Welcome to the BassBlaster, your daily email about all things bassin’. Hey – take a sec to forward this Blaster to a bassin’ bud! Click here to forward to a bud(s)
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Today’s Top 3
First, on a serious note, if anyone knows of any bass anglers or families of bass anglers affected in OK, please let me know.
1. 8.45-lb Sturgeon Bay smallie!
Got a bunch o’ emails about this derby and this fish (tx for sending folks). Here’s the fish and some deets:
WI angler Tim Schneider, 8.45-lb smallie, Sturgeon Bay Open, biggest fished weighed in the 23-year history of that derby. Bass actually caught in Green Bay on a rocky flat in 2-4′. Used a tube fished on a Shimano Crucial X72M spinning rod with a Stradic 3000 spinning reel.
Two-day derby won by two Missouri guys (?!) with 67.13. Sounds frickin’ awesome.
2. Youngster wins CA Delta derby from 10′ boat!
This is great!
> …only the 3rd year Jeremy Choffel has been participating in competitive bass fishing…. A little over 2 years ago, one late spring afternoon as the Future Pro Tour crew was preparing for a Lake McClure weigh-in, there he was…sitting on a rocky bank, dime-store rod in hand…asking: “What’s going on – what are you guys setting up for?â€
> Surprisingly showed up to participate at the very next FPT event – with an 8-foot rubber raft with 4hp engine, all stuffed in the back of his small pickup truck.
> The following year Jeremy made the decision to upgrade [to] a 10-foot no-name aluminum boat loaded with so much gear one could not see even one square inch of the floor. He and his partner finished several times in the top 10, and won the Angler of the year in the FPT’s small boat division.
> This year Jeremy and new partner Jay Fieber are on a roll, capturing a 2nd place finish in last month’s event on Lake McClure, and simply crushing a field of nearly 50 teams with a dominating performance in last weekend’s event on the California delta – competing in the big boat division.
> In last Saturday’s win over a field of tough competitors, they fished less than half a mile away from the launch ramp to bag an impressive 23.97 pound 5-fish limit….
Check out that boat!
3. Big largemouth…will eat ducklings, frogs and an occasional squirrel.
– Writer from NH. Squirrel?? Is that the rarely seen spotted owl bass??
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Didja check out the awesome StrikeBack spinnerbait yet?
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News
1. Xcite gets into hard baits.
> The first lure in the series will be the Xcite XB-1, a squarebill crankbait. Its most innovative feature is a weight transfer system utilizing a tungsten ball bearing…casts like a rocket.
> “The XB-1’s weight transfer system will separate it from the rest of the field,†said Xcite pro-staffer and Elite Series pro Grant Goldbeck. “With a lot of the smaller baits you give up accuracy when you’re casting in tight quarters…. This one goes straight like an arrow. You can roll cast it and lay it in softly, even from a distance, which allows you to stay back off the cover….”
> Goldbeck worked closely with Xcite’s designers on a palette of 14 color schemes that cover all possible water clarities and forage possibilities. Eleven of the patterns were developed with the assistance of renowned painter Custom Lures Unlimited.
2. TN: 25-lb limit on the Chick.
One of the hottest big-fish lakes this spring has cooled off some, but a 25-lb limit ain’t bad!
3. MI: Smallies are getting fatter.
> “The comparison of weight to a given length — basically, how fat a fish is — is up. We suspect it has to do with changes in the diet and presence of gobies.”
4. CA: New Melones down 18′ in 30 days.
Not good for the spawn?
5. UT: ‘Big’ Flaming Gorge smallies are small?
> Two of the bass netted today were larger females (~1.5 lbs) and were bulging with eggs in preparation for the spawn.
Whoop-dee-doo….
6. TX: Record 14′ gator killed on Choke Canyon.
800 lbs of Zodiac-unfriendly gator!
7. Here’s the mount of that AL record striper.
Look at that thing! Weighed 69-09.
8. Top Hooker: Dumbest TV “fishing” show yet?
> The provocatively titled show, sure to lure channel surfers, will have anglers capturing fish using only their mouths, zipline fishing and catching fish that are nearly invisible to the naked eye.
Genius!
Not.
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Tip of the Day
Peter T: Post-spawn C-riggin’.
> He favors rigging on flats with scattered stumps, grass or small rockpiles. “The fish are loose and roaming a lot then,” he says. “They’re not necessarily on the bank and not necessarily off of it either. So it’s one of those things that when you’re fishing it along you can hit stuff that you can’t see, which is the kind of stuff postspawn fish gravitate toward.”
> BThliveros positions his boat parallel to the bank and fancasts the structure. “Boat positioning is not critical as long as you maintain the right water depth.” He drags his rig from 2 to 10 feet deep throughout the postspawn, but most of his strikes occur in the 6- to 8-foot range.
> A 6-inch Zoom plastic lizard and Zoom Ol’ Monster plastic worm in green pumpkin, watermelon and watermelon/red flake hues are Thliveros’ favorite lures for rigging. “I like lures that present a pretty good profile.” Sometimes he throws an 8-inch Zoom lizard when he needs to catch a kicker fish.
> The components of Thliveros’ rig include a 5/8-ounce mojo-style tungsten sinker followed by a bead (to create noise and protect his knot) and a swivel on a main line of 17-pound fluorocarbon.
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Quote of the Day
As I was running down the lake, a vintage WWII Japanese zero came up from behind and buzzed us at about 30′.
– Part of the bass fishin’ experience at Lake Tawakoni, TX, which is near an air museum.
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Shot of the Day
Looks like we don’t have the market cornered on bee-yootiful gals who catch basses. Here’s a recent shot from Japan:
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