Throwback Thursday - Bagleys - 1977
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
We’ve written a couple of pieces on the Jim Bagley Bait Company over the course of the last couple of years, but I personally never get tired of looking at their ads from days past. Recently I was scouring all my 1977 magazines for another piece and noticed after a while, how many ads Bagley had placed in the various magazines at the time and decided to scan them all. Here’s Bagleys – 1977
The years 1976 and ‘77 were banner years for the company due to Rick Clunn winning back-to-back Bass Masters Classics and catching some of his fish in each event on Bagley’s baits. This seems to have done a couple of things – namely provide a bunch of sales for the company which, in turn, allowed them to step up their ad campaign to sell more.
After going through nearly 75 magazines, I would say I could count on one hand the number of issues that didn’t have a Bagley ad in them. Most of those ads were the same ad placed over and over but this ad-year they really stepped up in the marketing department by designing several new ads.
Most of the ads that were placed in Bassmaster Magazine are fairly well known. It’s the ads that were placed in magazines such as American Angler, American Bass Fisherman, and National Bass that are really cool – ads I’d never seen before. Maybe you haven’t either?
The first ad, at the top of the article, is one I’d never seen. Although the baits weren’t really known as saltwater lures, you can get the gist of the ad in that the baits were little treasures. After two big wins within a year, who could argue?
That ad featured BB2s, KB2s, Honey Bs, Bang-O-Lures, Balsa Shiner, and what appears to be the full line of DBs, lead pellet in the lips to boot.
The second ad, one we’ve all seen, is of Rick Clunn and makes special note of his 1976 Classic win using the Honey B. The curious thing about the ad is Clunn reported in Bassmaster Magazine that he caught his fish on a crawdad-colored Honey B. Yet, there’s a picture of a Tennessee Shad model in the ad, model HB1-TS to be exact.
The ad reflects on Clunn’s Classic, how he was in 3rd place on the first day but rallied the second day with a 33-pound 5-ounce sack the second day to take a commanding lead. They then state that Clunn relied heavily on the Honey B the third day to bring in another limit (16-01), win the event and break the all-time record for total weight in a Classic.
The third ad, again a Honey B ad, was showing customers that they didn’t just have to throw the shallow-running Honey B. If they needed to go a little deeper, they could fish the Diving Honey B.
This is a great ad in that it shows a number of Bagley’s color patterns complete with their model/color number. Out of that bunch of baits, my favorite color pattern was the Golden Shiner (DHB1-GOS). It mimicked the color of a certain species of crawdad we had on one of the local lakes to a tee. The fished chewed that color.
The fourth ad in the mix is another ad I’d never seen and came from American Angler. It was a picture of a coloring book, opened to a page featuring a bass. The ad was featuring Jim Bagley’s new “little bass” color pattern on the new KB2, or Kill’r B II. The text says:
“Nothing could be more appealing to a largemouth bass than another bass – fingerling size. That’s why Jim Bagley has just introduced his newest color, the “little bass,” to his complete line of famous balsa wood lures. This new life-like color combined with the fantastic action of the Kill’r B II is the most taste-tempting morsel ever to swim thru a brush top. Try it…you’ll it. The bass will too!”
I have to say that the color baby bass was not in my top-5 or even my top-10 color choices. I can count on one hand the number of fish I have caught on that color over the 50 years I’ve been casting for bass. But that probably has to do with the lakes I fished. Your results may vary.
I do wish I had this coloring book – if it ever existed.
The final ad is yet another I don’t recall ever seeing. It again featured the “NEW” Kill’r B II but also another not-so-well-known bait, the new Balsa Shiner – their version of the Cordell Spot and soon-to-be popular Rattle Trap.
The writeup for the Kill’r B II says that it is a smaller brother of the 3-inch Kill’r B, or what should have been called the Kill’r B III. I need to go back and investigate whether the original Kill’r B was given a number or if that came after the advent of the KB2.
Then there’s the Balsa Shiner. Advertised as the newest in the balsa wood family, the Shiner was designed for both fresh and saltwater. The bait would dive no deeper than 2-1/2 feet and was touted as a great fats bait to be fished over grass.
As we find more Bagley ads we’ll post them up. In the meantime, if you remember one we haven’t touched upon, send us a note and let us know about it.
Kayak Bass Fishing…Take Two
By Danny Blandford
I’m starting to dig “back” into kayak bass fishing more and more, but I’ve had to do some homework. I bought a sit-down/sit-in “fishing” kayak as an impulse buy years ago, but the purchase missed the mark and left a lot to be desired. I love the concept, the access the kayak provides, and the simplicity it brings to bass fishing. I didn’t like the kayak…that was a huge roadblock to moving forward, so I shelved it…all of it. My first attempt has made a great birdhouse, not so much of a great fishing platform, so I’ve recently decided to revisit that project. Coming at it from a more informed perspective this time should certainly help with the results.
Fortunately, at AnglersChannel.com, we can get plugged into experts pretty quickly when we’re looking to learn more. I got a chance to chat with Old Town Kayak Pro, Anthony Garcia, of Los Angeles, CA. What an awesome conversation; two anglers from completely different environments and backgrounds, tied with the common thread of bass fishing. It was evident from the start, that Anthony’s California rivers and my local Ohio River, don’t have many parallels, but shallow water bassin’ is shallow water bassin’ regardless of locale, so we hit it off.
Anthony shared his fishing story of going from “Bait and weight” fishing with family as a kid, to getting into kayaks, then fishing kayaks and ultimately, national tournaments. Ironically, he was fresh off his first co-angler bass event, the WON Bass CA Open, on Clear Lake. He was just starting to dive into “our” world, as we were diving into his. He ended up with a 5 bass limit each day and a 15th place finish, so I’d say kayak angling absolutely develops tournament anglers, and he knows his stuff. Curious if I will take to a kayak as well as he did to the back of the boat…
We started with the basics of boat selection. Anthony’s advice was simple, “Get in kayaks…find buddies, or stores that have demos, and get in every style you can access. What works for me is specific to me…my size, my fishing style, even where I fish dictates “why” my boat is right for me. In my case, the Old Town AutoPilot 136 was right for me”
“What you’ll learn by getting in them is what style feels stable to you; stability equals comfort out there on the water. Choosing that first will set you on the right path. You can check out different brands, price points and features once you know what kind YOU like.” Although simple, it was sound advice. I had skipped step one and as a result, I felt like kayak fishing wasn’t a good fit for me…in actuality it was having my butt below the water line and sitting all day that was just too foreign to me. The opportunity to stand up and move around, like I do on the front deck of the boat is likely to make a huge difference. Old Town has a Kayak Selector, but it sounds like seat time is the next step after online research.
The conversation drifted from which boat to which “power”. I found dealing with the paddles for positioning, while also dealing with the rods, to be cumbersome and pretty inefficient to be honest. Anthony had solutions for that as well. “Over the years, we’ve dealt with a lot of those issues, some through our own innovation…things like bungees, milk crates, and pvc tubes can help provide some creature comforts to help with on the water organization.
With my current Old Town setup, I keep 6 to 10 rods rigged and ready, have tackle storage, the whole deal. A while back, pedal drive kayaks really helped things jump forward for us bass guys by freeing up the hands and increasing our range. Now with the addition of Minn Kota Autopilot, lightweight batteries, and electronics we’re pretty set up.”
“These days, when I’m out there, I’m focused completely on fishing, not navigation”, added Garcia.
So I’m sure you’re wondering, and of course I had to ask, How Fast & How Long?? According to Anthony, his Old Town Auto Pilot 136, with a “tournament load” gets about 4 mph at full speed and could run that way for a couple of hours and he could paddle to boost that speed. “I seldom just get in and go full speed ahead, but you can cover some water. I reserve a lot of my juice for moving around throughout the day, in both moving between spots and positioning the boat for good presentations and fishing. In my longest tournament day, I covered about 14 miles, between fishing and moving around the lake.”
14 miles kind of blew my mind; I’m not sure I cover that much water some days with electric and gas at my disposal.
The power to move comes from lithium, Anthony’s is spread around, with some thought put into it. Diving into his setup, he explained, “I do a 100 Ah (Amp/hour) lithium dedicated to my trolling motor and that’s usually all I need, BUT, I run my transducers from a 54 Ah lithium that can be used for the Minn Kota if I deplete my main battery unexpectedly. The graphs themselves are powered by a small 18 Ah that I can easily swap out.”
I can see where the lithium is the way to go for kayak bass fishing, in my earlier article, Flipping the Relion Lithium Battery Switch I dropped in a Relion RB100-HP. This is the same rating as discussed by Anthony for powering his Minn Kota, and it weighed in at 27 pounds, so that’s a lot of power at minimal weight.
It was clear to me that after talking with Anthony, there are fishing kayaks and then there are FISHING kayaks. Thinking about being able to cover MILES of backwater, some that’s inaccessible to my current aluminum boat and being able to do it standing up, with electronics at my disposal has my wheels turning for sure.
In closing, special thanks to Old Town Pro, Anthony Garcia for sharing some insight I should have sought a long time ago. If you’re looking to dive a little deeper like me, the Old Town Website and their blog has some good stuff to check out.
Travel to El Salto to Dial in Your Crankbait Bite
By Pete Robbins - Half Past First Cast
We just returned from our annual May-June trip to Mexico’s Lake El Salto. I’ve only missed this tradition twice since 2013 – first in 2019 when I had a conflicting trip to Alaska, and second in 2020 when COVID hit. We made up for that latter missed opportunity that November by returning for two full weeks, but I hope to never miss the summertime bite again as long as I live.
That’s because it gives me the opportunity to do something I don’t get to do at home: Deep cranking. I’d guess that well over 90% of the tournaments on my home waters of the Potomac River are won in less than 6 feet of water, many of them in less than 4, and some in less than 1. By the time each new boat is a month old, I’ve banged up the bottom of my trolling motor and worn the paint off the outboard skeg. Shallow water is my comfort zone. That’s why it’s a treat to go and do something that’s out of my wheelhouse.
We actually started going before there was a crankbait that went deep enough for some of the schools. For years, the Fat Free Shad was the gold standard down there – anything deeper and you had to use a jig or a Carolina Rig or a Texas Rig. Then came the 10XD and my mind was officially blown. You’ll need specialized gear to crank it comfortably all day (and bring some Advil), but it fires up fish like nothing else. It produced my El Salto PB in 2017, and I look forward to cranking it every year. Cranking hasn’t always been the dominant ticket for our summer trips, but it’s usually a big part of the show.
The great part of going for a week (go however long you can afford to be there, but more is always better), you can get a crash course in offshore cranking. How do different colors affect the bite? The fish usually want it super-fast, but sometimes slowing down is important, or they’ll eat it almost exclusively on the pause. There are times when the 6XD does the job as well as the 10XD, in the same areas, but there are times when one is clearly better than the other. There are times when a no-rattle bait works best, and times when a loud knocker is superior. By fishing shoulder-to-shoulder with another angler on one of the best fisheries on earth, you can figure all of that out much more quickly.
It's the same sort of education we’ve gotten at other times about the changing bite. One January the fish crushed a Chatterbait on the first day, but wouldn’t react similarly in those same areas on Day Two until we switched to a swim jig. On Day Three, we had to go even more subtle, with a plain ribbed swimbait like a Keitech or Rage Swimmer.
That’s the beauty of going to such a fertile fishery – you can work on whatever technique or techniques you desire, or just go on a “catching” trip.
I’ve been South of the Border to fish in October, November, January, February, May and June, and I can say that not all months are created equally for all techniques. For example, while we’ve had a great plopper bite on occasion in June, on this trip I caught the grand total of one topwater fish. December would be better for that. February, too. The high water months are my favorites for a swim jig and flipping heavy brush. In fact, if you live where there’s an “offseason” those are great months to fine-tune your game before local tournaments start.
If you’d like to book a trip, or inquire about the best time for a particular technique, email us. It’s fishing, so there are no guarantees, but we’ll steer you in the right direction -- as soon as our thumbs and wrists heal from all of that fast-paced cranking. We have some spots on our trip next June, but we’re happy to arrange your trip to bass fishing Disneyland at any time that suits your schedule and your preferences.
Sportsman's Warehouse Grand Opening: Wausau, WI
We had a chance to check out the all new Wausau, WI Sportsman's Warehouse, and all we can say is WOW. Over 65,000 square feet of all things outdoors! Located just blocks away from the Wisconsin River, and Bluegill Bay County Park, the fishing department was...well, stuffed to the gills.
Our very own, John Byrne, got the opportunity to catch up with Store Manager, John Shafer and talk about the area, as well as the store. Check it out below:
Want the details on the store itself? Get 'em right HERE If you can't make it to Wausau, Sportsmans.com can bring it right to you!
Throwback Thursday - Before There was 360-Imaging
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
As with many of the articles we post here on the Bass Fishing Archives, here’s another example of something new that really isn’t new. Before there was 360-Imaging, there was, in 1976, 360-imaging. Believe it or not.
When side-scanning sonar was “reintroduced” around 2005 by Hummingbird, the angling community again was split down the middle. As with other technological advances, some anglers said it was too much and made the art of fishing too easy. The other half embraced the technology and ran with it. Then came Hummingbird’s 360-Imaging. Now, as with any other gadget used in the industry, anglers far and wide realize the utility of side-scanning sonar but more so, they realize that these units aren’t going to make the task of catching fish any easier.
So when did 360-imaging and side-scanning sonar really come out? Well, if you look back in history it was developed in the late 40s and early 50s and was used by the Department of Defense to detect ocean-borne mines. The first functioning side-scanning sonar was developed by a German scientist by the name of Dr. Julius Hagemann while working for the U.S. Navy Mine Defense Lab in Florida. His 1954 patent went unknown to the public until 1980 when the classified project was finally released.
The interesting thing about the above paragraph is in 1976 – four years prior to the release of the classified reports – Bill Stembridge (of Flip Tail Lure fame) and Dr. Roger Woodward, developed a unit called the Aquascan, which featured the ability to see under the water in a 360-degree pattern. What I find interesting with this is if the DoD’s use of side-scan was classified, Stembridge and Woodward must have come up with the thought of this technology on their own or, heaven forbid, someone in the DoD leaked the information to a couple of fishermen who then took the technology and developed it for use in fishing.
Reading through the article in the February 1976 issue of Bassmaster Magazine, I found some interesting details about the Aquascan and thought I’d share them with you. “It can show bottom structure and fair-sized fish up to 300 feet away from the boat.” “The Unit consists of three basic parts. The transducer sends out sonar signals and receives echoes. The computer interprets the echoes and transforms them into ‘pictures’ of the objects scanned. The cathode ray tube (CRT) displays the picture.” “On a 300-foot scan, the device covers 6-3/4 acres of water per scan.”
“Bill Stembridge admits that the Aquascan has its limitations. It will not tell you exactly where a fish is located. It will show the fish to be, for example, 40 feet away at a given direction from the boat. The angler does not know if the fish is at the surface 40 feet away or several feet below the surface and much closer to the boat.”
“Aquascan will show you a 12-inch bass at 300 feet if the fish is broadside to the scan. If it is facing head-on, a larger bass can be missed.” Looking at the “images” – I hate to call them images because they aren’t true images but more like a circular line graphs – in this article, it’s safe to say it would take a lot of experience with the unit to make it of value in a bass boat. Not only that, the unit was quite large (larger than today’s side-scanning units) and difficult to place on the boats of the day.
The biggest drawback of the unit was the cost, though. At $1,000 (that’s equivalent to roughly $4,800 today) not many anglers could afford them. Today, though, it seems anglers are willing to go the extra mile when it comes to outfitting their boats with high-end electronics. Believe it or not, today’s incredible 360-Imaging by Humminbird as well as Sidescan, Downscan and forward-facing real-time imaging from all manufacturers are all byproducts of this early technology. The difference today being anglers are a lot more willing to spend more than $10k on electronics to aid in their pursuit of bass.
Anglers Channel Bass Wrap Up Show, Brought to you by Sportsman’s Warehouse, Now Streaming
The AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up show brought to you by Sportsman's Warehouse, entering its 14th Season, is now available on the Outdoor Action TV streaming network. After four years of being featured on the Discovery Network, fishing enthusiasts can tune into the last three seasons anywhere anytime. The AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up show is an informative recap of professional, amateur, and grassroots-level bass fishing tournaments across the country. Bringing tournament trails of all sizes to the spotlight, by capturing the anglers who fish and finish well in these events. The program also mixes in informative segments on new techniques, new products, and share useful information to help the weekend angler achieve their goals of learning about all things fishing.
Outdoor Action is a 24/7 streaming network that’s free to download on any connected device or to watch on a variety of channels. You’ll find your favorite hunting, fishing, outdoor programming, and more. This platform was built for the avid outdoorsmen and women who crave adventures, stories, tournaments, tips, and tricks from the field and on the water! Currently available via Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, iOS, and Android as well as www.OutdoorAction.com, this is the go-to place for desired outdoor content, on-demand at no cost to the viewer. You can also find Outdoor Action on the TCL Channel and Sports.TV streaming apps for 24×7 entertainment.
According to Danny Blandford, AC Director of Business Development, “We’re excited to join the Outdoor Action platform alongside so many popular outdoor television programs. As the TV viewer gets more sophisticated we are making sure to stay in touch with them through these new ways to watch. We look forward to showing our program to viewers who may not have seen us on the Discovery Network in years past.”
The 2023/24 season of the AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up Show, Presented by Sportsman’s Warehouse, will kick off again this fall with highlights from the Bassmaster Classic, the Inaugural MinnKota/Humminbird Owners Tournament, as well regional events, fishing tips, and much more. If you want to catch the action as it unfolds this summer, visit www.AnglersChannel.com, and be sure to follow along on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
About AnglersChannel.com
AnglersChannel.com multimedia platform combines the web, social media platforms, podcasts, on-site event coverage and The Anglers Channel Bass Wrap Up Show on Discovery to bring you the No. 1 resource in tournament bass fishing. Anglers Channel features the web’s most robust tournament database, used by thousands of anglers daily, including schedules, results and searchable details by body of water. Anglers Channel also delivers industry news as it happens, along with coverage of all tournament bass fishing, from BASS and Major League Fishing to the weekend warriors. Visit Anglers Channel via the web, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
For more information contact Danny Blandford at [email protected]
Flipping the RELiON Lithium Battery switch – Part One: Shop Work
By: Danny Blandford
I’ve been in the bass tournament scene in one capacity or another for most of my adult life. I’ve worked with major boat and motor manufacturers, boat dealers, and brands throughout most of my professional career. With that said, at heart, I’m still just a weekend warrior who loves the competition that comes with bass fishing. 
