WRB-2.0

I search for bass with my sonar unit, no set time as to how long to stay with specific lure types. If I have confidence with a certain lure may stay with it for several hours, usually try a few other types before leaving fish I metered. Tom

Today's latest craze is going to faster retrieve speed low profile bait casting reels. The Daiwa Tatula R-100XS is a good example and the reel that got my attention in late 2013. The R-100XS is rated 8.1 to 1 with recovery of 33.9* inches per handle rotation. My initial reaction was why does anyone need a 8 to 1 ratio bass reel? My bias was about loss of leverage when using this reel for crank baits or controlling a strong hard fighting bass. Curiosity during a local (BAT) tackle show I picked up the Tatula R100XS on Tatula jig/worm rod and test casts several times. This reel is very smooth and the retrieve speed didn't seem noticeably too fast. To my surprise I really liked this reel and bought one with a show discount offering 10% off. I am a jig fisherman and casting jigs long distance is normal. My retrieve technique is using the reel more than the rod, so the higher retrieve rate would impact this presentation. I also hook set by reeling quickly and rod sweeping, the faster retrieve rate may help. The past 4 months have proven I was wrong about the power of this reel, the 8.1 to 1 is just a powerful as my 6.3 to 1 reels. I was also wrong about the retrieve speed negatively affecting my presentation, simple adjustment to maintain retrieve pace cadence is natural. The hook set is improved with the higher ratio and the smoothness of this reel is exceptional. Controlling big hot fast bass is actually improved when first hooked and around the boat...win win. I know own 3**Tatula R-100XS reels and converted to high speeds. Tom * actual measured at 33" filled 1/16" below full spool. ** Valley Sports sells this reel at the lowest price.

Depending on jig wt and hook size: .062-.065 D wire.

The problem is trying to define what a medium heavy and heavy verses 3, 4, 5 or 6 power between different rod makers because there isn't any standard! The rod makers have gone to application specific and lure weight/ mono line lb test to guide anglers what the rod may be used for effectively. At the end of the day it's the anglers choice. For example my worms rods are 4 to 5 power, casting jig rods are 5 to 6 power and I fish with FC line between 10 to 14 lb test on both worm and jig rods using 3/16 oz worm weights and 7/16 oz jigs 90% of the time. These rods are over powered for most anglers, I like rods that cast great and control the bass. Loomis the 854 = 85 inch long rod, 4 power BC = baitcasting, JW = jig and worm. Good choice for all around jig and worm rod. Tom

A good Wart hunts* on a steady retrieve instead coming in straight. Tom * random zig zag.

The later models (Iovino- TW series) use a Owner hook and work good in around cover, wood and rocks. Not sure what hook is standard today? Tom

Marinas they launch from are usually off limits to tournament anglers and the boundaries are spelled out during the pre launch meetings. Any special closures for each tournament are also clarified before the event starts, not always that clear to the pro's and several have had DQ's as a result. Tom

Length = bass laying on a flat surface, mouth closed and measure from tip of closed low jaw to the center of the tail. Girth = measurement around with widest area! dorsal fin down. Formula: L x L x G / 1200 = weight in pounds! accurate within 5%. There are more accurate formulas, however require several girth measurements and accuracy becomes more subjective to the measurement technique to determine true mass. Tom

The prawns being used are not native Louisiana fresh water shrimp, they appear to be Malaysian giant river prawns, farm raised mostly in China and Southeast Asia. Most states will not allow another invasive animal to be introduced. It will be interesting to watch how all this plays out. Schwartz is now in the aquaculture business! May be the Louisiana prawn farmers will put FLMB in their ponds! Tom

