Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2015 i Bassmaster

Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) electrofishing in spring 2014 showed a high number of largemouth and spotted bass in the 12- to 14-inch range following a $4 million National Fish Habitat Initiative that placed 2,024 fish-habitat structures in Table Rock Lake from 2007 to 2013. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Fisheries Bureau launched an interactive map with info about fishing regulations at www.mdwfp.com/fishing-boating.…

Some friends went fishing this spring on a roughly 1,000-acre lake that had risen significantly after persistent rainfall. The high water flooded shoreline areas and put water into places it usually isn’t, including trees, bushes and other terrestrial vegetation. Our bassin’ buddies targeted the outside edge of the newly flooded areas because it was nearly impossible to get a lure any deeper into the flooded cover. They caught a few fish, including one largemouth that weighed about 5 pounds. But with the water temperature at 60 degrees, the anglers expected even better results, especially after seeing several bass do something neither of them had ever witnessed. Deep in the flooded cover, bass started leaping out of the water and tail-walking beneath the thick brush before dropping back into the water…

Commercial fisherman Garry Warrick hauls in thousands of pounds of fish a year, so it’s not abnormal to see some unusual fish from time to time. But even a seasoned angler like Warrick had to take notice when he hauled in a herring with two mouths earlier this year. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., Warrick caught the bizarre fish in southern Australia’s Lake Bonney. The deformity is likely the result of diprosopus, a congenital defect that causes facial features to be duplicated.…

Congratulations to the newest members of the Bassmaster Lunker Club™. Membership in the club is free and open to any B.A.S.S. member who catches a largemouth bass weighing 10 pounds or more or a smallmouth bass weighing 6 pounds or more, from Jan. 1, 2014, to the present. New Lunker Club members will receive an official certificate with holder and a Minn Kota hat. Jackson Bean Texas 12-0 Camelot Bell, Texas ◆ Jig (black/blue) ◆ Water clarity: stained, murky ◆ Depth: 8 feet ◆ Weather: overcast Kyle Acton Oklahoma 10-14Okmulgee lake, Oklahoma 4-inch Havoc swimbait on swing head jig (white) Thomas R. Wallace Georgia 11-1 Private pond, Georgia Envision Lure spinnerbait (chartreuse flash) Jeffrey Kettel Pennsylvania 7-0 St. Lawrence River, New York Rapala X-Rap (black and silver) Logan Parks…

In an uber-cool move this past March, B.A.S.S. added yet another dimension to inspire young anglers: the Bassmaster High School All-American Fishing Team I PLAYED HIGH school football. Wait, scratch that. It’s more accurate to simply say that I was on my high school football team. I weighed 115 pounds only after a very big lunch and stood squarely between 5 feet, 4 inches and 5 feet, 5 inches. Most of our cheerleaders had better stats than this. Klein High School was a 5A athletic powerhouse outside of Houston, Texas, that culled guys twice my size. So, I was somewhat genetically disinclined to actually play the game. Still, it was important for me to represent the Bearkats in some way. If only they would have had a fishing team. Once…

Homemade Lures Still Matter. Chalk one up for the tinkerers and piddlers who spend an inordinate amount of time modifying and creating lures in garages, workshops and basements across the land. Casey Ashley won the Classic on a handcrafted fish-head spin that his dad built. Don’t Mess With The Confetti Cannon Operator. Watching the final Classic weigh-in on the floor of Greenville’s Bon Secours Wellness Arena, we were standing a few feet from the man responsible for showering confetti on Ashley. The confetti man didn’t seem to like that we were standing as close as we were to his compressed-air-powered cannon, and he wasn’t keen on our confetti jokes, either. Single-Digit Temperatures And Bass Tournaments Don’t Mix. You bundle up in so many clothing layers that you feel like the…

While this idea might have come in handy for the anglers fishing the 2015 Bassmaster Classic on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell, it sure isn’t safe! A Serbian angler, Jovan Stojanovic, found a unique but somewhat dangerous method of staying warm while fishing in the winter. He strapped a stove to his back, lit a fire, placed a piece of cardboard between the stove and his back, and presto, “There is no winter for you.” Check out the video on YouTube by searching “Jovan Stojanovic fishing with stove.” Our favorite part is the caption: “How to catch fish like professional on winter.”…

The Bassmaster Elite Series sets up shop here this month, and although this city lies squarely in the desert, Lake Havasu provides an angling oasis. 12 Years since the last Bassmaster visit to Lake Havasu. 5-10 Weight (pounds and ounces) of the Arizona state record smallmouth bass for Colorado River waters — a fish pulled from Lake Havasu in 2011. 22-10 Winning weight (pounds and ounces) in the 2003 Bassmaster Western Open, the last B.A.S.S. event held on Lake Havasu. Top 20 Lake Havasu, a 19,300-acre Colorado River impoundment, was ranked 20th in Bassmaster’s Top 100 bass lakes last year. The Arizona Game and Fish Department reports bass fishing has steadily improved in recent years, with “tournament anglers … regularly weighing in bags of five fish that weigh over 20…

WHEN YOU PIERCE matted grass with a heavy tungsten weight and a Texas rigged bait, you sucker punch any bass lounging beneath the canopy. The bait must slip quickly through the mat because the sudden intrusion often sparks a reflex strike from an unsuspecting bass. To achieve this end, there are a host of soft plastic baits that slither through dense grass and show bass a tempting morsel. Here, 10 Elite Series pros reveal their favorite sucker punch bait. CASEY ASHLEY, ZOOM ULTRA VIBE SPEED CRAW The 3-inch Ultra Vibe Speed Craw tempts bites from heavy bass when South Carolinian Casey Ashley punches grass. The pincers on this bait have an aggressive action, but the compact size is even more important to Ashley. “The legs and pincers fold together, so…