A Thursday nighter at home with our local river rats or something bigger, I do my best to show up and be in contention. It doesn’t always work out, but that is the nature of the beast we call bass fishing.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to win some events and most of those winnings are redeployed on more bass fishing gear, boat accessories, and electronics. I’m kind of a “bass geek” so I play to pay for the latest and greatest…partly out of curiosity, and partly to make sure I’ve got any edges that may be available. In recent years I’ve added a Humminbird 360, a TH Marine Hydrowave, an electric shallow water anchor, an additional forward facing sonar setup, as well as a few USB ports to keep cameras and electronics charged for “work”. What I hadn’t done yet was address the old heavy lead-acid batteries in the back of my aluminum boat. For the last year I was feeling like I was underpowered AND overweight. I knew I could make it all better by flipping the lithium battery switch, but I was suffering from analysis paralysis, unsure of some details and if I’d be happy with the investment.
Prior to making the switch I did my charger research by visiting our partners at Pro Charging Systems, where I learned WAY more than I expected. Having been a boat guy for years, I have seen plenty of factory rigs leaving with Dual Pro chargers and thought I was very familiar with them. As a matter of fact, I had been running a Dual Pro Sportsman Series Charger for over 10 years without so much of a hiccup. What I learned was I had a great charger, but not the best charger for the new lithium batteries, so a swap was in order there too.
The Dual Pro Professional Series PS3 Auto was the perfect tool for the job. 15 amps for each of three banks, the intelligence to know what “kind” of battery it was charging, AND the ability to charge lead-acid, AGM, and lithium…even if I chose to have different types in the same system. The Autoprofile system was sharper than me for sure. I really like the idea that if I ever end up having to replace a battery while out on the road, I’m not limited on what I can use in a pinch.
In regards to the process in the shop, any reasonable DIYer would feel very comfortable with what was required. A couple hours in the garage, a 13 millimeter socket, and a screwdriver was all it took to repower the Angler’s Channel River Rig. Older deep cycle Group 27s were replaced with Group 31 Relion RB100s. I also swapped a group 27 sized cranking battery, with a Relion RB100-HP.
In my case, I unhooked all my various leads from the old setup and kept them together and labeled. Popping the latches on my TH Marine battery trays and getting the old batteries out was the most work, since they weighed in at 54 lbs each. Prior to dropping in the Relion batteries, I ran them across the scales and the RB100s weighed in at 27 lbs each. In total, I shaved off around 80 pounds from the transom area of the boat. When you’re talking tin rigs built for shallow water access, that’s a BIG deal.
Mounting the charger was as simple as hanging a picture on the wall. Since it was about 25% bigger than the Sportsman Series, I had to add a few new holes in the rigging plate where it was mounted, but otherwise, plug and play comes to mind. It even included the stainless steel screws and hardware required to mount it. I’ll be adding a Dual Pro Lithium Battery Gauge to the project next, and will follow up with more details on this addition soon.
Overall, my wiring setup was already good to go, it was just the juice that was lacking. I do have to say I love the terminals on the Relions…I know that seems like a silly thing with such sophisticated power, but they’re simply better. Instead of traditional posts, these come with studs/bolts that securely thread into the battery itself and they feature a plate to ensure solid connection, and have a lock washer to ensure they stay that way.
The RB100-HP has the added benefit of having three pairs of terminals, which I REALLY like. In my case, Terminal Set 1 has the charger and the engine hooked up, Terminal Set 2 has all the standard 12v factory boat wiring for accessories, leaving me a third terminal to run my electronics feed exclusively with nothing else interfering.
Overall, it was an easy switch and a pretty simple project. I knocked it out quickly the night before heading out for a long tournament weekend. I plugged everything in around 6 pm and all three batteries climbed from 50% to 100% by 10 pm and I was ready to roll. I have some tidying up to do with some of my wires and cabling, but I plan to clean that up when I do the Gauge Project.
In the next installment, I’ll report on my first 24 hours on the water with this new set-up. Spoiler Alert: I’m JUICED!
Throwback Thursday - Season at a Glance: 1970 Bass Master Trail - Part Two
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
Editor’s Note: This is part two of the 1970 Bass Master Trail. To read part one, click here.
In the first part of the 1970 Bass Master Trail we covered the first three events of the season and also talked a bit about the new rookie on the tour, Roland Martin. Bill Dance had been the tour’s reigning champion since the inception of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society with four Bass Master wins to his credit between 1968 and ’69. It was obvious that Martin had placed a target on his head when he came to play in 1970.
The 1970 Bass Master Trail started at Toledo Bend in Texas where Martin quickly showed his dominance by placing second in his first-ever event. The second event saw the anglers move on to Lake Seminole in Georgia, where Martin would come away the winner. The third event at Ross Barnett would be a different story, though. Martin missed the event, which gave Dance some breathing room. Dance ended up the victor of the tournament. By the end of three tournaments, Dance was in the lead for the new Bass Master Angler of the Year award by 7500 points.
That’s where things really started to get interesting.
HENSHALL MEMORIAL – ADAIR WINS MARTIN SECOND
The fourth event of the 1970 Bass Master Trail was the Henshall Memorial tournament held on Walter F. George Lake (GA) or, Lake Eufaula. It was the fourth event held on the lake and since the past year, when Blake Honeycutt won with 138-06, anglers were chomping at the bit to fish.
Unfortunately, heavy rains and high water prior to the tournament scattered the fish. The 108 anglers who entered would have their work cut out for them.
Bill Adair found the fish in practice that would lead him to victory. But things didn’t start out as he would have liked. Adair’s spot was located by a stump and he placed a marker on the spot for reference. Unfortunately, when he came back on the first day of the tournament, he didn’t realize that his marker had floated about 100 yards off the spot. It took him two hours before he realized the mishap and when he did, he moved to the right spot and proceeded to boat 14 fish that weighed 22-12. That was good enough for the 6th spot going into day two. Billy Lewis of Alabama was in the first position with 39-09.
Roland Martin was still giving Bill Dance a run and placed second with 94-07, while Bass Master veteran John Powell placed third with 93-06. Rounding out the top 5 were Kentucky angler Ralph Polly with 85-04 and Texas football player Harold Hays with 80-11. With his spot confirmed, Adair set out on day two to redeem himself. By the end of the day, he’d boated 13 fish that pushed the scales down to 64-14, topped by an 8-01 largemouth. That gave him the lead with 87-10. The next day Adair added another 28-12 to win the event with 116-06.
Adair’s fish all came on plastic worms and cemented the soft bait as the number-one lure in Bass Master competition. Bass Master magazine stated that, “In 18 tournaments some 47,000 pounds of bass have been weighed-in with over 41,000 falling victim to plastic worm fishermen.”
In the non-pro division, J. S. (Shy) Powell of Georgia took top honors with 104-06. Had he fished the pro division he’d have placed second. Second place in the non-pro division was Larry Blakey (GA) with 61-04 and third place went to Wyndell Black (GA) with 56-08. The fourth spot went to H. W. Settles (GA) with 47-06 and Jim Hefner (KY) rounded out the top 5 with 37-05.
In all, 1,208 bass were weighed in for 2,940-02. Although this was one of the best “big fish action contests” to date, there were only five full limits weighed in. Clark Gable caught the big bass of the event, a 9-07 largemouth, and received $10 per pound plus a Motor Guide trolling motor.
For the top 20 see the table below.
OKLAHOMA NATIONAL – HADAD TRICKS THEM
The fifth event of the 1970 Bass Master Trail was held for the first time at Oklahoma’s Lake Eufaula. Temperatures pushed well past the 100-degree mark at the event and nearly all of the 110 contestants swore the winning fish would be caught in deep water. John Hadad III’s opinion would differ, though.
Hadad won the event by nearly 13 pounds (29 fish for 82-15) fishing a plastic worm in 5 to 7 feet of water. He concentrated on stick-ups and brush he’d located on a ridge along the North Canadian River channel. His technique was to make fast casts to the stick-ups, peel line off his reel so the bait would sink vertically, and then wait for the line to move or jump. It was reported he made 3 to 5 casts a minute.
“I’d just let the bass chew on the worm, jerk it away, and mark the spot to come back when the tournament gun fired.”Another interesting thing about Hadad’s victory was his practice technique. He reportedly practiced for five days and during that time used a plastic worm without a hook.
That was pretty advanced thinking for back then and that technique is widely used in today’s competitive fishing.
The 2nd-place angler was Oklahoma resident Don Siebert with 20 bass that weighed 68-00. He also caught his fish on plastic worms. Third-place went to another Oklahoman, Ron Hagler with 67-04 and the fourth spot went to John Dixon (OK) with 62.-01. Al St. Romain (LA) filled out the top 5 with 51-09.
The heat really made the conditions difficult and the total tally proved that. Overall, the 110 pro and non-pro anglers weighed in 834 bass for 1,788-07. Big fish of the event went to Tommy Payne and Wes Woosley who both weighed in a 5-15 largemouth.
In the non-pro division, Butch Stevenson (OK) took top honors with 20 bass that weighed 43-01. Gerald Maxwell (OK) weighed in 30-06, good enough for 2nd place. Fourteen-year-old Chip Morris (GA) took 3rd place with 23-07. In the fourth spot was possibly the youngest angler to ever compete in a Bass Master event, 13-year-old Greg Dorris (OK), who weighed in 22-15. David Lockhart (AL) rounded out the top 5 with 21-06.
The top 20 of the pro division are shown in the table below.
SAM RAYBURN – DANCE AGAIN
Prior to the 1970 Bass Master Trail, there was only one angler in the history of B.A.S.S. that had won more than one tournament in a season. That angler was Bill Dance. In 1968 Dance won three events – Ross Barnett, Sam Rayburn and Smith Lake (AL). In 1970 Dance had already won the Ross Barnett tournament, would he be able to win again on old Sam Rayburn?
As had happened throughout the 1970 season, bad weather hurt Sam Rayburn’s famed fishing. Wind and rain kept the fish count down to 1,379 bass and only five limits were weighed for the entire event.
Veteran B.A.S.S. angler Blake Honeycutt (NC) weighed in 38 fish for 57-02 and 2nd place, while Jimmy Harris (MS) took 3rd-place honors with 55-01. Charles LeFevor (TN) weighed in 54-02 for 4th-place and Roland Martin (SC) rounded out the top 5 with 52-12. Honeycutt reported that he caught his fish on drop offs by vertically jigging Hopkins spoons. Still, over the course of three days, Dance was able to haul in 22 fish that tipped the scales 62-06, giving him his 6th career win with B.A.S.S. It also gave him two wins on Rayburn out of three contests. Dance caught over half of his fish (12) and nearly half of his weight (30-06) on the last day of the event and jumped from 5th place to the winner’s circle. He reported catching his fish on purple plastic worms fished along a drop located on the Angelina River channel. His fish came from 27 to 45 feet of water.
Elroy Krueger (TX) weighed in the big bass of the event, a 7-05 largemouth, which netted him $80 and a new Motor Guide trolling motor. There was no report on the non-pro division so I am not sure if it was dropped after the Oklahoma National.
The top 20 are presented below.
ALL-AMERICAN – 3-PEAT
For the final event of the year, B.A.S.S. ventured to a lake never before fished on the Bass Master Trail – Table Rock Reservoir. The last event on the 1970 Bass Master Trail would greet anglers with more than adverse weather. High winds swamped at least one boat and the cold November weather was less than ideal.
In the end, it was a two-horse race between Roland Martin and Bill Dance – not just for the tournament win but for the first Angler of the Year award. It came down to the last day.
Going into the final round, Martin had a 6-06 advantage over Dance. It looked like Martin would become only the second angler in B.A.S.S. history to win more than one event in a season. Martin was first to weigh in with six fish that topped the scales at 11-05, giving him 51-15 total. Then Dance came to the scales with nine fish that weighed 18-02 totaling 52-06. Dance won by a mere 7 ounces.
For those of you who actually check my math, you might have noticed that over the course of seven events, Martin had more weight (points) than Dance. Still Dance was crowned the first Angler of the Year. It’s a bit confusing from reading the 1970 and ‘71 Bass Master Magazines. In the Jan/Feb issue the author (assumed to be Bob Cobb) specifically states, “A victory would give either the point championship.” It’s obvious from the math that Martin should have been the AOY but in another part of the article it states Dance won based on money earned ($6,635 to Martin’s $5,689) that year. In any event, we have Harold Sharp working on this to straighten it up.
The 3rd-place angler was local Jimmy Winchester (AR) who weighed in 39-06. Another local, Dave Livingston (MO) captured the 4th spot with 36-13. Veteran angler Tom Mann of Alabama rounded out the top 5 with 36-03.
Alabama angler Dennis Townsend weighed in big fish for the event, a 7-13 largemouth. In all, 97 anglers caught 661 bass – a testament to how tough the event was.
A fact about this tournament was Dance and Martin practiced together. Each also reported that they caught their fish on yellow singlespins – a lure that Martin had shown Dance in practice – around brush in 2 to 5 feet of water. Dance said that everyone expected the fish to be deeper but the cloudy conditions kept the fish shallow in the flooded brush.
The top 20 for the tournament are listed in the table below.
Travel Tuesday - Is It Safe to Take a Fishing Trip to Panama?
By Hanna Robbins - Half Past First Cast
You’re considering a trip to Panama. Before putting down your deposit, you probably want to know “Is it safe?” That’s almost always the first question I get when I speak to people about traveling to Panama to fish at one of our most favorite resorts, Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge.
Look it up on any travel site and you’ll see that Panama City is considered one of the safest countries in the region. In fact, the UK’s travel advice page states that most visits to Panama are “trouble-free.”
The country has a low crime rate and strong economy, but you still need to be careful to avoid trouble. Make sure that you always have ID, as it is legally required and when paying with US currency in denominations larger than $20 you may be asked to show it and sign a register. Some places won’t even take anything over a twenty, so bring a credit card, one that doesn’t charge foreign fees. Counterfeit money is an issue in this country. Wear a money belt to avoid the infrequent pickpockets.
Now for the good news: Unlike some other countries in Central America it is safe to drink the tap water. SFPIL has nearly unlimited bottled water, but we brush our teeth from the sink. Same with the Hilton in Panama City, where we overnight on the way to the lodge.
Ladies may have particular concerns. We’re just as strong as the men, but we may be targeted. I would have no problem walking in Panama City, and certainly no issues at the lodge, but if you have concerns take measures to avoid bringing attention to yourself. Don’t wear expensive jewelry, clothing or anything that would make you stand out. No matter what, stay alert of your surroundings and stay exclusively in populated areas of town.
Panama City reminds me of a little Miami, Florida (yet, probably safer) – big buildings, cosmopolitan people, an overall happy vibe.
Now that I have taken the first steps to put your mind at ease, let’s talk about what makes the Half Past First Cast trip to Panama especially safe and simple.
Go For the All-Inclusive Panama Fishing Package
The lodge’s “Premium Package” includes pick up and drop off at the David Airport – basically you are on your own from YOUR HOME to the DAVID AIRPORT. That means you have to:
- Get through the large airport
- Transit customs and immigration
- Work out in-city transportation
- Book an overnight stay
- Purchase domestic airline tickets from Panama City to David
- If anything goes wrong, you need to solve it on your own.
By contrast, for a relatively small amount extra, the “VIP Package” covers everything once you land at the Panama City, Panama Airport.
- Diplomat service at Tocumen International Airport by English speaking agents. They meet you at the gate, take you through immigration and customs and help with your baggage
- If you arrive shortly before some of your group, they’ll plant you in a private lounge with a drink and take care of the details for you
- Transfers from the Tocumen International Airport, by English speaking drivers, to the 4-star Hilton Panama for your overnight stay
- There is an “on-call” personal travel agent to assist you if you have any issues our want assistance with dinner reservations or any other tours
- Transfers back to the airport for the domestic flight to/from David Airport and the drivers make sure everything is on time and you get to your flight before leaving the airport
- Upon arrival at the David Airport -- A SFPIL representative meets you right outside the airport door and takes you to the marina to get aboard the boats that take you to your final destination, the lodge on Isla Paridas.
Several Tripadvisor write ups stated that the Panama City, Panama (PTY) airport is huge and you could walk forever to find immigration, customs and baggage claim. You might as well pay a little more and play it safe and treat yourself.
Public transportation, including Uber, is reasonably cheap but since you are in a foreign country it may be worth a little more to take the known route and car service that can be arranged by the SFPIL advisor.
Forget something? There is a pharmacy walking distance (5 min) from the Hilton hotel and it’s “very very safe” – per Tripadvisor testimonials.
On our first trip, Pete and I had an afternoon in a new city and weren’t going to sit in the hotel room so we decided to walk, explore and observe. We found a little league baseball game going on in the center of town, people were friendly when passing by and there was even a dog park with agility equipment and the convenience stores were equivalent to the 7-Elevens we have on every corner in the US. Panama City feels like home.
No country, city, or state is completely protected from crime and each and every one of us should take precautions wherever we travel, including to the grocery store.
Pete isn’t going to take me to unsafe places. If something happened who would take care of Rooster? Take that as our endorsement of Panama as a primary place for even skittish travelers.
If you’d like to join us on our next hosted trip to Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge in May of 2024, please email me as soon as possible. I can also get you set up with a trip at any other time there is availability.
Throwback Thursday - Season at a Glance: 1970 Bass Master Trail - Part 1
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series on the 1970 Bass Master Trail. Part one will cover the first three events of the season while part two will cover the last four events.
The 1970 Bass Master Trail was the third full year of Bass Master tournament competition and would be the year of a number of firsts. To start off it was the year when the Bass Master Angler of the Year would begin. Although this award didn’t offer much more than bragging rights and a nice piece of hardware, it’s become arguably the most-cherished award on any tour.
