Bass_Akwards

Wow! All awsome specimens, but am I wrong in saying Dwights Smally is one of the most rediculously stunning looking fish ever? Ive seen it in his avitar but never in a photo as big as this one. Just look at that thing! Smallys are asthetically amazing to begin with, but when I see one that big it just blows my eyes away. The colors and the markings and shape are all mezmerizing. Nice work Dwight. Nice work everyone. I want to hear more of these great and memorable stories.

For some people their favorite bass might be their PB. Others it might be because of how it fought or where you caught it. Others may have other reasons. Mine is this little pig. I've caught bass that could eat this thing whole, but never have I caught one with these proportions. It looked like a mini version of Kuritas world record when I caught it and this photo taken with a camera phone doensn't even do it justice. It was 15 inches long and 15 inches girth. It was caught way after spawn and was just a natual little tank. I want to catch it in a few years SO bad. I was wondering what other peoples favorite bass they've ever caught was, and why? Post a pic if you have one!

Amen Brother.

Now THAT'S dedication.

T O P W A T E R

Frickin' cool. MAN I wish I had a boat and could try tourney angling. I'm ultra highly competitive and think being in a fishing tourney would be absolutely amazing.

Awesome. Yet there he is, with no problem throwing a 4" Sawamura One Up Shad rigged on a 1/16 th oz jighead.

Ahhhhhh just saw Martins do it. It HAS to be fish attractant.

who? Martins or Faircloth? Where are you in the video?

Fish attractant?

I'm not positive but it sounds like the male was guarding the nest as the female does what they do a lot, which is hover nearer deep water with good access to her nest if she needs it.

That does it, I'm moving!

I'm in!

Keeping your rod tip down doesnt keep the bass from jumping. It can help in TRYING to keep it from jumping or even assist you in sometimes keeping the bass from jumping as high as it would have if you hadn't held the tip down, but I only recommend keeping the tip down when you feel it's making a move to jump. Otherwise I don't know why you'd have the rod tip down when fighting a bass. Obviously the tip gets loews as the bass gets nearer the boat but that's about it. Just go watch every Elite series pro you can find catching bass. I'd be willing to bet big money you won't find any of them who consistantly have their rod tip down most of the time when they have a fish on the line.

Don't get me started. I fish from shore 75% of the time and depending what lures I'm fishing, i can lose between 0-6 lures in a 4 hour trip. If I'm throwing cranckbaits my ratio might even be higher. The old saying "If your not losing them, you aint fishing them right" is so true, and because of that fact, I have a tendancy to lose more luresthen most people I fish with. It SUCKS! If you include how many creature baits and plastics I lose, including the gammy hooks as well, we're talking at least a couple or more every few hours. 50 cents for a worm plus 50 cents a hook and were talking about $1.00 every time I lose a worm and hook. if I lose two or three a day x 5 days a week were talking $10.00 a week just in worms and hooks not to mention some cranks, jerks, and God knows what else. If I fished the Huds and Lucky Craft etc. etc. I'd be living under a bridge in a cardboard box, after two months. I Lost a nice X-rap last night because I'm so darn stubborn that I threw it where I knew there was a lot of brush. Water was lower than I thought and got snagged. Couldn't get that darn lure unstuck to save my life, and because I was fishing from shore, I just couldn't save it. So what do i do after that? Yep, you got it. Put on another jerkbait, this time a floater and throw it to the same spot. "I can just jerk it to the brush pile and then slowly float it over the brush pile, then jerk it back to me after that" is what I'm thinking as I cast, but WRONG! Lost that lure too. Really ticked me off.

It's called trial by error brother. If you don't know what you're doing, you have to at very least go screw it up 10 times in order to figure out what you're doing wrong. It's that easy, and that's what Senko_77 is saying. I've seen many pro's get broken off because they didn't play the fish right. It happens to the best, and it happens to the rest. Yes, generally if a bass breaks to the right, you want to take the rod tip the other way. this is because if you don't, you get slack in your line. You want to keep pressure on the fish, so try and always put the rod where it puts pressure on the bass without over playing it. Again, it's called trial by error man. If you don't know what you're doing, like you keep saying you don't you have to suck it up and be a man and tough it out and work at it for a while. You have to at very least go out there and screw it up and 10 times, and lose some bass, and maybe catch some bass. Practice on the smaller-medium bass and learn what's up. Listen to what were telling you as well. You just have to do the trial and error thing in order to figure out what you're doing wrong, and learn from it so you can get better the next time.