I posted this thread right after reading it in Bassmaster and have not looked for any other threads on this topic, therefor have no idea what is being discussed. Before the internet we all lived our lives in a smaller world, having contact with a much small group of people, isolated from regional bias. The more exposure you get from a wider group of people, the more opinions you receive, positive and negative. The internet expands exposure to unknown territory, good and bad. With that in mind I will offer my opinion on the ethics of this topic. FLMB were first transplanted in CA lakes back in 1959 or 55 years ago. The first lake to open to the public to fish with FLMB population was Lower Otay lake, followed by several other San Diego city lakes. Lower Otay didn't have a trout planting program, lake Miramar did. It took maybe 4 years of trying to catch the new FLMB that anyone figured out how to consistently catch these bass, they are so different from our NLMB we were used to catching. Live crawdads was they bait of choice followed by large Canadian night crawlers and hand poured 10" to 12" soft plastic worms. By 1970 the state records started to fall nearly every week. The NLMB state record was 14 lbs 7 oz, by 1973 the Miramar giant of 21 lbs 3 oz was set. It was the Miramar bass that changed how we fished for giant bass, realizing that stocked rainbow trout was the preferred prey for record size FLMB. The problem was we couldn't use live trout as bait, illegal in CA! 1983 was the year the first commercial available trout swimbait hit the market, the Huddleston wooden trout, followed by the AC plug. Before that time only a handful of anglers used Worm Kings 12" soft plastic boot tail swimbait. The world outside of CA now knew about trout swimbaits and trout because the key word associated with CA's giant bass; " trout fed fat giant bass" shouldn't be allowed or considered for records!! The bias continues to this day. My opinion; I don't believe the Schwarts program will work to produce a world record, it may produce a bass in the mid 18's. FLMB should be a different species from NLMB regarding records. The largest NLMB I know of is less than 17 lbs.

Amazing how tight lipped your fellow TN members are on this topic, they could PM a creek arm that is on right now. Pickwick is a power generation lake and I would think the smallies have moved into the creek arms or bays out of the main basin, could be wrong? Good luck, it's getting warmer everyday now. Tom

The SD jam knot has been around a long time before FC line became popular. Easy to tie on the water, but use at least 4-5 twists. Back in the 70's we called the SD knot the spinnerbait knot because it was easy to use the lures weight and swing it around the double line, then clinch it tight. Tom

Read post #1, 90 acres and 60 acres. The original lake is 90 acres with 7 miles of shoreline, like several ponds interconnected with channels to maximize shoreline area. The second 60 acre lake is new lake and filling a year ago, shoreline mileage not disclosed.Lusk isn't involved as far as I know, Jones is the lead biologist. Tom PS, genetic engineering involved the U of OK and the Texas Share A Lunker program to gene splice a new strain of FLMB tolerant of temp extremes, outcome unknown. Don't want to speculate what a faster growth pure FLMB may be? Tom

Everyone should read the article. The deer are not in a pen, they are raised in the wild albeit on private managed property. The bass are also in the wild, albeit private managed lakes. The bass have proven to be difficult to catch, pure giant FLMB are not easy to catch. Schwartz arguably made a mistake to introduce F1's into this first lake thinking they would increase catch rates, it may have deluted the pure strain population. I don't buy this on the short term as the pure FLMB stay pure until they die off and that is a longer term issue. What did catch my attention was a statement about fast growing pure FLMB strain......what is that? This strain is being introduced into the new lake which is deeper and constructed from scratch to optimize growth. The bass are technically wild as long as they haven't been genetically altered! Tom

Your TD maybe 2' deep, it shouldn't be unless the waves are that high. Regardless let's talk spawning water temps for Smallmouth bass. The 58 degree temp is lower end and requires the bass to guard eggs about 14 days at that temp, 64 degrees it takes less time about 7 days, higher recruitment success. If bass make nest in water less than 2' birds like herons pick off the smaller males, most successful nest are deeper between 3' to 5'. The water temp must be stable at least a week before bass will bed, following the cold water period. Very few lakes have homogenous water temps from the shallow water areas to the deep water areas, thus bass spawn in waves at different times in different locations. 58-59 degrees water surface are not absolute indicator of smallmouth spawn. The larger females nearly always stage deeper and are catchable until they move up to lay eggs in the shallower water where those smaller males have made their nest. Something is true for LMB except the lower end temp is about 62, upper around 67. The reason the warmer water is problematic is bluegill swarm the shallow water beds as the water gets over 67 to start their spawning cycles. Tom

Take a look at Siebert as they are a sponsor and offer excellent jigs at reasonable prices. NorthStar was out of business and now back, another site sponsor and favorite. Jigs are all about what hook is used, head designs are usually the same and skirt materails, how they are tied and customer service separate the good from not so good. I make my own jigs, so don't have a dog in this hunt. Tom

When bass spawn on the surface, then surface water temps are meaningful. Tom

Aprils fools and a good one Sam!