Second, it would be the first year where a single angler would win three events in the season. For those of you that know your history, I’m sure you can figure that one out pretty easily. But for those of you who either don’t remember or just don’t know, I’ll save it for later.
Third, and this would become pretty significant, was that Roland Martin would make his Bass Master tournament debut. Martin’s debut almost didn’t happen after he saw the weights posted at the Eufaula National in 1969. It took some cajoling from Ray Scott to get Martin to test the waters that year – Martin never looked back.
The 1970 Bass Master Trail would feature seven events starting in the state of Texas and finishing in Missouri. To date, it was the most tournaments held by the fledgling Bass Anglers Sportsman Society in one year. 1969 had six events and 1968 featured only four. Here’s a chronological list of the tournaments:
- January 29-31, 1970 – Toledo Bend Invitational, Many, LA
- March 19-21, 1970 – Seminole Lunker Hunt, Bainbridge, GA
- April 30 – May 2, 1970 – Rebel Invitational Ross Barnett, Jackson, MS
- June 11-13, 1970 – Lake Eufaula Henshall Memorial, Florence Landing, GA
- August 5-7, 1970 – Oklahoma National Lake Eufaula, Eufaula, OK
- September 24-26, 1970 – Texas National Sam Rayburn Reservoir, Jasper, TX
- November 12-14, 1970 – All-American Table Rock Lake, Kimberling, MO
Back in the 1970 time frame, Bassmaster Magazine was a quarterly publication. It focused on teaching anglers to be better bass fishermen. Unfortunately, its tournament coverage doesn’t provide much knowledge of the anglers other than the winners. Still, we’ll give you what we know of the events from reading the reports.
Toledo Bend Reservoir, dubbed as the “hottest bass lake in the country,” would kick off the 1970 Bass Master Trail season with 79 contestants. It’s reported that the weather had been cold but turned for the better with three “June in January days.” This played a significant role in the outcome of the event.
Local angler Mike Bono would catch his limit all three days of the tournament (45 fish total) and take the top honors with 94-04. Bono, not only knew the fish at Toledo Bend, he also knew the lake probably better than anyone in the derby, having walked the lake countless times prior to its being filled. He won the event fishing in 55 feet of water using silver jigging spoons and Fliptail worms.
For his efforts, Bono won $2000 worth of cash and prizes, which included a new Skeeter Hawk boat powered by an 85-hp Chrysler motor and a V.E.T. trailer.
In the second spot was rookie angler Roland Martin of Cross, SC with a total of 77-06. There are two things that stick out in that sentence. One, the word rookie and two, he hailed from South Carolina. Martin would show bass anglers that year he was far from a rookie and the next year he would move from South Carolina to Montgomery, AL. Martin would become somewhat of a nomad, living all over the United States in order to learn as much as he could about bass and their habits.
Third place went to B.A.S.S. veteran Gerald Blanchard (TN) with 72-10, Carlos Mayo (AR) took 4th-place honors with 70-15. Rounding out the top 5 was Elroy Krueger (TX) with 69-00.
Unfortunately, Bass Master Magazine didn’t post the results below 20th place. At this time B.A.S.S. was giving 10 points per ounce and live fish were not worth any extra points.
Tournament totals for the Toledo Bend event were 1791 bass that weighed 2715-08. Gerald Blanchard took big fish with a 7-15 largemouth.
The top 20 for the Toledo Bend Invitational are shown in the table below.
SEMINOLE LUNKER HUNT – WHO ELSE?
The title of the Spring issue of Bass Master Magazine’s Tournament Trail report says it all. “Roland Martin Bright New Star On BASS Horizon.” In his second event, Roland Martin would become B.A.S.S.’s new star. He followed up his second-place finish at Toledo Bend with a win at Seminole against 115 other pros from 19 states.
Roland Martin didn’t do it wire-to-wire by no means, though. He wasn’t even in the top 20 on the first day of the event. But on the second day, he caught the tournament’s only 15-fish limit and propelled himself into the number-1 spot. On the last day, he brought 13 bass to the scales and took top honors by over 3-1/2 pounds.
After the dust had settled, Martin weighed 32 fish for 53-14. He reported catching spawning fish in water 18 inches or less on black Mann’s Jelly worms and a local topwater bait known as a Diamond Eye Rattler made by Capt. Jim Strader. He won $2000 in cash along with Motor Guide foot-controlled trolling motor.
Second place went to R. C. Billingsley (AR) with 50-03 and third place went Howard Holmes (MO) with 48-10. In the fourth spot was veteran Bill Dance with 47-14 and the fifth spot was taken by Mac B. Greer (AL). Greer also caught big fish each day of the event, a first at the time and may still be. His big fish were 6-13, 8-05 and 8-05.
Overall, there were 1109 fish weighed for a total of 1956-02. The top 20 anglers from the Seminole Lunker Hunt are presented below.
REBEL INVITATIONAL ROSS BARNETT – DANCE ON TOP AGAIN
In 1970, AOY standings were not even a consideration. But this would change at the end of the year with what has become a bit of a controversy. If one were tracking AOY at this time, by the start of the third tournament, rookie Roland Martin leading by nearly 5000 points over 2nd-place angler Bill Dance. But Dance wouldn’t be a pushover this year. He would make Martin work for his acclaim on the trail.
The Ross Barnett tournament featured a new twist to bass tournaments with a non-professional division. From the “letters to the editor” in the 1969 and ’70 Bass Master Magazines, anglers had been complaining that the pro entry fees were too high for the weekend angler and B.A.S.S. complied by making another division. There is no mention of what the cost was for the non-pro entry or whether or not the non-pros fished with pros. Maybe someone out there knows and can clear that up for us.
The tournament report about the first two days of the event provided little information other than Bill Dance was in a “disappointing 11th place” at the start of day 3. It also mentions he had weighed “almost limits” (15 fish) the two prior days.
The last day featured nasty weather, which kept many of the anglers off the areas they’d fished the prior two days. But Dance had an ace up his sleeve. He’d located fish on both ends of the lake and on the last day caught his limit within sight of the tournament launch. His 15-fish limit that day went 33-12 and gave him a 2-03 lead over the second-place angler, New Orleans Saints Football player, Harold Hays (TX).
In all, Dance weighed 43 fish for a total of 75-12. He caught his fish on a blue plastic worm fished with the “weedless slip-sinker rig in a ditch located with his depthfinder.” It was his 5th Bass Master win at the time.
As stated previously, Harold Hays took the 2nd-place honors with 73-09 and local favorite Bob Ponds, Pete Ponds’ father) took third with 72-09. Fourth place went to Ralph Polly with 65-00 and Emmett Chiles rounded out the top 5 for the pros with 63-14.
Pete Henson (GA) won big bass with a 7-09 largemouth. He won $75 and a “Herschede Clock Company (Motor Guide) foot-controlled electric trolling motor.”
In the non-professional category, Jess Farmer (IL) took top honors with 26-15. He beat out Ron Johnson who weighed 23-03 for second. Third place went to John Stacey (OH) with 22-00 and Earl Williamson (OH) took 4th place with 21-13. The fifth spot was taken by Fred Looper (TN) 19-15. For his win, Farmer earned a 4-day trip to Dick Malloy’s Club de Pasca Novillo in Mexico along with a Lowrance Fish Lo-K-Tor, Fishthometer, a lifetime membership to B.A.S.S. and the $125 entry into the next professional tournament.
By the end of the Ross Barnett event, Dance had racked up $16,025 in B.A.S.S. winnings. The highest winnings of anyone on the Trail. He was also the first repeat champion on the same lake – he’d also won the 1968 tournament on Ross Barnett.
After the event, Dance announced that he’d be leaving the Creme Worm Company. He moved on with Charles Spence as a partner with the Strike King Lure Company.
Overall results for the event showed 129 anglers (pros and non-pros) from 18 states weighed 1617 bass for 2787-14. There were only 18 limits weighed throughout the event.
It was also stated in the tournament report that by now the public had started complaining that professional tournaments were hurting the fish populations at lakes. B.A.S.S. stated that “To further protect against the loss of young fish, the BASS tournament rules have been strengthened to ‘issue penalty points’ for any undersized fish checked in. The Society imposes a special 12-inch minimum limit on all tournament bass.”
The top 20 for the Ross Barnett event are shown in the table below. Also shown are the AOY standings through the third event of the season as far as we could figure out.
In Part Two of the Season at a Glance: 1970 Bass Master Trail we’ll talk about the second half of the season, which included the events held at Eufaula, GA, Lake Eufaula, OK, Sam Rayburn, TX and Table Rock, AR.
Bass Fishing Archives, Half Past First Cast Newest Angler’s Channel Contributors
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The two leading websites for fishing travel and bass fishing history — Half Past First Cast and the Bass Fishing Archives — have joined Anglers Channel to provide more content opportunities for the top tournament site in the country.
“We’re excited to add Terry, Pete and Hanna to our growing AC Insider content offerings,” said Danny Blandford, Director of Business Development for Anglers Channel. “They have strong, deep backgrounds in the bass fishing world, along with cool experiences fishing for other species, and I know will provide more benefit to our site’s visitors. We’re always looking for ways to add more to Anglers Channel.”
Terry Battisti and the team at Bass Fishing Archives chronicle the history of bass fishing. It is the only site dedicated to the history of the sport. It has scads of old advertisements, catalogs, and stories from some of the biggest names with a great depth of institutional knowledge. From the big bass wars and new techniques of the West Coast to the origins of lures from small companies that grew into behemoths, Bass Fishing Archives has the details.
"When Danny approached me about a collaboration between our sites, I thought it would be a great opportunity for both the Bass Fishing Archives and the Anglers Channel," Battisti said. "It gives the Bass Fishing Archives a chance to reach a wider audience who may not know about us and gives the Anglers Channel some historical content, too.
"Our sport has a lineage that dates back to the late 1800s. Most anglers today can't even name the stars of the ‘70s and ‘80s, much less the giants from the turn of the 19th century through the 1950s. Having a platform like Anglers Channel hopefully will show the younger anglers how important the history of their sport is."
Pete and Hanna Robbins have taken Half Past First Cast to new heights with tried-and-true information about fishing-related travel including tackle, lures, apparel and more. They visit El Salto in Mexico a couple of times a year, along with other trips for saltwater species including sailfish and deepwater fish. They’ve tangled with everything from thumb-rasping smallmouth on the Niagara River and Lake Erie to muskies in the Midwest, bass across the border and more.
Their Half Past First Cast motto is, "Providing you with the tools and information to keep fishing fun and make the most of your remaining casts, through travel hacks, equipment advice, trip reports and unfiltered opinions." They seek the best operators on the best fisheries at the best times, and are keen on enjoying life experiences while also sharing them with others.
“Through my connections in the world of bass fishing, I'd seen the power of AnglersChannel and we are eager to spread our word through similar-minded outlets,” Pete said. “After nearly 20 fishing trips to Mexico, I realized no one had written extensively about how to make the most of that experience, so we set out to do that with Half Past First Cast. Also, I became a much better and much more satisfied bass angler when I started chasing other species. It made me appreciate all the things that are great about bass fishing through a decent lens.”
A trip to Panama for big tuna on giant topwater poppers almost made Robbins lose his bass-fishing soul. But it was more of an awakening than anything.
“When we came back from popping for tuna in Panama, I told Hanna that I'd sell my bass boat if I could do that 30 days a year,” he said, laughing. “Fortunately, it didn't come to that. But it made me realize that there are lots of fishing experiences I've yet to try that are on my ever-growing bucket list.
Hanna agrees, and says their goal is to help others on Anglers Channel with new information, destinations and booking the trip to get there for a successful, fun adventure.
“I love seeing some of the places we go through newcomers' eyes — introducing them not just to the fishing, but also to the culture, the food and everything we've grown to love about places like Mexico, Panama, Guatemala and Alaska,” she said. “My goal is to make your travel as easy as possible. We have trips for a variety of budgets and physical abilities, and we only work with the best of the best. I am particularly interested in getting women involved in the sport. As someone who came to fishing relatively late in life, I know that you need a mentor or two and a helping hand to get started.”
Throwback Thursday - The Advent of the Football Head
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
Along around the 2000 timeframe, I was reading an article in In-Fisherman regarding a “new style” leadhead called the Rocker Head. As I read about how this jig would rock-and-roll over rocky structures and fall straight to the bottom quickly, I thought of a jig that I’d grown up fishing and had all these same attributes. A few paragraphs into the article, I came to realize that the jig they were describing was indeed the jig that had been invented in the mid-60s in southern California – the football head.
I’d always assumed that the football head was invented by a close friend of mine, Rip Nunnery, who owned Bandit Bass Tackle. It wasn’t until I started this website and began talking to the old timers of southern California fishing lore that I found out who actually came up with the head. Recently I was talking with one of southern California’s early bass heroes, Pete Gardner, and we got on the subject of early jig fishing. Talk eventually led to the football head and that’s when he told me of Larry McCain – the person who developed the football head.
Pete gave me Larry’s contact information and I quickly called to talk with him. What transpired out of our conversation was a definite learning experience for me and I hope you enjoy reading this bit of bass fishing history.
McCain’s History
football head on the bottom left and the barrel head in the upper right. Photo Winter issue
of Western Bass Magazine.
McCain started bass fishing while in junior high school in the early 50s with close friend Don Siefert. By the time the two were in their early 20s, they’d gone from fishing Reseda Park to Lake Sherwood, another close by lake in the Valley.
By the early 60s they began meeting other bass anglers, two of which would become instrumental in their bass fishing, Norm Dye (operator at Lake Sherwood) and Bud
Walsh, the local bass expert. “Bud was the most advanced angler of all of us at the time,” McCain said. “He’d fish the lake for a month at a time and he learned so much about the structure of the lake. This was before the time of depth finders and he wouldn’t tell us anything unless we figured it out on our own first. When we got our first depthfinders, the Lowrance Green Box, it opened up everything that was going on under water. I got my first one when I was 30 years old around 1967.
“We fished a lot of jigs back in those days and Bud made a twin spin called the Jungle Bum that was a little heavier than the Shannon. He made his own molds out of potatoes. “We primarily fished pork on the jigs back then,” he said. “We used Pedigo and the only place we could get it was at Lake Isabella (about 250 miles from his home). We’d but 25 or 30 cases at a time all in black and purple.
“Around the mid-60s, Siefert and Dye began asking the local anglers if they’d be interested in starting a bass club. They got enough interest and we formed the Southern California Bass Club – or SoCal Bass. Before this time, the anglers wouldn’t talk to each other or share any of their knowledge. After forming the club, anglers began teaching each other within the club what they’d learned over the years.”
designed on a unique head and named after his daughter, Madeline or Matty. Photo Terry
Battisti.
Development of the Football Head
Other than teaching each other bass tactics, they’d also get together and make lures. “I was the only machinist in the group and because of that I’d make molds for pouring leadheads,” McCain said. “We’d get a bunch of guys to come over to my garage at night and we’d set up an assembly line for pouring. One guy would load the molds with wire weedguards and hooks, another would pour and another would pull the heads and trim them.
“One of the early molds I made was a barrel head. That mold didn’t last too long, though, because it was difficult to pull the head from the mold. That’s when I decided to taper the barrel head, in order to allow it to release from the mold easier. “I got the mold done and had the guys over for a pouring session. When the first few heads came out of the mold, one of the guys said, ‘That looks like a football.’” The name stuck. This was around 1965.
“We started fishing the head and noticed that it wobbled when it fell and when it came across the bottom. Those first heads were around 5/8 ounce, which was the most popular head size during those days.
“By the late 60s and early 70s I was making molds for Rip (Nunnery) and the Miller brothers (Mike and Dick) for their tackle companies. The Millers made a single-spin jig called The Boober and Rip had me make him a mold for his twin spin called the Double Bass Boober. Each guy wanted something slightly different in their heads and I’d make them the way they wanted. For example, some guys wanted the eye of the hook more forward in the head and others wanted eyeballs. Each configuration, especially the hook eye placement, made the jig fish differently."
McCain is now 76 years old and lives in Florida. Not only is he credited with the development of the football head, he and partner Jack Loyd were the winners of the first Western Bass Fishing Association TriState team championship in 1976. “I live in Florida now and fish whenever I can,” he said. “I just grab some worms, put them in my bag, get on my bicycle and fish pond to pond. I went out the other day and my first couple of fish were 2-pounders and then I caught a 4-1/2 and then followed that with three more 4-pounders.” Asked how he feels about his head, he said; “All these years later the football head has become a big deal. To us, it was just a jig head. It caught fish and that’s all we cared about.”
Want more history of how we got to here?? Check out Bass Fishing Archives
Travel Tuesday - Why Should a Bass Angler Go Popping for Tuna?
By Pete Robbins - Half Past First Cast
I get it, you’re a hard-core basser. You drink Bait Fuel and breathe metalflake.
I was once in your shoes. I couldn’t think about, or even consider another species. I lived from derby to derby. All of my friends were bass anglers. It was my identity.
I was happy – but eventually, you get to a point where you’ve seen a lot and done a lot. I was never going to be Kevin VanDam, Brandon Palaniuk or even a lower-level tour pro. I was ok with that, but I needed something to fire me up about fishing again, and I found it in topwater tuna fishing.
Imagine the biggest strike you’ve ever seen on a Whopper Plopper or a Spook or a buzzbait and multiply it by a hundred. Make the fish 20 or 30 times bigger, too. And imagine acres of them blowing up everywhere. That’s my drug. I didn’t know it until I was 51 years old and had spent a lifetime chasing bass, but only after experiencing it multiple times did I realize how much it helped rekindle my love of bass fishing.
Remember the first time you found the winning tournament fish in practice? And then you drew out boat number one? Racing down the lake at 70 miles per hour, you knew you were going to have them all to yourself and it was going to be amazing. That’s the feeling I get when the captain in Panama sees birds diving on bait three miles away, yells “Hold on!” and guns the outboards to get there – heart pumping through my chest, can barely breathe, sweat behind my knees. Then you get there, and maybe you hook up on the first pop, or maybe the fish go down and you have to chase them another three or four miles, and then do it again.
