TOXIC

Texas rigged Senko. Every day and twice on Sunday.

Do you think Bass Pro makes their own crankbaits? Of course they don’t. Figure out who does and you might be surprised by who it is. Probably a top tier more expensive crankbait manufacturer that allows BPS to rebrand them. I know that was the deal years ago when I was pro staff for both Bass Pro and SPRO. BPS wanted SPRO to manufacture their line of XPS cranks and they refused. It started a small dispute that, for a while, resulted in some SPRO products being pulled from inventory and shelves at BPS.

@Captain Phil, I don’t want to question your stance since you live there and fish there and I cannot attend meetings from here in Virginia but I do have friends that are heavily involved in the spraying controversy and while you state all the non fishing reasons for the spraying which I have heard before and I totally agree with, none of the advantages you claim for fishing has ever been brought up at the meetings from those that fish. I’ve read the transcripts. Add to that starving manatees, freshwater fish kills and a lot of other issues like the mass chemical dumpings, I have yet to hear of the fishing benefits from biologists, scientists, FWC or it’s contractors. I suspect all the big $$ you referenced in residential and commercial use as well as pleasure boating which is a lot more popular than fishing, is the real reason behind the spraying. You’ve said your wife is/was in real estate so you know exactly where the $$ resides. You’ll not find a single fisherman who frequents Okeechobee say the spraying has been in any way positive for the fishery. The spraying justification has always been to eliminate invasive plants.

Tons of fun. Never targeted, common to catch and on a Ned with 6lb test, it’s a hoot.

I lived on the St Johns right across from Doctors Lake. Fished Black Creek and Julington Creek a bunch. Luckily for me there wasn’t any spraying when I was there. Lots of eelgrass and pads.

@TnRiver46 not so fast. The FWC isn’t spraying a thing. It’s all contracted out and I’ve seen the pictures of the contractors trucks/trailers lined up in a row at some ramps. I’ve also seen videos of them dumping gallons of chemical over the side of the airboats they use to spray. Very ugly situation. Nuked is the right definition. They claim only the invasives are killed but from the pictures I’ve been sent of the before and after, there isn’t anything green left.

I am a finesse fisherman first and foremost so a Ned is in my rotation most every trip. That’s not to say it’s the only game in town. Some days it works, some days it’s medocire and some days they just don’t want it. For example 2 years ago on our annual trip to lake St Clair, the smallmouth tore up a Ned. Best numbers and size in 20 years. Last year the smallmouth were lackluster on the Ned and that was after rotating through all the usual plastics rigged on it. Years before the Ned the dropshot was king and still is a player every year. Took me a while but I finally figured out the smallmouth were more interested in a dropshot but not with the usual Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm which for a few years was the bait of choice, but they wanted the old school presentation of a Pro Senko which has been my dropshot preference for years and years. In the finesse world, staying flexible is paramount.

While spraying may not kill fish (I have seen fish with lesions and sores that were attributed to spray chemicals), what it does do is kill habitat for fry and the results of that are not immediate. I’ve been following the spraying campaign in Florida and have heard everything from the sugar companies involvement on Okeechobee to rumors of kickbacks to state officials on a larger scale. Contracts paid by the gallon of product sprayed and on and on. Which is true we may never know but I can tell you from personal experience in a chain of Wisconsin lakes that I fished for 25 years and the last 5 after the lake association enacted a spray campaign, the fishing has been severely impacted to the negative….severely…..numbers are waaay down and the behavior of the fish has changed. The lakes are now mainly a night bite because there is no vegetation for them to shelter in so they go deep and dormant during the day, then move up and feed at night. Are they still there? Yes. But their numbers are definitely down. I would hate to see this same scenario play out on Florida lakes.

We do a fishing week in Florida for the past few years. Been to Okeechobee 3 times, Kissimmee 3 time and Headwaters for the first time in January of this year. Spraying has heavily influenced our decisions on where to go. One of our fishing friends frequents Okeechobee and he has sent us pictures of areas we fished in the past that are now dead zones. I lived in JAX on the St Johns for 2 years and tournament fished it, I also made a few trips to Harris Chain during that time and a few less known lakes. Where are we going in January of next year…..Headwaters……..a lake designed and managed for fishing. No air boats, no pleasure boats and no spraying.

