Shadcranker

In the spring time, if the fish are getting slammed in the head with spinnerbaits, I'll throw a small Cb like a Bandit 200 behind guys slinging blades and catch the heck out of them. One day last spring I went right behind two guys fishing an upriver bank near a spawning cove. They were both slinging big spinnerbaits with no luck, and I caught 6 fish right behind them on a shad colored 200. If the wind is right, and the water is stained, a spinnerbait will wear them out, but if it's calm, or the fish have seen a ton of blades, the cb will often work better.

Ditto- Kalins are da bomb. I like the Watermelon flake best. They have very thin tails with awesome action.

Must haves IMHO- Zoom: 6" and 8" Lizards in Green Pumpkin Pearl Super Flukes 10" Ole Monster in Plum 8" Big Dead Ringer worm in plum Finesse worms in a green shade (for shaky head) Baby Brush Hogs in Green Pumkin Trick Worm in white, watermelon, and Sour Grape Super Chunk and SC Jr jig trailers in Green Pumkin and black / blue Yamamoto: Creatures in Black / Red 5" Senkos in Green Pumkin and Watermelon / Gold Flake Strike King: 4" Flippin Tubes Kalin: 5" Grub in Watermelon green

A less expensive alternative is the Shimano Crucial 7' MH Cranking stick (the TC4 blank). I have two of them, and I love them. Great stick for the $$$.

3/8 oz jig, 1/8 oz shaky head

Around 15 BC in my current rotation. 8 Spinning Usually carry around 10-12 with me in the boat. The fishing day is much more pleasant if I'm not re-tying all day.

I'm a huge fan of the Powell Max series. They have lowered the cost of their Bass series rods to $139 on all rods 7' and shorter. The longer sticks stay at $169. I though they were the best value on the market for $169, now at $139, they're unbelievable!!! They did not change the rods at all as far as I can tell.

Zoom in 6 & 8 in.

Ditto that. If you put the FLW guys on Falcon, Clear Lake, Amistad, Guntersville, and KY Lake, they'd be nailing those 80-100 lb sacks too. BASS does a better job of fishing big time lakes at the right time of year, while FLW continues to go to Beaver Lake, Norman, etc.

1. I learned that those guys are darn good. 2. It's a tough job they have, and most of them are under immense pressure to make a check. 3. I learned a new jig swimming tecnique for grass. 4. I learned that I do not want to fish professionally for a living. Too little sleep, too much travel, and I'm afraid it would ruin someting I really enjoy. Not to worry here, I couldn't compete with those guys anyway.

OHL sucks IMHO. I live 45 minutes away, and I won't go there unless I have a tourney. It will be a good test for these guys though. Should be a buch of small limits. My guess is a 14-15 lb average over four days will win it. There will be lots of 8-12 lb sacks, but big ones will be hard to come by. I may go out there and follow them around some next week.

Got to the State park Wed afternoon for the registration, and it was really cool milling around with the touring pros for a couple of hours. The dinner was really fun, and we were all in the room together. The pros were really nice and down to earth. I must say I was blown away by how nice and personable Ike is. He looks you in the eye, asks about where your from and is happy to tlk to you. He definitely has the personal charisma and people skills to do his job. He signed a Diawa hat for my son, who was thrilled to get it. The pairings were not kind to me, although both of my pros were great guys. First day I drew David Sherrer from LA. He is a 50 something yr old rookie, who just kind of fell into the Elite deal via the Wildcard tourney in FL last year. He had never seen KY Lake prior to the first practice day on Monday, so he was limited to what he found in a short practice period. Unfortunatley, co-anglers could not provide any info or I'm sure I could have helped him. I had been on Barkley the last three weekends, and had some good fish located. Oh well. He did find one good ledge on KY Lake, and we probably caught 15 fish in a couple of hours with around 4 small keepers for him and one for me. He also found some fish on the North end of Barkley, and we caught around 20 up there, he rounded out his limit, culled one fish, and I caught one more keeper for the show. At the end of the day, I found myself in 88th place (3 3/4 lbs), with a big hill to climb to make the cut for Saturday. I figured I would need around 13-14 lbs on Friday to make the cut. My pro ended day one around 95th place with a small limit. When we got in, we waited for a while in the weigh in line with a lot of big sacks including Paul Elias' 6 fish sack (they threw out a 6 lb smallie!- ouch). They had posted the day two pairings, and I had drawn Russ Lane from AL for day 2. He had struggled on day one, and only had four keepers, but he was around some decent fish and had lost a couple of toads on Thursday, so I was somewhat hopeful I could whack a good sack. We ran about 50 miles South on KY Lake to TN and the Paris / Big Sandy area (my home waters!). When we hit the Hwy 79 bridge I noticed about 30 boats just sitting under the bridge?? 5 minutes later I figured out why they were there. Right after we sat down on our first ledge, a red-black Nitro came screaming by with his fan club of those 30 boats in tow (yep-KVD). 5 minutes later, Russ said "here comes our helper", and Ish and his co-angler arrived on our spot. He and Russ were sharing the ledge, but the bad thing for me is that Ish pulled up about 25 ft directly to my right, and he and Russ were both casting straight ahead to the sweet spot, and unless I wanted to cross Ish, I just had to watch. They each caught a keeper on a jig, and then we left to go to a shallow grass pattern Russ was on. He was throwing a swimming jig, and I decided to thrwo a Zell Pop off the edges of the grass. Russ caught 2 more keepers, and I caught two keepers around the grass, so I had around 5 1/2 lbs of my 13-14 needed. After that, we headed back out to another ledge near where we started. Russ pulled two more smallish keepers off the ledge on a jig, and I lost a keeper on the big jig. Then, about 20 minutes later, my line took off, and a 5 lbr was on my football jig. I set the hook hard, and she came right in. So, now I'm up to 10 1/2 lbs with around three more hours to either finish out my limit and make it or catch another big one and I'm in. I'm feeling pretty good at this point, but mother nature had other plans for us. The winds kicked up to around 25 MPH ahead of a storm, and we were sunk on the ledge pattern. We decided to go ahead and make the long run back North before the lake got too rough (it was aweful as it was). It took us well over an hour to get back to the dam area, and that left us around an hour and a half to chunk and wind. Russ decided to run back in a creek arm and take advantage of the cloud cover and cover water with a topwater bait. We were both throwing pop-r type baits, and between us we caught around 15 more. Russ upgraded his limit a bit, but unfortunately, none of the six or so I caught would measure. I ended the day with 3 keepers at 10.5 lbs, and Russ had a small limit of around 10.75 lbs. So, when it was all said and done, I ended up in 60th, missing the cut by around 3 1/2 lbs. My pros ended up 100th and 103rd respectively (out of 107). So, I guess I did ok to finish 60th on the co-angler side, considering where my two pros ended up. I'd venture to say, few, if any co-anglers drew pros both days in the 100+ club. It was still a great experince. Both pros treated me well, and if they continue to have co-anglers, I will try to do one per year. My roomate for the week and buddy in my club tied for 10th. He had Mark Davis, Bryan Snowden, and Byron Velvick. Later- SC