After the first trip, I told my wife Hanna that I’d sell my bass boat if I could do the tuna deal 30 days out of the year. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, but it takes a special experience to even get me to say that. Even if you’re a hard core bass-head, I guarantee this trip will reinvigorate you and help you be a better tournament angler. Here are some of the lessons that got drilled into me:
- The critical importance of making the first cast count. Even when fish seem to be feeding indiscriminately, a simple change of mood can end the frenzy. Don’t push the panic button;
- The value of matching the hatch. For the same reasons, sometimes it may look like the fish willveat anything that moves, but you’ll be surprised at how often they won’t;
- The need to master spinning gear. I know you’re a Bubbafied power angler with a trained thumb. You may not even own any spinning rods. Now that I’ve conquered big tuna, sailfish and other far more powerful species with the old eggbeater, I know what they can do. I never would have caught my PB 6.40 pound smallmouth in October of 2021 if I hadn’t gone tuna fishing first; and finally
- The need to keep fishing fresh and new. Seeing the sport through new eyes, in new places, where you may not have any expertise at all, makes it fun and keeps you mentally and physically ready. Besides, if you don’t like topwater fishing I don’t want to be your friend. I’ve caught big peacock bass in the Amazon on them, but they don’t hold a candle to a hard-charging 80 pound yellowfin.
I hope that my excitement is infectious. I’ve taken three groups of bass anglers to Panama and most have committed to go back, or are trying to figure out how to get there. If you’d like more information or want to join us in May of 2024 (PRIME POPPING SEASON) email me at [email protected] and let’s talk tuna.
Throwback Thursday - Flippin’: A Concept Not Just A Technique – Part 3
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
This is part three of a three-part series on the concept of flipping and the effect it had on the sport. In this final installment, we talked with Hank Parker and Denny Brauer about how the technique changed their careers. To read Part One click here and to read Part Two click here.
Hank Parker
Although Hank Parker may not have designed a lure or piece of equipment having to do with flipping, he is arguably the angler who put the technique on the map for good.
Up until the ’79 Classic on Lake Texoma, flipping wasn’t much more than something serious anglers kept to themselves. Yes, it had been the determining technique to win national events and had been written about in Bass Master Magazine – a six-part series in 1976 –still few anglers had adopted the long rod into their repertoire.
That all changed when Parker won the ’79 Classic – flipping had finally come of age. Parker’s introduction to flipping came early. He was first introduced to it in 1976 when, as he says, “Klein was still in diapers.”
“I saw Dave Gliebe catch 95-15 on Lake Okeechobee in an American Bass event in 1976,” he said. “The conditions for that tournament were horrible and it blew my mind that he could catch that much weight.
“Then six weeks later he won another event on Kentucky Lake under perfect conditions and that really made me think twice about the technique. It was something that worked in all conditions. “After those two events, I started doing a lot of research on the technique and found out that it was invented by Dee Thomas."
“What really intrigued me about it was how well the technique could illicit a reaction strike,” he said. “My dad had always taught me that fish won’t chase a bait down all the time. Sometimes you have to hit them on the head and make them strike out of aggression or territorial rights. Plus, in muddy water, where their field of vision is limited, you sometimes have to hit them on the head – get in their face. There’s never been a better method than flipping for doing that."
“A lot of times during cold-front conditions, the fish bury themselves in the cover and they’re not in an aggressive mood. Back before flipping, who knew you could take a 7- or 8-foot rod and place a lure right on top of their head and get a reaction strike out of them?”
As stated earlier, Parker’s ’79 Classic victory put flipping on the national map. Although Basil Bacon got second, also flipping, the event could have had a different result for a couple of reasons.
“That Classic would have turned out a lot differently if not for two events,” Parker said. “First, the water was perfect for throwing a blade and that’s a bait I’d had great success with over the years."
"I’d been throwing it without much success and then I ran into Forrest Wood. He told me he’d caught two fish flipping and lost a couple of others. After that, I fished an incredible area and didn’t get a bite on the blade. I thought to myself, ‘They had to be there.’ I went back and flipped the same area I’d just gone through and caught three fish on four
flips. I had 11 or 12 pounds which was amazing for Texoma at the time."
“By 10:30 in the morning, I had 16 pounds and left it alone. In the process, I’d also broken my only flipping stick, a prototype that I was testing, and had to switch to a 6-foot pistol-grip rod. I caught a couple fish using that rod but it was by no means the right equipment."
“After the weigh-in, I went to Harold Sharp and asked him if I could get another rod. Back in those days, you were given a weight limit on tackle and a limit on the number of rods you could use. Because I had brought a flipping stick with me, Harold decided it would be okay if I went out and got another rod. Back then, though, you couldn’t find a flipping stick at most tackle shops."
“I knew Gary [Klein] had a few so I went and asked him if I could borrow one of his. He said yes and that’s what helped me win. Gary really came to my rescue. I really doubt I could have won it if I had to fish that 6-foot rod.”
Denny Brauer
1984.
Dee Thomas may have invented the technique, Dave Gliebe may have been the first person to really utilize it east of the Mississippi, Gary Klein and Basil Bacon may have made strides in tackle developed specifically for the technique and Hank Parker may have been the angler who really cemented its place in the sport. It would be tough to argue, though, if there’s ever been another angler over the course of time that’s made more money flipping than Denny Brauer. He’s third on the all-time winners list with 17 Bass Master victories and 37 top-3 finishes. Not only that, he designed the first tube specifically for flipping.
Brauer’s career started in Nebraska as a Federation angler and fishing the now-defunct U.S. Bass circuit in the mid-to late-70s. He learned of the flipping technique from a six-part series published in Bass Master Magazine written by Dee Thomas and Dave Gliebe through Dave Myers. Although he wouldn’t know it for some time, that series would change his life.
“Flipping first came to my attention in Bass Master Magazine around 1976,” he said. “I couldn’t get a Flippin’ Stik but a friend of mine made a couple of them out of long rods and I went out with him in his boat and used one. Then I bought my first flipping stick, a Bass Pro Shops rod called The Dabbler."
“There weren’t many people around here that flipped so I had no choice but to learn it on my own through trial and error,” he said. “I practiced flipping and pitching a bunch and within a year got fairly decent at it. It played a part in a lot of bass club wins right off the bat. “It was deadly on the chain of lakes I was fishing at the time,” he said. “I was fishing for fish that a lot of anglers weren’t targeting."
"The watersheds lakes we competed on in Nebraska back then had lots of cover and were great for the flipping method.”
The technique helped him make the ’78 and ’80 Federation Nationals, which is what jump-started his national debut with BASS. It’d take him two years to make the Classic and another two to win his first event but he was sold on the power of flipping.
“When I started fishing the BASS events in 1980, almost everyone was flipping,” he said. “I remember the first national event I won on Sam Rayburn (TX, 1984). All the fish I caught were on flipping and pitching techniques. The fish were on the deeper willows and you had to be really precise. I landed a very high percentage of my bites that event”
Brauer was never content with the status quo with the technique, though. “The main baits we used back in the early days were jigs, worms, and lizards,” he said. “Tubes were out but no one liked to fish them because they were too short and they were single-walled baits and that didn’t stay on the hook very well. They’d always want to slide down the hook. You had to improvise a lot in order for them to be effective."
“Then I won the ‘98 Classic on High Rock and that changed everything. “I’d been on a good flip bite with jigs and worms before the lake went off limits but when I went back for the one-day official practice, the fish wouldn’t eat the jig. I don’t know what happened but the fish changed. It really surprised me because the fish were locked on the jig the month before."
“I changed up to a tube and they ate it. The forage the fish were eating was the same size as the tube and they keyed in on that size difference. “After the Classic, I met with the folks down at Strike King and they let me design the first flipping tube.”
The ’98 season provided more than his Classic win, though. In all, he won four BassMaster events in which flipping played a role in two of them. He became known as the preeminent flipper. During the interview, I had a chance to ask him how he felt the technique has changed over the years.
“The gear has made it a lot easier to flip all day compared to what we had when I first started,” he said. “My first actual flipping stick was that Bass Pro Shops Dabbler.’ I broke that rod so many times but it was a great rod. The only problem was it was so heavy. You had to be in shape to fish it all day long. The funny thing right now is I’m meeting with a major retailer about a new line of rods I’m launching with Ardent. They’re so much lighter than that old Dabbler. Today’s rods are at a completely new level now compared to the old days."
“Also back then there was only one flipping stick size, action, and power. Today anglers can choose from a number of different rods to fit what they need at the time. For example, I’ve designed four separate flipping sticks for Ardent ranging from a 7’-4” light flipping stick to a 7’-10” heavy action rod."
“The reels have also come a long way,” he said. “The Ardent F700 has a Perma-Lock Drag System and nose cone (no level wind) that allows anglers to pitch a jig a lot farther than a standard-style reel. Plus, the narrow spool doesn’t waste a lot of line."
“With the tackle today anglers are spoiled with how light, sensitive and responsive the gear is. It used to be the rod would work against you.”
Brauer will forever be known in the world of bass fishing as one of the best flippers the sport has ever produced. I was interested in hearing from him how he felt the technique played a role in his career.
“Without a doubt, it did a lot for me,” he said. “Not just for winning and placing but it also played a major role in marketing myself. Flipping has made my career a lot easier. In fact, when I started out I figured I’d be a blade guy. I guess it didn’t turn out that way.”
Blandford New Director of Business Development for AnglersChannel.com
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Fishing industry veteran Danny Blandford has been hired as Director of Business Development for AnglersChannel.com.
Blandford, 43, brings more than two decades of industry experience to the No. 1 resource in tournament bass fishing. Blandford previously worked with the Professional Anglers Association, Careco Multimedia and as an owner and consultant to several fishing companies. He began working with Anglers Channel in April.
With the PAA, Blandford helped secure television partnerships that put “FishPAA Television” into more than 100 million households, oversaw event creation and execution, including numerous Toyota Texas Bass Classic events. At Careco, Blandford was director of the Association of Collegiate Anglers and the BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship Series, where he also aided in the development and implementation of the ACA’s School of the Year Program.
“I’m excited to bring Danny and his years of experience to the team at Anglers Channel,” said CEO John Byrne. “Danny is known in the industry, and has the contacts, passion and determination we have needed to continue to grow.”
Blandford has fished competitively for more than 20 years and recreationally since he was a child. He was president of the Indiana University Bass Club, has fished in FLW (now MLF) and B.A.S.S. Nation events, and competes in local club events with his wife. He continues to hold an affinity for young anglers and collegians seeking a path to follow their dreams.
“I’m excited to join the team of AC Insiders,” Blandford said. “Their team has been providing great coverage of our sport for decades and I look forward to bringing more than 20 years’ experience to the project. AnglersChannel.com is a strong platform and we’re already hitting new records in terms of users and engagement. I believe we can continue to build that out for our readers and advertisers as we add additional content partners, social platforms and fresh ideas under my leadership.”
About AnglersChannel.com
AnglersChannel.com multimedia platform combines the web, social media platforms, podcasts, on-site event coverage and The Anglers Channel Bass Wrapup Show on Discovery to bring you the No. 1 resource in tournament bass fishing. Anglers Channel features the web’s most robust tournament database, used by thousands of anglers daily, including schedules, results and searchable details by body of water. Anglers Channel also delivers industry news as it happens, along with coverage of all tournament bass fishing, from BASS and Major League Fishing to the weekend warriors. Visit Anglers Channel via the web, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
For more information contact Danny Blandford at [email protected]
Throwback Thursday - FLIPPIN’: A CONCEPT. NOT JUST A TECHNIQUE – PART TWO
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
This is part two of a three-part series on the concept of flipping and the effect it had on the sport. In this installment, we talked with Gary Klein and Basil Bacon about their involvement with the early years of the technique. To read part one, click here.
In part one of this piece, Dave Myers talked about the three factors that came together to form the concept of Flippin’. He also talked about how an angler could thoroughly pick apart a shoreline in half the time it’d take an angler using conventional methods.
For parts two and three, I had the pleasure of interviewing four other anglers who took the ground rules, developed by Thomas, and added considerably to its foundation. Gary Klein, Hank Parker, Basil Bacon, and Denny Brauer all played pivotal roles in the progression of flipping and the way anglers approach shallow targets today.
These four anglers not only helped flipping progress, but they also helped design new equipment, terminal tackle, and baits to increase the effectiveness of the technique.
GARY KLEIN
When you think about the anglers who were there when flipping was invented – Thomas, Hauck, Gliebe, and Myers – if you leave out Gary Klein, you’ve left out one important part of the puzzle.
Klein, still a high school student and working at Lake Oroville in northern California, was making a name for himself fishing the Western Bass circuit. He and Thomas became fast friends, Thomas taking him under his wing.
“I was fortunate to meet Dee at a young age,” he said. “In the beginning, it wasn’t like Dee handed me things. He was smart in only giving me enough information so I had to go and do my homework. He was really smart about that – he made me work for it – and I appreciate it to this day.
“To be a part of the technique since its inception and watching it evolve has been an important part of my career. It’s because of this single technique that I decided to leave California and try to make a career fishing the B.A.S.S. circuit.
“Flipping wasn’t just a new technique – it was a new philosophy,” he said. “It was about how to catch a certain type of fish that’s relating to cover. To sum it up, the technique is just a way to present a lure in shallow water. But it also teaches you to learn patterns within patterns. For example, when I see a log in the water, I don’t just see a log – I see where it enters the water, each individual branch, where the sun is casting shadows, etc. I don’t just cast to a bush. Flipping has taught us to analyze more about what’s going on with respect to cover than any other technique. It made us a lot more efficient.
“Anglers today confuse flipping with pitching,” he said. “Flipping is NOT pitching. To me the flipping technique is all about having the line in your hand and swinging the bait. It’s more efficient and much more precise. If I’m pitching, I can miss fish [miss as in not placing the bait near them]. When I’m flipping, I won’t miss them.
“I said before that Flipping was the number one reason I left California. It wasn’t that I thought I wasn’t as good as the stars of the time – anglers like Roland, Dance, Tommy [Martin] – I just knew that with a Flip Stik in my hand, I was better than any of the other anglers with that type of fish.
“Dee and Dave [Gliebe] had already gotten the word out but the media was slow to cover it. By ’79 when I came out, there was still virtually no one doing it or anyone who really understood it. No one had a Flip Stik in their boat. That’s what gave me the mentality that I could do better against the others.
“When I came out east, I brought seven rods with me – all Flip Stiks,” he said. “I knew I could compete and in my first year on the B.A.S.S. circuit, I finished 10th, 1st, 6th, 26th, 18th and 7th. I missed Angler of the Year in the last event to Roland [Martin] by a little over a pound. Eighty-percent of the fish I caught that year were caught flipping.”
Klein wasn’t just one of the first anglers to utilize flipping on the national circuits, either. He was also a tackle developer with close friend Rich Forhan.
“In the first years when I came on the circuit, my number-one bait was a black 6-inch lizard,” he said. “Over the years, though, I’ve flipped everything.
“Then Rich Forhan and I got together to design a jig. The Weapon Jig and hook evolved because Rich was trying to get the best equipment in my hands.
“We found the original hook through Herters,” he said. “It was a round-bend needle-point hook design, completely contrary to what was popular back then, made by Partridge of England. When I was 18 years old, I met with the owner of Eagle Claw and tried to talk him into making it for us. He didn’t want to do it. So we bought our hooks from Herters.
“The jig head came from a lot of testing. We wanted the head to slide out of the fish’s mouth easily in order for better hookups. We fashioned a number of head shapes out of steel and tested them. What we came up with, coupled with the flat hook eye, was the result.
“A while into making the jigs, we found out that Herters was going to discontinue selling them so we bought all they had left. That’s when Rich went over to England and met with Partridge. That’s when they came up with the black Weapon flipping hook made out of Sheffield steel.
“Mustad later bought the company and they came out with the Ultra Point hook. It’s because of this single technique that we have round needle-point hooks. The hook companies were forced to make them because of flipping. In 1979 when I lost Angler of the Year to Roland, it was because I lost fish due to the wrong hook.
“Another thing that happened right off the bat was the flipping switch,” he said. “Basil Bacon gets the credit for that. In fact he used to work on all my reels in his garage back when we used to hang out together.
“Still today I won’t fish a reel without a flipping switch. In fact, because of me, Zebco still makes a reel model with one on it – and they kid me about it all the time.
“Now we’re seeing all sorts of different tools, maybe not designed for flipping but have made it much more efficient. Tungsten weights, punch skirts and braid have all had an effect on flipping.”
Although Klein is one of the most decorated anglers in the sport, he still hasn’t forgotten his roots.
“I’ll always be indebted to Dee because he let me get close to him and Dave [Gliebe]. He and flipping are why I was so successful. Dee has never received the credit he deserves.”
BASIL BACON
Another angler who was there almost from the start was Basil Bacon. Although Bacon wasn’t from California, he was lucky enough to have competed in the Bull Shoals event in ’75 – the event that Thomas won and put flipping on the map.
“I met Dee at the Bull Shoals event,” he said. “Dee didn’t come back much after that but [Dave] Gliebe did and that’s how I got to know Dave.
“Gliebe and I ended up at a PSI (Project Sports Inc.) event on Rend Lake in Illinois. There was a small grocery store in town and they had an attic above it where they sold beds for the night. Dave and I each rented a bed and that’s where we got acquainted.
“We’d been talking about flipping but nothing came of it.
“The first day of the tournament I did pretty well and was close to the leader. The second day I didn’t do too well and on the third day, I couldn’t even catch a fish. Dave came in with a sack and I think he won it.
“After that, we headed to Lake Cordell Hull in Tennessee. Before we left I asked him about the long pole and that I’d like to spend some time with him and learn about it.
“During practice, we had a thunderstorm roll through and we couldn’t fish. After it cleared I asked him to show me how to flip. He pulled the boat into the back of a cove and flipped this bog ole’ jig into some grass growing on the bank. I’m not talking emergent vegetation, I’m talking lawn-type grass on the shore that was flooded.
“He shook the jig a little and then flipped a 3-pounder in the boat. He ruined me.
“He showed me just enough to get me in trouble and it took me a year to figure out all the mechanics of it. Of course, I developed a lot of my own techniques during that time – as I still do.
“Until ’79 I had flipping all to myself in this part of the world,” he said. “Then at the Classic in ’79, Hank Parker, who didn’t know what flipping or a flipping stick was, got on it and won.
