AlabamaSpothunter

Awesome job Eric, great to see you on the board for the year! Here's to a great season 🙂

Man this technique gets so many names it's crazy Mopping, Damiki Rigging, Strolling...bottom, mid. Mopping and Damiki are the same to me, the technique that won TB this weekend was mid strolling a minnow not Damiki Rigging which is a vertical presentation imho. Strolling was first used in Japan IIrc to fish very shallow water on Lake Biwa. So the technique has evolved as well.

To be fair watching a 8-10lb fish barely miss a Hinkle Shad from a 4k Drone view was incredible. Milliken and a few others tried to deliver for the fans on the final day. Walters mega bag came from spawners I think and yet almost no footage of it, and especially of the 9 he said broke him off. I agree though, strolling a minnow in a scope fest simply isn't fan friendly any way you slice it.

Sport has radically changed into something completely new in about 2 years, 50 years from now Bass anglers will look back at things "Pre/Post FFS". With the obvious out of the way, BASS still produces the most exciting derbies, this one was no different for me, and as a viewer I still felt like I was always learning watching the live feeds even though I'm not a FFS user. I also came away wishing I lived on a place like TB full time, what an amazing fishery that is on the way up. Lastly Fujita is the second coming, sure it's in part because of FFS, but dude is next level most events. ETA: I think Walters is slowly becoming the second coming as well, he actually impresses me more than Fujita, but Fujita's sneaky baits and overall aura is great for the fans imho.

I'd bet money there's a 17lb fish in the lake right now as well. Below a dam makes the catch all the more epic in my book as myself and I'm sure every other angler has told and heard folk tales of "dam monsters", most famously the notorious "Dam repair diver who saw a punch bugger cat" story 😂 I grew up fishing above and below dams as my mentor loved that style of fishing, there's always a grain a truth behind even the most outlandish folk tales, and your picture is evidence. Big fish live below dams....but I've never seen big green fish caught below them much.

Bout to really see what lives in this epic pond in a week with the Elite Series 😎

Wait for an exceptional pre spawn day when you're throwing your favorite flatside crank, lipless, blade, chatterbait in the Shad color, but replace it with a red version of the exact same bait. This will establish the confidence factor, then you'll throw them more and realize over time they produce less but bigger fish. This has been my personal observations on the topic. You're not tying on a red bait to get a bunch of bites although that can happen, you're tying them on because you're looking for the bigger fish imho, the craw eaters.

That's a really good rule of thumb if we're talking about 1-10acre ponds based simply on carrying capacity and diversity of habitat. Crappie predate on Bass eggs and fry, but equally 17.5"+ Largemouth predate Crappie quite heavily. If the body of water is big enough, a natural harmonic order usually results. Small trophy Bass micro managed ponds like the ones you pay to fish, 100% don't stock Crappie.

Beautiful fish, congrats on the pig!

Katie, this is where the relative weight chart we've talked about in the past is really an effective tool. In a perfect world you'd get a shock study done on the lake, but essentially all they're doing is making the catching easier in order to get that sample size to run through the relative weight chart. It's also nice to see what other species are in the lake, and at what population sizes. If your fish aren't lining up with the relative weight chart, then a shock study, culling, and supplemental forage stocking can turn the lake around within a few short years. Maybe the lake has a board, and if not you could organize one. Hard to afford those things with a single person picking up the tab, but if others around the lake care about it, might be a viable option in the future.

Great job @Team9nine and awesome fish! I find it ironic the Crappie brigade on my home lake doesn't come out for another month or so, yet the biggest Crappie I see all year are from Dec. to March.

That's so cool Tim, always so impressive how you catch these fish on tackle you make yourself. I try to outsource that to the Japanese as much as I can 🤣

Awesome fish Tim, great to see you're back on those dinosaurs 😎

@Dwight Hottle Awesome fish! You live a charmed Bass fishing live.

