AlabamaSpothunter

I know you wouldn't charge, but to experience a typical "Katie day" would be worth what premium guides charge across the country. Others who have paid a Bass guide I'm sure would agree. Your fish, where they live, and the way you fish for them is totally unique.....other than your modern tackle, I could imagine reading your posts in a 1950s era Field and Stream magazine. The beauty of this thread to me is that it showcases how unique the sport is for each one of the regular posters in it......we're all vastly different in geography and styles for the most part, yet here we all are connected by the obsession over Black Bass.

As always Katie, part of the reward of having a nice day or catching a nice fish is getting a reply of yours 😁 As far as the lottery tickets go, the smarter move for me is to just book a plane ticket to coastal Maine mid summer and hire you as a guide. You're the undisputed heavyweight champ of fat healthy fish. In the next life when I come back as a Bass, I better be born in a Maine bog 😎 That Buck was doing very "stag" things to his lady friend 😂

Quite different conditions from yesterday, 42d/high winds/bluebird sunny skies. Fished about 6 hrs., caught 21. Best 5 went about 20.5lbs with a big fish of 5.9 and 4.13 got weighed, 4+ on the 110, and a nice 3lb Spot were the highlights. Vision 110 caught a few but was quite disappointed they wouldn't fire on it with such great jerkbait conditions. Damiki Vault continues to dominate the catch count. And finally, the first big Buck of winter I've seen, pretty sure this is the same Buck I've seen for three winters now. He's always an 8pt so maybe it's a different one as I don't know much about Deer biology. Such a magnificent animal.

@TnRiver46 @Pat Brown @Blue Raider Bob Many, many thanks gents for such kind words, this is the most supportive and positive place for Bassheads, and it's because of folks like you guys!

Bwahahaha.....nice shop friend 🤣 You're so awesome and kind Katie!!! Thanks for that, and I knew you'd enjoy seeing Bass that you're familiar with......these were quintessential Katie fish 😎

Haha, I never started to pay attention to the bug eyes until you mentioned it last year, now I think about you honestly every time I catch a bug eyed one 😁 Appreciate it brother!

38 Degrees, on and off light rain, not a ray of sunshine to be found......wide open bite! Caught 26 over about 4.5hrs, almost all on the Damiki Vault 1/2oz in Real Shad. 23.5lb bag anchored by a 6.2 fish. Couple of big Spots that couldn't even make the team. These are two of the most beautiful fish I've caught, just flawless specimens, the pinnacle of health. Think this is the shortest/fattest fish I've ever caught

That's outrageous, here in the US I don't pay any sales tax or duty fees when ordering from Digitaka. 23% to the gov't to have the privilege of buying a fishing reel.....again absolutely outrageous!!!!!! Send the money to your son and have him order it for you.

Really appreciate those kind words Bob!

TWO HUNDRED POUND DOG 😲 400lbs of dogs to feed, Elon Musk indeed 🤣

Pat, you ought to try the Core Tackle Hover Rigs.......on some of those pressured ponds, bet it would kill. The Caffene Shad made me think about that. Put that sucker on one and watch how crazy the action is when you drop it down. Got a pack and then the 6th Sense Juggle Minnow. Thing glides, darts so randomly that I have to think the bait is pressure proof like a whacky worm. Never realized a tube was just a form of the Hover Rig, but I'm going to start fishing this thing with Creature baits. Seems like the mid strolling hover rig is just one facet of using the hover rig. @TnRiver46 Every couple months I get so frustrated that I say I'm going to just start fishing a live Gil or big Shiner everyday until I catch her 🤣 Growing up we caught some nice fish on them and I used them a bunch, but I never caught anything huge on them oddly.

🤣 Thanks @TnRiver46, and I think you're right. Right now I've got a Matt Lures big soft Gil swimbait that I'm thinking of creeping on the bottom, and I'm gonna try to creep some other big soft swimbaits on the bottom. That said I've struggled in the past to keep a big soft swimbait in my hand, I know it's something I've got to learn. Not to many posts ago @Dwight Hottle showed what they do in the winter on the big girls.

Here in Alabama we have three types, two of which I see often in the backyard.....The Grey and Southern Flying Squirrel, however the Fox Squirrels are significantly south of me in central Alabama. Saw my first Fox Squirrels back in May fishing in South Alabama at a Bass Ranch.