“Flipping was almost 100% of my fishing once I learned how to do it,” he said. “I lived with the theory of how fish position themselves on structure. Current, wind current, no wind, the shade, time of day – all that stuff. A lot of people would come up to a piece of cover and just throw at it. Then maybe they’d get closer and flip it.
“That wasn’t my approach at all. What I’d do is look the cover over, taking all the conditions into account, and then decide how and where I wanted to place my first flip. There was nothing haphazard about what I did. The first flip was the most important.”
Bacon wasn’t just a learner when it came to flipping, he was an innovator.
“Back when Dee and Dave [Myers] were coming back east, Dave showed me how to take the free spool release springs out of an Ambassadeur to make it a flipping reel,” he said. “After that, I’d do the same but always thought there was a better way.
“Gary Klein was following me all over the country at the time and we came to my house here in Springfield [MO]. We were talking and I said, ‘There are too many times we’re flipping and we want the reel to be a casting reel. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a switch on the reel so it could do both?’ He thought it was a good idea too.
“I got a hold of a Langley, an Ambassadeur and a Diawa Millionaire, took them apart and made the parts for a flipping switch for each of them. The Ambassadeur was the best of the bunch.
“I took the reel to Johnny Morris – we’ve been friends since before he opened Bass Pro Shops – and it tripped his trigger. We worked out a deal that we could share and then we went to Ambassadeur (ABU) with it. They were the first to pick up on it in ‘80-‘81. We never patented the idea but sold it to ABU.”
Bacon not only invented the flipping switch, he also had his hands in the development of baits.
“The jigs I used back then were primarily Gary’s Weapon Jig,” he said. “There were a couple of things I thought could be improved on it so I went to a friend, Al Dunning, who had been bugging me to design a jig for him. We designed the jig and it became the Basil Bacon Super Jig manufactured by Al-Ron Lures.
“The jig was designed to come through wood, specifically wood here on Truman Reservoir,” he said. “The thing about Truman wood is one year the lake froze and then dropped two feet while still frozen. When that happened, the trees broke in a downward fashion at it was tough to get a jig through. The design of my jig helped an angler get through it. Every angler who came to fish the lake would by my jigs because they worked.
“In the early days I primarily flipped the jig,” he said. “Then after Hank [Parker] won the Classic in 79, I started using plastics. I won a couple of tournaments using lizards and worms and then developed a bait called the Bacon Rind – one of the first creature baits.
“What drove me to that was the fact I didn’t like to flip tubes because I liked to fish deeper in the trash and the old tubes hung up a lot. The bait was designed like a tube but was solid and had tails and flappers. I’d take and rip the back tails off the bait and it fished just like a tube on the fall. It allowed me to fish heavier cover without getting hung up.”
Bacon feels today’s anglers are confused about what the technique really is.
“Most anglers today pitch instead of flip and that’s been one of the big misconceptions since the beginning. When I first started flipping, an angler by the name of Bill Ward came to me to talk about it. I showed him what I was doing and he said, ‘I do that with a spinning rig.’ What he was actually doing was pitching with a spinning rod.
“An angler who flips has more control than an angler pitching. That’s what is so critical about the technique. You have control of where the lure is going, control of the lure when it’s in the cover and, most importantly, control over the fish once you hook him. Pitchers don’t have this kind of control of the entire situation.”
Overall flipping was a learning process,” he said. “It was very good to me over the course of my career. The only problem was I should have fished other baits and techniques more. I was a diehard with the flipping stick.”
In all Bacon has won 11 big events with the big stick and finished second in the ’79 Classic on Texoma flipping.
In part three of this series, we’ll be talking with Hank Parker and Denny Brauer and how flipping helped their careers.
If we’ve piqued your interest and you’d like to read ahead, check out the rest of the story at Bass Fishing Archives with the link below:
Travel Tuesday Extra - Hooked On: Bonefish
In keeping with our Travel Tuesday theme, check out this recent Costa | Films project! The scenery is first class, the fishing looks amazing, and the video production...well, see it for yourself! IF you're like us, you can feel the sun and taste the salt after this short story! It's got us thinking about a different kind of fishing trip...you know...to #SeeWhatsOutThere
Travel Tuesday - Enjoy the Mexican Combo Plate
By Hanna Robbins - Half Past First Cast
As many of you may know, I am from Chicago. Up there, the word “Combo” refers to a very special high-calorie, high-fat sandwich -- an Italian sausage under thin-sliced roast beef, slow-cooked in garlic au jus, topped with spicy or sweet peppers, all on an Italian-style roll.
When I moved to the DC area 16 plus years ago, no one here seemed to have heard of the real combo. There’s plenty of good food here, but you’ll have to go to the Windy City if you want a true taste of the combo. That doesn’t really matter in our household, anyway. My sandwich days are pretty much behind me, and at our dinner table conversations aren’t about our workday, they aren’t about date night, they are about bass fishing.
“When is our next Anglers Inn bass fishing trip?”
“Which lake do we want to go to, Picachos or El Salto?”
I have a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out) so it’s lucky that Anglers Inn provides the only “Combo” that matters at this stage of my life: Two similar but distinct lakes that both offer great service and great food, but which can fish differently on any given day.
If Anglers Inn is on your bucket list and you aren’t sure which lake to choose now you don’t have to, choose both.
The best of both worlds: three nights, and two and a half days at each location.
The “conventional wisdom” tells us that Lake El Salto is known for trophy bass and Lake Picachos is known for numbers.
That can be true, but it’s not always the case. My largest bass was a 9 pound 12 ounce bass out of Lake Picachos and Pete and I have caught 103 fish off one spot in an afternoon at Lake El Salto.
Neither lake will disappoint.
What more can you ask for?
If that’s not incentive enough for you, I’ll present you with a special challenge: Try to one-up my personal best day of fishing. On one day in May of 2014, I caught a 9 pound 5 ounce bass at Lake El Salto in the morning and a 9 pound 12 ounce bug-eyed beast that same afternoon at Lake Picachos. Maybe you’ve caught two 9-pounders on the same day, but I doubt you’ve done it on two different lakes. That puts me in a special “combo club.”
Think of it as a double bucket list trip.
For any and all questions please contact me at [email protected]. Let’s get you to the lake…or lakes!
Throwback Thursday - FLIPPIN’: A CONCEPT. NOT JUST A TECHNIQUE – PART ONE
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
Although the first responses to Flippin’ weren’t too positive, it didn’t take long for anglers to realize its effectiveness. The technique was winning nearly all of the early tournaments in the West and even though anglers hated this form of “tule dippin’,” what they didn’t realize was this form of fishing was way more than just a technique.
Yes, Flippin’ is a technique in which to catch bass but, more so, it was a complete lure-presentation concept. The concept, once fully embraced, allowed the angler the utmost in lure control and speed.
In contemporary bass fishing, the phrase ‘power fishing’ means to cover a lot of water quickly, effectively, without any waste of motion while keeping the lure in the bass’ strike zone for the longest period of time. Flipping, and nowadays pitching, defines this better than any other form of bass fishing.
“Flipping embraces three basic concepts,” Dave Myers said. “First, there are always some fish in shallow water, second, most shallow fish are biting fish, and third, the key to getting these shallow fish to bite is a precision presentation.
“But there’s more to the concept than just flipping a lure out to cover,” he added. “It was a lot of other things put together. The fact that the anglers made Dee fish a shorter rod helped a tremendous amount in the development of this concept.
“Dee found that by using the short flip, he could fish the visible targets along with any other unseen targets between the bank and the boat and his lure was always in the strike zone. He could completely pick apart a shoreline in less than half the time it would take an angler fishing by conventional casting methods. There was no wasted portion of his cast.
“Not only that, he was always in position to have total control over a fish should it strike. The anglers that complained about his long rod, which eventually led to him to fish a shorter rod, actually helped in the development of the concept and technique.”
After Thomas and Myers concluded the development of the first Flippin’ Stik, Myers convinced Thomas to take his concept national. Off they went to the 1975 Bassmaster Toledo Bend Invitational.
Upon getting to the lake, Thomas was completely overcome by the amount of visible cover. It didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen in his native California. He went out the first day and tried flipping everything and it didn’t work out. The next day he went back to conventional methods but by that time, he was out of the race. The effectiveness of the Flippin’ rod and concept didn’t even get noticed. The second Bassmaster event of Thomas’ career, though, wouldn’t go unnoticed.
In April of that same year, Thomas and Myers traveled to Bull Shoals, AR for the second Invitational on the Bassmaster schedule. Bull Shoals, unlike Toledo Bend, resembled the California waters he was so accustomed to. It had steep banks, clear water, and a lot of visible cover. Not only that, a severe cold front had moved through the area right before the start of the event. All of these variables coupled together set up an event that would play directly into Thomas’ strength.
Thomas went out and in three days put together a combined sack that weighed nearly 10 pounds more than second-place angler Tommy Martin’s catch. What’s even more amazing is out of the 175 anglers in competition, 100 blanked the first day. Thomas weighed in 16 bass (10 bass per day was the limit back then) for a total of 35-06 and Martin weighed in 12 bass for 25-10. Thomas clearly ran away with the event.
At this point, Harold Sharp and Ray Scott had a situation on their hands. Anglers were complaining of the method in which Thomas had won and Sharp and Scott had to do something fast.
“Harold [Sharp] and Ray [Scott] came and asked me to tell them about this technique,” Myers recalled. “All the big guns were all complaining and they needed to get ahead of it. So we explained the method to them, how it differed from tule dippin’, and that the technique was based on the accurate presentation of a jig using a long rod. We told them about the 7’ 6” length restriction we’d instilled in the west and they thought about it. After that, they decided that the western restriction was good and then they went with an 8-foot restriction after that.”
Sharp has a little different recollection of what happened.
“The first we were aware of Dee was when he entered the Bull Shoals tournament in April 1975,” Sharp recalled. “Because Dee won this event with a new style of tournament fishing, it made much more impact than if he had just finished in the money – it was new and different and a winner.
“B.A.S.S. had no rules on the length of the rod,” he said. “In fact, at the time we had a contestant that fished with a standard fly rod with a spincast reel attached to the butt end loaded with mono line. He did very well with it and used it to fish plastic worms without a weight. At that time, our rules stated that only casting, spinning or spincasting equipment could be used, but his rig was more spincasting than flyfishing so we let him use it.
“Although Dee introduced the long rod in April, ’75, B.A.S.S. didn’t change rules mid-season,” Sharp said. “But we could see where it could create a problem as most angling in those days was done several yards from the target and Flippin’ moved the boat up on the target, which handicapped one angler, unless both were Flippin’.
“We also saw a problem with the use of longer rods so as to outreach your partner,” Sharp said. “So we took a long look at Flippin’ and decided to install the 8-foot rod rule the following year [Jan 1976]. We didn’t see that an 8-foot rule would stop or hurt Flippin’ and we always promoted new stuff. Our concern was to keep tournament fishing equal to all contestants, so we installed the length limit to keep everyone in the boat on an equal basis. We hadn’t heard of the restriction on the west coast, we made our decision on what we thought best for BASS events and keep the BASS rules equal for all contestants.”
Thomas ended up finishing high enough that year to qualify for the 1975 Bass Masters Classic held on the Currituck Sound in North Carolina, where he finished in 9th place.
In 1976, Thomas took western stick Dave Gliebe back east with him but unfortunately, neither did well enough to qualify for the 1976 Bass Master Classic. That year Thomas stopped fishing the Bass Masters circuit in order to stay closer to home but Gliebe would continue to fish through 1979, making three consecutive Classics (1977-79), namely on the Flippin’ technique.
In the next installment of this feature, Basil Bacon, Hank Parker and Denny Brauer talk about how flippin’ changed the face of tournament angling.
If we’ve piqued your interest and you’d like to read ahead, check out the rest of the story at Bass Fishing Archives with the links below:
Throwback Thursday - The Birth of Flippin'
New Western Technique Controlled Structure Fishing sure to sweep the country
By Terry Battisti - Bass Fishing Archives
This is the first installment of a series of articles, highlighting the technique we now know as Flippin', and the pioneers who brought it to bass fishing! Check back every Thursday for more insight into how we got here as a sport and industry.
May 19, 1974
Paso Robles, CA – A new technique, coined “Controlled Structure Fishing,” has been introduced and it’s been met with mixed reviews. The technique’s given the duo of Dee Thomas and Frank Hauck a trip to the winners' circle in five out of the last seven events. Why has it been met with mixed reviews? Some may say it’s jealousy, others say it’s a banned form of tule dippin’. Whatever you say it is, it’s been mighty successful for Thomas and Hauck, and even though they had to adjust their equipment for the latest Western Bass Fishing Association's event on Lake Nacimiento, they were able to pull off another win even after chopping 4-1/2 feet off their preferred Lew’s Hawger rods and flipping their boat halfway through the first day of the event.
BFA Headquarters - In the late spring, early summer of 1974, Thomas’ form of fishing had yet to reach outside the West. But in the West, it was creating a lot of conversation and discontent amongst anglers competing against him and his tournament partner. Most anglers that own a Flippin’ Stick know Thomas was the originator of the technique but few have heard or read about its origins. Below is an article, possibly the first article, ever written about Dee and his new method in which to target bass. The funny thing about it is Dee didn’t call it Flippin’ back then. His name for it was “Controlled Structure Fishing.”
Click Here to Enlarge the Article
If we've piqued your interest and you'd like to read ahead, check out the rest of the story at Bass Fishing Archives with the links below:
FLIPPIN’: A CONCEPT. NOT JUST A TECHNIQUE – PART ONE
FLIPPIN’: A CONCEPT. NOT JUST A TECHNIQUE – PART TWO
FLIPPIN’: A CONCEPT. NOT JUST A TECHNIQUE – PART THREE
Why We Go to El Salto in May and June
Why We Go to El Salto in May and June
By Pete Robbins - Half Past First Cast
I believe that the first time I ever heard of El Salto was when I was crappie fishing on the California Delta in 2003 with former Bassmaster pro, Kenyon Hill. He mentioned that he’d been to the lake several times, and had absolutely crushed the big fish. I don’t know why, but I assumed that the best time to go was during the winter months when the climate in his home state of Oklahoma was cold as it was near my home in Virginia.
“No,” he said. “We go at the end of May. That’s when the big ones get ganged up.”
I suppose I always kept that in the back of my head, because even though our first trip to the lake was in December 2009, our next one was in May of 2013, and we’ve been back every May or June since then. Actually, Hanna has been back every May or June since then. I scheduled a “work trip” with Keith Combs to Alaska in the summer of 2019 which left me without enough vacation time to go to El Salto as well, so Hanna took Keith’s wife Jennifer instead.
Friends are often surprised to hear that we go to Mexico during the warmer months. Indeed, there are several prejudices working against making such a trip. First, fishing is good just about everywhere then. The spawn is over in the deep south, but the fish are lined up on a couple of different patterns. In the far north, the seasons are just starting. Where we live in the mid-Atlantic, I consider April through June the best period to catch not just numbers of fish, but also big fish. So yes, you may be giving up a few days of exceptional fishing at home, but in all but a few instances, it’s likely to be better South of the Border. That’s because the water is at its lowest point of the year and the fish are schooled up on textbook offshore structure.
At home, on the local tidal rivers, I rarely fish deeper than 6 feet deep, so the offshore game at El Salto is a special treat. I get to throw lures like swimbaits and Strike King 10XDs and even the dreaded “ball and chain” (Carolina Rig). Even more importantly, I’m throwing them at SCHOOLS of fish, not individual specimens.
The next question is, “Isn’t it HOT?”
The truth is that it’s not more than a few degrees warmer than it is at home. The most uncomfortable part of the day is from about 10 am until you go in for lunch at 11. That’s when the temps have warmed up and the wind hasn’t started blowing. By the time you go back out in the afternoon, the wind is usually howling at a pretty good clip. Not only does that make it much more comfortable to be outside, but it also positions the fish. Many of the guides have areas where you can tie up to a tree, make a cast with the wind (be sure to have enough line on your cranking reel), and catch bass after bass after bass with the same lineup.
That mention of the siesta is another key point – it stays light LATE. When we go in December of January, it gets dark early, so if you’re going to get in a decent afternoon session you need to be out on the water by 1:30. After getting in at 11, cleaning up, and eating lunch, that doesn’t leave much time for a siesta. In June, on the other hand, there’s lots of daylight. Take a nap, cool down, and restore your energy for the long evening bite.
If you’re someone who believes that the tilapia nets have an adverse impact on the fishing (note: I am not one of those people) this is also a prime time to go because the tilapia cooperative does not operate in the summertime.
Furthermore, if you want to bring the family, this is a time when you can take the kids without having to pull them out of school. Hanna and I often try to come during Memorial Day week so we have to take one less day of vacation.
Obviously, my track record of visiting at this time of year should speak for itself, but in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll reveal a few more things:
(1) our best trips have been in May/June, but we’ve also had a couple of clunkers.
(2) if a great topwater bite is your goal, I’d recommend a different time of year. We’ve had some killer days with a Rico and a Whopper Plopper in June, but we’ve also had a couple of otherwise great trips when the surface bite was minimal.
(3) I’ve been to El Salto in October, November, December, and January as well. We’ve had mostly great trips those months, but a couple of tough ones, too. I have several friends who swear by February/March/April, months when I have not been there. I also know several trusted anglers, including TV show host Joe Thomas, who frequently go in July, when the water is still low but you start to get a few overcast days, to extend the shallow bite. My only recommendation, if you do that, would be to skew toward the first half of the month, because in the waning days, you might lose some fishing time to lightning; and
(4) If you want to see different areas every day, go when the water is higher. Because the lake is at its lowest in May and June, the total acreage is also at its smallest footprint. Your guide will likely follow a milk run of proven spots. For some, that’s a negative. For me, it’s a positive, because at some point in the day, you are going to intercept the largest school of bass of your life, and perhaps the largest single bass of your life.
The bottom line is that there’s no “best month.” Anyone who tells you that “this is the best time to catch a 10-pounder” is full of it. Those fish show up every day of the year and they’re caught in a wide variety of ways. Get there when you can, but take into account all of the other factors that make a trip feasible and great for YOU.
If you’d like to learn more about fishing in Mexico, check out our “Ultimate Guide to El Salto and Picachos.” If you’d like to book a trip, email us any time at [email protected].
