Anthony Watson

Has anyone tried the big game fluoro yet? If so what experience have you had with it? Just by looking at it looks to be like the standard big game, it runs big in the line diameter for the pound rating so I’m sure it will be stronger than advertised. It seems like a really good price point, and if it’s half the line big game mono is it will be awesome

The og tiny 4 and the frittside 5 have been my best producers in flatsides. I throw them in the standard shad(white with black back, white with blue back, chart with black back) and red craw patterns depending on the time of year

I have a buddy with a late 90s Mercury efi 2000. Recently it started becoming hard to start when cold, it seems to idle rougher than normal, and it’s really sluggish on the first initial takeoff of the day. Sometimes he can rev it to almost “clear it out” and then it will seemingly be fine and plane out like normal. After the first initial takeoff it acts totally normal the rest of the day. Busts right off on the first key turn and gets up on plane just like usual. I’m thinking it’s a fuel or fuel delivery issue. Anyone else have any suggestions?

Angles can be a deal breaker. I’ve noticed on my home lake that I can hit brush piles from different angles, one may produce no bites, while another may load the boat

I’ve noticed that I fish with 2 different mindsets when competitive fishing and just fun fishing. Most days fun fishing is more productive, maybe because I’m not expecting myself to catch a big bag, I’m just out there to have a good time. Or it could be that when I evaluate my day it’s not in lbs/oz and more about fun had. I’ve also noticed I do better in competitive settings when I show up with the mindset of “I’m just gonna go fish today and let the cards stack as they will”

Great advice Tom as always! I learn something every time you post

I find myself doing this often. I spend WAY more time on an offshore spot than I do on visible cover spots. I’ll spend 30 minutes on an offshore spot yet maybe 2-3 minutes on a visible cover spot, usually I stay moving when fishing down the bank.

I’ll be honest I had to look this up to see what it was

@LrgmouthShad thanks for the advice. I’m starting to learn that little keys like what you mentioned are what separate “good” spots from “great” spots It’s tough to run a crankbait through brush, especially a DD crank. I just try to pinpoint my brush pile and then run my crank right next to it as close as I feel I can without running it right through. A lure retriever also helps a lot and has saved me some money

I tend to go with my gut instinct as well, and what I have confidence in This year I’ve been trying to force myself to fish offshore/structure more instead of relying on visible cover. It’s been a bit of learning curve but I’m slowly making progress I have been leading off with a dd crank, then going to a Texas rig, jig, or c rig. I’ve heard multiple people say that approaching it with a moving bait may actually pull fish off of the structure. I’ll have to try your order and see if it produces more bites for me

So say you are fishing offshore structure (brushpiles, rockpiles, etc), is there a lineup of baits you will throw at it and if so what order do you prefer. I’m not asking for specific baits, I’m just wondering if you pull up to a spot do you throw a moving/reaction bait at it first, then follow it up with a worm/jig or is it vice versa? Or do you just hit it with one bait and move on?

That is very similar. I might have to buy some of those and try it. I’m very partial to the wacky rig, but it’s hard to fish in heavy brush. And those weedless wacky hooks that they offer just don’t do the trick

This may be a long shot….back in the early to mid 2000s there was a senko style bait that had an “appendage” right in the middle of the bait, the bait looked like a “T”. It allowed you to essentially wacky rig it but to use a ewg or worm style hook so you could Texas rig through the “appendage” and keep it weedless. I can’t for the life of me remember which company made it or what it was called. Does anyone remember this bait or know of anything on the market similar?

I would add a medium moderate rod roughly 7’ with a 6.something gear ratio reel for crank baits, jerkbaits, and even chatterbaits. 6.x gear ratio reels are the most versatile in my opinion because it’s much easier to speed up reeling than it is to slow down reeling, at least for me it is

As said by many others here, I keep my frog colors very simple….white bottom or black bottom. Black bottom for low light conditions and white for more light conditions. Top color really doesn’t matter to me

@WRB thanks for the awesome info Tom. I always look forward to your responses, you are such a wealth of knowledge. @Catt as well. One day I’ll make it down your way to fish Toledo bend! That place has always been on my bucket list

I would agree with that. It seems to me that when you find them out deep they tend to be schooled up and seem to be of like size. I also agree with fishing pressure and the cover options up shallow being my reason for opinion. The big shallow fish are just farther apart and more targeted which makes it seem like there are less of them

I agree that the majority of the larger than average bass that I have caught have been in shallow water, many with deep water access. Most of this is due in part to the fact that I primarily fish shallow, I just don’t have the confidence in deep fishing. It just seems like we get throttled in the summer months by guys weighing big bags fishing deeper offshore. That’s one of my goals this year is to get more comfortable offshore Yeah you guys grow some MONSTERS in Texas. We don’t have quite that caliber of fish is Oklahoma, at least not near as many That’s a very fair assessment. I don’t doubt that many of the “good” fish I catch shallow in summer were “studs” in the pre spawn

@LrgmouthShad I’d consider shallow to be 8-10ft or less. I think those are all solid points! I wouldn’t consider an offshore hump to be “deep” either unless we are taking a 30ft of water with a hump that comes up to 20fr

Let’s talk postspawn/summer bass movement. I think it’s safe to say that there is a group of fish that move out deeper after the spawn and throughout the summer and and a group that stays shallow throughout the summer. In my opinion it seems like more quality large bass move out deep than stay shallow. Sure some big fish stay shallow but the overall “quality” average seems to be smaller. What does everyone else think about this?

I ave tried multiple different ways to rig a wacky rig and I have found that a piece of shrink tubing slid over your stickbait of choice and then hook rigged through it perpendicular is the best option. In my opinion and personal research, a hook rigged parallel to the stickbait kills the hook up ratio substantially

Agree 110%. The aird x is a phenomenal rod for the money

Ton would you please email me a copy as well to anfrobodine@gmail.com. Thanks!

T-rig, c-rig, and it’s my go to jig trailer

Either a scale or a cull beam. You see very few use scales, which seems odd. I like to know what I have weight wise when tourney fishing instead of guessing