Pickwick Lake, Tennessee — Look for postspawn bass on offshore flats or mussel shellbeds, particularly those near abrupt bottom depth changes and where current is moving. Fish a Fish Head Spin lure with a NetBait Spanky swimbait trailer (silver shad color) close to the bottom. Lake St. Clair, Michigan — Drift or slow troll across protected flats that have a gravel/rock bottom, and fan-cast a NetBait Mini Kickin B (green pumpkin) rigged on a 1/4-ounce NetBait HBT Shaky Head jighead. Also look for nests where small-mouth are spawning, and sight fish these nests with the same lure. Potomac River, Maryland — Fish the mouths of creeks, ditches and marsh drains when the tide is falling. Concentrate on eddies and current breaks, and especially on grass patches. Swim a jig with…

Gary Giudice spent more than two years sketching out designs and talking to experts to create the perfect pond boat. GARY GIUDICE REFUSED to accept what the boat market had to offer when he began looking for a johnboat to fish his 15-acre neighborhood pond. So, he decided to create his own. Now, this sounds a little bizarre coming from a guy who already owns a decked-out Ranger bass boat for his forays to local reservoirs and a nifty Triton Bay boat for fishing coastal waters. “They’re both great boats for the type of fishing [for] which they were designed,” says Giudice, owner of Blue Heron Communications in Norman, Okla. “But they are too big for my little pond, where I spend most of my time fishing.” To fish it…

Bobby Lane Birthday: March 6, 1974 Hometown: Lakeland, Fla. Your brother Chris won the first Elite Series event at the Sabine River, and you didn’t do so well. So, what’s it like being Chris Lane’s brother? Great question. (Laughs.) It’s wonderful being Chris Lane’s brother. I was watching BASSTrakk in my room Sunday morning, and with what he was going into on the final day, I was stir crazy. It was humbling for me to zero on the first day. Watching Chris win and me be dead last, it was insane. What’s it like being one of two sets of brothers competing against each other and the rest of the competition at the top level of a sport? That’s a tough question for either of us to answer. We both…

Government entities — federal, state and municipal — control fishing and protect aquatic resources through laws and regulations. And while we certainly agree that fisheries deserve protection, we’re scratching our heads over these unusual statutes uncovered by Daniel Xu of www.outdoorhub.com. Pajama Prohibition. Don’t fish in your pajamas in Chicago — the Windy City has an ordinance against it. We don’t know anyone who fishes in PJs, but when running late for a tournament, all bets are off. This law should apply to yoga pants, too. No Senkos In The Cemetery. Technically, all fishing gear is prohibited at cemeteries in Muncie, Ind. But what if there’s a good lake or pond among the tombstones, or a relative of a deceased angler was celebrating Mexico’s Day of the Dead by placing…

@jabeziv 6lb or 8lb fluoro for shaky head if you have to go there? @CAshleyFishing I use 8 pretty much all the time. @CLEMSONFISHER Do you fish with tungsten or lead jigs? @CAshleyFishing I use lead. They’re a lot cheaper. I lose a lot of them! I use tungsten weights but not tungsten jigs. @drumclog Costa sunglasses. Favorite frames and lens color? Why? @CAshleyFishing My favorite frames would be Fantails. I wear copper lenses bc I’m colorblind and it helps me see the fish. @slumpgumpy What kind of equipment do you throw underspins on? @CAshleyFishing Baitcast. 7-0 medium rod and a 6:1 gear ratio reel, something not super slow, not super fast. @kylegreen111 How do you get more consistent bites while using a football jig with a plastic crawfish trailer?…

Many anglers have stories of strange things they’ve caught while fishing, and an Australian angler recently made news by catching a rare World War I-era German grenade. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the fisherman, who wasn’t named in the story, was plying the waters of the Swan River when he hauled in the explosive device, which military armament experts later identified as a German wurfgranate, a rare World War I relic that was used from 1915 to 1918. Authorities speculated that an Australian veteran brought the unexploded grenade home after serving in Europe. Although the device lacked a detonation fuse, officials cordoned off the jetty where the angler snagged the grenade but later reopened it to anglers. An Australian navy unit hauled off the grenade for disposal.…

May is here with all the great things it usually brings: warmth, consistent weather and solid bass fishing. May just might be the most versatile month for bass on the entire calendar. There are lots of ways to catch them. Today our experts are on a clear, highland reservoir with water temperatures in the low to mid-70s. It’s sunny and bright. The fish are almost exclusively postspawn, but they’ve yet to set up in their summertime patterns. The lake has a mix of largemouth, smallmouth and even some spotted bass, and there’s plenty to eat, including threadfin and gizzard shad, crawfish and panfish. For this exercise, we’ve assembled a star-studded trio from the Bassmaster Elite Series.…

“Never underestimate the degree to which senators and representatives are responsive to their constituents.” WHAT DO YOU feel most passionate about? Religion? Your favorite college football team? Your boat brand? Whatever topic stirs the most intense feelings of concern and loyalty, I’d like you to channel those emotions into a couple of seemingly ho-hum issues that have huge implications for our sport. The easy one first: The Sport Fish Restoration Act (SFRA), often known as the “Wallop-Breaux Fund,” is one of the most important pieces of legislation ever for the benefit of recreational fishing. It’s a user-pays/user-benefits excise tax that Mike Leonard, ocean resource policy director for the American Sportfishing Association (ASA), says is representative of the “North American model of conservation funding.” That is, sportsmen support conservation programs by…