Introducing Half Past First Cast!
About the Half Past First Cast Team
By Pete and Hanna Robbins
Before we get into describing ourselves, let’s answer your first question: “What the heck does ‘Half Past
First Cast’ even mean?”
There’s a pretty simple answer. By the time both of us turned 50, we’d had a lot of great fishing and travel experiences. We’d gone to Tahiti on our honeymoon, been to Lake El Salto in Mexico a bunch of times, and fished all over the US. Our careers were established and we were reasonably secure from a financial standpoint.
But that number, fifty. It hit us like a lead balloon. We were almost certainly past the midpoint of our lives, and with finite time left, we wanted to make the most of it. We were literally half past our first cast. We wanted to make the most of the casts we had
left – and we realized that there are lots of people like us. They’re out there living responsible lives, with happy families, fun vacations, and decent fishing experiences – but there could be so much more.
First, we applied the concept to our own lives – making fishing more fun, more productive, and more memorable – and as we did that we had the realization that we had a lot of good information to share. Thus we started our website.
About Pete
I come from a non-fishing family. Some distant cousins I never met were into the offshore game, but my dad has no interest. I took my brother to El Salto once and he had a great time, but I doubt he’ll ever go again. Nevertheless, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I fished tournaments in my twenties and thirties, but after going to El Salto, Brazil, and Africa, I realized that I’d rather spend my limited time on the water on the best fisheries at the best times, rather than competing. You may not make the same decision,
that’s your right, but for me, it’s been mind-blowing. From Alaska to Panama to Guatemala I’ve repeatedly renewed my love of the sport.
I’m also a pretty serious outdoor writer – a Senior Writer for Bassmaster, published in dozens of other publications. I love telling stories and helping people with words. It could be recounting an experience in the Amazonian jungle, or describing how to better hook Zambian tigerfish – or just why watching a
bobber go down under the weight of a bluegill remains so much fun. Even after we “retire,” I’ll still write every day. In fact, I’ll almost certainly write more.
About Hanna
When Pete and I first met online two decades ago (!), I knew nothing about fishing. I thought he stood on a bridge all day with a bobber. I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, I’m a fast learner and hyper-competitive. There were some frustrating early days in the boat, but now I’ve caught a lot of trophy fish using the tactics and techniques I’ve learned – and I usually beat Pete.
Writing isn’t my first love, but I’m willing to endure it because I want to share this passion. Had it not been for the chance encounter with Pete, I might never have wet a line, and that seems tragic. Now I get excited to show people new places, especially women and first-time anglers. Seeing the wonders of the
world through their eyes is amazing, and along the way not only have I developed an interest in fishing, but also in how to help women best enjoy the sport, along with photography.
About Half Past First Cast
So, besides sharing our tips, tricks, and experiences, we love putting groups together to head to far-flung places around the world. It’s the people we meet that make the trips special, and we’ve developed some of our strongest lifelong friendships with people we never would have otherwise met. That’s the magic of fishing. It brings people together.
We know a lot of bass anglers who’d never consider fishing for something else, but when they join us it opens up their world. It’ll make you a better bass fisherman (or woman), a better overall angler, and it’ll expand your world in ways you’ve never before considered.
Please check out our site, and if you’d like to join us in Mexico or Alaska or Panama or Guatemala, email us at [email protected]. Even if those places aren’t on your personal bucket list, drop us a
line, and let’s talk fishing.
Wheels on the Bus........
This week David & Kenneth get back in the Drivers Seats and dive into a discussion on the upcoming Big Bass Tour Schedule, changes in the National Professional Fishing League, rosters for the MLF Invitationals and the Bassmaster Opens. Check it out and Happy Holidays!!
Big Bass Tour Expands its Horizons in 2023 - Registration Opens Friday!
Longtime favorites supplemented by more exceptional fisheries
Woodlands, Texas – One goal of the Big Bass Tour is to never rest on our laurels, or in any way remain stagnant, and the expanded 2023 schedule reflects that total level of commitment. All of the longtime favorite venues remain on tap, at the times when they’re likely to show up best, and that murderer’s row of fisheries has been supplemented by a new northern swing: For the first time, we’ll visit New York and Wisconsin, to hit the prolific St. Lawrence River as well as the Upper Mississippi, respectively. If that wasn’t enough, for the first time in its history, the Tour will host four-day mega tournaments at Conroe and Guntersville respectively.
Here's the tale of the tape:
Feb 10-12 | Harris Chain of Lakes, Florida
Florida in February has become a BBT tradition, and with good reason: It’s when the giants show up in the shallows at the heaviest weights they’ll be all year. But the Harris Chain isn’t just any Florida fishery – it offers a wealth of different habitats, and there’s great strategy involved in navigating the chain and employing different techniques. This is one where a double digit isn’t guaranteed to win the top prize.
March 2-5 | Lake Conroe, Texas (4 Day Event for 25th Anniversary, 4 day entry will be $325)
The Big Bass Tour was founded on the back of the Lake Conroe Big Bass Classic and in 2023, will celebrate the 25th annual event with a four-day mega tournament. Highly-developed Lake Conroe may be the best urban bass fishery in the country. It’s just a short drive north of Houston, yet it pumps out giants year after year after year. The other major circuits know it, and have scheduled major events here, but while it’s a popular playground in the summer, at this time of year it’ll swallow up boats and lend itself to various strategies.
March 10-12 | Clarks Hill, Georgia
Located just a stone’s throw from Augusta, Clarks Hill is a textbook fishery, brimming with endless points for anglers to ply and long stretches of river to spread out. While it may not produce a 10-pounder, expect lots of comparably-sized football-shaped bass to hit the scales.
March 24-26 | Lake Norman, North Carolina
Norman is chock full of docks, and that’s always a leading pattern as well as a fallback. The occasional giant largemouth makes a showing, but the increasing population of ever-growing spotted bass should grab some hourly checks.
March 31-April 2 | Lake Eufaula, Alabama
South Alabama in March is a recipe for giant bass moving shallow, and while it may not have the reputation of some of the fisheries of Texas or Florida, rest assured that 10 pound potential exists in every corner of this stories lake from bass fishing history.
April 14-16 | Table Rock Lake, Missouri
Table Rock presents a three-species opportunity – smallmouths and spots will likely earn some of the hourly checks, but expect a big largemouth to take top honors. This is another venue that fishes exceptionally large, and allows skilled anglers to pattern fish among the beauty of the Ozarks.
April 28-30 | Lake Murray, South Carolina
Back to South Carolina, and back to another fishery in the shadows of a big city, in this case Columbia. Murray also has a storied history on the major bass trails, and while the 10-pounders may not show up with regularity, it’s loaded with 6-, 7- and 8-pound studs that make hourly checks and the overall top prize highly competitive.
May 5-7 | Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia (Spring)
The Blue Ridge mountains in the spring are a sight to behold, and Smith Mountain’s clear lower end and two river arms provide anglers with a wide range of habitat for corralling both largemouths and smallmouths. The spawn should be partially over, and everything from a jig to a shakey head or a swimbait could place the winner in his or her prize boat.
May 19-21 | Lake Chickamauga, Tennessee
The first stop on the Tennessee River Chain of lakes couldn’t come at a better time or on a better place than Chickamauga, the grass-filled fishery that has produced 50 pound limits and more 10 pounders over the past decade per acre than just about anywhere on earth. The bass could still be shallow, but many will be headed to their summer haunts.
July 28-30 | St. Lawrence River, New York
It took over a hundred pounds of smallmouths to win a four day tournament on the St. Lawrence last summer, and even the second place finisher was in triple digits. That necessitated our visit, and while we fully expect that a smallmouth will win, the sheer number of 5- and 6-pounders – plus the vast expanses of water available to competitors – will likely take this one down to the wire.
August 4-6 | Upper Mississippi, Wisconsin (LaCrosse)
Our first visit to the Upper Midwest will be held on one of the nation’s most renowned tournament venues, a place where either a largemouth or a smallmouth could claim top honors, and plenty of 3- and 4-pound specimens of both will be caught doing everything from frogging to flipping to cranking to dropshotting.
Sept 29-Oct 1 | Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia (Fall)
Virginia is too pretty and too prolific to only visit once. Four months after our first stop we’ll return, and many of the same places and techniques will still be in play, but as summer turns to fall the fish put on the feed bag and all sorts of new opportunities open up.
Oct 6-8 | Douglas Lake, Tennessee
Douglas, the jewel of East Tennessee, is absolutely loaded with bass, and while some may still be holding offshore, by early October huge numbers are headed to the bank. A big topwater or even a swimbait can be competitive with finesse techniques when this bite window opens up.
Oct 12-15 | Guntersville Lake, Alabama (4 Day Event, 4 day entry will be $325)
We conclude the 2023 season with a four-day mega tournament with a return to the Tennessee River, to perhaps America’s greatest and most resilient tournament lake. Year after year, anglers fish Guntersville’s waters obsessively, and the big bass parade never seems to stop. This is where the Alabama Rig got its first major exposure, but as the fall bite heats up anglers will find multiple big fish patterns.
Registration for the 2023 Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s Big Bass Tour will open on Friday December 2nd. Visit www.bigbasstour.com for all details.
What we are Thankful For
This week Chris, Kenneth and David do a quick run down of the 2023 Elite Series Roster, KG's Camera work and then finish off the show talking about the Thanksgiving holiday this week and what they are most thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!!
"Washing Baits" & Making Dreams Come True
This week Chris & The boys welcome in 2022 BASS NATION Champ Will Davis to the show to talk about the grinding road to the BASS Nation Championship and what it took to take home the win and secure a berth in the 2023 Bassmasters Classic!
Can you Hear me Now?
This Week Chris gets a head start on things and welcomes in future MLF Superstar Laker Howell to the program for an impromtu interview. KG and David join in as the boys discuss more MLF Business and try to get Toyota Series Champ Kyle Hall on the show. Try is the optimal word here..... Stay Tuned...
Byrd builds Corollas and custom crankbaits
Courtesy of Alan McGuckin - Dynamic Sponsorships
Mississippi angler Roy Byrd has never painted cars, but he’s had a serious hand in the assembly of thousands of quality Toyota vehicles as a dedicated manufacturing plant employee the past 25 years at Toyota facilities in both Kentucky and now Northern Mississippi.
But when Byrd’s not working for Toyota, he’s either supporting his sons’ sporting events or custom painting crankbaits, like the one his fellow employees Greg Haddix and Kevin Willoughby used to win last year’s Toyota Bonus Bucks Owners event on Table Rock.
Byrd works each day to make sure parts make their way from trusted vendors to the plant, and ultimately on to the assembly line that produces roughly 700 Toyota Corollas a day, thanks to 2,753 American workers at the plant in Blue Springs.
At home however, the assembly line at Byrd Custom Baits typically involves a staff of just three that includes his wife of 23 years, Tonya and their son Mason, who’s as good with an airbrush as dad.
Together, for last month’s Bonus Bucks tournament, they painted 750 identical Byrd Baits so that every single participant received one as a gift in the color “old school shad” to match the winning lure from the previous year’s event, a Byrd 1.5 Deep Diver that reaches depths of 8-feet.
“I joked that we’d never paint another ‘old school shad’ colored bait the rest of our lives after painting all those,” grins Byrd. “But seriously, the satisfaction of seeing the lures we made being gifted to all those Toyota owners at Table Rock was pretty darn special,” says Byrd, who also makes duck and turkey calls.
The 49-year old who grew up in Albany, Kentucky near famed Dale Hollow Reservoir is the product of a family who has hunting and fishing in their DNA, so it’s no surprise Byrd’s made the outdoors a huge part of his life too – including being an officer for bass clubs comprised of Toyota manufacturing plant employees in both Kentucky and Mississippi.
He has no aspirations of turning his paintbrush hobby into a full-fledged business, it’s truly just a hobby, and a way of putting smiles on the faces of a few anglers who pay him to put his custom touch on their favorite baits.
“One of the gentlemen who fished in the Bonus Bucks event at Table Rock last month caught several bass and a walleye on the crankbait we gave everybody as a gift, so he called and asked me to paint him a few more to fish with near home in Alabama. Stories like that are why we do it. It’s mostly for the fun, not the money,” concludes Byrd with a heartfelt smile.
Whether it’s a hands-on role in the quality assembly of 700 Toyota Corollas each day, painting 700 shad colored crankbaits, or just a small handful for a fishing buddy, one thing’s for certain … passion, perfection, and fun are the key ingredients to everything Roy Byrd touches.
To learn more, check them out at Byrd Custom Baits on Facebook, and to sign-up for Toyota Bonus Bucks visit https://www.toyotatrucksbonusbucks.com/.
AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up brought to you by Sportsmans Warehouse - Season 13 Episode 3
This week show features events from The Rodeheaver Boys Ranch charity Tournament, The Sportsmans Dream Event on Chickamauga and more!!
Randy Howell - Kings Home Boat Giveaway!
Courtesy of Randy Howell - Bass Pro Tour Pro
"Business Decisions" with Bobby Lane
This week Chris & The boys welcome in MLF Redcrest Champion Bobby Lane to talk about a recent Business Decision he made along with his family that will put him back in the hunt for the Grandaddy of all Trophies. The Circus broaches a few other topics as well and more! Check it out!
Pro Team Journal Announces Return to Outdoor Channel
Columbia, SC - Nov 1, 2022 – Rather Outdoors is pleased to announce the upcoming season of the award-winning Pro Team Journal will air on Outdoor Channel and World Fishing Network. For the first time since 2019, the shows thirteen episodes will be back on Outdoor Channel bringing to outdoor network television some of the country’s finest anglers revealing what makes them successful on and off the water. Pro Team Journal will be “can’t miss tv” for anglers who are serious about honing their craft.
“We could not be more thrilled about the upcoming season of the Journal,” offered Rather Outdoors CEO Ken Eubanks following the agreement between the legendary fishing company and Outdoor Channel. “Nearly 20 years ago, we set out with one crew member and a handful of pro anglers to put together programming that would blend entertainment and the content to educate sportsmen. Two decades later, the crew is bigger, and the fishing can be tougher, but the vision is the same. We are still driving to make our viewers better anglers.”
“We believe this is an important moment for our sport,” offered Mike Carney of the Outdoor Sportsmen Group, parent company of Outdoor Channel. “When I watch this programming, I want to feel like I am out there on the water with these anglers, and I want them to help me improve when I am out doing what I love. I believe the crew and these talented anglers nailed it with these episodes.”
A number of additional programming expansions are included in the Rather Outdoors – Outdoor Channel partnership. These include:
- Pro Team Journal will include 13 new episodes that will air for 26 weeks on Outdoor Channel from January to June and 26 weeks on World Fishing Network from July to December
- New seasons of Pro Team Journal and Kings of Bass will stream on My Outdoor TV starting in April of 2023
- New seasons of Pro Team Journal will also be available on the KoBTV YouTube Channel starting in April 2023
- Viewers will be able to stream current Pro Team Journal episodes and a new season of Kings of Bass on the KoBTV YouTube channel beginning October 2022
Each episode will reveal how our pros pick apart a fishing spot, choose the approach and develop a pattern. With the best pro staff in the fishing industry, you will be learning from legends in the sport to some of the greatest young talent as well. Tune in to Outdoor Channel in January to learn from the best.
Fried Moon Pies & Keith Combs
This week Chris is on sick leave so the Circus steps in last minute to talk about KG's Birthday, the ABT Championship and Bassmaster Opens Winner and Classic Qualifier, Keith Combs!
AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up brought to you by Sportsmans Warehouse Season 13 Ep. 2
On this weeks Episode, we visit the ever popular Wolfson Children’s Tournament on the St. John River in Florida, We check out the Bassmaster high School finals on our favorite place on earth, Lake Hartwell and Visit Anderson and CB gives us another look " Under the Lid" of his 2022 Ranger Boats 520R
Matt Arey is passionate about pickleball
Courtesy of Alan "Guck" McGuckin - Dynamic Sponsorships
Pickleball, the game that’s a hybrid cross between tennis and badminton, has become the fastest growing sport in America with nearly 5 Million participants – and that includes pro angler Matt Arey, who now plays three to four days a week after taking he and Emily’s young daughters to school.
“I’ve been a competition junkie my entire life. I’ve played competitive baseball, paintball, soccer, and volleyball in the past, and obviously, I compete for a living as a pro angler, but I swear pickleball is the most addictive sport I’ve ever played,” grins the Team Toyota angler.
Arey plays for more than two hours at each session, and says he enjoys morning sessions because it doesn’t take away from time with his family. Certainly, with more than 250 people currently playing in his home county, there’s never a lack of folks to compete with in the sport that was invented near Seattle in 1965.
It’s been less than a year since he first heard of the pickleball through his parents, but no surprise, Arey has quickly achieved success much like his illustrious career as a pro angler that includes $1.5 Million in prize money.
In fact, he recently won the Livermush Classic co-ed team tournament organized by the Pickleball Association of Cleveland County at his local athletic club. For those of you who may not be familiar with livermush, it’s a famous regional food product made of pork in Arey’s home area of Western North Carolina that many folks compare to a sausage patty.
“I’m going to start carrying my rackets and pickleballs on the road with me in case there’s time to play at an Elite Series event, but I’m not real optimistic I’m going to get my roommates Scott Canterbury or Scott Martin to play with me,” he laughs.
Arey actually appeared limping badly on Martin’s highly watched YouTube series earlier this year as a result of a torn calf muscle sustained during pickleball, so dozens of fishing fans have since nicknamed him “Paw Paw” after watching the episode.
Maybe Martin and Canterbury won’t become pickleball players, but given Arey’s passion for the super popular sport, it’s a pretty good bet he’ll find some playing partners amid his travels on next year’s Bassmaster Elite Series that begins in mid-February down in warm and sunny South Florida at Lake Okeechobee.
AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up 2022 is HERE!
The 2022 Season of the AnglersChannel Bass Wrap Up kicks off with the Grandaddy of them all, the Bassmaster Classic, BUT with a behind the scenes viewpoint thanks to our pal Neil Paul with Visit Anderson. Todd Auten takes you for a tour of his Man Cave, we ride along in the Sportsmans Warehouse "Fish with Thrift" Sweepstakes winner and we introduce a new "Under the Lid" segment to showcase some new products. The new Season of ACBW is here, Check it out!
