated as a 95 (out of 100) on the Bassmaster astro tables, with the primary time being 11:30 am until 2:30 pm. Only 2 of my fish came at that time, most were caught from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. The first few hours be fore 9:00 am were extremely slow. Now here is the plot twist. As I was at my dock cleaning my boat, the lake maintenance supervisor cruised by. He asked how my day went and when I replied it was a little slower, he dropped a scenario changer. He told me that yesterday (Wednesday morning), he had done a crawdad stocking around the lake, splitting up the 4 full gunnysacks of crayfish at 16 locations around the 100 acre lake. A light bulb went off in my head, the color of the TRD I was using was California Craw, with crawdad scent and most of the fish had full bellies. Further, most of the other methods I was using that didn't work were ones imitating the small fry and baitfish that are currently up shallow. It is indeed possible that the crawdad stocking 1) keyed the fish to this suddenly abundant food source and 2) left many of them satiated to the point that while they would still eat, they weren't aggressively chasing down the mudbugs. So once again, I am in limbo in regards to these tables, albeit like most of you who responded, I am leaning towards them not making a huge difference. As a double check, I am going to go out again Saturday, which is still rated as an excellent day (75). However, this time I am rigging up a half dozen different type of crawdad imitations to see if that is indeed their focus.

The spawning process for bass & bluegill puts tremendous stress on the male of the species, and some of them don't make it. It is not unusual for a few of the males to exhaust themselves & succumb. By chance, could you tell if the dead panfish were males (i.e., brightly colored compared to the more plain colored females)

I fish a different scenario than you, largemouth on a lake as opposed to smallmouth on a river. We don't get hatches out here like the rest of the country, but we do get a decent amount of dragonflies during the summer. When the largemouth are chasing them, I have found that a small (4") Senko, wacky rigged and skipped along the surface gets bit. The skip cast, even in open water, is the trick because it imitates the dragonfly skipping along the surface. The bites are either mid skip or as it just begins to sink. If you don't get hit hit within 10 seconds of it sinking, don't bother with a retrieve; just reel in & make another cast. I don't know if it will translate to your situation, but it may not hurt to try.

Jordan comes to the stage in a truck, meaning he caught at least 1 fish over 21". I wonder, did he pull this off & make my look like a genius?? Weight, 12 lbs Missed it by that much...

Raul, thanks for the reply, but that is the kind of casual comment myself and others make that doesn't apply to the question I asked. I stated that I am going, so that isn't part of the discussion. I am looking for some insight form those few who have spent the time & effort to really delve into how the lunar tables affect wildlife. I haven't, I am not qualified to really know if it is worthwhile to choose one day over another, so hence the post.

I have written in the past how the lunar calendars posted in Bassmaster magazine & the like drive me crazy. I want them to be a tool to use but at the same time, don't want to put doubt in my mind prior to going out for the day. Like many on this site, I view them casually and only have anecdotal evidence of them working or not working. However, I do know that some on this site like WRB & Paul Roberts have spent time studying and analyzing these tables and have input that is based much more on science than on personal experience. It is that group that I have a question for. I noticed that the lunar calendar in Bassmaster has Thursday, May 25th rated as a 95 (out of 100) and Friday, June 23rd at a near perfect 99. I fish in Southern California, the bass in my lake are post spawn moving towards summer patterns and the weather will most likely be pretty stable (typical SoCal). Although it is a little bit of an inconvenience, I have the flexibility to switch my work schedule around so that I could fish on those days instead of on Saturday as I typically do. Fishing pressure on my lake does not differ on weekdays versus weekends, I usually am the only one there no matter the day of the week. So the question, is it worth the little inconvenience to make sure I am on the water those two days or will it probably not make much of a difference if I go out a day or two later on the following Saturday?

Ehrler, Martens & Jordan made the cut for me. Alton Jones Jr. took the lead for big bag & the extra 40 points (from Ehrler). Looking at the weights, I have a feeling an even bigger bag will be checked in on Friday. In fact, I will go out on a limb and predict Kelly Jordan will weigh in a 29+ lb bag tomorrow (he says with fingers crossed). A pair of 8 lb twins and 3 in the 4+ lb range.