Went this year and going again next year at the end January. There is a proposal to pave the access road but it won’t be done for a couple of years last I heard. I wrote an article for Yamamoto’s Inside Line on my experience. We went cold turkey and just tried to figure out the lake on our own. We did very well. We only used artificials and caught a lot of fish. We rigged electronics at ramp and trailered in with the cover on to help with the dust.

Lucky enough to have access (private lake) to a power plant lake. If we can get there, we can fish. It never freezes. My fishing partner is in Guam and Siapan for a couple of weeks so I’ve been off the water because my boat is half deconstructed redoing the fuel system.

No disrespect to you but the age old saying “you still have to catch them” is kinda misleading. You can’t catch them if you can’t find them. Gary Klein once told me that there’s no less than 5 lures he can catch a fish on once he finds them. 90% of the game is finding them. The gripe about FFS and I’m a Miliken fan, is that you can find them easier and in places you would never look to fish like out in the middle of nowhere, suspended.

Actually my daughter is cleaning fence rows on her farm and has 4 huge brush burn piles but unfortunately her town is in a burn ban. Guys at the landfill gave me a break since they only allow 12 gallons per customer. I would have had to wait because they only accept flammables on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month. It was pretty bad fuel but I’m sure it would have burned. Going forward, I am only going to use non ethanol even if it’s a pain to find.

@A-Jay did you level or lift?

On a serious note, I am in the process of rebuilding my fuel system because I fish with my buddy so much, the fuel phase separated and I need to send the injectors in for a cleaning. Seats pulled, sending units pulled and 20 gallons of bad fuel pulled out and taken to the the landfill recycle area.

Whew, I’m beat. Time for a cocktail before the lines of vehicles come by for pictures and the news stations are knocking on the door for interviews. 😂🤣😎

The smalljaw game is so much more to me than just fishing. It’s the annual trip from Virginia to St Clair that we’ve made for the last 20 years, the friends, the fishing and the fish. We go in May. Next May we get to introduce a couple of our Virginia friends to the Smallie Magic of St Clair due to one of our regulars dropping out. I can’t wait to experience their gobsmacked experience once we put them on their first 4lb+ smallmouth. Here’s some of my best from this May.

@ElGuapo928 I can tell you from the inside that there are some changes I didn’t agree with but in keeping with the theme of this post, GSM came in and did a skew study on which baits/colors were the most popular and selling the most. They based their changes on that data. It’s a trade off with all of the new baits they have introduced. So there’s increasing production profitability and balancing with increasing risk with new offerings. The old management was exactly the opposite. I’m on the fence, but so far the new products have been producing.

Grew up in a bowling family and was on a league by age 10. Best I ever did was a 279 and carried a 190 average. My dad threw the traditional hook, my mom threw a backup ball and I settled on a cross up. Got out of it when the hometown alley went more to the bar and live band scene and had midnight bowling under black lights and neon.😂

I have used the Damiki with good success but I also fished them side by side with some SteelShad and the SteelShad out fished them that day.

That’s a whole different side of the industry that unless you’ve been involved with it you just don’t know. Luckily for me in my 40+ years in the game, I have been involved with a lot of the back room antics including the bait designers, producers, sellers, overseas manufacturers, retailers and industry movers and shakers. As for the tournaments, there’s still a valid point to be made that professional level fishing is the only sport where you are, for the most part, fishing for you and your competitors entry fees. Name another professional sport where that is the case….

Exactly. Before he retired, my Brother In Law was a senior executive with Jack Links. He is a marketing genius. He used to send me cases upon cases of product to hand out at tournaments and other events. He enlisted me to get honest feedback from what he called the “hooks and bullets” consumer. I looked at product placement when I was working shows in different venues. He coined the organic phrase and how important it is to any brand.

To me it’s painfully clear why FFS is such a controversial topic. Look at all of the electronics advancements from paper graphs forward and look at how long it took to introduce new technology. It was a very slow process. Then FFS leapfrogged current technology 10 fold. Left some behind, advanced some who were otherwise unknown. That is a shakeup.

@Captain Phil is the voice of experience. Listen. I have fished Okeechobee and Harris Chain, and the St Johns river in a 20 foot glass boat. All of them will at some time or another overpower what your boat can handle. Driving skill aside, It will just be a little sooner with the tin rigs you are looking at.

We have had major success vertical jigging SteelShad blade baits in deep water. 35ft seems to be the magic depth. I’m just a little north of you and we are still a little warmer so your balde bite ought to be even better.