Take Senko_77's advice. If you think to much that's just as bad as freaking out and trying to muscle the fish to much. Just chill and fish and give it time. To kind of answer your question though, just use common sense. If the fish goes left of right, allow it to go where it wants. I mentioned that you should never try to turn a big bass unless you're in dire straights. That being the case just think for a second. If the fish breaks left don't just yank your rod to the right or left aimlessly. Don't think to yourself "every time a bass breaks left, i have to do the same thing every time." You have to get a feel for what works through experience. If a bass breaks hard right you have to put the rod where it makes sense. Where ever you can keep constant pressure on the fish and not give it slack line is going to be a good enough position to hopefully give you a good chance to get that bass in the boat. When the bass breaks left or right, do what you have to do to NOT over play the fish. Let it run and get tired and when you FEEL like you can reel it in some, do it. If it wants to run again, then let it. If you see the bass is taking you over to a bunch of brush where you really feel like you could lose it for sure, then try and muscle it away from there. Everything takes practice and time, so just take a deep breath and relax both before, during, and after you go fishing. Don't over complicate so much. Nothing is exact. Practice, practice, practice and this stuff will become second nature. Soon youre not going to be "thinking" at all, and you'll just be "doing." When you get super good, you'll be able to start catching them between your legs like Senko_77 is talkin' about.

First off, I'm assuming that you're talking about a large bass. Almost anyone can land a small bass so i figure you must be talking about a fatty. When landing a fatty you have to first be aware that the very sight of a monster when it jumps out of the water will make you, and most other anglers knees turn to jelly. Maybe you've caught some nice fish before but when you see a complete monster, you might realize that you might never catch another bass like this in your life. When that happens, you have to be prepared. Thinking like this makes you play the bass differently than how you might otherwise play it when you catch a "normal" bass. It can make you freeze up or do something else worng at the time. If you tense up at the wrong time fighting a monster, you could very well lose it. A HUGE bass is not that much more diffiult to land than a bass half it's size. It's stronger and more fierce, and can rip your line in heavy cover easier, but the huge bass can be very predictable in their fighting habits. You need to leanr to anticipate what they're going to do before they do it. NEVER EVER try and turn a huge bass no matter where it's going unless it's your last ditch effort to keep it from an obviously dangerous object. Most people start freaking out and apply more pressure when they see a big bass heading for cover and this is where you can really lose the bass of a lifetime. You need to adjust your drag once a big bass is on the line. I do it all the time when I have a bigger bass on. I have a hookset drag, and a fighting drag. When I see a bigger bass on my line heading for cover, I lower my drag and let the fish go where it wants to go. MOST times that big bass will move AWAY from cover and toward deeper water. I only have a little boat but when I anchor I always give the fish some deep open water access to run to when I nail it. If you're fishing heavier cover anchor so you're casting parallel to the spot and fish the deeper edges. Don't freak out and try moving the bass towards you the entire time. If you feel the bass heading for the surface to jump, get your rod tip in the water fast, and stop reeling while allowing the rod to do the work. Always bring a net too. If you really do have the bass of a lifetime on there, you want to make sure that once it gets near te boat, your chances of nabbing it are good. The closer a monster bass gets to the boat, the better your chances of losing it are. Just practice all this stuff on the medium sized fish when you catch them so you can be ready for the big Mama when she bites!