I fsihed at KY Lake and the sign-ups opened around Jan 1st. You'll need to join BASS Insider to have the best shot to get in.

X2 on the Crucial. Best val;ue in the price range. I own five of them, and they are great. Avid is really nice but a different price point.

I have five Crucial rods- (1) 7' M Spinning, 2 of the 7' Cranking rods, a dropshot spinning, and a Frog rod. For the $$, they are a great value. Best value in that price range IMHO. I especially like the cranking rods. Great action and light too. I also own, Powells and St. Croix Avids, but the Crucials seem comparable in quality for a good deal less money. I'm really intrigued by the Cumara, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. SC

Flippin Jigs- Oldham's, Peppers, and Tournament Force Footballs- Jewel, All Terrain, Picasso, and Omega Finesse- Jewell Eakins or SK Bitsy Flip I rarely use rattles in my jigs, but the ones I do have are Lunker Lure Rattle Backs.

The Mg is very nice. I have one and like it a lot. Take advantage of the light weight and put it on a light rod. Mine's on a Powell 703 C, and it is awesome. I can fish it all day and it never feels heavy.

There's usually one of two types of bites. You'll feel a tap on the line or you will have a fish just take it and start moving off (usually better fish). If you feel the tap-tap kind, just reel down, lift up slightly on the tip, and if you feel any resistance, set it hard. Obvioulsy, if the fish takes off with the bait, just set it. I fish it anywhere from 5 ft out to 25 ft. It's ideal for covering flats, points, and dragging down deep ledges. Great structure bait, b/c you can cover a lot of water but still use a fairly slow and natural looking finesse type bait.

Drag the bait, holding the rod down and move it horizontally, making sure to keep the weight in contact with the bottom. Stop it and reel in slack and repeat. A slow deliberate drag works best for me. You'll have very little slack in your line with this approach, but with the leader, you'll need to move a lot of line on the hookset, so you don't want a bunch of slack to remove too. When you feed the fish on there, reel down quickly, and make a long sweeping hookset.

Braid has a place like most any other tool in fishing. For me, it's mandatory for fishing frogs, b/c of the lack of stretch and ability to cut through grass. Other application I use it for is flipping heavy mats for the same reasons above. It is not a great choice in really clear water, but looks like that's an issue for you. SC

The scoreboard total was for his cumlative weight four the four days (best 5 fish each day). he was chasing the all-time BASS tournamaent weight record, previously set by Steve Kennedy in '07 on Clear Lake in CA. Elias beat the record. He is known for deep structure cranking, and he became famous for his "kneel and reel" cranking tecnique. He kneels down and puts the rod in the water while reeling to get the bait to its' absolute max depth. The rod angle and extra foot or so from holding it down like that gets the bit deeper.

Check it out on the Bassmaster site. Video lasts about 15 mins, and it recaps his week and mostly the last day when he shattered the BASS tournamenet weight record.

Powell 703 or 704 C for $169. Awesome stick for the $$$. Super light and sensitive. Also, in the same design type (no foregrip, split handle), the Shimano Cumara's are very nice, for around $200. If you like a more traditional design (full cork handle, no split grip) the St. Croix Avid is really nice for around $180. At $200 price range you have a lot of good options. Pay attn to the warranty offered too. SC

1/8, 3/16, and 1/4 oz hair jigs are a mainstay in my area for fishing the flats in the Spring. We swim them with a small grub or twin tail trailer on the back on flats both pre and post spawn. Sit the boat in 8-10 ft, cast to 3 ft, and slowly swim the jig back, keeping it just off the bottom. Then in the Summer, we use it at night to fish points, bluffs, and humps in 6-20 ft, with a more traditional lift and drop retrieve. Spring= white or brown with matching trailer Summer at night= black, red, green, or brown depending on moon phase (new moon=dark; full moon=lighte color). These smallish hair jigs are best in clear to stained water. It's a finesse type of approach (small bait and subtle action). Great for smallmouth too.

I use it almost exclusively for swimming over emergent grass. Ideal set-up is 5 ft flat with grass 3 ft off the bottom. I Tx rig it with a light screw in weight (1/8 oz), let it sink to the right depth, and swim it in with a steady retreive. It's kind of like a finesse spinnerbait. The tail puts out a lot of vibration. There things gained their poluarity down in FL over grass (Ding-a-ling worms). Just make sure and rig it where the hook is in line with the seam. SC