It's one of Roadwarriers lakes, maybe he will chime in. You are talking pre spawn conditions and smallies move around a lot more than LMB. I would focus on secondary points and wind blown areas first, then check out the protected wind areas with sloping gravel areas second looking for any signs of bed fish when the sun is higher. Depth is dependant on water clarity and what prey the bass are on, got to be on the water to determine that....jerk baits and A-rigs should be considered. Tom

I am not sure if this effort is unethical or not, or if it will succeed. If it does succeed then the ethical questions will be settled. I know the record White Tail deer that are harvested from managed high growth farms have caused there share controversy at first and are now accepted by the majority of hunters. When California first started to produce giant bass there was and continues to be bias based on the bass being fed stocked trout. Same could be said about the bass in Japan and the end of the day it makes no difference to the IGFA. My personal reaction to this program is the attempt to grow a world record bass is on a big budget and scale that could work. The one factor that is over looked is the climate and it may not support the needed 15 year growth cycle needed to attain growth over 20 lbs. Lake Hodges in SoCal produced FLMB exceeding 20 lbs without trout as prey or any large size bait fish; threadfin shad, crappie, bluegill and catfish were the only species in Hodges when the 20.4 lb bass was caught. Climate and deep cool water with sanctuary area may have been more important than prey types. Another factor being over looked is the year old bass needs abundant prey available and places to hide and survive to have fast growth rates at an early stage in life before they can become giants. The fact that 1 FLMB in Schwartz lakes has grown to 13+ lbs (in 5 years?) supports the program potentail. This program will produce a Texas state record! Another fact not understood is how difficult it is to catch these bass on article lures and I don't know and didn't read if live bait is allowed? If the goal is to harvest a world record, live bait is more than likely in the mix and allowed by the IGFA. Time will tell the tale. It's a very interesting project regardless of how we may feel about the outcome. Tom

All crank baits make a lot of underwater noise via vibration and hooks. Easy to drill a 1/16 diameter hole in the lures belly and superglue the rattles, seal the hole or just buy silent models. I always use rattling cranks at night, day it's trail and error, no set rule. Tom

Gary Schwartz developed white tail deer ranches to grow record deer, his Tecomate seed co is famous. Schwartz hired John Jones and his team of biologist to build his lakes, Schwartz is in Laredo TX. Gene Lau tired this in Florida several years ago and was wiped out by poachers, I don't know of any private lakes in California raising bass, the water is too expensive and importing any type of none native prey is impossible. Giant bass in CA just happened, wasn't planned or managed. Texas has a good fishery management system, California does it by neglect. Tom

This months Bassmaster, Apl 2014', has a article by James Hall about Texan Gary Schwartz creating lakes to grow world record size bass. Interesting concepts and Schwatrz has the money and desire to do this. Gary's key prey is fresh water prawns that are not natural in fresh water lakes, they require salt water to spawn. The pure FLMB bass in lakes La Perla (90 acres) and Jalisco (60 arches) have pond raised prey that are used to feed the bass, along with shad and other baitfish Now the bar is being raised and the question is this ethical will certainly follow, mark your calendars for 2020! Tom

Just wanted to add that our lakes are drinking water quality, very clean and it doesn't freeze here! Micro guides would be a pain if the water is dirty or freezes. Tom

It's difficult to know what was used as a baseline, certainly not quality of the bass fishing or man hour per bass caught. It looks more like a popularity contest among select tournament anglers. Several California lakes are missing and Oroville doesn't belong rated, decent lake but quality is low. New Melones is nearby to Oroville and better lake with both numbers and quality with a world record Spotted bass recently. Don Pedro should be on the list, also near New Melones, ref; Chris Fish avatar smallmouth was a Don Pedro bass. No lakes from SoCal due to small lake size? DVL takes 25 lbs to win, Casitas takes 20+ lb to get a check! Castaic and Perris still produces good numbers. Lake Pleasant in AZ is far better lake than Apache for both numbers and quality? Texas has a lot of lakes listed but a few outstanding lakes are missing!. Whatever. Tom