AlabamaSpothunter

FFS has cratered demand for hardbaits in general, but especially for crankbaits. Moreover, Rapala is one of the few brands that still has some of the quintessential crankbaits on the market, so it's not like VMC/Rapala doesn't have a good hardbait brand in their umbrella. Ultimately though, this is just more proof that when small mom and pop fishing tackle companies sell out to the big conglomerates, the only real loser is the consumer. Nothing good ever comes from a big corporate brand buying out small mom and pop businesses. It is however part of the American dream and capitalism, so it is what it is.

Since we're in the summer fishing season, I'll only list my summertime plastics.... 1. Missile Baits D Bomb and Destroyer 2. Zoom Ol' Monster and Magnum Lizard If they won't eat those, they're either not biting, or they're small fish. Those four baits are what I consider big fish plastics. These are being used primarily during the night. Colors: Green pumpkins, black and blues, and purple/black grapes. Throw in some Free Rig weights, and a few packs of 4/0-5/0 Gama Nano Coated EWGs and I'm good to go.

The Derby Boys - Trailer 1 (youtube.com)

The crazy thing is that even when I know exactly where a piece of heavy cover is, I will sometimes have trouble finding/feeling it dragging a bottom contact bait across it. Then I'll throw a crankbait, chatterbait, etc. near it, but purposefully not on it.....and will snag the dang thing every single time.

Owner STX 38s......absolute game changer! Few products have wow'd me as much as when you change stock hooks to those, and then see the remarkable difference it makes in hook up and landing percentages.

Congrats @bp_fowler, you've been putting in that time on water, you deserved that magnificent fish! Beautiful fish Katie, but more importantly glad to hear your feeling better!

God bless your wallet @NorthernBasser, you aren't a victim of the bait monkey, rather the dang monkey himself 🤣 In all seriousness I always appreciate your posts because of the great pics.

The first showed aired last night.....it was as good as advertised. Matt Robertson is absolutely wild, but we already knew this 🤣

Okay, well I was talking about the MLF event during the spawn.

That's the one I was talking about in my reply, but I thought it was last year. It was the most stupid SM fishing I've ever seen including last year's Elite Series on SLR. Felt kind of dirty watching that event though, catching the same spawning fish over and over.

Dang shame what the IGFA has done to the record books, they created a Northern Strain record only to put the Perry/Kurita fish as the record. Then they put a 15lb Ivie fish caught by Kyle Hall in March as the Florida Strain LM WR Bass. They could have done something great for all the Yankee Bassers and given them a WR to chase after. This fish is the textbook example of what should be the new WR for Northern Strain LM. All that aside, this fish has solidified my opinion that Cayuga Lake is the best Bass fishing in the North. I had already believed this after last year's MLF Cayuga debacle, but now that we learn it has LMs like this, it's a no brainer imho. So many 6-7lb SMs, and now you got the SR LM Bass.....what a Bass paradise.

Congrats Woody, a 5lb Spot is a really special fish! Few things meaner in this world than a 5lb Spot, 24/7 murder machines with fins.

I put the 3" Drift Fry on the back on Flashback Mini chatterbaits.......the most amazing looking bait you've ever seen. I'll try to post up a picture later, it looks like a match made in heaven. It actually causes the little chatterbait to roll which shocked me. Not sure if it would still do it if you scaled up the Drift Fry size and chatterbait size though.

I haven't tried those Raids Scott, but they look excellent. The Jackall Drift Fry rolls so much more aggressively than any other minnow I've tried, but I've been learning that this isn't always the best thing. For the times when the fish aren't super aggressive, I've been trying to find other less aggressive strolling minnows. Thus far the best I've found is the Fish Arrow stuff. The Flash J Split Tail, and Flash J Straight Tail have been excellent baits. They look so realistic, but they don't roll nearly as violent as the Drift Fry. Fish Arrow Baits - Tackle Warehouse The Drift Fry is about as perfect of a bait as I could dream of. Has so many unique features. Hopefully the 4" models start to become available again.

20lb FC or 20-25lb Big Game are both perfect choices.

Never thought I'd see Bill Dance catching Muskies.......nice fish Bill! 🤣

My friend just won the MLF Invitational on Lake Champlain using them. He took 6th at the MLF Invitational at Kentucky Lake on it and is currently inside the cut for qualifying for the MLF BPT tour. If I ask him what bait got him there the most, he's say a Sakamata Shad no doubt. Fujita has won multiple Elite Series blue trophies using them, most recently Toledo Bend to start the season. I've got quite a few of them, but they don't hold a candle to Jackall's Drift Fry for mid strolling imho. I've yet to find another minnow that compares to the Drift Fry.

Upon initial rigging I do it, but inevitably after the first fish, or the first couple of times you have to reset the placement, the bait slides down. It's a good idea because of the way a T-Rig weight slams down on the knot. That's not a concern for me since I've abandoned the T-Rig 90% of the time in favor of a free rig

Katie, have you caught any SMs in the lake where you caught your monster PB LMB earlier this year? I'm curious if your best big LMB lakes have SM populations as well. Beautiful fish as always!

Really hate to hear that, and that puke feeling in the pit of the stomach is hard to deal with when you lose a special fish. Please don't let that fish crush you though, in time you'll see how much of an amazing experience you just had. One that 99.99% of other Bass anglers in Indiana won't have. You got to hook, fight, and witness lightning in a bottle. You'll never forget that fish, she's forever part of your Bass fishing history. Try to take pride in the fact your skill made that experience happen. You got to much awesome JDM fishing tackle to take a break anyways 😉

That's awesome Katie, way to expose him to Bass fishing. Doesn't seem like much needs to be done to protect LM Bass fishing in Maine, but if it does now you have a real ally to call on. There's a reason why Texas is currently the best Bass fishing location in the world, and that's because the politicians and significant tax dollars go to make it that way.

3000 is the goldilocks of spinning reels imho. Perfect size for Bass fishing.

You fish so many different places that it makes it harder for your fish to learn your baits, but I imagine as you stack up more hours on your new true home lake, you'll find baits that absolutely throttled one summer, only to get a fraction of the action the next summer.

I've always believed what Catt said above to be accurate, but at the same time I've never personally noticed the bite died for an hour after dark. I've caught some of my best night Bass within that first 1-1.5hr after dark. The cheat code within the cheat code is to fish areas and boat docks that have strong lights on them. I've got one milk run just based on hitting up all the strongly lit areas and docks.

Awesome day Katie! Always love seeing the unmolested nature you get to fish in. I have no idea how your thumbs last through the summer though.....I bet they look like a piece of mangled sand paper 😁