bighed

Guys, I've got to give it to the saltwater fish for the best fight by far so I voted "other". In particular, the Jack Cravelle. I've caught a ton of mean fish but those things are BAD!!!

I use the mono and like it pretty well. Pretty cheap, usually pay about 7-8 bucks for a 330 yard spool and they had that buy 2 get one free deal for a while. I like the 12lb for the senkos and a little heavier for t rigs a little lighter for cranks.

I'm sold on the floating Roboworm in Aaron's Magic color 7" on the spot remover. This has replaced the senko as my favorite bait and I love the senko. big

I've caught several of the big head/skinny fish, one that was 27" long. A few of them more than once in a small lake. I think they all have had a couple things in common. They were easy to catch for a large older (smarter) fish and they had almost no fight in them. Both I think are signs that the fish is struggling to survive though other fish in the lake were healthy. Maybe worms, blindness, or other injury from being caught???

Thanks fellers, I hope to get a chance to spend some hours with these Mattlures. ILfish, I liked it real well. One problem with being a big old boy (6'3"/330lb.)is the fish look small in the pictures. This one was a really football, short and fat. The fish inhaled that lure. Had to use pliers to get it out of it's gullet! It was caught on the barfish pattern. A barfish is a little guy in some of the local lakes that looks like a small white bass with a yellow belly. They follow schools of threadfin around and so do big bass. Folks on Fork have reported catching the barfish on jigging spoons during the summer only to have a big bass grab them on the way up. I only threw the bait for only a few minutes before birdnesting the braid on my swimbait rod and putting it down. I've thrown the bluegill some and know it's going to get me a pb one day. Looks too real in the water. Caught a few more on the spot remover. big

Watermellon red or watermellon spiked brush hog. Rootbeer/green flake close behind.

Worth every second if you ask me. Congrats!

Made it over to Fork with my son for a few hours before it got too hot today. The fish wasn't huge, maybe only 4lbs., but my first on a Mattlures bar fish. It was a hoot as this fish hit the bait about 4 feet from the boat right at the surface. I was slowly swimming the bait over hydrilla right in front of Fisherman's Cove where the Bass Resource crew stayed back in the spring.

I always knew them as oyster toads when I was a kid on the pier in VA. Here in Texas they call them dog fish. Same ugly fish, different name. Cutting your line is your best bet.

I don't target them but catch a bunch in the east Texas lakes fishing for lmb. They reallly like the spot removers alot. Put a 4-7" floating worm on one and you will find them. They tend to be small around here. Maybe 12" average that I've seen. Sometimes I'll get one bigger and have seen them up to 6lbs but never caught one that big.

About 2.79 around here. Pumped 180 gallons in the boat at $3.60 (on the water) at the coast last week.

That's a fine catch young man!!! Congrats

Nice fish, good observation about the heat of the day bite as well. I've got to drag my boat over there to GA one of these days. Ya'll got some nice fish over there! big

I live in Mckinney, we're doing good. No houses flooded but the creeks are over their banks. We get our drinking water from Lake Lavon and the level has gone from about 15 feet low to several feet over full in the last two months. It's not a small city lake, it's just under 30k acres. We've been in a stage three drought restriction since last year. Tomorrow they are opening the flood gates on Texoma. About 40 miles north of here. I hear it's only about 5 feet under the emergency spillway. It's only hit the spillway twice since it was built in the 40's. This is a 90k acre lake. It's raining right now and the forcast is calling for plenty more. On a bright note, Chad and I hit Fork last week on a dry day and the the lake was full but the water was not too muddy. We were only there for 6 hours and we got two 21's, two 18's, and a 16 on spot removers and one on a spinner bait in around 10 feet of water. How you doing down there Catt?

Usually six or seven on the deck. I'd rather have less clutter so sometimes a couple less. Different rods and rigging for every Tor different lake, can't really say there is X setup on the boat every time with a few exceptions. The spot remover/roboworm on 6.6 medium rod is always there, good for just about any water. Drop shot rig with a GYCB flattail worm is always ready, use it anywhere. Senko rig is always there unless the fish are deep, fished in timber-grass edges-pads-docks. Anywhere a vertical presentation will get you bit. Oct. to March a jigging spoon is always rigged. Good on deep(<15') points, deep boat houses, deep timber. In rocky, timberless, weedless lakes a DLN-DD14-DD22 is always on, deflect it off rocky bottoms.

The tackle will do the job no problem. It's just how particular you are about it. I used to take my bass stuff to the Texas coast all the time but don't anymore. Despite careful cleaning the reels did deteriorate. I like butter smooth reels for bass fishing and the tiny bit of roughness I was feeling in them was not acceptable while fishing a finesse worm or ??? I don't fish inshore as much as I used to but still have rods and reels set aside for this purpose. It keeps the good reels good.

I haven't posted in a little while so I thought I'd put this up. Every year about the end of May I make a transition to fishing saltwater. While I can hardly sleep at night in the spring thinking about bass fishing, the feeling switches to the kings, lings, and snapper in our Gulf waters. My good friend and fishing partner Russ has a nice offshore center console and last week we spent three days running out of Freeport Texas to the rocks and wrecks that hold these fish. We were lucky to have calm seas, mild temps, and hot fishing. Limits of red and vermillion snapper and kings were caught. Other notables on this trip were my son Chad's first king on a fly rod, a 5' sand bar shark, and a 40+ lb king on a light spinning setup caught by me. Here's some pics: Bighead's big king Russ's dog snapper Chad's beeliners

MO for one xxl and one xxxl in the mail last night Muddy.

Again, I'd love to have one (or two) but it's Thursday and I don't have a mailing address. Muddy, pm me you paypal or address and I'll gitter done.

I still don't know where to send a mo Muddy.

Just realized I've got no mailing address for the mo Muddy. Can you post one, pm one, or give paypal info?

Been out of pocket for a bit. I'll still take one in a xxl and will get a mo sent asap. bert

ROAD TRIP!!!

Down here it would be called a mud cat, aka bullhead

Congrats! Very nice, fat fish for sure!