Another day, another lost monster that literally jumped into the side of the boat....looked to be 7+ 🤢 Caught 14 in frost covered conditions at dawn, then went back out in the afternoon and caught 1 and a daygum stud of a Bream in nice sunny high 40d temps. Everything that swims seemingly hits this blade bait. Caught two big Bream, five Crappie, and a Carp on it the last couple weeks. Today the biggest was close to 5. All these fish are so fat, they're just gorging themselves in 18-25ft on carpets of Threadfins. Besides a big Glide, I think these blade baits teach me more about the fish than any other bait. For example on these Crappie and Bream.......I found them on 2D first in schools, and then threw on them thinking they were Bass as they were right off the bottom in 20+ fow. Never really knew where the Bream went once it got cold or how they set up in relation to Bass.

Holy cow, the pic almost looks photoshopped. Those have to be two of the biggest puppers I've seen, what is the breed, and how much do they weigh? They look awesome, you must have a big house to fit them in it 🤣

One of the better CFP games, the Bama/UGA game a few years ago was the best imo.

I agree Pat, that's the wildest thing I can remember seeing Bass fishing outside of the time I watched the last duckling in a line get absolutely inhaled by a monster Bass. I had no idea that a Carp would eat a Shad. Figures you'd have caught some as bycatch, you got that big fish radar 😎

Caught 18 today, almost all on the Blade Bait. Really fun start to the New Year. Had two 1 in a million events happen today though. Firstly I caught the biggest freshwater fish of my life......guesstimating a 50lb+ Carp that was 3.5-4ft long, I swear I thought it was a Tarpon at first. I can't ever remember seeing a bigger Red Carp in person or in pics. Incredibly the Carp ate the Blade Bait, was hooked right in the mouth. Sadly I didn't get video or a pic of the fish, it all happened so fast. Now to the 1 in a billion event.........I managed to snag a 3lb fish that had been engulfed by a 5lb fish, and sadly both were dead. Couldn't have been dead for too long either. I try to think about the odds of this event, has to be greater than catching my White Whale. I bet it's easier to get struck by lightning, or at least I hope that's the case, very sad to see two fish that had already beat the longest odds to reach those sizes.

Maybe we'll change your nickname from the Braided Wonder to Tenacious Tim......awesome fish, and way to stick with it brother!

As long as Alabama doesn't win a natty, I'm happy! Never thought I'd ever pull for Michigan, but here we are......War Eagle 🙃

Once again analytics ruins an otherwise great game. The Lions 1000% lost that game because of analytics. One of the most extreme and obvious losses because of them as well. Wish washy coaches can now yield to the "analytics" when things blow up, "well, that's what the analytics said to do, can't blame me"........lol after he fails twice in a row for a two point try......sure go ahead and try a third 🤣 It's a moot point anyways as long as Goff is the QB, guy misses the most rudimentary throws.

When the right opportunity arises, you better believe Milliken, or really the actual majority owners of 6th Sense like Casey will sell out. It's the American dream, start a company, grow a company, turn a company into a success, then sell the company out. As far as Milliken goes, it's getting tough to watch his content as I find it to be increasingly a big sales ad for 6th Sense. If he catches fish on baits besides 6th Sense you'll be lucky if he names them. The problem with fishing personalities has always been the wares they're shilling. You have to weed through all the sales pitches to glean a little information.

Nobody is debating that FFS isn't a learned/perfected technique similar to any other technique of yesteryear like flipping with Denny or cranking with Fritts. The old guys simply got caught off guard, many of them have or are doing better jobs at adapting it in their games. They're still way behind the curve, and young minds will always be faster learners of new tech, a tale as old as tech itself. Arguably the single best FFS user on the planet was installing cable/fishing from a 14ft jon boat when he installed a job for a guy who worked with Garmin, and he got a prototype Garmin LVS32 unit. The rest is history. He essentially had one of the first units, and put in way more work before anybody even really knew about the tech. I have little doubt if Josh Jones wanted to compete at the highest level of Bass fishing he would do so quite successfully because he has the single most important tool or technique mastered that's relevant for the game today. He dominated Crappie derbies with it for a couple years. I mean there's really no reason to debate or argue this topic, it's fundamentally changed the game on the professional level. Hate it, love it can be debated, but the fact that it can erase the need for decades of on the water experience is clearly evidenced already in its infancy of usage. For the record, Trey Mckinney would fish circles around me, and I wasn't diminishing his incredible feat at such a young age.

That's a really nice fish NJBasstard, congrats!

Not sure how much bank beating an 18 yr old Trey Mckinney had before qualifying for the Elite series last year. He would have been 13-14yrs old when FFS came out. I still remember when it took dudes decades of learning techniques and time on water to make the top of the pro world. Now the experienced guys are giving way to rather inexperienced guys who are wizz kids on the scope. The scope trumps all other techniques, the decades of mastering techniques is rendered quite useless in the face of a talented scoper. This isn't my words alone, this is the opinion of long time Elite series pros who say it. Listen to guys like Matt Herron and Greg Hackney.