AlabamaSpothunter

Yeah 100k to the winner, and then I believe it's another 100k to the AOY winner. Kyle Welcher won AOY last year. Confidence is easily the most powerful force in Bass fishing, Bill Lowen is testament to that fact. It doesn't matter where you fish, what lures you throw, what conditions you're in, if your supremely confident you'll have success without question. Top 4 right now are all Elite Series guys. My hope though is that this tour can build stars in house, rather than rely on the star power of Elite Series guys. That's the thing that the MLF and BASS have going for it, they build anglers from the HS level up. They've created a farm team program that teaches kids how to become top level pros.

Continued prayers for you Catt! You'll beat this and be a better man because of it, just don't give up brother!

Kevin the owner and designer of KGB Swimbaits and the Chad Shad said it was a happy accident how the back treble hook hangs on the brush tail on the Chad Shad. This allows many fish who just short strike or swipe at the tail to get hooked up. So in the case of the Chad Shad, I'd say having that soft brush tail absolutely leads to more hookups, especially on smaller fish. I've found big fish many times head shot big swimbaits so it doesn't matter as much.

Drew Gill is the best test cases for examining FFS usage. He's proven that he only needs 1/3rd of the fishing time with FFS in order to top 10 BPT tournaments. He's completely one dimensional, but it's hard to argue he's not in the top 3 best scopers alive. Hope Wheeler wins, at least I know he can fish both ways.

If you folks aren't following this event, you should tune in tomorrow. The field is stacked, no FFS usage, and absolutely monster fish and bags being caught. I mean they caught 3 bags over 30lbs......33lbs is leading, and Jason Christie is in 2nd with 31lbs. To many 20lb bags to count. 10.9 big fish, with several 9s to go along with it. This event is as good as it gets in my book......only negative thus far is John Cox weighed in like 6lbs lol.

Wheeler learned from his mistake at stage 2.......he wants no part of winning the knockout stage and earning a bye. I bet we see that go away next season. As the season goes on, guys are going to be fighting each other to not end up in 1st place. eta: watching Drew Gill fish without the scope is like watching a duck walk on land 😁

To me the brush tail just looks much more natural in the water. I've had luck on both, but I prefer the brush tails. As for durability I'd have to disagree. I'd say a good brush tail is far more durable than those replacement plastic tails. Just don't store either type wrong.

Wonder why DC is fishing so poorly this year. Very surprising.

Those Yumbrella Flash Mob Jr kits come with quality jigheads and I've caught plenty of fish on those. Those kits really are the easy button when it comes to A-Rigs imho. It's very overwhelming when starting out with A-Rigs when you have to A La Cart you're A-Rig component by component. I've also used the Strike King baby Squadron jigheads on the finesse A-Rigs, and they have a really stout hook and pretty decent keeper, but super glue always works regardless of the design. Strike King Squadron Swimbait Jigheads | Bass Pro Shops I like a stout hook, but many A-Rigs fans actually like a lighter wire hook so that they can bend the hooks out when they get snagged. I've even seen 6th Sense A-Rig kits at Wal-Mart IIrc, they include their Divine Swimbaits, their jigheads, and then the rig like you already got. Divine Umbrella Rig Kit - 4K Shad – 6th Sense Fishing The 6th Sense heads look great 6th Sense Fishing Divine Umbrella Rig Jighead | Bass Pro Shops Hog Farmer makes some rigs with the CPS dummy pins already installed, and I would assume they've been built and tested to run true in those exact configurations.

Lot of people say the A-Rig shines in clearer water, however in my experience they bite it way better when it's a bit stained. I'm usually fishing in somewhere between 2-3ft of viz, and because of this I've never really played around with A-Rigs without blades. I've heard read similar things as you though about sometimes non bladed rigs are the deal. I've used a number of different rigs from expensive ones like the Hog Farmer and Picasso ones, to the Yumbrella Flash Mob Jr rigs. I've used everything from 3" Armor Shad to 4-5" paddletails. I've had success on all of them, and it really reenforces my belief that when the fish want an A-Rig, they really aren't all that picky on the particulars. I've actually caught more fish on the Yumbrella rigs especially the kits that include the Scottsboro swimbaits. Cheap, very effective, and they actually have a much more flexable wire guage than most other rigs, and this allows you to really "pulse" that rig with rod pops or hard reel turns. The downside is that I've broken off fish when an arm decides to break after enough stress. This will happen with all rigs eventually, but happens much quicker on the Yum rigs. I've found that 1/8th jigheads with 3/0 hooks paired up with 3-4" paddletails to be the best most of the times. The two rigs I've used this season are the Hog Farmer 5 wire/4 blade rig with Diamond Baits 1/8th 3/0 jigheads using Rage Swimmers in the 3.3? size. The other rig is the Yumbrella Flash Mob Jr with the same Diamond Baits heads but with the Scottsboro 4" Paddletail swimbaits. In years past I've mixed in the smaller 3.5" arm rigs and had lots of success of those as well. Again I've never really tried any form of an A-Rig that didn't produce. You just don't want to reel that thing to fast and be mindful of the fact the bait sinks rather slow and wants to rise on the retrieve. Secondly, you absolutely want to incorporate rod pops, or hard reel turns to get that rig to pulse like a real bait ball. Perhaps the majority of fish I catch come on them came after a pulse.

I'm going to piggyback on this one! I want to fish an untouched Mexico Bass lake guided by KingFisher 😎

Yeah I might think differently if I got to Bass fish in Mexico 😎 Hope you get to do some Bass fishing soon enough pal, but until then I'm not feeling sorry for you with 7 Blue Marlin 😆

Amazing you can still love Bass fishing as much as I know you do after doing that. That's the top of the mountain in fishing as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed, you can get away with cheaper mono and braid seemingly, but you really can't get away with cheaper FC. Literally every time I've tried cheap FC, I've regretted it.

