AlabamaSpothunter

Yeah one model is just 1/8th oz heavier and sinks faster. Both are sinking baits though. Sounds like you might prefer the shallow model.

Great job Katie, and you're right on track......I wouldn't change anything. Those big fish will come, and I suspect they're still in that deeper water.

Yeah definitely something compact because you don't want to give those bedding fish a lot of plastic to get without a hook in it. So many times the fish will just grab an appendage or something to move the bait from the bed instead of eating it. I like to use a creature bait like a D Bomb and a hook that takes up the entire body of the bait.

Unless it's super stained like 1ft of viz or less I'll still stick with the whacky worm. I like the black with a blue tip in that situation. I do think a T-Rig is likely the better option the less viz you have though.

@Retiredguns Awesome fish! One 5lb+ fish is the definition of a perfect trip in my book. @A-Jay Way to get on the board for 2025, and what a pretty specimen

Yeah and I also forgot to mention how much better I like the line through top hook design on the Zaldain one as well. I smoked about a dozen fish on one a few weeks ago, and it held up pretty well.

Man I loved my Certate perhaps more than any other reel before it started acting up. I've had more problems with that reel than any other one I've owned. I sent it off to DVT, but it's just never been the same. Not the fault at all of DVT, but now I'm stuck with a reel that feels about 60% of the smoothness it had out of the box. If anybody knows a true expert on Certate reels I'd love to have them look over my reel. It's a JDM reel so I haven't tried to send it back Daiwa. I sure do miss having that reel at a 100%, it was amazing when it worked right.

@TnRiver46 Is the man to answer those questions. I'll be driving up the Bait Monkey for a day and letting him run wild at the Expo looking for big swimbaits 😁

@Eric 26 Way to get on the board brother! Always a thrill catching a fish on a new rod/reel.

The Zaldangerous one is like a perfected Magdraft, has the same head wobble and kick but you can swim it at a much greater variety of speeds. The problem with the Magdraft is that you have to retrieve it in its sweet spot.

Naw, I fish them exclusively on a 7" Medium Fast spinning setup, and anybody can skip cast a whacky rig within 5 mins of trying. Obviously after some time doing it you'll improve, but you'll be able to do it very quickly. To me it's one of the most fun ways to catch them, skipping that thing under a dock, or overhang.....makes you feel like KVD for a second 😁 You're right about the stage of the fish with regard to those water temps in my experience. Some fish will always spawn early, but the majority seem to wait until the mid 60s. I think moving baits are the play from the march up from 55d through the low 60s, but I generally start out the days once it reaches 60 trying out things like the whacky rig and pegged/t-rigged Dbombs. The reality is that this time of year, you can leave one day, and come back the next day to paired up fish on the beds. For me it really pays off to go as many days as possible in the spring because of how dynamic and fast things are changing. Keep at it, you're fishing a tough part of the country, maybe the toughest. It's a lot easier for a guy in Alabama to catch Bass than it is a guy in MO. All this time on the water and frustration will serve you very well once you find a place in Alabama.

He's won everything you can win, and outside of KVD you'd be hard pressed to find anybody with a resume that stacks up to his. Hope he enjoys retirement and finds a new passion. He still seems plenty young to keep professionally fishing, heck he won a BPT event not to long ago.

Absolutely not, and outside of targeting a specific sight fish, or a very specific location that I know they're spawning at but can't see them, I fish it fast. I skip cast it very tight to cover, docks, weedlines, overhangs, laydowns, etc........count to about 3 or 4 seconds.........lift the rod once or twice..........wait another couple of seconds............reel it right back in. Rinse and repeat, making cast after cast just like that. The cast and its location are doing most of the work instead of your retrieve. You are wanting this thing to land within a few feet of place you think is good spawning habitat. Fish will bite it the majority of the time on the initial fall or that first few feet you drag it to. The moment you see those bucks flood the bank is when I start throwing it, and I don't stop until at least 4-6weeks have gone by or once you no longer see those fry guarders in the post spawn. The key is that you are fishing it in areas that are huge percentage spawning grounds. If you get around fish that are in some phase of the spawn, the whacky rig is just magical. ETA: I try to skip cast every cast because I don't want to spook those fish on/near a bed. If I cast past an area I want to target I'll cast normally though. Just something to think about.

@BluegillsTightlines You can tell by looking behind their bellies, it's especially easy to tell them apart around the spawn and females will have a swollen and more red hole. male on left, female on right @Swamp Girl Way to go on that whacky rig fish! Beautiful bog as well, I'd hate to night fish that place though as all those Beavers would give me heart attacks when they slapped the water 😆

Those are some awesome fish Pat and Jake, congrats guys!

Awesome fish.....are you saying you found a DRT bait? That's like finding a floating $100 bill

I wouldn't call Kyle Welcher a senior, and he won the NPFL AOY last year, and took 3rd this week at Lake Norman. Meanwhile he won an Elite exclusively scoping the week before against the best scopers in the world. The NPFL doesn't have a farm system like BASS or MLF, thus they won't have a direct pipeline to 18-25yr old kids. The only person that's a notable senior citizen on the NPFL is David Fritts, and he struggles in it just like he did his last few years on the Elites. The only thing holding up the NPFL right now imho is not having a fully scaled up live coverage system.

Awesome, and to me the whacky rig just covers every phase of the spawning process so well. It appeals to those females who are just moving up, it's one of the few ways I've found to catch them really good when they're on the actual bed, and it's devasting for the post spawn phase when the males are fry guarding. I only use the 5" standard Yamamoto senkos. I use the VMC crossover rings in #5 size and after a few years of searching for the best weedless whacky hook I've settled with the Ryugi Talisman hook. I love the owner ones like the Jungle but the darn Ti weedguards break off way to quickly. Ryugi Regular Guard Talisman Wacky/Neko Hook 4pk | Tackle Warehouse

I don't think you can really compare a casting and spinning rod. I mean you can take any 7" M Fast spinning rod and outcast a 110 stick. It has more to do with the differences b/t spinning and casting reel than anything else in my book.

Amazing trip Dwight, that second to last one looks far more like a Grouper caught out of Destin than SM 😎

This couldn't be going any better for the NPFL after two events than it has. There was hope this new format would allow the older hammers of the sport to become relevant again, and after a Christie and Hackney win, it seems to have done just that. Hackney hasn't won a top-level event since 2018. Meanwhile G-Man finished in 11th. If you look at the comments on social media for the NPFL, it's easily the most positive comment sections out of the top 3 tours. I'd be shocked if BASS doesn't limit FFS next season after watching the MLF and NPFL this year.

I'll be a bit of a contrarian here. I wouldn't be looking to cover a ton of water once you start seeing those water temps in the 60-62 range, or better I wouldn't be looking to fish fast. I think a whacky rigged senko is unbeatable all the way through the spring, and you can both cover water and slow down with that bait. The biggest thing I've learned over the last several years is that you really got to take your time and slow down once you think those fish are starting to spawn.

Naw, I had no clue, but thanks to Glen's politely worded/meme'd reply, I'm well aware of the number now. Point still stands the same, 120 people every day die in cars on roads with speed limits. That was much better, wasn't it.

It's officially on like Donkey Kong now that it's Katie fishing season!!!!!! Such beautiful fish as always, and I'm glad you knew better than the bonehead who suggested throwing that bladed jig around 😆 This is officially the calm before the storm 😎

People aren't clarifying that it's just tournament rules, people are throwing out blanket statements like "speed limits on lakes need to be reduced" It's also worth pointing out that thousands of people are killed every day in motor vehicle crashes, and every public road has a speed limit.