"Dream Maker"
This week Chris and the boys welcome in Bassmaster College Classic Bracket Champ Lou Monetti to talk about Team of the Year, The Bracket and how he overcame a slow morning to take home the trophy and the qualification to the Bassmasters Classic all the while doing it in a 1998 Ranger Sport R72 Bass Boat, a beat up ole girl with some awesome memories. Check it out!
Swindle Says Go Big For Guntersville Giants in BIG BASS TOUR October Event
By Pete Robbins
Lake Guntersville, the gem of Alabama and perhaps the most consistent big bass lake in the country, is in a time of transition said former Bassmaster Angler of the Year Gerald Swindle. Catching fish won’t be a problem for the anglers competing in the upcoming Big Bass Tour event, but sacking one of the giants might be. The coming cooler nighttime temperatures should accelerate the process, and should allow for a lot of different ways to get earn a check – or a boat.
“The wind is starting to break up the mats,” he said. “That should help the frog fishing improve. There’s simply not as much to cover, and frogging is one way to get paid.”
He’d also look to exploit an oversized topwater walking bait on the grass edges and in between the mats. While eelgrass has taken over sections of the lake, he’d focus on areas with hydrilla and milfoil, ideally a mix of the two, which provides the most distinct and gaping canopies. Narrowing it down further, he’d keep his boat between the center of the lake and the BB Comer bridge, a region that he feels has the greatest big fish potential. The key is to find sections that have life. When you hear bluegill popping, or see birds diving, that’s where you want to be. There are vast dead sections – when you get in one, and it doesn’t produce quickly, it's time to pull up stakes and head to somewhere with more bait and more activity. The best mats could be a foot deep or substantially deeper, but they’ll all share the common characteristic of being full of other members of the food chain.
“If you’re just trying to win the boat – and you don’t care as much about the hourly checks – I’d throw a big glide bait, something that represents a gizzard shad. Commit to it. You won’t get many bites during the day, but your chances of catching a really big fish go way up.”
Of course, there are plenty of other solid patterns on this grass-laden and structure-rich impoundment. Swindle said that the heavy line flippers can get their tungsten and creature baitsready and rely upon them all day. It’s a technique that he excels at, but would not necessarily rely upon this week, simply because it’s “tough to target big fish.” For the same reason, he’d avoid smaller crankbaits and vibrating jigs. They’ll produce bass, but it’s hard to ensure that you won’t be sorting through smaller specimens.
As the cooler nights persist, schooling action should start to pick up. Swindle said he’s already seen some of it, but he expects it to intensify in the near term. While these schools will occasionally feature some true big bass candidates, generally they will be full of smaller to midsize specimens. Anglers in search of an hourly prize can have a blast chasing them, but those exclusively focused on making the overall top ten should go with other patterns. “It’s easy to get distracted by them,” he said.
Swindle and his nephew have been jackpotting standalone night tournaments on the Big G in recent months, and he said it has consistently taken about 6 ¾ pounds to win the big fish prize. With the full field at Guntersville, expect it to take a bit more than that. In the history of the BBT there, it has never taken less than 7.37 pounds to win the boat. On the flip side of that, we haven’t seen a 9-pounder since 2015. While 8-pounders show up nearly every year, there will be lots of jockeying at the 7-pound mark to make the top 10. Focus on fish 6 pounds and above to earn the big money, but assume that a 4-pounder can get you something back.
To discover what baits are hot on Guntersville right now, tap this link: https://www.berkley-fishing.com/pages/lake-guntersville
Big Largemouth Lift Lineberger, Lehtonen To Lead At Bassmaster Southern Open On Hartwell
October 6, 2022
ANDERSON, S.C. — It is a battle of the Carolinas at the top of the St. Croix Bassmaster Southern Open at Lake Hartwell presented by Mossy Oak Fishing.
With 17 pounds, 13 ounces, North Carolina pro Shane Lineberger and South Carolina’s Derek Lehtonen are tied for the top spot after one day. The two anglers hold a 1-pound advantage over Michigan boater Jon Jezierski.
On top of having an extensive history on Lake Hartwell, Lineberger said it sets up exactly like his home waters of Lake Norman which has helped him find success. He targeted largemouth, anchoring his bag with a 5-3, although he did weigh one spotted bass.
“I started out throwing some topwater around. I think I’m doing something different than everyone else,” he said. “The fish I am fishing for are a lot less pressured than these brushpile, canepile fish.
“It sets up just like Lake Norman. Everyone is so keyed in on the offshore stuff that they leave the other stuff alone. I hope it stays that way for two more days.”
Lineberger used two primary baits as he ran through several areas. Three of his five bass were caught before 8:30 a.m., and he made several key culls.
“I kind of backed off what I was doing when my small fish was a 2 3/4-pounder,” he explained. “It is kind of pointless to sit here and catch 2 1/2-pounders and throw them back when you are going to need them later in the week. Hopefully, I can get another lucky 5-pounder. If not, we are going down swinging.”
As many of the other boaters in the field are focusing on spotted bass, Lineberger is committed to his largemouth game plan. With the largemouth in their fall feeding phase, he has found his bass are keying in on a particular type of forage.
“I tell everyone, it doesn’t matter where you are at this time of year, the biggest fish in the lake eat bream,” he said. “And that is what I am fishing for, the ones that are up there eating bream. This place is full of fish and one of the best fisheries in the Southeast. This lake patterns so well.”
Lehtonen is also mostly targeting largemouth in an area where he’s found success in the past. Fishing in a crowd, his local knowledge helped him secure a better quality bite while anglers around him struggled.
“It was very slow,” Lehtonen said. “I caught my first fish around 10 a.m. From there I slowly started upgrading. I was targeting brush and hoping for a bite.”
With such a slow start, Lehtonen ventured offshore and fished for spotted bass, one of which made the final tally. He filled his limit around 1 p.m. while his biggest bass, a 5-3 largemouth, came with about 10 minutes to go before check-in.
Similar to Lineberger, two baits produced most of Lehtonen’s weight. While he is tied for the lead, Lehtonen said the lake has turned over and that has made the fishing a lot more difficult than it was even a week ago. Last weekend, he caught just over 17 pounds in a local tournament and that resulted in a ninth-place finish.
“The turnover has ruined it and the drawdown from where they are pulling water,” Lehtonen said. “It has moved these fish big time. They are sucking it out every day. There are less and less filtering in where I am fishing.”
Lehtonen hopes the calm conditions on Day 1 will continue into Day 2, saying cloud cover will hurt his bite even more.
Anchoring his bag with a 6-6 largemouth that earned him the Phoenix Boats Big Bass of the day, Jezierski caught 16-13 to land in third place. After spending most of his practice attempting to fish for spotted bass offshore, he went back to his Michigan roots and targeted largemouth on tournament day.
“I caught one 3-pound largemouth in practice and I told my co-angler we would go for some spots in the morning to get a limit and then target largies later,” he said. “My co-angler told me that the largemouth would probably bite in the morning. So, we went largie fishing.”
Jezierski landed the big bass in the first 30 minutes on a Z-Man Evergreen JackHammer before filling his limit around 10 a.m. and then wrapping up his bag before noon. His final limit had four largemouth and one spot. Fishing around wood, the JackHammer produced big bites, as well as a Berkley Power Hawg flipping bait.
With very little fishing pressure around him, Jezierski feels confident he can catch another limit Friday.
“I found this area last year with a buddy of mine,” he said. “I went back there this year and there was just baitfish everywhere and fish busting. It was just the backend of a creek as far as you can go, and I caught the big one in a foot and a half of water.”
Sakae Ushio leads the co-angler division with 10-0 followed by Clifton Overstreet in second with 9-5 and Thomas Crosswhite in third with 8-13. Overstreet also landed the Big Bass of the day on the co-angler side, a 5-10 largemouth.
With two days left in the Southern Opens season, Arkansas pro Joey Cifuentes leads the Southern Division standings with 556 points while Tennessee pro Brandon Lester is second with 555. California pro Bryant Smith is third with 539, followed by Kayden Tanner with 533 and Cooper Gallant with 521.
Alabama pro Keith Poche remains atop the overall standings with 1,350 points. He is followed by Alabama’s David Gaston in second with 1,280 points and Oklahoma’s John Soukup is third with 1,275.
The full field will launch from Green Pond Landing starting at 7:15 a.m. ET and will return for weigh-in at 3:15 p.m. The co-angler champion will be crowned at the end of Friday’s weigh-in.
The Top 10 boaters after Day 2 will earn a spot on Championship Saturday and compete for a potential berth in the 2023 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic scheduled for March 24-26 in Knoxville, Tenn.
The tournament is being hosted by Visit Anderson.
2022 St. Croix Bassmaster Southern Open #3 Lake Hartwell presented by Mossy Oak Fishing 10/6-10/8
Lake Hartwell, Anderson SC.
(BOATER) Standings Day 1
Angler Hometown No./lbs-oz Pts Total $$$
1. Derek Lehtonen Woodruff, SC 5 17-13 200
Day 1: 5 17-13
1. Shane Lineberger Lincolnton, NC 5 17-13 200
Day 1: 5 17-13
3. Jon Jezierski Troy, MI 5 16-13 198
Day 1: 5 16-13
4. Tyler Williams Belgrade, ME 5 16-07 197
Day 1: 5 16-07
5. Matt Pangrac Bixby, OK 5 16-04 196
Day 1: 5 16-04
6. Tristan McCormick Burns, TN 5 16-02 195
Day 1: 5 16-02
7. Hunter Sales Blaine, TN 5 16-01 194
Day 1: 5 16-01
8. Kayden Tanner Tolar, TX 5 16-00 193
Day 1: 5 16-00
9. Adam Neu Sturgeon Bay, WI 5 15-13 192
Day 1: 5 15-13
9. Blake Sylvester Plaquemine, LA 5 15-13 192
Day 1: 5 15-13
11. Paul Marks Cumming, GA 5 15-07 190
Day 1: 5 15-07
12. David Gaston Sylacauga, AL 5 15-05 189
Day 1: 5 15-05
13. John Garrett Union City, TN 5 15-03 188
Day 1: 5 15-03
14. Lucas Murphy West Columbia, MI 5 14-15 187
Day 1: 5 14-15
15. Bryant Smith Roseville, CA 5 14-11 186
Day 1: 5 14-11
16. Zach Goutremout Chaumont, NY 5 14-09 185
Day 1: 5 14-09
17. Rob Digh Denver, NC 5 14-07 184
Day 1: 5 14-07
17. Tucker Smith Shoal Creek, AL 5 14-07 184
Day 1: 5 14-07
19. Danny Lavoie Franklin, GA 5 14-05 182
Day 1: 5 14-05
19. John Soukup Sapulpa, OK 5 14-05 182
Day 1: 5 14-05
21. Jamie Bruce Kenora Ontario CANADA 5 14-03 180
Day 1: 5 14-03
21. Keith Poche Pike Road, AL 5 14-03 180
Day 1: 5 14-03
23. Joey Nania Cropwell, AL 5 14-02 178
Day 1: 5 14-02
24. Darold Gleason Many, LA 5 13-15 177
Day 1: 5 13-15
25. Joey Cifuentes III Clinton, AR 5 13-14 176
Day 1: 5 13-14
26. Brandon Lester Fayetteville, TN 5 13-12 175
Day 1: 5 13-12
27. Hunter Shryock Ooltewah, TN 5 13-10 174
Day 1: 5 13-10
28. Justin Margraves Diana, TX 5 13-09 173
Day 1: 5 13-09
28. Shannon Poore Walhalla, SC 5 13-09 173
Day 1: 5 13-09
30. Cole Drummond Effingham, SC 5 13-08 171
Day 1: 5 13-08
30. Todd Goade White Pine, TN 5 13-08 171
Day 1: 5 13-08
32. Chris Beaudrie Princeton, KY 5 13-07 169
Day 1: 5 13-07
32. Jacob Walker Springville, AL 5 13-07 169
Day 1: 5 13-07
34. Drew Cook Cairo, GA 5 13-04 167
Day 1: 5 13-04
34. Austin Cranford Moore, OK 5 13-04 167
Day 1: 5 13-04
34. Marshall Harrelson Clarksville, GA 5 13-04 167
Day 1: 5 13-04
34. Logan Parks Auburn, AL 5 13-04 167
Day 1: 5 13-04
34. Jason Williamson Aiken, SC 5 13-04 167
Day 1: 5 13-04
39. Kyle Cortiana Broken Arrow, OK 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
39. Cooper Gallant Bowmanville Ontario CAN 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
39. Joe Mitchell Martin, GA 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
39. Matt Robertson Kuttawa, KY 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
39. Frank Talley Temple, TX 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
39. David Williams Newton, NC 5 13-02 162
Day 1: 5 13-02
45. Kyle Monti Okeechobee, FL 5 12-15 156
Day 1: 5 12-15
46. Jeremy Gordon Rutledge, TN 5 12-14 155
Day 1: 5 12-14
47. Austin Felix Eden Prairie, MN 5 12-12 154
Day 1: 5 12-12
48. Tom Frink Southside, AL 5 12-08 153
Day 1: 5 12-08
48. Logan Shaddix Cummings, GA 5 12-08 153
Day 1: 5 12-08
50. John Hunter Jr Shelbyville, KY 5 12-05 151
Day 1: 5 12-05
50. Dustin Williamson Aiken, SC 5 12-05 151
Day 1: 5 12-05
52. Destin DeMarion Harborcreek, PA 5 12-04 149
Day 1: 5 12-04
52. Danny Ramsey Trinidad, TX 5 12-04 149
Day 1: 5 12-04
54. Jeff Bauler Chapin, SC 5 12-04 147
Day 1: 5 12-04
55. Cole Sands Calhoun , TN 5 12-03 146
Day 1: 5 12-03
56. Logan Johnson Jasper, AL 5 12-01 145
Day 1: 5 12-01
56. Cody Stahl Barnsville, GA 5 12-01 145
Day 1: 5 12-01
58. Matty Wong Honolulu, HI 5 12-00 143
Day 1: 5 12-00
59. Jerry Gallogly Jr North Tazewell, VA 5 11-15 142
Day 1: 5 11-15
60. Dustin Wilkey Durant, OK 5 11-13 141
Day 1: 5 11-13
61. Michael Cooper Mobile, AL 5 11-12 140
Day 1: 5 11-12
62. Ben Stone Iva, SC 5 11-11 139
Day 1: 5 11-11
63. David Kilgore Jasper, AL 5 11-10 138
Day 1: 5 11-10
63. Caleb Sumrall New Iberia, LA 5 11-10 138
Day 1: 5 11-10
65. Zack Birge Blanchard, OK 5 11-09 136
Day 1: 5 11-09
65. Michael Kinard Concord, NC 5 11-09 136
Day 1: 5 11-09
65. Julius Mazy Phoenix, AZ 5 11-09 136
Day 1: 5 11-09
65. Scott Pellegrin Chippewa Falls, WI 5 11-09 136
Day 1: 5 11-09
69. Jake Maddux Birmingham, AL 5 11-07 132
Day 1: 5 11-07
69. Trevor McKinney Benton, IL 5 11-07 132
Day 1: 5 11-07
71. Kyle Austin Ridgeville, SC 5 11-06 130
Day 1: 5 11-06
71. Jon Canada Helena, AL 5 11-06 130
Day 1: 5 11-06
71. JT Thompkins Myrtle Beach, SC 5 11-06 130
Day 1: 5 11-06
74. Cody Hoyle Rutherfordton, NC 5 11-05 127
Day 1: 5 11-05
74. Kyle Patrick Cooperstown, NY 5 11-05 127
Day 1: 5 11-05
76. Chris Blanchette Charleston, SC 5 11-04 125
Day 1: 5 11-04
77. Jacob Bigelow Cecil, WI 5 11-03 124
Day 1: 5 11-03
77. Bailey Boutries Springfield, MO 5 11-03 124
Day 1: 5 11-03
77. Gary Clouse Winchester, TN 5 11-03 124
Day 1: 5 11-03
80. Brandon Ackerson Afton, OK 5 11-02 121
Day 1: 5 11-02
80. Joey Sabbagha Prosperity, SC 5 11-02 121
Day 1: 5 11-02
82. Derek Freeman Anderson, SC 5 11-01 119
Day 1: 5 11-01
82. Allan Nail Sand Springs, OK 5 11-01 119
Day 1: 5 11-01
84. Chris Keeble Lenoir City, TN 5 11-00 117
Day 1: 5 11-00
84. Billy McDonald Greenwood, IN 5 11-00 117
Day 1: 5 11-00
86. Caden Acree Powder Springs, GA 5 10-15 115
Day 1: 5 10-15
86. Brent Crow Hartselle, AL 5 10-15 115
Day 1: 5 10-15
86. Tommy Guthke Townville, SC 5 10-15 115
Day 1: 5 10-15
89. Charlie Hartley Grove City, OH 5 10-13 112
Day 1: 5 10-13
89. Andrew Upshaw Hemphill, TX 5 10-13 112
Day 1: 5 10-13
91. Garrett Paquette Canton, MI 5 10-12 110
Day 1: 5 10-12
92. Lonnie Cochran Section, AL 5 10-11 109
Day 1: 5 10-11
92. Tim Frederick Leesburg, FL 5 10-11 109
Day 1: 5 10-11
92. Keith Nemcek St Charles, IL 5 10-11 109
Day 1: 5 10-11
95. Cameron Smith Wareham, MA 5 10-10 106
Day 1: 5 10-10
96. Denny Fiedler Wabasha, MN 5 10-09 105
Day 1: 5 10-09
96. Darryl Halbert Enoree, SC 5 10-09 105
Day 1: 5 10-09
98. Justin Atkins Florence, AL 5 10-08 103
Day 1: 5 10-08
98. Hugh Cosculluela Spring, TX 5 10-08 103
Day 1: 5 10-08
98. Bryan New Saluda, SC 5 10-08 103
Day 1: 5 10-08
98. Jayme Rampey Liberty, SC 5 10-08 103
Day 1: 5 10-08
102. Robbie Latuso Gonzales, LA 5 10-07 99
Day 1: 5 10-07
103. Wesley Gore Clanton, AL 5 10-05 98
Day 1: 5 10-05
103. Jordan McDonald Jackson, GA 5 10-05 98
Day 1: 5 10-05
105. Jason Borofka Lavon, TX 5 10-05 96
Day 1: 5 10-05
106. Matt Green Cartersville, GA 5 10-04 95
Day 1: 5 10-04
107. Corey Lindsey Marion, OH 5 10-03 94
Day 1: 5 10-03
108. Parker Mott Winter Garden, FL 5 10-02 93