I did the opposite, I had Swindle, then thought about Ehrler on Conroe & at the TTBC, so I switched to him. The one I am kicking myself about is bucket A, instead of Lee or Faircloth, I took Lefebre. As far as the increase in percentage, I don't have proof but I believe a decent percentage of people didn't get their picks in on time (so they zero'd). Either they have now lost interest or they were the type who would post their picks on Wednesday nights and got a big surprise this evening. Last year, those folks were saved with the stupid auto-select feature.

I can't help you in regards to Calico bass specifics, but I do know they are fished for in the harbors of Orange County as well as off of Catalina Island. If no one else here has info, I'm sure you can find specifics online. As far as flying into Southern California, avoid LAX (Los Angeles) at all costs. From Georgia, I know Delta has service to John Wayne airport (Orange County) from Atlanta. I flew that route when going to southern Georgia and catching a connecting flight into Tallahassee.

In regards to BPS or other companies copying others lures, if the original has successful attributes, I just vote with my dollars. GYB's Senko's work very well for me, so as my reward to his innovation, I don't buy Ocho's, Yum Dingers or Stik-O's. Same with ZMan's TRD's, although that wasn't so much an innovation as being the first one to mass market what Ned did using Zman's other products. Sometimes I have to switch brands because the original is no longer available (Zoom dead ringer instead of Rebel Ringworms) and sometimes I goof and don't realize a product is indeed a knockoff (I hadn't seen the Keitech products when I bought my first pack of BPS Speed Shads). Not perfect, but I try to reward the company that is taking the risk. In regards to BPS specifically, it would seem logical that some of the originator companies are also manufacturing the knockoffs for BPS. Basically the same as the generic foods seen in grocery stores that are made by the original manufacturers specially for the particular grocery store.

At the end of the show, they showed the standings for points. I guess the top 10 or 12 make it to a World Championship event. Next to each of the anglers, they listed "Active" or "Finished" based on if they are still fishing in the current event. However, next to Mike Iaconelli, they had listed "Forfeited". Does anyone know the story behind that? With his history, the first thing that comes to mind is maybe he threw a temper tantrum about something...

Smart move, that is a nice area. A lot of smaller waters available.

Welcome. Where in SoCal are you from?

If I recall correctly, these worms were found doing unspeakable things in an adult movie theater back in the 90's. Embarrassed, they disappeared from the public eye and have rarely been seen since.

At the Elite tournament on Lake Havasu back in 2015, Tim Horton found a bed fish that looked to be a large male. He spent about 45 minutes on it, finally got it to bite, and brought to the boat a 3.5 lb Redear sunfish. If a former AOY can make this mistake on a lake with crystal clear water like Havasu, I don't feel so bad when I make a half dozen pitches to the shadow of a rock...

For painful, I would have to say getting a treble hook stuck in my thumb between the skin & the nail while the fish was still attached to the other treble. The pain came from the fish flopping & jumping, I had to press him against the side of the boat to get him to stop moving in order to begin unhooking both of us. Once he was gone, the pain of the hook in the thumb wasn't much, so I clipped the hook down to a small section & continued fishing. It was 6:00 am and I wasn't going to waste the morning going to a doctor. Went later that afternoon to have it removed. Less painful but more exhausting was getting stuck knee high in some mud at the back of a small lake in Georgia this past March. I tried to take a short cut across a feeder creek, marshy area & found out why people don't take short cuts there. After struggling for 15 minutes trying to extricate myself, I ended up laying flat across some branches and pulling my legs out of my boots (& then pulling the empty boots out of the mud). The anxiety of being stuck was increased because I had seen a small gator about 15 minutes prior to that, not more than 50 yards from where I got stuck. Dumb Californian out in the Georgia backwoods...

80% casting, 20% spinning on my home lake. The lake is small, fairly clear without much in the way of cover that fish can bury into & break me off, so over the years I have progressed towards smaller baits & lighter lines. The numbers change drastically when I visit relatives in Texas & the South.

The Beatles - "It's the sausage pepperoni hot dog band"

If that is your average on every lake you fish, then just know you can learn how to catch more (& larger, most likely). If that is your average on a certain body of water, check with another angler that you trust what he averages there. If his is low too, then it may be a tough lake.

I tend to refer to Bluegill that large as being "as big as your face". It makes folks think how really big that is.