So happy and excited for you Katie, you're so deserving of your own slice of heaven. The pictures and adventures are going to be epic!!! Now you'll get that opportunity to learn every single stump in a single lake, you now have a true home lake. Huge congrats, nothing better than owning property in this world!

Yeah I was going to say that's one of the longest fish I've seen in a minute. Has the frame of a significantly larger fish.

@GreenPig Hate hearing that but the silver lining is you know where they live now. You'll have another shot no doubt buddy! @Pat Brown It's comical and equally impressive at this point where you can catch Bass, to the point I wish you had a GoPro.

Half the treat of a great day is a Katie reply 😁 Katie I can honestly speak for this entire thread, WE'RE ALL READY FOR KATIE SEASON 😎 The part about the one bait and daunting......my exact thoughts, and I wonder what my winter season would have been like without the Drift Fry. The Drift Fry has made the lake appear that it's never seen a Bass angler, but it's actually a very pressured lake......there's no lake sadly in Alabama that isn't pressured heavily.

Best thread on the fishing internet, always so enjoyable to come back after a day or two away and see all the great information, stories, and catch reports! Really appreciate the kind words, and the great discussion related to my last post. @Carolina Pines Dude what a banger of a day, and to do it with your dad.....absolutely priceless! Beautiful fish, glad you guys made a memory for life. @N Florida Mike Let's Goooo Mike, glad the toads are showing up for you! @Woody B Really hate to hear that buddy, but I honestly believe that for a true grinder and real one like yourself, the fishing Gods will swing that luck deal back your way in the near future. I had my nicest spinning rod and a Drift Fry hanging over the boat barely in the water on Saturday and I had a 2lb fish eat the bait and by some miracle I caught the rod before it went over board......kind of washes out the fish stealing my KGB TSG a week ago. @Creek Pirate 100% agree and awesome SM brother! @ATA Heck of impressive fish sir, the harder you grind for it, the more you got my respect. @Pat Brown Continuing to show why he's the king of lipless cranks!

Last two days I've been sharing a big school of fish with a friend on the lake that has taught us so many fascinating things over about 16hrs fished b/t the two days. All day long schooling action, real Nat Geo stuff. We tried like 50-75 different baits over that span of time and found only two baits they'd fire on. Yesterday my friend found the magic button, and I've never seen fish require something so specific. They wanted a 3/8th Dirty Jigs Underspin with a Reaction Innovations Shiver shot 3.5, but get this, my friend had two of those baits being exactly equal except one had a silver blade, the other gold. He couldn't get a bite on the gold blade model, yet he scored a 26.5lb bag(his PB) on the silver blade one. Mind you I'm throwing the underspins I have as well(silver bladed ones at that).....not a single fish for me on the ones I had. Then today I get the better of him on the Drift Fry and score close to a 25lb bag with two 7s. He bought me two of those exact baits and a pack of those Shiver shots, and while that was the only other bait they would really fire on today, the Drift Fry produced the biggest fish. The exact opposite was true the day before, he got the bigger bites and way more fish catches, but I was still able to catch my fair share and get some quality on the Drift Fry. He still caught two 5s and had a 19lb day. Both of us lost a 5+ as well. He caught a 2.15 Crappie yesterday, and I caught a 2.10 today. Now I really want a 3lb one. It's fascinating how the biggest class size Crappie will school with the Bass. We learned that we could fire up the school with our trolling motors, still trying to figure out the mechanics behind that. Think I'll take a break tomorrow with T-Storms predicted after 44hrs fished since Monday, which marks the most hours I've ever fished in a week. 7.1 7.2

Wow, only been like a day since I checked in and so many excellent new posts.......folks getting on the water for the first time of the year, @thediscochef getting rewarded after grinding so hard, @Team9nine continuing his hot winter, and @Woody B with another big fish fantastic day. From now until June, the fishing reports will only get better and better, and by more and more members.....it's like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon when everybody is back on the water.

