Monthly Archives: June 2013

Advanced Bass Tactics, Bass Basics, Bass Boat Corner, Multimedia, Tips and Techniques

Learning to setup your electronics

Whether we are talking GPS, sonar, depth finders, fish finders or whatever you want to call them, this is a great time of year to learn a few things on how to set them up and get the most out of your electronics.  Let’s face it, today’s modern GPS units have come along ways since the first basic LCD Fish Finders hit the market years ago.

I am no expert on today’s modern electronics, but I make an effort to learn as much as I can, and I find a great way to learn is to check out tutorial videos on YouTube.  Manufacturers like Humminbird, Lowrance & Garmin make some good videos, but there is also some great stuff put out there by Pro Staffers and general users.

Here are a couple of my favorites, if you have some good ones or find some good ones, post a link in the comments below!

Super neat trick to better understand side imaging whether is Lowrance or Humminbird

This one shows common images & tell you what they are for a Humminbird Side Imaging unit

This video does a good job of showing an advanced technique of catching drop shot fish using a Lowrance HDS Fish Finder

Doesn’t hurt this guy had super sweet Dobyns Rods to feel those smallies either!

Hope a few of these videos and others that you search on YouTube help you find and catch more bass!  There are a ton more videos on how to setup sonar, mapping, updating software, managing waypoints and the list goes on and on….

When you’re in the fishing business, you already know how important it
is to always be prepared with all the tools that you need to do the job.
You’re well aware of how important safety is on the job. You know that a
hard day’s work should be rewarded with a nice profitable catch, not a
stay at the hospital – or worse.

And this is exactly why you should never settle for less than the
absolute first class when it comes to outfitting your boat with all of
the marine hardware supplies that you need. Because when it comes to
dangerous fishing and trawling work, lives are always on the line.
Anything less than top notch equipment simply won’t finish the job, and
may even be putting lives at risk.

Luckily, you never have to settle for second or third rate equipment
when it comes to stocking up your vessel with hardware supplies. A quick
browse through any major search engine on the internet will turn up
hundreds, if not thousands, of top notch equipment manufacturers and
suppliers.

One of the industry’s chief hardware suppliers is Alario Brothers. This
family owned company has been on the scene for many years now, and is
considered by many to be the top rated supplier of nautical hardware
currently operating on the modern international market place.

Log on today to see what Alario Brothers can do for you. If you’re
serious about safety, and serious about your hardware, you won’t be
disappointed.

 
 

Advanced Bass Tactics, Fun Fishing, Multimedia, Product Reviews, Sponsors

Good things from a small package

Hey all, just wanted to share with you a bait that is quickly becoming a go to bait for me.  It is something that I picked up last year to be a punching bait and now is proving to be more versatile then I could’ve hoped.  The bait is the Kompak Craw from Evolve Baits.  If you don’t want to read the whole blog post and have a short attention span like me, just watch the quick video.  I show several rigging techniques in this video.


For those that want every detail, keep reading!

Last summer, I had excellent results using the Kompak craw behind 3/4 – 1oz flipping milfoil on lakes like Minnetonka and others, honestly kind of what I expected based on first glance of the bait.  Then in September, I was looking for a follow up to my sweet beavers down in La Crosse to go back through areas and show the fish something new.  My eyes were opened to the potential of this dimunitive craw when I went through an area after going back and forth twice with a beaver only to catch 3 bass including a 4lbr on the Kompak craw on my 3rd pass and my partner not getting a bite on his offerings.  This gave me confidence to keep flipping this craw on lighter 3/8oz weights to wood, cut banks, etc and caught both smallmouth and largemouth.

Fast forward to November and December last year, where a buddy an I found deep schools of smallmouth on a river in 25-25ft of water.  Football jigs worked deep with just about any trailer worked until the water temps dropped into the 30s.  I then rummaged through my options to find a subtle trailer, after trying a couple, the Kompak craw became the deal on the back of a 1/2oz football hair jig.  I continued catching nice smallies and occasional walleye on the Kompak craw through the winter on a different winter location, by presenting them on 3/16oz EWG Football Shakey heads.

Fast forward again to this spring, fishing pool 2, getting a few bites but not what I was hoping or expecting.  After scouring a harbor with my usual offerings, I pick up a Kompak craw rigged on a Jika Rig and catch a 4lb fish plus several other bass in water that I and another boat just fished pretty hard.  Fishing the Kompak craw on the Jika rig and small texas rigs has been in a regular mix for me so for this year, catching bass on little lakes in MN, the Mississippi river from Minneapolis to La Crosse and all the way over to Lake Winneabgo.

There are a lot of good plastics and baits on the market and most of them have a time and place, but I think the Kompak craw is something for you to try, it is quite the versatile bait and the bass just seem to eat it!  Don’t take my word for it, just ask the fish!

Rich

Tournament Info

Wolf River System BFL – June15, 2013

Wolf River, Winneconne, Winnebago, whatever you call it, this was the site if of the 2nd BFL of the Great Lakes Division as it usually is.  This is a system that I have fished a few times in the last 5 years or so, but either way it is a solid 5 hour drive from my home, so I don’t get there often and you don’t run over for a quick prefish the weekend before.

With that being said, I left Wednesday afternoon in a driving rain that lasted pretty much the entire drive and I had to wait out a thunderstorm at the boat ramp until 7:30pm just so I could spend an hour or so on the water Wednesday night.   I caught a couple smallies in Lake Butte Morts on some rip rap, but nothing too promising.