Day 1: 5 10-02
108. Nic Rand Kalamazoo, MI 5 10-02 93
Day 1: 5 10-02
110. Andrew Mlotek Indianapolis, IN 5 10-00 91
Day 1: 5 10-00
111. Bradley Hallman Edmond, OK 5 09-15 90
Day 1: 5 09-15
112. Bradford Beavers Summerville, SC 5 09-14 89
Day 1: 5 09-14
112. Zeke Gossett Pell City, AL 5 09-14 89
Day 1: 5 09-14
112. Chad Smith Minnetonka, MN 5 09-14 89
Day 1: 5 09-14
115. Cody Bertrand Dyer, IN 5 09-12 86
Day 1: 5 09-12
115. Adam Rasmussen Sturgeon Bay, WI 5 09-12 86
Day 1: 5 09-12
115. Trey Swindle Cleveland, AL 5 09-12 86
Day 1: 5 09-12
118. Harvey Horne Bella Vista, AR 5 09-11 83
Day 1: 5 09-11
118. Douglas Reed Bridgeton, NJ 5 09-11 83
Day 1: 5 09-11
118. Blake Smith Lakeland, FL 5 09-11 83
Day 1: 5 09-11
121. Daisuke Kita Ohtsu Shiga JAPAN 5 09-09 80
Day 1: 5 09-09
122. Joel Willert Prior Lake, MN 5 09-06 79
Day 1: 5 09-06
123. Randy Blaukat Springfield, MO 5 09-05 78
Day 1: 5 09-05
123. Tommy Williams Shepherdsville, KY 5 09-05 78
Day 1: 5 09-05
125. D.J. Ellis Crestview, FL 5 09-04 76
Day 1: 5 09-04
125. Brad Leuthner Independence, MN 5 09-04 76
Day 1: 5 09-04
125. Colby Robertson Summerfield, FL 5 09-04 76
Day 1: 5 09-04
128. Stacey James Campobello, SC 5 09-03 73
Day 1: 5 09-03
128. Chancy Walters West Des Moines, IA 5 09-03 73
Day 1: 5 09-03
130. Ben Ballou Dickson, TN 5 09-03 71
Day 1: 5 09-03
131. Todd Harris Lexington, NC 5 09-02 70
Day 1: 5 09-02
132. Scott Allgood Fair Play, SC 5 09-01 69
Day 1: 5 09-01
132. Jacob Foutz Charleston, TN 5 09-01 69
Day 1: 5 09-01
134. David Perdue Wirtz, VA 5 09-00 67
Day 1: 5 09-00
135. Brian Post Janesville, WI 5 08-14 66
Day 1: 5 08-14
135. Carl Whitfield Anderson, SC 5 08-14 66
Day 1: 5 08-14
137. Griffin Heffington Cumming, GA 5 08-13 64
Day 1: 5 08-13
138. Joe McClosky Swanton, MD 5 08-12 63
Day 1: 5 08-12
138. Bryden Mugleston Mount Juliet, TN 5 08-12 63
Day 1: 5 08-12
140. Matt Mollohan Batesburg, SC 5 08-11 61
Day 1: 5 08-11
141. Jeff Fellows Orlando, FL 4 08-10 60
Day 1: 4 08-10
142. Jim Dillard West Monroe, LA 5 08-09 59
Day 1: 5 08-09
143. Jason Casteel Ocoee, FL 4 08-09 58
Day 1: 4 08-09
144. Lucas Bradley Flippin, AR 3 08-09 57
Day 1: 3 08-09
145. Kenta Kimura Osaka JAPAN 5 08-07 56
Day 1: 5 08-07
145. Bart Stanisz Wichita Falls , TX 5 08-07 56
Day 1: 5 08-07
147. Rodney Jones Anderson, SC 5 08-06 54
Day 1: 5 08-06
147. Gerald Swindle Guntersville, AL 5 08-06 54
Day 1: 5 08-06
149. Kibbee Mccoy Knoxville, TN 5 08-05 52
Day 1: 5 08-05
150. Noah Boyett Mountain Home, AR 5 08-03 51
Day 1: 5 08-03
150. T-Roy Broussard Port Arthur, TX 5 08-03 51
Day 1: 5 08-03
150. Ron Ryals Jr Live Oak, FL 5 08-03 51
Day 1: 5 08-03
150. Dave Turner Crystal River, FL 5 08-03 51
Day 1: 5 08-03
154. Allen Brooks Canton, GA 5 08-02 47
Day 1: 5 08-02
155. Chris Neau Gretna, LA 5 07-15 46
Day 1: 5 07-15
155. Brady Vernon Birmingham, AL 5 07-15 46
Day 1: 5 07-15
157. Carter McNeil Abbeville, SC 4 07-15 44
Day 1: 4 07-15
158. Drew Coker Murrayville, GA 5 07-14 43
Day 1: 5 07-14
158. Aaron Digh Denver, NC 5 07-14 43
Day 1: 5 07-14
160. Randy Elliott Severn, MD 5 07-13 41
Day 1: 5 07-13
160. Hermilo Salgado-Zavaleta Artemus, KY 5 07-13 41
Day 1: 5 07-13
162. Jacob Moore Wake Forest, NC 4 07-13 39
Day 1: 4 07-13
163. Daniel Smith Blountsville, AL 4 07-12 38
Day 1: 4 07-12
164. Teb Jones Yalaha, MS 5 07-10 37
Day 1: 5 07-10
165. Tim Malone Kodak, TN 5 07-07 36
Day 1: 5 07-07
165. James Meers Rome, GA 5 07-07 36
Day 1: 5 07-07
167. Brandon Edel White House, TN 5 07-00 34
Day 1: 5 07-00
168. Seiji Kato Outsu Shiga JAPAN 5 06-10 33
Day 1: 5 06-10
169. Garrett Rocamora Lithia, FL 5 06-08 32
Day 1: 5 06-08
169. Sean Torgrude Jacksonville, FL 5 06-08 32
Day 1: 5 06-08
171. Connor Neal Hoover, AL 5 06-04 30
Day 1: 5 06-04
172. Bailey Fain Lenoir City, TN 5 06-02 29
Day 1: 5 06-02
173. Hayden Newberry Jonesboro, IL 5 06-00 28
Day 1: 5 06-00
174. Dan Geurtsen Fletcher, NC 4 05-12 27
Day 1: 4 05-12
175. Greg Secord Salem, SC 4 05-11 26
Day 1: 4 05-11
176. Wayman Coleman Abbeville, SC 5 05-00 25
Day 1: 5 05-00
177. Johnny Bigger II Spring Hill, FL 3 04-13 24
Day 1: 3 04-13
178. Gary Ginter Bellefontaine, OH 5 04-09 23
Day 1: 5 04-09
179. Randall Carter Maplesville, AL 3 04-06 22
Day 1: 3 04-06
180. Michael Harter Westminster, SC 3 04-00 21
Day 1: 3 04-00
181. Ronnie Mccoy Lamar, SC 2 03-14 20
Day 1: 2 03-14
182. Todd Auten Lake Wylie, SC 3 03-06 19
Day 1: 3 03-06
183. Craig Cavanna Spring Hill, FL 2 03-05 18
Day 1: 2 03-05
184. Michael Hall Annandale, VA 3 03-04 17
Day 1: 3 03-04
185. Chris Kingree Inverness, FL 2 02-00 16
Day 1: 2 02-00
186. Frank Ramsey Spring Grove, IL 5 01-05 15
Day 1: 5 01-05
187. Tony Dumitras Winston, GA 0 00-00 0
Day 1: 0 00-00
The coasts are places we ALL love to explore and PROTECT - especially in Florida, where Costa calls home.
Courtesy of Costa Del Mar
One week ago today, Hurricane Ian made landfall on Sept. 28, causing catastrophic damage to Fort Myers, Naples and surrounding areas in Southwest Florida (photos here). Even though we were preparing and closely monitoring the storm with our local Costa team and cause partners across the Keys and Florida, the aftermath is far worse than we imagined, and these communities are suffering a devastating loss.
As #OneCoast, we will rebuild and restore these areas that have been drastically impacted by Hurricane Ian. We’re proud to be a part of an industry, where we’ve seen countless brands, organizations and individuals step up to provide as much help as possible.
If you’d like to join Costa in our efforts, here are five ways you can directly help those in need.
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Contribute to Captains for Clean Water: Hurricane Ian Relief Fund on the front lines.
Our friends at Captains for Clean Water have been boots on the ground from the get-go. Despite the loss of the CFCW office and many members’ homes, these captains and guides have been working around the clock - navigating the waters for rescue missions, setting up drop-off locations in Eastern Florida, and getting locals the supplies they need.
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Donate to WARF (Worldwide Anglers Relief Fund) to support local captains, guides, crews + outfitters.
Professional, recreational angling is often the cornerstone of coastal economies, and the ability for these small businesses to get back on their feet after natural disasters like Ian, is critical. The IGFA (International Game Fish Association) and Costa Sunglasses created WARF in 2017 to provide financial aid to local charter captains, guides, and outfitters in the wake of major natural disasters. To date, the WARF has distributed a total of $225,000 to recreational angling associations. Learn more here.
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Place a bid or host an auction using #FliesforIan on Instagram.
What started as one Instagram auction by Josh Mills to raise funds for those impacted by Hurricane Ian, #FliesforIan has quickly gained momentum across the industry with auctions for guided trips, fishing gear and more. Already raising close to $50,000 in just five days, all proceeds from #FliesforIan auction will directly benefit IGFA + Costa’s WARF fund. Visit Mills’ Instagram page, @millsfly to get involved.
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Purchase Costa’s #OneCoast apparel, with 100% of proceeds going directly to relief efforts.
Established by Costa Sunglasses in 2017, after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria ravaged our coasts, #OneCoast continues to provide relief to those affected by natural disasters through the purchase of OneCoast apparel, direct donations and volunteering. Shop the collection here.
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Spread the word by posting and sharing on your social channels.
Join @CostaSunglasses’ #OneCoast mission by posting and sharing your stories to support those in need. Together we can make a difference.
Humminbird Clearing the Path for Unrivaled Mapping with All-New LakeMaster Charts
Humminbird releases an upgraded premium mapping solution in Humminbird LakeMaster VX to help anglers understand what is under the water’s surface better than ever before.
RACINE, Wis. (Oct 3, 2022) – For decades, Humminbird LakeMaster® has led the charge with the most accurate and advanced mapping available for anglers. Now, LakeMaster is taking it to an entirely new level with the introduction of Humminbird LakeMaster maps with VX Technology.
The LakeMaster name has been praised among anglers for having the highest quality mapping for fishing, often collected by a team of GIS analyst cartographers. Now with VX Technology, LakeMaster maps are packed with more information than ever before, including five new customizable color palettes, exceptional map performance, and a powerful combination of features.
The new LakeMaster lineup maintains the same regions as the current lineup, but with two options per region: LakeMaster and LakeMaster Premium. Both products now include SmartStrike technology as a feature, allowing anglers to enter search parameters like season, time of day, temperature and targeted fish species to create a custom chart that highlights areas of the map where fish are most likely to be biting. LakeMaster and LakeMaster Premium also include customizable Chart Presets, four Depth Highlights with customizable colors, Shallow Water Highlight, Water Level Offset, and One-Boat Network capability. And for an added advantage, LakeMaster Premium includes two additional features: 2D Shaded Relief and Aerial Imagery.
“Anglers trust Humminbird LakeMaster to help them identify high-percentage areas to catch fish.” said Kyle Gilbert, Associate Brand Manager of Humminbird. “Now with VX Technology, the new Humminbird LakeMaster maps are packed with features designed to provide the angler with every advantage possible.”
LakeMaster has been the go-to road map for anglers, and compared to the competition, what you see on the map is actually on the lake bottom. With the introduction of LakeMaster with VX Technology, Humminbird LakeMaster solidifies its place as the most accurate and detailed fishing map on the market.
Humminbird LakeMaster Premium
- VX Technology – Provides exceptional map performance and customizable color palettes.
- SmartStrike – Highlights areas of the lake map where fish are most likely biting. (*Select HD Lakes Only)
- Chart Presets – Simple and easy to change between your own custom view settings.
- Depth Highlight – Highlight up to four depth ranges with customizable colors so you can target productive water and stay where the fish are.
- Shallow Water Highlight – Easy-to-see red shading highlights shallow water areas on an adjustable range from 0 to 60 feet.
- Water Level Offset – Synchronize the depth contours and shorelines of your LakeMaster charts with the actual water levels of lakes, reservoirs and rivers.
- One-Boat Network – Connects your Humminbird LakeMaster chart and Minn Kota trolling motor, allowing your boat to automatically follow a depth contour line.
- 2D Shaded Relief – Quickly identify fish holding areas with 2D shaded relief, which make bottom detail and depth changes easy to spot.
- Aerial Imagery – Navigate confidently and find new fishing spots with the help of enhanced aerial imagery.
- MSRP: $199.99
Humminbird LakeMaster
- VX Technology – Provides exceptional map performance and customizable color palettes.
- SmartStrike – Highlights areas of the lake map where fish are most likely biting. (*Select HD Lakes Only)
- Chart Presets – Simple and easy to change between your own custom view settings.
- Depth Highlight – Highlight a selected depth range so you can target productive water and stay where the fish are.
- Shallow Water Highlight – Easy-to-see red shading highlights shallow water areas on an adjustable range from 0 to 60 feet.
- Water Level Offset – Synchronize the depth contours and shorelines of your LakeMaster charts with the actual water levels of lakes, reservoirs and rivers.
- One-Boat Network – Connects your Humminbird LakeMaster chart and Minn Kota trolling motor, allowing your boat to automatically follow a depth contour line.
- MSRP: $149.99
Available: October 2022
To learn more about the advantages of Humminbird LakeMaster mapping, click here.
BASS FISHING HALL OF FAME SET TO HONOR 2022 INDUCTEES, OFFER EXCITING ONLINE AUCTION DURING ‘CELEBRATE BASS FISHING WEEK’
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – For Immediate Release – September 28, 2022 – ‘Celebrate Bass Fishing Week’ kicks off on Monday, Oct. 3 with the start of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame’s annual online auction - https://one.bidpal.net/bassfishinghof22/browse/all - all leading up to induction of the 2022 class at the Hall’s annual plaque unveiling ceremony and dinner gala at the Wonders of Wildlife Museum & Aquarium on Oct. 6.
“This is the one night of the year when everyone in the bass fishing world gathers to celebrate our sport,” said Bass Fishing Hall of Fame Board president John Mazurkiewicz. “There’s a great deal of excitement over the exceptional support we’ve received for our online auction, and the induction dinner is on track to have its largest number of attendees in our history.”
To provide financial assistance to the Hall’s mission of celebrating, promoting and preserving the sport of bass fishing, the online auction (and live auction during the induction dinner with 2018 HOF inductee Kevin VanDam serving at auctioneer), will include a large selection of bucket list trips with Hall of Fame inductees, plenty of other fishing and hunting experiences, unique fishing art items and memorabilia, tournament jerseys from leading professional bass anglers, fishing tackle, and much more. Here’s just a short list of some of the major items up for bid:
- Bass fishing trip in Tennessee with Bill Dance
- Original artwork featuring Hall of Famer’s Ray Scott and Aaron Martens
- Fishing trips with leading pro anglers including Skeet Reese, Johnathon VanDam, Edwin Evers, Jason Christie, Bobby Lane, Randy Howell, Tako Ito, and Hall of Famers Denny Brauer and Larry Nixon
- Guitar signed by country music star Luke Bryan & Bill Dance
- Grenada Lake (MS) guided crappie trip for 2
- Rods, reels and lures from leading brands including Daiwa, Strike King, Lew’s, PRADCO, Rapala, Big Bite Baits, SPRO, Sunline, Gamakatsu, St. Croix, Shimano, Duckett Fishing, and more
- Technical fishing clothing from AFTCO, Simms, HUK, and Marsh Wear
- Handmade custom swimbaits and glide baits, some valued at up to $1,200
- Fishing adventures for redfish on the Mississippi River Delta, big bass action at Grosse Savanne Resort in Louisiana, and crappie fishing with ‘Mr. Crappie’ Wally Marshall.
The online auction can be accessed by bass fishing enthusiasts throughout the U.S. and Canada on their smartphones, tablets and computers.
The Bass Fishing Hall of Fame wishes to acknowledge the financial support provided by presenting sponsors B.A.S.S., Major League Fishing, Phoenix Boats; gold sponsors PRADCO Outdoor Brands, Wired2fish, and Bass Pro Shops/Cabela’s; silver sponsors AFTCO, Daiwa, Rapala, Rather Outdoors, Shimano; and bronze sponsors In-Fisherman, St. Croix, Simms Fishing, Bass Fishing Archives, Costa Compete & Conserve.
Catching up and moving forward
This week Chris & the boys welcome in Elite Series Toyota Pro Darold Gleason to talk about the upcoming Toyota Trucks Bonus Bucks Owners Tournament coming up in October. CB brings some Lithium vs Mercury news, they recap the Duckett Interview and Chris has a few words for those who think they can do his job better than him...... Short, fun show. Enjoy.
AC Insider Podcast - The Duckett Interview
In this special episode, Chris & the boys have the opportunity to sit down with Major League Fishing's President and CEO Boyd Duckett to talk about the new MLF Invitationals, removing the Pro Circuit and why, answering some listener questions along with some tough questions about the MLF Bass Pro Tour and more. If you want answers to some of the most recent questions about MLF, this should help clear some of those up.
AC Insider Podcast - "An Incredible Inspiration"
This week Chris & the boys are back, and excited to welcome back to the show your latest Toyota Series CHAMP, Arkansas' Hunter Baughman. Hunter has an incredible story to go along with being an incredible young man, husband and father. This one is worth the listen.