Great stuff @TnRiver46, always such diverse and beautiful fish! @Creek Pirate Way to grind it out and finally crack the code, heck of a SM congrats! Thanks so much Katie and A-Jay, praise from such accomplished anglers means a great deal to me! I really am pumped to see you and Katie start using these Drift Fry as I suspect they'll be just as insane for you guys as they've been for me. Lots of baits don't translate from region or lake to lake it seems, but this bait/rig is just so sneaky, and incredibly realistic looking that if it's around predators it's going to get bit. It obviously works on those big brown fish you love A-Jay as Fujita won on Champlain with it. As for Katie she'll catch 25 fish on a bottlecap, so I have little doubt she'll kill with it as well.

@ak6388 Way to get on the board for the year brother! Looking like a lock that you'll be changing that PB in your avatar 😎 I really am humbled and floored by the love and support I receive here! In a world where everything seemingly tries to tear you down especially on the internet, the amazing group of humans in this thread is extraordinary in my experience. I sincerely appreciate it guys and gal! Today was simply wild, I somehow managed to exceed Katie's lofty prediction. I caught 45 Bass + 5 Crappie.......28lb bag with a 7.6, 6.12, and 5 weighed. I think I must have caught another 8 in that 4-5lb range, and the rest were mostly 2-4lb fish. From my catches, but vastly more from my eyes, I had no clue that such big fish schooled in such great numbers, I really can't say how many fish I saw that were over 4lbs blow up, so many in that 5-6lb range one of which in the video you'll see me first see, then catch it. The biggest I saw sure looked to be 8-9lbs. The most ironic/frustrating thing is when these fish are schooling as heavy as I've ever seen, it's insane how picky they are. I've tried so many different things over the last two days especially. The Jackall Drift Fry catches 95% of these fish, but the 6th Sense Crush 75x got the 7.6 big fish and a few others. It has to be the best big fish flatside crank made. Went back to the Keitech Jighead to see if that small little weedguard on the Deps Midst jighead was screwing with the hookup ratio, and to my surprise I think it was. Got scared of my low running stash of the Drift Fry Deadly bait color so I switched to another color, low and behold it made no noticeable difference. 8hrs fishing, 5hrs to produce a video of it lol 😴 7.6 6.12 2.8 Crappie.....these things blow my mind, they're the size of a dinner plate

@Team9nine Yeah it blew my mind last year when they did it even more frequently, as I'd always heard winter fishing is slow, the fish are sluggish, etc. It slows way down once they start spawning, but then the Shad Spawn kicks in and you get that whole deal around April. They do it on the "hi activity" days year-round, but nothing like what they do in the winter. Fall has a ton of it, but I've found for whatever reason the size class fish are much smaller predating on them. I've spent as much time trying to learn Gizzard and Threadfin Shad as Bass since fishing this lake, but they're as hard to predict and understand as Bass for me. For example Feb 8-9 last year I had 40-50 fish days in that same area as today, and the amount of Threadfins were equally as staggering, yet they were in 20-25fow carpeted up for hundreds of yards with the spaghetti right above them, and I was using a Damiki Axe Blade 1oz tail spinner to catch them in about 15-20ft. Today they were in 8-10fow exploding upwards at groups of thousands yet spaced out balls of Threadfins sunning on the surface. Too much info I'm sure, but those Shad fascinate the heck out of me. Agreed on the second part, and hopefully it's something improvable and with work I'll grow in that area. As far as the first part, I think there's lots of logic in the fact that you can have too much of the real thing and at some point it's impossible to compete with the real thing. One thing I've found is that these fish seemed to be keyed in more on size than any other factor of the real prey. I get the best results matching the size first and then trying other things. Usually a Vision 110jr is kryptonite for them in the Fall, and in the Winter an A-Rig. I've had times where the Flashback Mini with the Armor Shad destroys them as well. They usually have a magic button, but some days you just can't really find the perfect one, or even one at all. I had a couple days IIrc last winter where they wouldn't eat anything, not a single fish.