You really can't go wrong focusing where deep water quickly transitions to shallow water. Anywhere you can find those sharp contours between deep and shallow water. Those bigger fish especially want to have that ability to slide up into shallow water to feed but also retreat quickly back to their deep-water winter haunts. In terms of high percentage places to chunk that A-Rig.......it's really hard to beat docks in the winter time, especially if you have any kind of warming trend. Look for those docks that are really close to deep water. I store mine with flower ties. Basically just a piece of wire that you use to fold the arms down just like an umbrella folds down for storage.

Perfect, that's a great rig. My friend only uses those, and he crushes them on it. I really like the fact they have that swivel built into them. I wore myself out when I first started to learn how to fish the A-Rig, however since then I've learned to throw it around a little bit on high percentage spots, and if I don't get any love I'm not going to beat myself up. Once I catch a fish on it, more times than not it's going to be the deal and I'll lock it in my hand for much longer. It's a very feast or famine type bait. When they want it, man do they want it.......but when they don't you really can't buy a bite on the thing.

1. 15-16lb Fluorocarbon is what I use 2. absolutely, perfectly fine 3. in my experience, you get what you pay for with fishing line. I don't cheap out with it. It's such a critical component of hooking and landing fish. To me Sunline FC Sniper strikes a great balance between performance and cost.

Like most I have a hate love relationship with the A-Rig. From rigging, to snagging, to tangling, to soreness chunk and winding it, it's the biggest hassle bait I fish with easily. The thing about the A-Rig is that when they want it, I've never seen them want a bait more. Many times, I'm catching the fire out of them on say a jerkbait, but I could likely be catching them on a number of other baits as well. There are times though when you catch the fire out of them on the A-Rig, and nothing else will get bit. I now have learned to always keep the fish honest especially when it's below 50d with that A-Rig. 1/8th oz jigheads with a 3/0 is the sweet spot for most scenarios. 3-3.75" paddletail swimbaits also seem to be the sweet spot. Then again if you don't have Threadfins, you can likely go a bit bigger, maybe something in the 4" range. You don't need to kill yourself on a full size rig to start out with, get one of the mini or 5" arm models. Not sure of the laws in your state, but b/t a mini rig and using only 3 actual jigheads, you can get your A-Rig well under 2ozs. Hog Farmer makes a new micro flex rig, that weighs less than an oz fully rigged IIrc. You could always start there and get some confidence and then move to the full sized models. The main thing is that you've got to stick with it until you catch a fish or two on it, it's such a stupid looking thing that it's one of the harder baits to get confidence in. I assure you though, the A-Rig works everywhere Shad swim, and in the winter it's truly a must have bait. ETA: Katie, you fish waters unlike 95%+ of other anglers on this forum, I think that's what attracts me so much to your brand of fishing. I wonder what the A-Rig would do in your waters. I'd be completely lost fishing your waters. It's so unique and different from every fishery I've fished.

Yeah that was it. Thrift, and Montgomery along with the inventor of the bait were on the show.

1. Jighead Minnow 2. Blade bait 3. A-Rig Lot of things can and have worked, but nothing has consistently outperformed those three baits.

That's great advice Katie, and I agree with you about fish movement in cold water. I've found that Bass just move with the bait all winter long. The bait tends to bunch up, and thus so do the Bass. If the bait stays put, you can hammer them in one place for a few days, but inevitably a weather front will push them deeper, or shallower and reset the puzzle. Everybody says fish slow down in cold water, and while their metabolism might, everything else seems to speed up. The fish move around more, the fish school way more, and ultimately, they seem to feed way more. When the water warms up fish seem to hunker down in more predictable locations like heavy cover, and as the summer gets hotter, you can start to run a predictable milk run. I also forgot to mention, even when you see the fish schooling and busting stunned bait on the surface, a Blade bait can still be the magic bullet. If I were the OP and could only focus on one bait, it would be the A-Rig. If they're eating Shad and the water temps are below 50d, it's really hard to beat it.

I'd lose a bunch of fish with braid, it took me lots of time to figure out the best combo to allow the fish to actually eat the bait, and then have the bait properly orientate for a reliable hookset. I was listening to the designers of the original chatter ringo (can't say the name), and they were talking about how the bait is quite unique in the way you need to delay the hookset to allow the bait to right itself inside the fish's mouth. Made a ton of sense. I don't think there's a wrong choice as long as it works for you. Personally I only use 16lb FC Sniper.

Good luck in my experience. It's almost impossible to compete with not only the all the you can buffet, but the specific action and manner of stunned and dying shad. I like Pat's advice even though I'm stubborn and usually try to match the hatch. I spend at least a month dealing directly with these conditions. Every year it gets harder and harder to trick schooling fish. The jighead minnow with a really light jighead is about the closest bait to the action of a stunned or dying shad rolling on it's side. The Jackall Drift Fry is the best minnow I've found. A Shad Rap was a magic bullet for me this year as well. The bait size is extremely important I've found. Don't go to big. You can't really go to small though. A Scrounger, spinnerbait, underspin, A-Rig, jerkbait, various crankbaits, tailspinner, spoon, etc. can all work, I basically start throwing the tackle box at them out of frustration.

Next time I'll just not post, how about that? I'll just send the reply to Woolley as I was just posting it up for him because I felt bad about deleting my original post before he saw it. Maybe a mod can find a better source than Luke Dunkin lol.

Deleted and sent a PM to you pal