Thursday was a new day, with a decent breeze and sunny skies.  I launched north of the river on Winnebago and began my search there.  My main focus was largemouth and I was bouncing around between shoreline cover and transitional areas hoping to find some concentrations of fish.  At first it was a fish here or there, but I finally ran into a large group of fish on a transitional area fishing soft plastics on the bottom and some on a swim jig using Evolve DarkStar swimmer as a trailer.  I was able to expand on the water and duplicate what I found for most of the day, eliminating some water and adding other.  By the end of the day, I would’ve had around 13lbs.


Kompak Craw & Tungsten Jika Rig

On Friday, I launched further south on Bago looking to repeat pattern and expand on water.  The wind was blowing a little more from the East in the morning, I got on quite a few short fish early firing square bills around shallow areas.  As the morning went one, the wind laid down and I was able to find a few more areas I felt good about, catching and pulling on what felt like quality fish.  Around 1pm, I trailered over to Rainbow Park to find some stuff I could fish on the way back to Winneconne ramp, just a few short fish.  So I called it a practice and got my stuff ready for the next day in the Walmart parking lot.  I drew boat 68 out of 125 which was middle of 3rd flight.  My partner co-angler that I drew seemed like a nice enough guy, so we had a quick discussion about my plan to fish Bago all day.

Tournament morning brought a light drizzly rain, light winds and overcast conditions, felt like one of those days that the fish would be crunching.  After the fairly long journey of slow wake zones out to Winnebago from Winneconne, the wind was a little stiffer then forecasted and straight out of the East.   There was a boat on the area I wanted to start on, so I pulled into a secondary area, where we both caught a few shorts.  We moved around a bit and ended up hitting my starting spot which was not as hot as I hoped it to be, producing just two shorts.  I decided even though the wind was hitting it pretty direct to try to some more main lake stuff I had.  It turned out to be a pretty good decision as I picked up two nice largemouth keepers on a 3/8oz BassTEK Tugsten flipping jig, having that tungsten really helped as the wind and waves made it difficult to keep my feel with my lure.

I then ran a short stretch of docks and put my 3rd keeper in the boat on a Kompak Craw on a 3/8oz tungsten Jika rig.   After running that stretch we returned to an area that was covered with boat early, shortly after I pulled in I hooked a good one on a Baby Ring Fry on a mojo rig, it ended up being my big fish at 3-10.  We worked this area hard for awhile, catching a few shorts and my partner losing a couple decent fish.  So that gave me 4 fish with one good one at 11’ish, so I thought if I was ever going to run south, now was the time.  I was actually feeling pretty good, as I thought I could catch 2lb fish pretty easy and getting one close to 4 would be the trick of they day.

We ran a bunch of water, it produced mostly shorts and areas that already had other boats on the spots I wanted to fish, but we each scraped one keeper by 1pm.  I had a decent limit, but largely because I had that bigger fish, and I knew if I could get a 2lbr or two to get rid of my 14.5″ fish, that would make a big difference.  So we returned to fish the area where I caught my biggest fish, which was also where I caught my biggest fish in practice.  We only had about 25 minutes to fish it.  I ended up getting one 15″ fish there, so that was a nice little upgrade.


My 3-10 Largie on Stage of Weigh-in

I ended the day with 11-10 which on a day that ended up being a bit of a tough bite, which left me tied for 20th and getting a check.  Always wish you can win or get a top 10, but a check is a check against these BFL guys, can’t complain about 2 for 2 cashing checks this season, which puts me 4th in the points for the year after two events.

Looks like my next tournament will be a little closer to home, the Pan-O-Prog bass tournament on Lake Marion, always a fun event, the guys at Gopher Bassmasters run a great tournament with pretty decent payback, plus I have to defend my title from last year!

   

Gifts for Bass Fishing Rubes, Product Reviews

A cooler worth the Investment

This year as I fished my tournaments, I had decided to try to utilize
campgrounds over hotels as much as possible to keep expenses down and
maximize potential profitability of tournament wins.  Keeping the
camping deal in mind, I don’t want to eat solely Peanut Butter
sandwiches and try not to do a ton of fast food, so having a good cooler
is pretty important for eating well and affordably.

There are
quite a few of these super coolers that claim to keep ice for a week or
more, so I figured I should do some research, they don’t exactly give
these coolers away.  After checking the features and design of all the
comparable coolers, I thought the Yukon Cold Locker from Igloo was the
choice for me.  When you think about it, why wouldn’t a company that has
been building quality coolers for more then 60 years understand what
consumers like us demand from a high end cooler.


My New 70qt Yukon Cold Locker

The solid
hinges, sturdy construction and tethered drain plug were some of the
highlights for me on this cooler.  I mean, who wants to loose a drain
plug on a couple hundred dollar cooler, what good is it then?  Check out
www.yukoncoldlockers.com to see all it’s features and how it stacks up against the Yeti.
Tethered drain plug
Two weeks ago fishing a BFL in La Crosse, WI was my
first camping trip with my new 70qt Yukon cooler.  With a little planning, I froze a
handful of small water bottles for my boat cooler, and a couple others
to keep in the cooler, plus dumped my ice maker out right before I left
and I was all set for a 4 day fishing trip and didn’t have to stop at
the local Kwik Trip and shell out $3 for ice every morning, not too mention the time savings.  The 70qt is about right for me, still a large cooler to accommodate everything I need, yet not too big to overwhelm all the space in the back of my tow vehicle.  I have no plans to try to pack and elk or a bear in this thing, so 70 qt is just right.  You can get these at several dealers like BassPro.com and Cabela’s.

The way I figure it, by camping at most of my events, which usually saves me $25 a night in lodging and $3 every fishing day on ice, plus not eating out, this cooler will pay for itself before the end of the year, plus my Diet Mountain Dews will always be ice cold!