You Wrote: I understand that correctly or incorrectly my opinion is largely formed from the fact I was taught to fish by two true gentlemen my father and my grandfather and I enjoy fishing for what I believe to be the purist aspects of the sport and none of those aspects include a standings chart, weigh in's, nor monetary payouts. I can't figure out why you'd bring your Dad and Grandfather being gentlemen into this, other than to imply that all tournament anglers are NOT gentlemen. Like YOUR opinion (and your Dad's and grandfather's) is opposite the tourney anglers because you and your dad and your Grand Dad are gentleman and tourney anglers are simply not. Tourney anglers probably don't agree with you that the "purist aspects of the sport" have nothing to do with payouts and weigh in's, but that doesn't all the sudden make those anglers weak or "ungentlemanly." You Wrote: There is definatley more boat traffic on our waters and more pressure No one LOVES fishing pressure. It is what it is though and it's part of fishing. Just because you want the lake all to yourself doesn't mean the tourney anglers should just forget about tourney fishing. If these tourney anglers weren't fishing tournaments, they'd be on their boats fishing every weekend anyway. You can't keep everyone off the water just to make it more "fun" for you. You wrote: I have noticed tournament anglers tend to hit the water like they own it an everyone else be damned. This is not what I was raised to think when I thought about fishing. Kind of a blanket generalization don't you think? Perhaps that's YOUR opinion, based on the fact that perception is reality. But the guy next to you can be watching the same exact tourney on your lake and see exactly what you see and feel completely differently. I'd be willing to bet that guys like Skeete Reese, Ike, KVD, Faircloth, Martins, Brauer etc. etc were raised just fine on the water. I've seen these guys fish for hundreds of thousands of dollars and actually have no problem asking some weekend angler who took their spot if they can fish next to them so that they can try and win $100,000. You Wrote: Furthermore, while I have no concrete facts to back this thought up but I suspect the mortality rate of the fish caught in these tournaments, and held in a tank for hours and then "released" cannot be all that good. Again that's just my opinion and I have no facts to back that up. Always a good idea to have some solid facts about something like this, otherwise your opinion/argument is moot imo. You wrote: Not to mention all the fish being yanked off beds this time of year and relocated. This happens in every lake and pond all over the world both in tournaments and not in tournaments. It hasn't seemed to effect the bass or the health on any lake or pond I've ever read about. You Wrote: Spending time with people with similar interests and passion for fishing sounds great, but I think that wholesome idea has been perverted by money and overbearing competition for who catches the most and biggest and who has the nicest and fastest rig when they do it. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that you/we can't do both? Are you saying You/we can't have comradery and spend time with people with similar interests and passions and still be competitive? Doesn't make any sense to me. Compitition is awesome in my opinion. Money is even better! :-) Lastly, could send me a link to the tournament where the person won it because they caught tons of bass, AND had the nicest and fastest rig on the water that day? Dying to check that out.

Wow that gives me chills.

So interesting because it makes me wonder how typical this really is for a bass. I'd think it's almost if not completely impossible for a bass to be BORN blind and survive. Yet once a bass reaches a certain age, it's superior survival skills and instinct can keep it alive and otherwise healthy. It really is cool. I wonder, of all the bass who go blind, what percentage have the genitic makeup and survival instinct to stay alive over a relatively long period of time. I'd think that the parents of the bass Paul photographed had to have an amazing genitic makeup and gene pool. When a trophy type bass spawns, there seems to be a better chance that the offspring will be better adapted genetcally to their environment due to the survival instincts and longevity passed on by it's parents. The particular year class of the bass Paul photographed very well might be an amazing year class of bass, especially depending on what kinds of conditions the parents had to withstand the years prior to the birth of the bass in Pauls photo. Cool picture Paul and good post. It really gets me wondering about lots of stuff, especially how typical it really is for a bass to survive with this kind of handicap.

X2

Mattlures are you sure you were in a taxidermists? I think you mistook those replicas for old Big Mouth Billy. Big Mouth Billy Bass is an Animatronic singing toy, resembling a Largemouth Bass, popular in 2000 and 2001. Made of rubber stretched over a mechanical frame, at first glance it closely resembles a mounted fish. It turns its head outwards and then wiggles on its trophy plaque and sings kitschy cover songs, such as "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and "Take Me To The River" by Al Green ;D ;D ;D ;D

Cruisers and fish wanting to spawn are almost impossible to catch. They couldn't care less about eating. They're way more interested in making little bass. I've heard KVD talk about how if he sees fish like you're describing, even while NOT in a tourney, he'll try and fish for them for about 10 minutes and if the bass aren't interested, he'll just forget about them and move onto fish that he can catch. He basically said that bass like the one's you're describing aren't even worth going for and I completely agree. Nothing's worse than wasting your time on bass like this. I've tried and all it does is get me frustrated while keeping me off parts of the lake or pond where there's bass that DO want to eat or react to my bait.

Soooooooooooooooooooo..... That's it then? Just a rumor? Weak. I vote let's keep the threads on fishing records, especially world records, to ourselves until we at least have some sort of real information about it as opposed to just hearsay. Just my 2.5 cents.